All right, everyone, I'm going to ask Lynn to officially call our meeting to order. Please. Are you ready, Athena? Yes, please go ahead. Okay. Good morning. It's March 25, 2023. This is a special meeting of the town council. I'm honored to have this meeting based on the open meeting law that was passed on November 7, 2022. This meeting is accessible in real time via Zoom, by phone, and live stream. Given that we have a quorum of the council president, I'm calling the March 25, 2023 town council meeting to order at 842. I'm going to call on each counselor. Athena is going to walk around the room and see if people are present and hear and can be heard. Shalini Balmille. Present. Pat DeAngeles. Anna Devlin-Goth here. Present. Lynn Griezmer is present. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Present. Anika Lokes. Present. Michelle Miller. Okay. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Maroney. Here. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Here. And Alicia Walker is not present at this time. Thank you. Just two quick announcements. Besides, there's no chat. This, since it is a special meeting of the town council for the purposes of retreat, there will be no public comment during the meeting. Immediately following this meeting in this room, and also on Zoom, the CSSJC will be holding a listening session regarding the Cres program. And then I also want to just again mention that there will be a screening of the big payback at Amherst College on March 30th at 6 o'clock PM. That I'm except to adjourn our meeting. I'm done as president. Thank you. So we're just going to talk about our plan for the day after this opening. A brief introduction to appreciative inquiry, which is a method that Pam and I agreed would be really great for this group today. And a quick exercise, and then we'll delve into rules and procedures. There were some really great questions from counselors about rules and procedures. So I'm excited to get into that with you. We'll take a break and other breaks if we need to throughout the day. We'll have a discussion on meeting efficiency that'll be informed by that conversation on rules and procedures. We're going to take a break for lunch. But then we'll do a working lunch and Pamela is going to lead some more questions about appreciative inquiry after lunch or during lunch. And so the introduction that we do this morning is going to inform that conversation later in the day. Then we'll talk about the criteria for priorities that some folks sent in. And develop a list of criteria together. And then we'll use that criteria to talk about the priorities in front of the council. Now. We'll do a reflection and wrap up. We're going to try and end by 1, we need to end by 130. And then we're going to ask you all to stay for a few minutes to help tidy up because we do have that CSS JC and crust meeting right afterwards. So good morning, everybody. I am really happy to be spending a good part of the day with you. Although this retreat is not happening and what I would consider ideal locations. I've tried to plan the morning with some things to stimulate all five senses, although we're saving the fifth for for last so as you came in this morning there were table runners at your table. You can have some color and some texture. I asked you to hear just a little bit of the Michael Jackson man in the mirror song as inspiration for inspiring change and responsibility. For the sense of touch, I've placed at randomly a intention stone at your. Duster at your seat and I've asked that you just take a moment and look at your specific and intention and hold that for the day. I'm going to use past, which is gratitude, but they're each of you have a different one. So that is your sense of touch. For smell. We like for you to just take a deep cleansing breath. Just center yourself.  If you have a beverage that doesn't have an aroma. I have a sage stick that I'm willing to share if anybody would like the sage. Yes. All right. So my role today is to act as your facilitator and moderator. Athena, as you know, is your subject matter expert. And she's going to be guiding you through really the meat of what we have planned for today. The retreat format may feel a little touchy feely, and that is by intention. Some parts of it may resonate with you. Others may not, but I asked you to trust the process and trust the collective benefit for what we have planned for you today. And with that, I think we'll get started. That's right.  Typically, if we were in a restorative justice circle in a circle process, only one person would be speaking at a time so there wouldn't be cross conversation. And that's the practice that we'd like to have for today. So there's only one mic and the person with the mic has the floor and the rest of us will be listening with intention and curiosity and compassion. So I'll just add that this is a reminder. This is a reminder that we're listening to each other. And listening to each person as they talk. So I'm just going to talk briefly about appreciative and query give you a little introduction. It was developed by David Cooper writer at Case Western Reserve University in the 1980s. It's a philosophy for organizational change. It's a strengths based change strategy rather than a deficit based straight change strategy. So rather than looking for what went wrong in the past, we're going to look at what we did right and use that to inform how we take action into the future. So there are some assumptions of appreciative inquiry. There's eight. So I'm going to read them. In every society organization or group, something works. What we focus on becomes our reality. Reality is created in the moment and there are multiple realities. So there's 1213 1415 different realities and there isn't a right one or a wrong one. The act of asking questions of an organization or group influences the group in some way. We'll talk about that more in a minute. People have more confidence and comfort when they journey to the future, which is the unknown when they carry forward parts of the past, which is known. And if we carry parts of the past forward, they should be the best parts. Right. It's important to value differences and the language we use creates our reality. So those are the assumptions for appreciative inquiry. Basically appreciative inquiry uses a 5d cycle where you define what you're doing the inquiry about, you discover what has worked, you dream about using what has worked to envision the future. And then you design a path forward. And then the fifth D is to realize that new reality. The idea here is not less of more, not less of more, not less of what we didn't do well, but more of what we did well. So we're going to try and identify areas where we were successful in the past and expand those successes into the future. Focusing on what works because we tend to grow in the direction of the things that we focus on. And we want that's what we want to give more life to. So we're going to try and shift our attention to the problems and mistakes that we've made in the past. Because we're already very good at thinking about the things that we've done wrong. I don't know about you, but I stay awake thinking about what I've done wrong in the past. So we're going to try instead to think about what has gone right, the circumstances around what has gone right in the past and use those to inform where we want to go in the future. And what has gone right, we're thinking about the moments that we felt most engaged, most effective, most valued, most heard. So this is meant to be a dynamic process of using those experiences to inform our future actions. Once we identify those moments, we use our imagination to see what might be if we carried them into the future. I'm going to have to stop for drinks every so often. I'm sorry. So I wasn't watching the cat in the hat with my kids this morning. This is actually a quote from Einstein. And what it means is we have the power to create what we imagine what we imagine can happen can happen. And this has been studied. It's not something that I'm making up right now. If you'll all recall the placebo effect. I'm sure you're familiar with that where patients belief in a treatment can lead to actual results. The pigmalion effect. I'm not sure if you've heard of that, but that's when someone sets a high expectation for you and your performance exceeds what you without that high expectation. There have also been studies about folks diagnosed with terminal cancer and their success rate has been unusually high when those individuals have engaged in therapy and done some positive imagery. Folks going into heart surgery when they enter with confidence versus fear have a two to one recovery rate. What we can imagine can happen can happen. I'll give you one more quick anecdote. So there was a study with bowling teams. Okay. Two bowling teams. And there was video of the bowling teams. That they showed both teams. One team, they only showed the clips of when things went right. They got all the strikes or whatever they do in bowling touchdowns. And the other team, they only showed their mistakes. So can anyone guess what happened when they viewed those and then went into their next match bowling match. They both improved. But the team that watched their videos of success improved twice as much as the one that focused on their errors. What we can imagine can happen can happen. And we use we want to use our best moments to fuel our imagination about what can happen. Is anyone feeling skeptical. I'll admit that Pamela and myself, both experienced a little bit of a skepticism when we first encountered appreciative inquiry. But at this point, we're both feeling really positive that this is a great tool that we can use for today. I'm going to list some areas where they've used appreciative inquiry. The UN Global Compact. The United Religions Initiative. The city of Cleveland's decade long set of appreciative inquiry summits that created a shared vision of a city, a green city on a blue lake. Governor Deval Patrick utilized appreciative inquiry for an industry wide energy planning summit. US Darry's industry wide systems work on sustainable dairy. The global excellence and management initiative created appreciative inquiry groups in Africa, Asian Asia and Latin America. Imagine Chicago was an appreciative inquiry based. Community building exercise that was large scale community development at an inspired imagine projects in city, states and countries all over the world. We also use appreciative inquiry practices in our day to day meetings. In our relationships and in classrooms. I'm going to give us an example. We have four kids in our family. And some weeks were really good at meal planning. And everything is moving smoothly. We've got a plan we know what's for dinner we know what's cooking and as you can imagine when I'm in meetings some nights and I'm at school some nights and my partner has things going on and kids have games and so on. It's a little bit of coordination when things go wrong and we're flying by the seat of our pants. Not so much doesn't feel very good. So when we have a conversation about what we need to do next time, rather than getting into an argument about what we didn't do and who didn't go shopping and the planning that didn't happen. We think about all right. When were we really well set up? What did we do? We had a meal plan at the beginning of the week. We both went shopping. We didn't have to make multiple trips throughout the week. So that's kind of a real life example of what we're doing here. So these first couple questions that we're going to do next are just reflections for yourself. And then we're going to do an exercise together. Take a few moments to think of a time when you felt the council was effective and you felt engaged and valued. You can take some, you can take some notes if you want to keep some notes to yourself. That's fine. And we'll be using these ideas later on in the meeting. Take just a couple more seconds. All right, next. Think about what factors supported these moments. What would it be like if we could expand the conditions that led to these moments into the future. You can write some notes. Try and think about that situation where you felt effective, engaged and valued and what led up to that. Pam, I see you shaking your head. If not with the council, then at any other time in your life, when were you feeling really successful and engaged and what led to that situation. This is an example of being really good at thinking what went wrong. Right. We have so much practice with what went wrong. Anna and Shawnee. We're going to do a group activity after this, but this is not the time. So just take a few moments to wrap up your thought. And then we're going to do a think pair share. So think for a moment to yourself. During your time as a counselor, when did you feel most alive and engaged. It is a core factor that gives life to the council with this without this factor, the council wouldn't function. And what wish do you have to enhance the health and vitality of the council in the future. We still see people writing so we'll take a few more minutes to a few more moments. Finish up your thoughts. All right, next we're going to ask you to turn to a person on your right or left and talk about your answers to those questions. We're going to take just a few minutes here talking with a partner. Alright, we'll take one more minute to try and finish up. All right, please finish up your thought. Okay. Let's wrap up our conversations. Okay. Now we're going to take a moment to share what you reflected on and spoke about with your partner. I'm sorry, did you think you're in charge today is you're wrong. You're going first my friend. Just share your reflection or something that that was that sparked something in you when you were sharing with Jennifer and then we're just going to pass the mic around and and share with the. Yeah, I really think that we were not far apart in what we were thinking was would benefit the health of the council. Well, in terms of what core factor gives life, excuse me to the council, we both agreed that it's that everybody here really loves Amherst. I mean, that's, you know, we may have different ideas of, you know, what's the best strategy to reach, you know, to have the best Amherst but that that's why we're all here. And then we discussed that. And I was saying, for me, it was maybe the first time because they sometimes say women aren't great at this but that I've had the experience of really disagreeing with someone or, you know, during the council meeting and then you walk out to the car and you're having, you know, like I think we all really like each other, even if we just agree. So, yeah, we're a prime example. But the other thing that felt important is the quality of listening. And for the health of the council, if we could work on imagining listening where our hearts and our heads were cracked a little bit and the words, the ideas could come in, and we could create consensus that we could create something bigger and smarter than any one factions ideas and, you know, Alicia Walker, can you hear us. Yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you. Similarly, we, Mandy and I were not very far apart. We had different ways of, oh, sorry. Similarly, Mandy and I were not very far apart we had different ways of saying, sort of the same thing, and it was also related to what Pat and Jennifer said, with respect to listening and how what I offered is that it sort of feels like we've typecast each other at this point in our work and how can we get beyond this idea of what we might think about one another and do more deep listening as Pat, as Pat said, Michelle summarized it well I think the other thing was with that deep listening the recognition that we're not, I put it as acceptance of errors but we don't always say things right we don't always do things and getting past that to listen to, and, and come together and listen to really what people are trying to say. I'll start because I actually was thinking about the first question went when did you think things went well, you know where Pam go. But it, it builds on this way back when in the first term we had a. We faced a decision on polling places and the initial. Suggestion was put them all in one place, and we were split at the first vote on it. The public came in. We had time to make change, and we listened, and we all came together unanimously. So it was that that I would just add to the health, the giving ourselves time to think so that we can listen, because otherwise we come in with preform physicians and we just have to argue with them but really that time element and we often don't have it. So that was one that just came to my mind of a coming together when we were split that where it worked. So I agree with the listing and the time, and I think sometimes we don't take time to listen, and we don't take enough time to listen to both each other and to the public. I think Kathy's example of that polling situation was a great example. I started out, because every year we do Paul's evaluation, everybody has to do it. It's an arduous task, but it allows us to really reflect on what our goals have been, and where we stand with them, and maybe how we should change them. It also allows us to reflect on the town staff, and all the work they do, and then what we have to do, and we spend a lot of time on that task, and everybody has to participate. Can you hear me? Okay. So on the first question, I went back to the very beginning of the council, and with setting up CRC, and discussions we were having, and David Zomac was our helper on preserving land and Amherst, and I felt very positive about things. But since then, I realized that when I feel alive and engaged, it is not in the council, it is when I'm in the district, it is with the people, it's with my community, it's the neighborhood, and I feel fabulous, and I feel that my job is representing them. But when I come to the council, it's very discouraging when I can tell ahead of time exactly what the vote's going to be before the discussion. So I feel that, I feel it's a battle, and I think that great changes need to be made, but do I have the optimism that they can be made? I'm not sure yet, but Shalini has a more positive view, and we're going to have Shalini's view. Before we move on to your answers, Dorothy, what were the circumstances around that CRC situation that made it feel so good? Well, people listened to each other as if they cared to hear what they had to say, and we were inventing things together, we were creating. We discussed things, but it wasn't from inconstant positions, and we were trying to figure out what can we do in a positive way. Thank you. Okay, I feel most alive when I feel that I'm able to contribute and my strengths are used in service of something that's going to have an impact. And it's impacting people, real people, and that's I think what gives life to this council is what a privilege we have that we are here in this room and we're making decisions that's really impacting people and their lives, and especially people who don't have a voice and we don't hear them often. Yeah, and that's related to then what the health and vitality is. You know, we come with different perspectives and that's a strength actually, but how do we create processes and really able to have a collective shared vision and working together and we just thank you for the retreat and the suggestion for doing that because I think that's what the community is about is how can we because I, all of us care and we all love our town and we love what we do we want to build community we want to have an impact change our town for the better. So how do we do that. Thank you for organizing. So Pam and I talked about one of the things that we were saying was, we have felt most alive and engaged when there feels like there's a common path, even if folks disagree on the end result we recognize the path that we're going down and you know the process that we need to get there. I gave the example of, and also when we are coming in. We need to ask questions and actually hear answers. Right. So, I gave the example of how an experience that I had with Pam about this on poll hearings. And it was something that I came in and was like, All right, poll hearing like there's other things in the agenda that are way more exciting but okay let's talk about telephone polls, thinking that it was just kind of a checkbox and and Pam helped me to to see in the moment that oh no no no this is not just a standard thing we should be questioning it we should be asking things and so, you know, and now I'm like, combative at every poll hearing I'm ready. And so, so I think that it's one of those things where where we can recognize learning about process from one another but also coming in with with the questions and the, the willingness to, to look past whatever we can come in with to to recognize the value and find value, even if we don't agree. And then, yeah, so we also talked about the, don't tell him, okay, all right. She's got the she's got the rest. Also when we share. So we definitely agreed that that one of the better moments in in any of the work that we do is when people come prepared. They are focused. There is a, there's a set of expectations that we will create something that's better than what we have now. And again, we make definitely all definitely do come from different perspectives, and we don't necessarily know what that end result will be but a little bit like ZBA hearings. Often the process of discussion and clarification is a better process than not having a ZBA hearing or review. And I think I feel a little bit like the ZBA sometimes actually listening to people is something that we both agreed that is really critical fact driven, rather than emotional driven is a really good thing, at least from my perspective because that's the way I'm made up. Other people may not be. And just better listening across the board. Thank you all for sharing. So, so Andy and I, we were able to speak about number one, a bit we were, we got pretty engaged and we had. Oh, can you hear me now. Andy and I were able to talk about number one, or point number one rather. And so for me, the time that I felt most engaged was really, you know, walking up this step these steps in our inaugural meeting. I didn't walk in with just myself, you know, I'm a generational resident here. I'm a Black woman and I represent the B in the I personally in BIPOC and my ancestors experienced genocide on this land were enslaved here. And I had felt electricity and goosebumps walking up these stairs that I hadn't expected to feel coming up and to meet with all of you and looking at all of you as you know individuals that our community here. would serve would serve them would represent them. And I looked at us as like a sense of stone soup. I appreciate your comments in a way, Dorothy, but I can assure you do not know how my mind works and I think that we're all individuals and I hope that we can really keep that and, you know, understand that you know we were represented in the community may have fallen towards and may think that you know this is a battle I'm in no competition with anyone here I wish the best for us all but really for the community and what we can do for the community. And so, thank you. So we had a good discussion about each other's thoughts on the subject, even though we came at it a little bit differently because I came at it thinking about. When was it that we came from different perspectives on an issue, but came out of it unanimous on a solution. And the one that I came up with. Thanks to Michelle was the athletic fields of the high school that we had a really tense and disagreement about what the council's role is and what the right result was. But we came to a resolution that was unanimous on a way on a path forward. I think that it was because we listened to each other we thought hard together over several meetings about what it was that our role in it should be, and how we could most effectively. Decide that vote, which I think was an example to me of when the council is at its absolute best and I thought that that was what the assignment was. That's where I went to that I very much appreciated the opportunity that two of us had to talk about each other's thoughts on the question, which came at it from that different perspective. Alicia, I'm recognizing that you're here with us too. Do you want to take a moment to share your reflections on these questions? Yeah, sure. I think I didn't have too much time to reflect just because I came in when everyone was answering, but I think at least to a degree I've been hearing what everyone else has said and has have been really like agreeing and feeling deeply what everyone has said. And I think in terms of when I feel most alive and engaged as a counselor, I really what Dorothy said is resonating with me when I'm hearing from constituents is when I feel the most alive and engaged and knowing what decisions I'm making like understanding the impact that they have in the community and on other people's lives and being able to hear that impact and to, you know, at sometimes direct that impact in ways that would be more helpful makes me feel really alive and the engagement in having people reach out to me and trusting me with their concerns. It feels engaging and I like that feeling and I agree that the core factor that gives life to this council is that we all really care about Amherst and I think we all really feel like this is our home. And so I love that we share that that we all are here for a positive reason regardless of how our conversations go. I think we're here because we care. I think that makes you know even though it makes the work challenging sometimes I think it makes it that much more important. And so I do really like being a part of a group of people who have the same passion in the sense that we want what's best for where we live and for the people in the town that we live in. And what to wish do I have to enhance the health and vitality of the council in the future. When I was listening I think that has been something for me where I don't always feel heard, but when I do feel heard. I think that feels, I mean it feels really good but also I think when we're listening to each other. It allows us to come to consensus is like the one that Andy was talking about I think that was a time where I felt like we were all really hearing the talk about and taking them into consideration and trying to figure out how can we, you know, bring everyone's concerns everyone thoughts together but still move, move forward. And so I think that being able to listen to each other wholeheartedly, being able to put our, our heads together, and you know, being able to identify what is the goal how do we get there moving moving things forward. It's really important to the health and vitality of the council and I think honesty. Thank you all for taking the time to do that. One of the reasons that we identified a appreciative inquiry for this group is because it aligns so well with the council's values. At the end of the rules, the rules that everyone has voted together is a statement of values. You've all agreed that you value a people friendly approach to governing, robust public participation, new ideas and approaches to governing while honoring what has been done in the past. You value diversity, equity and inclusion. You value allowing people the space to be human and make mistakes and grow from those mistakes and experience adverse situations without thinking of themselves or others as lesser than you value being your authentic selves while you're serving in your role as leaders leading with curiosity, respect teamwork. And so all of those values are exactly what appreciative inquiry is pointing at. So let's take a moment. 10 seconds to internally recommit to those values. Thank you all so much for doing that. And for hanging in there with us. Does anyone need a short break before we move on to rules. Okay, let's take a quick five minute break and then we'll come back and and do rules. Okay. Thank you. You can turn off your video if you like. We're going to take just one more minute to finish up a break and come back and get settled in again. Okay, we're going to come back. And get started on laws, rules and procedures. Okay, I hope everybody had a chance to move around a little bit. Are we missing Pam? Okay, we're just waiting for Pam to come back and then we'll move on. All right. We're going to talk about laws, rules and procedures next. I know everyone is really excited to have this conversation. And so am I. So first I'm going to start by saying. That we are governed by federal law, state law, our charter, and the council's own rules. And when there are situations where there's not a clear rule, that's when we fall back to Robert. So I know there's been a lot of questions about Robert's rules, but I just want to give a reminder that all of these things take precedence above Robert's rules. So we look to our own rules, we look to the charter, we look to general bylaws state law and federal law before we turn to Robert. And we do that because following the law creates a foundation of transparency and validity for council actions. The council is governed and empowered by federal law, state law, our own charter and and the council rules. And when the council takes action following the law and the rules, those actions are less susceptible to challenge because we can prove that we did everything right. So when the council has authorized borrowing before a lender will agree to give us that money. We have to show that we've posted meeting notices properly in accordance with the charter that we've had public forums and allowed public participation at those forums. We show that finance committee has made their report to the council. We have to prove that we've done all those things before a lender will say, All right, here's the money. The charter bestows powers and duties on the council, the school committee, the library trustees, the housing authority, the Oliver Smith will elect or the town manager. I'm named in the charter, but I only have duties no powers. Please don't. And the charter requires that the council make rules, which at a minimum have to include how often to have meetings, how special and emergency meetings can be called what to include in the record written record. Why do we have rules. Aside from the fact the charter makes you make rules for clarity. We all know what happens first and next and so on during a meeting. Everyone knows what to expect. We have to guide how council as a whole counselors interact with each other with members of the public with other boards and committees with the town manager and efficiency. How we can we best and most effectively conduct our business. The rules try to answer that question. I want to talk about how you decide as a group what is fair to everyone who gets to speak when how do we keep the meeting on track. How do we handle intense disagreement. The rules try to answer all of these questions and if the rules aren't working. Then the council has an opportunity to change them to figure out how to do that better. And so this is part of what we're going to talk about today. What's working. It's virtually impossible for any human being to perform the function of the president without a considerable body of established rules to go by. I'm sure Lynn will attest to the fact that there have been many, many situations where she had to figure out what to do next. When the rules help guide those decisions. The council's job is to make sure that her decisions are in accordance with those rules. So you're holding yourselves accountable for following the rules are holding the president accountable following the rules. So I just want to take a moment to recognize that Lynn's job is really hard, but you've all voted to let her do that job. So first, clarity, efficiency and fairness rules are based on a regard for rights. Everyone has rights during a meeting. Individual counselors have rights to speak to make motions to vote. The council as a whole has rights to take actions. Minority of a council has rights. A strong minority can block some actions. Members of the public have rights. The charters given members of the public rights to speak during regular meetings. And all of these rights have to be regarded at the same time. And that's what the rules are trying to do. They're trying to give everybody an equal playing field and they're trying to protect everyone's rights. The rules are meant to help do that. All right, the most exciting part of our meeting today. We're going to talk about some motions. I got a second over here. So, so this is Robert's a very simplified version of Robert's format for taking actions. If we're following Robert to the letter and I know council does things in a little bit more of a relaxed format than this. If we're following Robert's rules, no discussion takes place until there's a motion on the floor. The motion is on the floor and now the discussion can take place and the discussion focuses on the merits of that motion. There can be secondary motions. There can be tertiary motions. And we're going to talk about how to dispose of those and which ones take precedence before a vote on the main motion and the meeting moves to the next action item. Anyway, hand out Alicia, I'm going to provide this in the packet so that you can see it too, but there's some pages in your handout about precedence motions and so on. What motions are in order when a main motion is on the floor. Here's the list of motions from the rules. You can move to adjourn, you can move to recess, appeal the decision of the presiding officer and so on. We're going to talk about which motions get taken first, second and so on coming up. But first we're going to talk about the motions that we don't use very often. Appeals, points of order and questions of privilege because I want to make sure that we all know how to use those. A point of order is how the council holds itself and the president accountable for following the rules. So if somebody's doing something that might be in violation of the charter or open meeting law or the council's rules, you call a point of order and the president decides how to address that. The president might take a moment to consult with the town manager or the clerk, the president might ask the body if it wants to vote. Points of order can be called without being recognized and then the president would decide if the point is well heard or not. So maybe somebody veers off topic during the discussion and we're no longer talking about the motion on the floor. Point of order, this isn't relevant to the motion that's on the floor. The president can say your point of order is well heard and then she can ask the member to say to stay on topic. An appeal is what happens if you don't agree with the president's decision. If a point of order isn't well heard by the president, a counselor can make a motion and seek a second and then vote on the ruling. An appeal is debatable and the only motions that is in order when an appeal is on the table are to adjourn or recess. So they need to be dealt with right away. A question of privilege, honestly I had to look this up because it's foreign language when you aren't looking at the rules when you're not reading Robert's rules. A question of privilege usually pertains to something that's happening in the room that's preventing the meeting from working properly. It's way too hot in here. We need to ask somebody to turn the AC up. This can also happen when maybe I've stated the vote incorrectly and somebody's going to say point of privilege. I think that vote was incorrect. Can we have a read back of the vote? One of the second under a privilege of a counselor, a counselor disputes the accuracy of minutes approved in their absence. That would come up because we have to first follow the state law and our charter that would come up as a counselor comment at the end of the meeting or a future agenda item, asking the president to put an amendment of the minutes of the meeting that they were missed on a future agenda so that they can be corrected. And most times questions of privilege are addressed informally without a vote. If there's too much noise in the room then we take a pause and we figure out how to proceed and deal with the noise or the heat or whatever. We don't need a formal motion. Can you please give an example of a secondary and tertiary motion before we get into too many more details? I'm going to get to that when we talk about motions. First I'm going to do orders of precedence and then we're going to get into motions and secondary motions and tertiary motions and so on. So when a main motion is on the floor, any of these motions I think in most circumstances would be in order. Now, if we have a main motion on the floor and someone makes a motion to refer this to a committee, we take the motions above refer before we take the motions below refer. So if someone has moved to refer the matter to a committee, a motion to amend isn't in order. And a motion to call the question would be taken first and that calling of the question would be on the motion to refer, not the main motion.  So if it's unclear now I'm hoping to clear it up. Here's an example. We have a motion to postpone to a certain time. The motions above it would be in order and the motions below it would be out of order. If the main motion is to adopt the resolution concerning overconsumption of chocolate by town counselors, a counselor might say, this isn't worth our time I moved to adjourn. That's not debatable we moved to an immediate vote. So if somebody wants to call the question, no, somebody wants to refer to a snacks committee. No, we need to take up that motion to adjourn first. Okay. Here we go. The motion to adjourn is the first motion that we deal with it that comes up. Here's another example. We want to adopt that resolution somebody calls the question. Motion to refer is out of order a motion to amend is out of order. So up here on the screen. This order of precedence. When you're using you're using the words in order and out of order. And I want to confirm that when you're talking about in order, you mean acceptable per the rules, not a. Quantifiable 123. Motion in order is a motion that according to the rules should should be is acceptable then. Okay, not in order of 123. Thank you for asking that question because I know this stuff can get really confusing. So if the main motion is to adopt that resolution. And someone makes a secondary motion to refer it to a committee, which motions are in order now. We have a motion to refer on the floor. So the motions above it are in order. Once a motion to refer is on the floor, we can't amend the resolution we can't postpone it indefinitely until there's a vote on that motion to refer. And when I say in order and out of order. Again, this is all up to you to hold yourselves accountable to the process and the rules. It's up to the president to go that motions out of order right now we need to deal with a motion to refer because before we can deal with emotion to amend. Okay, I'm looking for nods but if there are questions let's pause here. So I'm going to make a comment which is true for me and may not be true for others. If I'm trying to think about the issue at hand and what I'm going to say and the meeting is going on. I'm trying to think about what I'm going to say and I scribble down a few nouns or something. I am not capable of doing that and I will tell you Athena that's why I appreciate your being at the meetings. Because this my brain could not work on the two levels at once. So it's interesting to hear you explain this but I can tell you my brain is not going to learn it. It's just too complicated but I like the idea that some things can be done and others can't be done. That I can take away. Thank you for saying that. I don't expect everyone to memorize the rules. I refer back to the rules in the charter all the time. If there's a question in a meeting I look at the rules before I answer that question. Somebody emails me a question about what motions are in order or during the meeting I want to make a motion. How do I handle it? I'm going to check the rules before I give you an answer. So I don't expect you to know everything. And I think that one thing we might take away from this meeting is that sometimes we need to take a pause before we move too quickly. And I know that part of the issue is that our meetings are long and we can talk about how we manage the meetings after this. But sometimes like you said we need a moment to think. We need a moment to hear what somebody has said before we move on to the next speaker. And this is part of Lynn's very challenging job when there are five people with their hands up you want to get to everybody you want to move the meeting along. But there's a balancing act between moving too quickly and making sure everyone is heard. And I'm just going to point out recess is right up there at the top. If you need to take a break before the council takes a vote. Call for recess. You say I think this is moving too quickly. I just want to pause for can we recess for three minutes. Can we recess for five minutes. I just want to think about what's going on. I want to reflect on what everybody said before we take a vote. Calling for recess does not require a vote. Formerly calling for a recess. Somebody can ask you can we take a short break. And if you say no they can say I moved to recess for five minutes. And if there's a second and a vote then we're going to recess whether you like it or not. Okay. So as we're moving through a motion that's on the floor. Is it the clerk's role or the chair's role to sort of navigate or inform us of when we're in or out of order or something should isn't acceptable. So it's the president's job. If somebody moves a motion that's out of order it's the president's job to say that's an out of order we need to take care of this motion that's above it first. If she has a question, then she might pause to check with one of us to see that what she's saying is right, which is fine. And I think at times, very valuable. But then it's everyone's responsibility to know the order of preference precedence and I don't expect you to memorize them, but it's a handy thing to have on hand during meetings. So that if something is taken out of order you can say point of order. I think we need to deal with this motion first because it's above in order of precedence. That makes sense. I think that's very helpful and I think many of us haven't known how to use point of order. So the, the group you identified Michelle there was an attached free thing that we could read that made the point Athena just did that any one of us, if we're paying attention. And that's a big if because I often just don't carefully read the motion and then think of where have we done something but but being able to use that tool. Thank you. It's really difficult to keep all of this in your head while you're considering while you're listening to each other while you're considering what's going on. And again, taking a moment to pause should be okay. If somebody's not clear on something if you're not sure if that should be taken first. You can ask the president can we just pause for a second because I'm not sure I just want to check. I want to ask the question I want to ask the town manager a question. It's up to the group to decide how it wants to deal with those moments, but my suggestion would be to allow each other a moment for clarification. If something is happening too fast. If you're not sure about something. I don't know whose hand was up first. I need to do a clerical thing. Alicia has computer decided to do an update in the middle of all of this. And so she's temporarily out of the meeting, but we'll return. Okay. Thank you. Could you clarify what lay on the table or pause discussion? Shall any asked to for clarification about what lay on the table or pause discussion means that's a great question because we don't use that one very much either. So, if the council decides that something needs to pause before we move to take care of something that's more important first. So sometimes we handle this informally. The only instance that I'm recalling right now is when we had a proclamation or a resolution that came up and Mandy asked, can we lay this on the table so that we can wave the rules. So there's a situation where there's something that we need to do first before we can do the thing that's in front of us. And again, it's up to the president and the council to how formally or informally it wants to deal with those things. Do we need to take a vote to lay something on the table or can we all just agree that we need to vote on waving the rules before we vote on this resolution. The example, the example was there was a last minute proclamation or a resolution that came to the council. It didn't have a GOL review. And according to the rules, we need a review from GOL before the council acts on a resolution proclamation and so on. So during that conversation, Mandy recognized that we hadn't had a review by GOL and the motion was already on the floor to adopt that proclamation. And so she asked to lay it on the table so that we could wave the rules and then vote on the resolution. No, we waived the rules and then voted on the proclamation. Okay. I'm not sure who's first. So would that did a point of order need to come first before Mandy laid it on the table in that case, or like point of order, we need to lay this on the table or can you just go right to the late on the table. That's a good question. It depends how the chair wants to run their meeting and how formally or informally. Now Roberts rules is a really formal set of procedures. If you want to take things more formally, then we're going to have point of order. We haven't waived the rules yet. We need to lay this on the table. There's a motion to lay it on the table. There's a second there. There's a vote. In the past, we've done this pretty informally. We've said, you know what? Yeah, we need to vote on this first. We're all just going to agree by consensus that we're going to lay it on the table so that we can take something else up. But if you want to go point of order motion delay this on the table. I think Athena, since we're informal, I'm googling this too. There's a nuance between lay on the table and postponed for another time, because it's used politically lay on the table also to say we're not ready to decide this. It's not just pending something else, but it needs more consideration. So it's very similar to postpone and sometimes used interactively when it's, we need, when I was thinking of our earlier exercise, we need more time to talk about this. We need to more time to listen to each other. So to me it's there's a nuance between the two. So lay on the table usually means we need to deal with something else first, not we need more time to think about it. You know, I'm just saying I'm just reading the way people use it. It could be that it also could be that we need more time. It's kind of premature. We need more time to think about it. I would say my opinion would be that it would be clearer to everyone and the public if the intention is to postpone it to the next meeting or to a later time to move to postpone it to lay on the table. You could say I moved to lay this on the table. I think we need to deal with some other action item first because I think that's more important and then come back to it later in the meeting. And so in my mind, a lay on the table is to come back to later in that meeting and a postponement is to come back to it at another meeting or after maybe something in particular has happened at the meeting. But it's a little confusing. The council can decide how it wants to deal with those different situation and what makes sense at that time. Since postpone and postpone to a time certain is one of the areas that I think has caused some of the greatest discomfort in the council and conflict. Are you going to go over that later or could you go over it now. The movement to postpone which basically stops discussion. There's a difference between emotion to postpone or lay on the table and the charter. Provision that allows a counselor to unilaterally say, I'm bumping this to the next council meeting. So how do you want to take that. We've just talked about what works. And everyone has agreed that listening to each other. And some grace has worked in the past. So if someone is saying, I need more time to think about this. It's up to all of you to decide, am I going to listen to that person, or is this so important that we need to vote on it tonight. And there's an opportunity to vote. We all agree that we need more time to think about this or not. And then the individual has an opportunity to say, no, I really need more time to think about this. There's too much going on. I'm going to just use my charter right to postpone. There's delaying a vote or stopping a vote and there's stopping conversation. I know that when some people have felt really upset, it's when they were basically told in very polite terms to shut up. You can't talk anymore. And sometimes you just want to continue the conversation, but you might can understand why maybe a vote would be postponed. But I don't know if that's dealt with in the world of Robert's rules. And you repeat your question. Do these things. You talk about delaying a vote or postponing a vote, but do they also stop all conversation. It's when they stop all conversation that people feel upset. The motions that are starred are not debatable a motion to adjourn a motion to re recess and raising the question of privilege or laying on the table are not debatable. We moved to an immediate vote. The charter provision. These are the rules. These are the motions in order of precedence in the rules. The charter provision is putting the brakes on the everything the conversation ends. We're going to bump this to the next meeting. A motion to postpone. To a certain time is debatable. So Robert's rules apply when motions are on the table. Sometimes the council has discussions without motions on the table. But, you know, in some sense, if emotions on the table and the council says we postpone that motion and votes to postpone the motion to a certain time. There's no more discussion. Even if you wanted more discussion, because the council has just stopped discussion on that motion. So it has the same effect as the charter right to postpone when a motion is on the table. The question is the council doesn't always act as formally or treat its meetings as formally and sometimes has discussions before emotion is on the table or without even intention to put emotion on the table and I think that's sometimes where some of the confusion comes in. So that's adding to that Mandy. And that, that's right. So if there is a main motion on the floor, and now the motion on the floor is to postpone to a certain time. The discussion now is about postponing to a certain time. And if the council votes no, we want to take this up now, and that motion fails, then we come back to the main motion. We're having a meeting on Monday is a special. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. So I think it was Andy that made the suggestion we were having a discussion about the reserve funds and this override vote. And then it looked like, you know, we needed maybe more information was going on for a long time. So then I think Andy suggested that we refer to another meeting that it wasn't a vote we were just having, how did that come about. The council voted to call a special meeting for this coming Monday to talk about that one item. There was a vote. So it wasn't a motion to, I think it was past motion actually, it wasn't a motion to a motion to postpone to a certain time, because there wasn't a motion on the floor. So, in order to do these secondary motions, you have to have something to do emotion to. And when there's nothing on the floor to do a motion to, then what are you doing, you're, you know, you can't amend something because it's not on the floor to amend yet. Does that make sense. Okay. And if we're going to take these things very formally, every time a council made a referral, the motion to adopt it would come first, and then the motion to refer it would come next. What we often do is use a motion to refer as the primary motion. Alicia, please go ahead. Thank you, Athena. I think I understand what you're saying. It sounds very clear to me, but I just am wondering about that council meeting was there not a motion to refer on the table. On last Monday. Yeah, because I think you said that there would have to if you wanted a secondary motion there would have to be something that you do it on to and there was no motion on the floor but wasn't there a motion to refer. And isn't that at the top so or you can't do anything else after you have the motion to refer but that was on the table or it wasn't. There was no motion on the floor because the council rules say that an appropriation or borrowing is automatically referred to the finance committee. So there was no motion needed. And so there was no opportunity to amend at that point and that's why we had an email exchange during the meeting about making an amendment at that time. And on top of that. The charter says that we need a report from the finance committee before it can act on an appropriation order outside the budget. And we also need to hold a public forum. So emotion to put that appropriation order on the floor at that point wouldn't have been in order because it would have been breaking the the rules in the charter. So we have a motion on the floor to do that we needed a report from finance committee we needed a public forum. And then once we've checked those boxes, we can put a motion to adopt that appropriation order on the floor and amendments can be made at that point. I see you nodding. Are we good. Yes, thank you. Okay, thanks, Andy. I see your hand up. I think it was what was also unusual about the situation last Monday, which Alicia is referring to is that President had already proposed and we had accepted a procedure that we were going to allow discussion. Prior to even though it was automatically referred. So that it meant that we were in a discussion with an understanding that there would not be a motion. And that was an unusual circumstance, but it was about to happen. I don't think it's that unusual. Often we have something that comes before the council that gets referred to a committee. There's an understanding that it needs to get referred to a committee, but we want the council to have an opportunity to provide feedback to the committee about maybe what counselors want that committee to talk about and then report back to the council. So I agree that situation was a little bit different.  So in all of this. It's up to the chair and it's up to members to go. Hey, this doesn't make sense. It's not following the rules. And if you don't do that, then it flies. And the irony is, this is a preliminary to Monday's meeting, where in fact, the finance committee is now having a meeting the next day. And on April 3 at this point, we have scheduled the public forum. And so we're still in that period of providing information to people and having a discussion. But on Monday night, that's all it is. It's still, I mean, people during their discussion can say, gee, I would like the finance committee to consider this. But we're not going to be in a motion mode at that point because it will go to the finance committee. And then on the third, that's at least what we assume at this point, it will come back. There will be a public forum, which is required. And then we'll have a motion on the floor, which will be the motion regarding the appropriation language. And at that point, if a counselor is still wanting to amend the appropriation language, they can amend it on the third. They can also talk about it in finance. That's, it's all there. But if they don't get out of finance, for instance, what they want, then they can amend, make an amendment on the third. Okay, is that I really think this is important because we're in this intense period of all of us trying to understand and listen, and even gathering a whole lot more information along the way. I think we need to allow ourselves in the public that opportunity. Thanks for that clarification. I don't want to get to in the weeds about that particular issue. I want to stick to how we're doing this, but I think it's great to have this clarity right now because we have something in front of us coming up on Monday. Is there a question over here? Well, first, I just wanted to thank you for this and I think that it's clear and speaking for myself. This is really helpful because I think many of us are have a lot of confusion here. And, and if we do imagine the messages that we send the public. You know, when, when we're confused and you have that can further confuse them. And I also think that this would be a wonderful offering for incoming council to have this and also just as a refresher, you know, for current council. So there, there are my comments. I really appreciate that, that suggestion and I think already we're thinking about adding a conversation about rules and motions to an orientation for the next council. So thank you for making that suggestion.  Please go ahead. Yes, thank you. I agree. This is extremely helpful. I don't think I'll be able to remember it like Dorothy said but I think it's extremely helpful. Because having this just literally written like this makes it a lot easier to understand. I think for me and I know you didn't want to spend too much time on a specific, like on this specific situation but just for an example to the question is that I think it becomes more confusing to me when it's referred to committees outside of the council. I mean, if those same, like if this applies if we're in finance or if we're in council and like referrals between the two committees if then that doesn't change any order of precedence or any other things that have to happen because I think that situation was more confusing to us because of the fact that an event, you can't amend when there's an emotion to refer on the floor but more because there was a vote that happened in finance that I thought would then go to the council. And that was voted on that would then move to the council and have a vote and then I guess I'm confused about the process that happens there like if something is voted in finance does it then go to the council to become voted on or like, I think that was the more confusing part and I don't know if that's something we're also going to go over, but that would be helpful. That's a really great question. What happened in this particular situation was that finance committee made a recommendation and Andy I'm sorry to pick on you, but it would have been out of order because there wasn't emotion on the floor to make a recommendation to the council so there was a motion to amend a recommendation or make a recommendation that that wasn't in front of you yet. So, the appropriation and borrowing order hadn't come up for the council yet, or for the finance committee yet. And so the recommendation on that appropriation and borrowing order was a little bit putting the cart ahead of the horse. And I think that might be why there's a little bit of confusion about what's going on. So what happened. I'm going to reiterate for I think everyone knows what hadn't happened, but there was a motion to recommend to the council using 10 million for capital from capital stabilization to reduce the amount for the debt exclusion. And that came up before finance committee had put on the floor a recommendation for the council to adopt that borrowing authorization. That motion for 10 million failed. And then there was another motion to use $5 million. That recommendation did pass in finance committee. And so the $5 million was included on the appropriation and borrowing order that the council saw last Monday. Because it was already recommended by finance committee. It wasn't a done deal. Finance committee had decided a little bit ahead of time to make a recommendation to use that $5 million. So that came, that's what came to the council. The recommendation on the entire appropriation and borrowing order hasn't occurred yet. So we're going to have a council meeting this Monday to talk about it. Finance committee is going to have a meeting on Tuesday to consider what happened on Monday and make their recommendation. And then that's going to come back to the council as a primary action. Alicia, did I answer all of those questions. Yes, thank you. Thank you. So my question question comment is, oh, so my question kind of comment is, so we went a little out of order. But I, it seems like that's a good thing because it is leading us to have a special meeting on Monday to really discuss this. It seems that if Alicia's, Alicia's motion didn't come until April 3rd. We wouldn't have had a chance to give it the consideration, you know, or any, that's just an example, no matter what the motion was, it seems like we needed more time like this Monday meeting to fully consider it. So it seems like if we had gone completely according to Roberts or the charter, whichever that we wouldn't have had the time we need. It's up to the president and the committee chair to decide how they want to take things up. It must, it's up to the chair and the president how they want to take things up if they want to take a motion that might be out of order. It's up to them. I think there was some confusion from counselors and members of the public. And this is just my opinion. I think there was some confusion because of what happened in finance committee and because of what the council was dealing with on Monday. Muddle it muddied the waters a little bit about what was happening on Monday. We got some emails saying vote this or that way. And it was like, we're not doing that yet because we can't because we haven't had a public forum. We haven't had a recommendation from the finance committee.  And then that recommendation. And Kathy's recommendation, Kathy's amendment would have been included in the finance committee recommendation that finally came to the council on April 3rd. There was a discussion this past Monday, and that's an opportunity for all counselors to go. I really want finance committee to consider using $5 million of capital reserves. And then finance committee would consider that finance committee members might move to change a recommendation at finance committee. And then finance committee would report back to the council on all the feedback it heard from the council on Monday. So if one counselor was going. They want to use $5 million of capital stabilization funds for this to reduce the debt exclusion and finance committee could have considered that and either voted that in as part of their recommendation or not. And then they would have reported back to the council about why or why and why not they didn't make that that part of their recommendation. It's a double edged sword. If we do things out of order, it can be confusing to both counselors and members of the public. If you need more time, then there's an opportunity to ask for more time to Jennifer saying, I'm sorry, I'm not being very good Alicia passing the microphone to Jennifer back and forth. I think we're getting into the weeds about this particular issue. Again, it's up to the president and the chair of a committee to decide how it wants to take things up. It's up to counselors to decide how it wants to deal with things. If you need more time, maybe we need to call a special meeting on Thursday night. In order to meet that deadline. And I'm not suggesting that that would have been the right thing to do, but the group decides what the right thing to do is at every moment. Okay. There was a hand over here. One thing that was one thing that was really important that happened was that. The council is a whole all of us together asked a series of questions that needed to answer. And our finance director, Sean. Then provided a series of answers, which were presented to the finance committee and will be presented to the council. And that's important. And the reason I bring that up is that at any time. If we're in discussion, and counselors feel that they need more information to make a. Decision in the information is not before them. Then what is the appropriate action for the counselor to take in order to obtain that information in order to have a more informed discussion. Kathy, are you looking to answer that question? You want to add to the question. So I was glad Andy said that because if you look at the agendas that we've been doing in finance, it was gathering questions. And looking at impacts and including one of those questions was. What would happen if we removed removed a million dollars from the debt exclusion, you know, so we were getting information that led to some of this. So I really encourage using that process. Andy had put debt authorization on the February 28th agenda on the March X agenda on the March 20th agenda, and it's on the March 28th agenda. So, I mean, it's a series of opportunities. So I think encouraging that so it feels to me when you say I don't think it was inappropriate. What you said, I think it was encouraging what are the ideas we're putting on the table. Often what we'll do is ask a committee to consider certain questions and committee chairs often reach out to counselors and say if you have questions. If there's something you want us to seek information about you want to come to a committee meeting and speak during public comment to pose your questions. You want to ask Paul for more information from our finance committee from our finance director. Those are all options as well. I just would like to come back to something Lynn asked earlier about the charter right to postpone and this is actually more for the bike rack. If we I don't know if we if we're starting a bike rack or a parking lot or whatever. It seems to me that the charter right to postpone is the only measure in which the majority of the council is not required to move an action forward. And because we're a deliberative body. It is the majority that moves actions forward. I don't I question if that provision is a state law or if it was just included in our charter. I've tried to do some quick research and I couldn't get a good answer. So I'd like for us to put that into the parking lot for a future discussion. Your question is if a right to postpone is in the state law. The charter is the law. The charter provision is the law for Amherst. So Michelle's question is can we change that provision in the charter that allows one member a right to postpone. The council can't do that by itself. There's going to be a charter review committee that will be formed and every year that ends in for and there will be a process for evaluating the charter figuring out just like we're doing with the rules. What isn't working with public input and then they will propose changes to the charter and those changes need to be voted on by the town. So, right now, the charter grants every individual counselor the right to say, we need to stop and take more time. Yes. Lynn, let me bring over to Mike. I'm glad that you asked that and I'm glad that we clarified that it's particular to the Amherst Charter because this relates directly to what Dorothy it was asking and that is somebody does somebody makes that motion or makes that statement that you know I'm going to exercise my rate to postpone. And it ends the discussion. But Dorothy was asking earlier on this very same issue. Does it have to end the discussion and the answer is right now based on our charter it does. And so I always feel mean when I do that and Dorothy feels offended, but there you go. So the right to postpone is about the motion that's on the floor. And like we said earlier, the discussion is about the motion that's on the floor. So if we postpone the motion on the floor, either by the group or by an individual counselor, then there's nothing to discuss. Because we've moved that motion. We've moved the motion that's on the floor to a future meeting. There's also something that I did not do during at least one of those times and I did not turn to the person who made the motion and said would you like to make a comment. And that was inappropriate for me not to do that, so that whoever's president now or in the future. I hope they'll do that. Alicia, please go ahead. I just had a question about the charter review because you said if we didn't want something or we wanted this role to be addressed or change that there would have to be a review of the charter and I'm just wondering is that something that happens or is that something that like we would have to set forth a process in order for that to happen or do we already have people who review the charter on a regular basis or would the council have to like form a charter review commission or what would that look like. Every year that ends in four. 2024 will have a charter review commission to review the charter and make recommendations, which the council would then vote to put on a ballot for Amherst voters to approve or not. So changes to the charter. Are they are recommended by that charter review commission every year that ends in four that's always that's in the charter. So that's every 10 years. Right every 10 years. And is that something that is possible to change or that would only be able to change under the review that would happen in the year ending in for if they made that decision. I think 10 years is too long to wait to review. Is that something that we can decide or that would have to be a decision made by the review. So the charter itself requires a review every 10 years its section, I don't know 9.6. I can read that section in the charter to see who forms it and all I think the council forms the review commission and does the appointments to it. There's some language in the charter for that. The charter can be amended any in accordance with state law. That's part of the charter. So if there's other state law provisions on how to amend it can also be amended that way that does not necessarily require a charter review commission but the state law is very specific on ways to amend a charter. In fact, when we get to priorities of the council, one of those priorities that is presently on our slate for this year is to develop a charge for that committee and a process for appointment of that committee. And so that as soon as we reach 2024, which is this coming January, that committee can get started. But just for people's information, if you are not on the League of Women Voters mailing list, the League of Women Voters has put out a call that if anyone has ideas start, they've started to think of gathering them. You know, so in advance of an official commission, so there is a, you know, they wouldn't be official they just have put out a call. They all receive that because I asked them to forward it to all counselors. However, it's something they do as part of an association, a group, but they are not the official group reviewing the charter. They will weigh in during that review. And when I got the email from Phyllis Lyra asking me to forward that I asked her instead to forward it to the full council. Thank you for those comments. I think this is, I think it's helpful. I hope you all think this is helpful. There's just one more thing I want to say about the charter right to postpone and postponements in general. The rules are based on a regard for rights. Each individual counselor has the right right now according to the charter to postpone something. So how you all take other people exercising their rights is up to you, but we all have those rights. Okay. If there aren't any other questions, I think we're ready to move on. Alicia, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm not in front of my computer so I can't always see your hand Pamela has been helping me out looking for your hand you're good. Everybody else good. Okay. The consent agenda. There were some questions about this. So I think it's good to clarify what the consent consent agenda is for and how we use it here from our rules matters eligible for the consent agenda are listed here. So if you have a quick question about something that's on the consent agenda, bring it up then we have on the consent agenda and approval to use the public way for the farmers market. Somebody have a quick question about what happens when there's another event on the comment. Let's ask that question before we vote on the consent agenda. So we don't have to bring up that and have a separate vote later. Now it's up to you if you want to do that or not but you're allowed to according to the rules. Something else I'd like to say about consent agenda is what's routine and non controversial is to the best of our knowledge. We don't always know what's not going to be controversial until we get to a meeting Lynn. She's nodding. So if there is something that we discover that the president or a counselor discovers is controversial and we want to have a full discussion about it. Everybody has a right without a second to say, I'm going to take this off consent agenda. And my personal opinion is that that shouldn't be a judgment. We thought when we made the agenda that wouldn't be controversial. We discovered that it's controversial. And now we're going to take it off consent agenda. At times we've discovered that it's controversial and lens asked me to amend the agenda. At times we haven't when we know that somebody's going to take something off consent agenda. You don't have to amend the agenda to take something off the consent agenda. It can happen at the meeting. Everybody has a right to pull something and what goes on it is to the best of our knowledge when we set that agenda, which is several days ahead of the council meeting questions about consent agenda. If the counselor chooses to use that right to pull something off the consent agenda. And we're talking about meeting management and perhaps that's going to create a longer meeting than was anticipated. Is there what would be the method to saying, okay, we're going to remove this, but we're going to move it to a future agenda because we don't have time to cover this today. That's a good question that you could bring up during the meeting. I like to remove this from the consent agenda. And when it when we come to it during the discussion, I'm going to move to postpone it to the next meeting. Would we have, I'll call it an informal policy rather than a we're writing it into our roles that anything that's a substantive change would not go on and a set content agenda so sort of addressing the flip side. We need to at least hear what this is think about it before we just move on it so we would give informal guidance to the president so we'd have to look at it. It's just, and I'm using the word substantive so in whose judgment is this substantive is clearly there but you know, approving a resolution, which we all already sent to GOL there's implied approving minutes since they're used to those of you who in the first year, the council we actually used to spend an hour or so editing the minutes during the meeting word by word. So it was relieved to have them. But I'm just thinking that if that was informal guidance just look at it. And this is actually more than just, you know, get it to GOL or get it to another place, another council committee so what gets referred what someone might consider substantive and what somebody else might consider substantive might be two different things that again it's a judgment call. So if something's on can consent, and counselors feel we need to have more of a discussion before we automatically refer this, and we're going to come back to this. We're going to talk later about how we run meetings and how much time we need to think about something, and the criteria that we're going to use for evaluating our priorities. That's going to speak directly to this issue. Because what we're hoping to do later is develop a set of criteria. So the council can ask itself, we've all agreed on this set of criteria. This is how we're deciding how much time we spend on something how much resources we spend on something with the few months that you have. So if something comes up for a referral. Lynn makes a call that it, you know, yep, we're going to refer it in consent to a committee for them to look at. Pull it off the consent agenda. Have a conversation. Do we need to commit committee to talk about this before we refer to a committee to have a hearing. I think that's what you're getting at. I'm going to go to Dorothy because I just want to say that we pulled off things off the consent agenda many, many times for just minor reasons. And certainly when I've done it, I haven't said where it should go or when and Lynn has done that because often she'll say this one thing has to be dealt with with a certain time frame. And because that's one reason why something might be on the consent agenda. So I haven't seen any problem in taking things off the consent agenda. We've just really talking about the most recent instance when something seemed different from most items that were on the consent agenda. Though we do understand that one of the purposes of the consent agenda is if possible to reduce meeting time but this one kind of backfired and increase the meeting time. I totally agree. The council might agree as a group that referrals aren't good for the consent agenda because the council needs to have a discussion about the criteria. And decide how much resources we want to spend on something before it gets referred to a committee to spend their resources on their time and resources. So that could be something that the committee that the council decides, you know, we want to be more we want to be more thoughtful about where we send things before. I have the talking piece. So we want to be more that could be a decision that the council makes. We don't want to do referrals and consent agenda because we want to be more thoughtful about how we spend our time and resources. And when something comes up for referral, that's the opportunity that we have a conversation about how much time and resources we want to spend on something before it automatically goes to a committee. And I'm not saying that I'm advocating for one thing or another, but that's a conversation that the council can have about its rules questions. Did you want to share your comments with a group. So just to clarify for myself. If there's something that comes off the consent agenda. Let's say I have the opportunity to say I'd like to see this referred to a committee or I'd like to discuss this more. I'm really not sure what what the opportunities are to deal with it. Other than normally discuss it like we might when it comes off consent agenda. Is there anything different than taking it off consent agenda and then discussing it as usual. Can we take something off consent agenda just to have more of a discussion about it. No, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying if we want to have a conversation about how we're using our time and energy and resources about something before we refer to a committee. Let's have my suggestion is let's have that conversation before we refer it. So, so the other referrals aren't the only thing on consent we put substantive issues on consent that come out of committee after having been referred to committee for a recommendation but they come out of committee unanimously. And so I think one thing we need to remember from my perspective is the consent is a way for us to save time for a way when if all of us are going to vote yes, on that substantive matter. Well, we can finish it in consent and get out of our meeting earlier. Without necessarily with potentially recognizing as a council that we don't have to make our statement on every single issue we vote on. And so, you know, I always try to think of consent personally as even if I want to make a statement am I going to vote yes, if I'm going to vote yes. Maybe I don't need to make that statement maybe I can leave it on consent. Am I going to seek a motion to amend well if I want to amend it. I pull it off of consent because I have another motion to make am I going to vote no do I not actually agree with the recommendation that came out of committee. Well if I'm going to vote no then it needs to come off consent, because if I'm if it stays on consent, I'm a yes vote. So that's how I think of consent people might think of it differently but I really try to think. Do I need to talk about it. Do I need to talk about it, even if I'm going to vote yes, well not necessarily if I'm going to vote yes. So, I think linking the, the criteria is, would it be routine and non controversial. And because it comes out of a committee with a unanimous vote doesn't necessarily mean that it will be that it will be non controversial. So I think that's the piece that for each of us as counselors the onus is on us not to see the consent agenda and just assume, oh, must all be routine and non controversial, but to actually look at and I think that the rules, the rules review that we're doing is a really good example of that because we are trying to move through a big body of work and get things, you know, changed as GOL is recommending them but it's also important for us as individual counselors to look at what has been recommended and not assume that to me or to someone else would be non controversial. And again, what's what's non controversial is a judgment call. And so if we think it's not, when we're putting the agenda together, know that it doesn't automatically happen at a meeting. It's not automatically done everybody has a right to pull something. And so there shouldn't be an assumption that just because it's listed on the consent agenda doesn't mean that we can't talk about it. Our most recent Michigan is surfacing everywhere. The, the recommendation from GOL was unanimous. If you go back and look at the tape, it was, I think Lynn said, let's get on the consent agenda but we weren't all thinking about every detail at that point. And so that recommendation was also unanimous from every counselor who was at the GOL meeting. What happened for me is I realized, whoa, this is going to be a mess. And it's an important mess. So I pulled it from the consent agenda, even though it had come from GOL. And I think that we need to. I'm going to stop there. Grace. Grace is a value that everyone in this room has and on zoom has agreed is a value of the entire council. And so if there's a judgment call that you don't agree with. Let's give each other some grace. Oh, here's some fun stuff. So to have a conversation about how many votes. It takes. Mandy's already looking really looking forward to this conversation so much. We need to know what a measure is. The Charter defines the measure as any bylaw order resolution or other vote or proceeding adopted. Or that the council might adopt crystal clear. The rules has some definitions of the measure as orders. New bylaws or change in bylaws policies or regulations resolutions proclamations and citations financial actions town manager appointments other adopted proceedings. I don't think so. Is a motion to refer an adopted proceeding. I don't think so is a motion to amend an adopted proceeding. I don't think so. That's not a main motion. So when the council is taking a final action on something is when I would say it's a measure. I'm going to talk about what it means to abstain. Because we need to understand what I mean, what it means to abstain to understand how to calculate votes. Abstention means you are present and not participating in the vote. So, in the rules it says present and voting present and not voting or majority present majority present and voting. It also says abstentions count and abstentions don't count which just my brain doesn't want to understand that this way. So we're going to talk about figuring out how all those things are calculated in a minute, but abstain means I'm present and I'm not participating in the vote. Not voting. Raise your hand and stop me if something isn't clear. There are some things that are very clear how many votes it takes. It takes 10 a votes to a point of former counselor to a paid town position within one year of serving on the council. If there are nine counselors in a room, this just can't be approved. If there are eight counselors in the room when an unpaid bill from a previous fiscal year comes up, then it can't be approved but with eight counselors because it needs nine. Is that eight counselors that vote yes and one abstains? They're an abstention in that formula. We need nine yay votes. Nine yeas. So we need nine people to say yes. It doesn't matter if there's no or abstentions we need nine people to say yes in order to pass those. If somebody's absent, we still need nine. Okay. We need seven years for this many out Dorothy sorry. So looking at this from the printed sheet. I see that for me under nine yay votes some zoning changes under seven yay votes some zoning changes. And that's really yeah this is crucial stuff. I'm just going to give you a moment to memorize this. I make jokes when I'm nervous. But I'm trying to reframe nervousness as excitement. So I make jokes when I'm really excited. These are the things that require a simple majority. These are the zoning changes that require a simple majority there in your printed materials. Alicia, I will send you a printed copy or a digital copy. This is state law. So when I say some zoning changes, it's everything not on that list. Seven yay votes is everything on that list. Or when state law says something else. So there might be a new state law that changes the quantum of vote on something else. So we go by the state law. I'm just offering a comment on when that state law changed. It was to make it easier for towns to pass zoning. And there was a lot of opposition to that change, but we as Athena said, we have to live under state law. So, so the change happened and it made the world much more complicated. So the one other thing I just want to ask. I think this is very helpful as you go through it and what an abstain is. I kind of, I don't know whether people knows I always say yes, because most of us in normal conversation, don't say why a. You know, just, yes, votes would be, but when we are voting on something that's lower level than zoning, I think it would be really helpful before a vote. You warn people that if they abstain, their vote doesn't count. Right. In advance, because that's not always true. Sometimes the extension really matters. You can kill something because it needs seven or because it needs nine. In other cases, you can't. I'm sorry that you brought that up because we're going to get to that and what I've been doing. I don't know if you notice, but on the motion sheets lately and recently, I've been trying to indicate that above each motion. Okay. And I had been putting abstentions count abstentions don't count. And again, my brain just doesn't want to understand it that way. I'm going to phrase it a different way and hopefully that helps. But if the way it's written in the rules works for you, then that works for you. So we all know this by heart. Here's what requires two thirds of the counselors present and voting spending from a stabilization fund and other actions that require two thirds present and voting by law. So here's what it looks like. If there are 13 counselors present and three abstentions, then there are only 10 counselors voting. And we need two thirds of that 10 to pass that. 11 counselors present and two abstentions. There are nine counselors voting. Present and voting. So we need six folks, a majority. Sorry, go ahead. So in a worst case scenario, if only seven of us showed up, which is a quorum, it would be, it could pass with as little as four. No one abstained. I mean, if I kept doing the math down. What? Yeah. No, no, no. So if it keeps so when we don't show up at a meeting, the number keeps getting smaller and smaller, and then an abstain can kill it.  It can help. It can help. It can help it pass with a lower number. So this to me is a warning about abstaining. It means that you come away with an understanding of what abstentions mean. It means you're here and you're not participating. And that means that a fewer number of you get to make that decision. I'm sorry. I know that we all have the right to abstain. But are there some practical reasons why one might abstain from a vote. I'm sure there are 13 different reasons in any given situation why someone may or may not abstain. Yes. For a variety of reasons. So Michelle's saying that that it's a struggle sometimes to understand what abstaining isn't and that's why I'm trying to give you this guide so that you understand when you're abstaining, what that does. And sometimes when you abstain, that means that a fewer number of you can approve something. And sometimes it doesn't. So we're going to go over that a little bit more. I think I answered my own question. But if I recuse myself and I leave the room, how does that affect the two thirds. Excellent question. When you recuse yourself and leave the room. That's one less counselor present. You're absent for the vote. I think I saw Anna's hand first and then I'm going to come back to you Kathy. I think to Michelle's point, one of the things it reminded me of what we were just talking about before right when we think about abstentions and abstaining because you feel you don't have enough information. I think that's why we have all of those other mechanisms when we that we just talked about with motions to pause or delay or whatever it is to get to that point where you have enough information. And so I think it's they, I mean, it's, it's an ecosystem. They all play together. But I think that for me, one of the reasons why I have heard or I have abstained is because I felt that I didn't have the information required to vote. And in those instances, we do have mechanisms in place to get that information. And I think for me it was a good reminder to use those. And another reminder that if we need to take a moment so that we all have clarity about what's being voted and what your votes mean, let's give ourselves permission to do that to take a moment so that everybody is on the same page before a vote is taken. I think we've only had one instance of it. So when Pat asked leaving the room, we had one time a counselor had to leave the room because there was a conflict of interest. Is there any provision? Not that I can think of anything coming up where enough of us have a conflict that we have to leave the room. And then we don't, we're not going to have enough votes to pass something does. There's no way out of these vote counts is I think what I'm hearing on the biggies, right. There is a way around it's state law and I didn't brush up on ethics before this conversation. But if you have a question like that, it's in the conflict of interest. I thought you weren't participating. Point of information. So there's a state there's a state law called rule of necessity that if there if you if you fail to have a quorum, because of the multiple conflicts, you can declare the conflicts and then can participate. Thank you. Questions. I thought I saw more hands. Is that a state law? What's up there? Or is that our charter? Some of these things are state law and summer in the charter, which is our local law. So non by law measures. It's in the rules. So here's what a majority of counselors present looks like. A majority of seven. So if there are 13 counselors present and three counselors abstain, we're looking for the majority of 13 to pass something. Questions. A majority of counselors present and voting. Yes. In the previous one, abstention is like a no. Here's what present and voting. There's 11 counselors present. There are two counts to abstentions. Nine counselors are present and voting. So we need a majority of nine. This one might sound familiar. We need five, because that's a majority of nine. If there are seven counselors in the room, there are nine counselors present and voting. We would need five. Yay votes to approve something. Right. So if you don't reach five, then it fails. I'm slow on these things. Some of the times if somebody abstains, they become invisible, but sometimes they don't. I need the clarification. That's exactly what I'm trying to explain here. So if you move yourself in this situation, if you abstain in this situation, you've let a smaller number of counselors decide that question. Because you're present and you're not participating. Okay. You want to share with the class. Yeah. Please do. And I'm picking on you like this because if you're having questions or having a conversation, the group can benefit from it. So if you're asking, let's let's ask together. We're trying to recount the ZBA appointment discussion and that in fact this majority presence says for town council appointments. Town council appointment. Majority present town council appointments. I'm reading that. In fact, I think it was voted in the, in the form of majority present and voting, which would be incorrect. I'm reading directly from this sheet. I'd like to suggest we take a recess. I want, I want us all to be clear on this. So I'm just pulling up the rules here. Right. Now I'm sharing the wrong screen again. Just a minute. I want to get clarity on this before we move on. Okay, we're going to take a short break. The group has spoken. We need to break. Alicia. Let's take five minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, folks. We're going to come back together. Please find your seats. We have lunch on the way. So we're just going to try and get through this. Point before we grab a bite to eat. So let's grab our seats. Pat DeAngeles, I'm talking to you. You like it. Just checking for Alicia. Alicia, are you back with us? Great. Thank you. Thank you. And Kathy to come back. They're here. We're going to just come back together briefly. And get. Get through this portion. We're going to stop and grab a bite to eat and then come back and do a working lunch. Okay, Mandy. I'm going to ask you to explain that. What am I explaining? Okay. Under the charter measures defined as resolutions, proclamations, orders, and other adopted proceedings. Our rules have taken into that other adopted proceedings appointments. The rules committee and then the council when adopted the rules determined that appointments included other adopted proceedings and put that specifically in the rules measures under the charter measures. And so when appointments have been deemed an other adopted measure, another adopted proceedings, i.e. a measure, that means a vote on appointments must receive a majority of those present. So if 11 people are present. And five vote in favor. Four vote against. And so when appointments has been deemed an other adopted measure. If a vote in favor for vote against and to abstain, it fails because six is a majority of those present. Thank you. So if Michelle's question is, could something like that be changed? So if the charter specifically defined something as a measure, we cannot change it only. But as a body, unless we follow the rules on how to amend a charter, the charter has other adopted proceedings. I think KP law has come out and said, we as a council can make a defect, can define what that means. And right now our rules define appointments as other adopted proceedings. It is in theory possible then for us as a body to amend the rules to remove the non listed. Portions under measure in the charter from another adopted proceeding that would have to follow the requirements of how to adopt changes to the rules of procedure. Which right now is two thirds. Thank you for letting me pick on you. For giving my voice a break. Hi, and I'll just go back to I was on the drafting committee for the rules. And did not read that clause carefully. We all we really have to do if we want to is move the word appointments to another category. And so I'm restating what Mandy said, because it's not listed. We can put that word anywhere we want. And that's anywhere we want, whether we want to move it or not. But that's where we have totally way in the drafting. And there was a review of this by the first set of counselors. And I can tell you that that clause was never really discussed because we were much more on larger issues of where one public comment be. What would the committees be? You know, so this kind of getting down to. And it was largely because you didn't understand this vote count. In the same way we've just had it explained so it. It's on page 24 or whatever the rule. It's an easy fix if we want to fix it. And as Jennifer pointed out, it would make it consistent with filling a counselor vacancy.  So it would make it consistent. So that's just a point on. It's a wording change. Not a that is policy related. So that's just one that's in our power. Thank you for adding that. The council reviews its rules every year. So we get to talk about this every year. GOL gets to talk about it. Counselors can provide input to GOL about what changes they'd like to make. GOL will have a conversation and vote. That may or may not be controversial. When it comes back to the council. And another point that I wanted to make. I want to take a short break. I'm going to take a short break. I'm trying to remember right now. And we'll come back to it. We're going to take a short break so that everyone can grab some lunch, but I'm going to ask you to bring your lunch back to your seat so that we can keep going through lunch. We have still quite a bit of conversation to have. Before the end of the day. We want to make best use of our time. So please take. Can we do it in five? Can we grab lunch in five minutes? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have just about a minute. Before five minutes are up. So please finish gathering your lunch and come back. I have a feeling that most of us are going to want to leave our cameras off so that we're not watching each other chew. But we have the wide angle. We have the wide angle cameras of the room. And so we can all see that we're still here. We're not chewing on camera. I think we can all appreciate that. So just a minute or two to finish gathering your lunch. And then we'll, and then we'll get back to it. All right, we're just finishing up and coming back to our seats. Who's in trouble back here on on Kathy. Alicia, I just want to make sure you're still with us. It's, I can understand if you want to leave your camera off while you're eating, but. You can hear us. We can hear you. We're good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Everyone back. We're all back. All right, folks, we're going to get back to it. We still have quite a bit to cover. The last thing I'd like to say about that portion on the rules. Is about my role. To serve you. And I just want to say. I don't expect everyone to memorize the rules. I don't expect everyone to memorize Robert's rules. I do expect that we allow ourselves moments to seek clarification when we need them. For me to take a moment to check. If you're asking for an answer. 99 times out of a hundred. If someone asks me a question, the first thing I do is turn to the charter and the rules. Right now we had a question about the quantum of vote. The first thing I did was come over and open the rules and take it. Take a look before we moved on. If someone has a question about how to make a motion. Someone has a question about how to use the rules or anything like that. I'm here to help. I'm an impartial. Part of this process. So if someone has a question about emotion that they want to make, whether or not I think it's a good idea is not part of my advice to you. So I just want to offer that and say my door is open. And I thank you for tolerating my advice when you don't ask for it. So I'm going to pass the mic finally to Pamela. Right. So we're going to give Athena just a tiny bit of a break. And I just wanted to have you think about what we started with, which was the concept of appreciative inquiry. The next substantive session that you're going to delve into. Ask the questions, how can you make your meetings more efficient? And that has the potential to be a highly charged conversation. But if you think about the concepts of appreciative inquiry, an appreciative inquiry, we're asking you to start from a foundation of positive. Looking back, but only looking back at what was positive so that you can bring that forward. I also think it's really important as you enter the next conversation to think about the values that were established for the town council. And so I just want to give you a brief example of a challenge that someone might think about using appreciative inquiry. So Shalini, do you mind if I put you on the spot a little bit? Okay. So asked if we could provide an example of what a question might look like for appreciative inquiry. And so when I looked at your values, there's one that I'm going to take objection to. So, and it's the very last one, which says tolerance. We value the expression of diverse perspectives, even when we don't agree with them and we don't put our own perspectives above others. So, you know, in general, I sort of agree with that statement, but I don't like the word tolerance. You know, as a person of color, I don't want to be tolerated. I don't want my perspective to be tolerated. I want my perspective, my opinion to be respected. And I want to have equal say at the, at the, an equal stake at the table. So, imagine that I have now made my opinions about that value to you as a group. How might you use appreciative inquiry to have a little bit of discussion about what my objection might be? How can we reframe the discussion so that it's positive, so that builds on the strengths of the past action? And embody some of the other values that you've talked about. If we were actually in a meeting, I would probably said like to hear other perspectives on this and then, but I also want to acknowledge which was to thank you for your honesty and for sharing that perspective, which I didn't think about. Is there another word that that would speak to this idea or, or I would like maybe share. Okay, I'm like, I'm feeling like I'm in the spot right now. So I'm not thinking that clearly. So I'll just be honest right now. It's making me, I'm like shutting down. But I think I would like a moment to think about it and then, and then come back. What I'd want to ask is, I hear the, the challenge with the word and are, what are their elements in the sentence that do feel like they resonate. And is there a way that we can frame this that gets at the, what I believe the intent was, or is the intent part of the challenge as well. And so, so trying to figure out what are the elements that do work. How might we better capture that and, and demonstrate that, right? So yeah, okay. That's a perfect right reframing thinking about coming from a point of strength. So my response would be, well, you know, in general, I really like the idea that the town council has expressed a value of wanting to hear diverse perspectives and acknowledging that, you know, individuals with diverse perspectives may not agree.  So I would love to think about how we could do that differently. I don't know which. I've noticed that the second word is value, but sometimes value can be positive or negatively. So I would like to rename it instead of tolerance because tolerance means kind of put up with, right? Go through the motions, but appreciate, appreciate learning from difference in different points of view. That sounds much better. I think this is great because I would, you could change the word tolerance to perspective. And if you put Dorothy's and we appreciate or we welcome diverse perspectives, it's that each of us may come with a different way of looking at something and perspective is necessary when you're thinking about how is the other, what is their point of view? So allow time. So I agree with getting rid of the word tolerance. It's different. It's a very different meaning. I like the word perspective because I think when you hear the word perspective, you automatically think that there is going to be multiple perspectives, right? So your, your mind is already thinking that there are going to be multiple ways of looking at that issue. So this was meant just to be a little example of how you might use appreciative inquiry. Now, you know, obviously in the moment in a town council meeting, it might be difficult to sort of to do this, but I think what Athena has said time and time again and what each of you said in response to the first question about what you value most about your work on the council and when you have worked well has been listening and listening requires a pause. So I think one of the things that I would suggest that you do in the future, right? For what it's worth coming from me, my opinion is to allow yourself the pause. The pause will allow you that little bit of time to think about what's before you to understand it. And one thing that I would say in the last exercise that we saw when we were going through the, the discussions and the explanations about the rules and the motions, you all come to this with very different skills and backgrounds. You have to allow yourself the time to make sure everyone fully understands, gets what's being said and gets what the consequences of that before you move forward.  So you have to just keep that in mind as you're working collectively. How can I approach this in a positive way? How can I reframe the question? What are the values that we as a town council want to bring to this discussion? So I'm going to pause there and we're going to go back to some of the heavy stuff. Thank you. So this is going to be, we're going to brainstorm, talk about rules and procedures and keeping in mind what Pamela just said, what works and what can we bring more of into the future in terms of how we run our meetings, how can we make them efficient and how can we make sure that people's voices are heard, that we move effectively through actions and so on. So this is, the floor is open for you all to share. I'm going to take some notes while we're sharing about what works. This might come out as maybe something that we want GOL to look at. Maybe it's just a shared understanding that we all feel more comfortable slowing down when we need to slow down. So I'm not saying that we need to send a list to GOL, but we're just thinking about what works and putting together some ideas about what works best. What can we take from the rules and meeting procedures into the future? What can we take about what works in the rules and in our meeting procedure? Learn from our past experiences of meetings. When have we finished a meeting before 9.30? That we can bring into the future. Or maybe something that we just went over today that you'd like to bring into the future with the GOL. With the goal of making your meetings more efficient, right? You're thinking about ways in which you can use the rules to your benefit to get through your agenda in a more efficient way. So I think certainly having an understanding of the rules will do that, but think about other things. And this is your brainstorming. So this is when we get to run around and be Vanna. Thanks for being the first. I think this has been mentioned several times by other counselors, but that we don't all necessarily need to comment on everything. And one of the methods I think that I have tried to use, and this is the kind of deeper part that I wanted to put out there is like to say, I support X counselor as a way of sharing that without a whole statement on my own position. But how do we do that without becoming like binary or polarized? You know, if I am or personalized, I guess, you know, so that's the sort of tension that I sit with sometimes is, if I'm not saying my unique view, and if I can just say, well, I agree enough with Mandy on that, that I'll, I'll just say, I support what Mandy says. How does that not become a personal matter within the dynamics of the council? Thank you. I mean, this was just more a comment. If I struggle with this that I don't maybe have a very different opinion than a lot of what's being said. But I do, I actually worry. I get self-conscious that I'm appearing disengaged to people that are watching from the outside, even my constituents.   So I think that's maybe a bit, I don't know if we all struggle with it, but if we each speak for two or three minutes on every issue, there's 13 of us, that's a lot of time. But I do sometimes find if I haven't spoken in a while, I'm feeling a little self-conscious. I don't want people think to think I'm not engaged. I just maybe really don't have anything, you know, new to add to what's been said. Sort of in response to Jennifer, I think I speak the least in council meetings. No, Kathy saying that's not true. So perspective. I usually wait because I am really listening. And so I really would appreciate a couple of things. I think I know when I speak, sometimes I repeat myself. And I know I'm speaking spontaneously. But if one of the things that I think is endemic to the council is a repetition of what you've already said. So if we could find a way to keep it simple. And direct and trust that that will be heard. I think that could be very valuable. It's a process question for right now, but I think it's a similar question. I always have in meetings like Michelle started with a question and then we went to another comment, which was totally unrelated. And so I think it's a great question. I think it's a great question. I think it's a great question when we go on. And I don't feel like we're really. Listening. And acknowledging what's being shared and responded to. So it feels like we go from topic to topic. And everyone just wants to get their question out there or their comment without really. Creating that pause and acknowledging. And so as a process right now. And then in council. I mean, you know, I mean, maybe the idea is that we hear different people and then cluster the same questions together and address them. Or are we taking one at a time? But to me, many times it feels like we're not being heard. You're asking if we want to have a conversation. Okay. I imagine this is a brainstorm. About, you know, what you want to do and what comes out of it might. Come out naturally. You know, I'm putting together a list. Of what we need to do and what we need to do and what we need to do. We need to codify these in the rules. Do we need to have more of a conversation about, you know, if everyone's taking time to comment or everyone feels like they need to comment, how do we address that as a group? So that's a question that's out there and it's up for the group to say, you know, we need to have a shared understanding. How do we hold ourselves accountable if we have a shared understanding? So this is just part of the conversation. What we need to do now is to just collect questions and questions and comments, but not have a conversation and not answer them. Let's listen openly. Let things arise as they arise. And then if something arises that's going in your mind, you know what, I have an idea about how we can do this, then let that come up and share it. Okay. So we're having, if the question is, I see lots of hands.  So if something that's arising, that's going, I have an idea about how we can deal with that better. Let that arise. Let's do it. Let's have a conversation. Let's come up with ideas. Let's figure out what works. Let's have a conversation about how we might bring that into the future. Just like Pamela's example about how to make changes and what's arising from what works in that statement and what we want to change. I know Kathy's been waiting, so I'm going to come over here first. I was trying to respond to a couple of things that have been said. So one is we have an ability if there's a point of debate where there are two difference that the president could say, I'm going to give these two people time to talk to each other, you know, so that you don't have a need that the hand goes up because I only got half of what I wanted. So that's a possible way that we've already written into our rules, saying allowing a debate. The second observation is building on what Jennifer said that sometimes if you're totally quiet, you miss, this is a horrible thing to say, you miss the opportunity to be quoted in the Gazette. So there is, it's a political process. And if the more zinging you can be, the more likely you're going to get a comment in. So we should resist that wherever it's necessary with my other thought. I'm going to challenge that a little bit because you are political. That's an inherent part of what you're doing. And so shutting somebody down because or or devaluing what they're sharing because you think they might be sharing it for a political reason. A lot of what you do is done for a political reason.  And so you want to make statements in front of in an audience like that. So I think it's not supposed to just be between you and us. I'm just reacting to there's a time we might want to do that, but three minutes times 13 makes 39 minutes 30 minutes. So we should use it wisely. You know, we should just use it really wisely. And then I so my one other non responsive one is that in setting the agenda, if there's clearly an issue that needs a lot of discussion plan for that amount of time, you know, and and if that's been increasingly done by the president saying, I think this is an hour long, but then I noticed in our little cheat sheet on Robert's trying to honor that time limit if possible. And if we can't get through it in an hour reschedule it for the next meeting, you know, to just try to think of we've got to get through the other items to and that but not cut off debate to say it's session one and session two would be a suggestion of a way of not having the meeting feel we have to leave. Sometimes we have to reach closer. Something that I'll get to you in just a second something that I didn't mention from Robert's rules is emotion to limit debate. And there's been a lot of tension when people want to limit the debate and feelings that they're shutting down and so on. And it's up to individuals how they want to respond to those situations. But can we reach a shared understanding about needing our meetings to move? And there are some things that we need to deal with tonight and how much time do we spend on this? Can we agree as a body how much time we want to spend on this? Do we want to limit debate? We can have a motion to limit debate to two minutes per person. You could have a motion to limit debate to half an hour. And then when that half an hour is up, if we haven't reached a resolution, maybe it goes to the next agenda. This is just something that's coming up for me right now. I'm not saying you all need to start making motions to limit debate left and right or that that's the right thing to do. But I just wanted to point out that that's an option for you. I have a couple. This is one of them is a message for me and that's limit the number of agenda items. The second one, however, is one that I probably am more guilty of than anybody else. And that is recognizing that my vote is an opinion and I don't need to speak to it. And another one is to recognize by looking around and listening whether or not you think the votes have already been cast. And how much more do you really need to say?  Lynn covered some of it. I think recognizing that if we have all decided we can stop talking.  Every point that has been made. You know, you can say your piece, but you don't necessarily have to. Continually respond to everything. You know, I. I don't think that's a topic. I think we as a council get off topic a whole lot and whether that's because we don't actually have a motion on the table to start with. So I think starting with something on the table helps, but even when a motion to mend is on the table, say something else, we're sometimes not even talking about the amendment. And. What the motion is. I think will help us. Frame things. I think we need to. Why we feel impelled or. Desiring to speak. And often this is my point of view. It's not just what's happening in the room. Because I'm very aware that I'm a representative. I represent my constituents. And I'm thinking about the real world outside and how I think that we and they and the town will be affected. And so. I do that. I do that. I do that.  People come up and say, you said what I was thinking. So I, you know, we don't know. And Lynn points out, we don't know who's watching. We don't know how many are on Amherst media watching on TV. But there are a lot of people who are watching, who are concerned, who care about things. And they do want to kind of get to have their point of view expressed. And usually you can do that in much under three minutes. Okay. Sometimes I don't like to stay on topic. Because I like creativity. And, you know, when you're in a meeting, you get ideas. You, and this person's and that person's, we get across influence and you get an idea. And I sometimes don't want to lose those ideas. So I want us to be efficient or more efficient than we are.  And then you say, what did I do? No, that's it. Okay. So as I'm looking at the rules and I'm thinking about efficiency, one of the things that stands out to me is the opportunity to reframe how we think about referrals and how we think about the information and the input that we have on things that we refer. So I'm thinking about one, what it means to refer something to committee, right? Does that mean that we are saying it? So my, my opinion is that that means we are saying, we believe this is a good use of council time. We want a committee to discuss this, debate it, hash it out, figure it out and then bring it back to us, right? Or is it just, all right, I want to see a final version. So, okay, even though I'm not sure I agree with the topic. And so I think really kind of interrogating for ourselves, what a referral means in that sense, because I actually think that we might be coming in with different ideas on that. I think some people, some of us are coming in saying like, well, we'll just refer it and then I'll decide if I like it when it comes back. And some people are saying, I do believe in this idea. I'm endorsing this idea. That's what I'm saying when I refer it. And so I think coming to a common understanding would be important. I also think that how we give input on measures, when they are referred, I think coming to a common understanding of that as well. I'm thinking about with the water and sewer regs. It was really helpful to have folks go through, go through the document as a word document and then send it to the committee that was, that was dealing with it. And that committee had tasked one me with kind of working through those comments. And so I think not needing to sit in a meeting of council to go through every detailed element, every comment of a measure that was getting referred and instead trusting our committee heads to receive those comments in a written capacity, because I also think waiting until it's gone fully through a committee and then come back to council and then putting in comments that you had the first time around is, is spending way more time than we need to when there's already been a lot of time spent. So I think where and I'm not saying you can't have input the second time it comes back. Obviously, of course you can, but offering input that first time to the committees, not necessarily in the full council, unless it feels that it needs to be debated and discussed. That helps. Yeah. The thing that has concerned me about our making referrals to committee is that we are deciding also that it is worth the time of the committees to spend on the issue and that it is an important issue that we're going to want to spend time when it comes back from the committee. And so we're making a decision that is an allocation of what is maybe our collective precious resource, our time. So when somebody proposes something, if it doesn't make a lot of sense to us, whoever it is, I think it's worth taking the time to do at least a little bit applying about what is the purpose of this? What is to gain? How important is it because I think that we also need to evaluate the priority for use of time? I really appreciate that. And I think our conversation on criteria is going to speak directly to that because that will help us have a shared list of criteria to evaluate at the time something is referred. Is this where we want to spend our time and resources? Is this how we want to spend the town's resources and so on. So I really appreciate your comment. I appreciate everyone's comments. Thank you. Thank you, Athena. So I just wanted to add as, as, and not to repeat myself more than I will as someone who just brought up the idea of us not repeating everything. And in every meeting, I think, you know, part of that was also just the beauty of listening. And, you know, I learned more about each of you through listening and conversation that I do your votes. And I think also with constituents, that's why we're here. And so I think with that also comes confidence, you know, when we come as prepared as we can. And we're, you know, we might come thinking, you know, yes, we know that we're going to vote how we're going to vote. But I think just that and also you're really appreciating what Andy just said and trust and committee members. And of course, speaking up when you do not agree. But I hope that that's taken in, you know, sometimes we can gain more from listening than we can speak. That opens up a little bit of a murky area, though, when we get to discuss if perhaps it's a proposed bylaw, perhaps it's a topic without without. We're all saying a short conversation about it before it gets referred is a very gray area because it may be something that's totally new to us. We don't have any sense at all about the ramifications. We don't have a sense of perhaps even the workload that we would be asking a committee to undertake. I know there are different reasons to refer in some cases. I know I have said, sure, go re go refer it to the committee, let them, you know, let them spend the 10 or 15 or half an hour discussing this. Does it have merit? Is this something that they want to come back to us? It feels like there could be an interim step where the committee has an inkling of how they want to handle it that they could perhaps report back sooner than a full fledged zoning bylaw in action takes place. So what I'm hearing is that maybe sometimes a referral is to ask a committee to consider how much time it's going to take to do the whole thing. Is it worth it to the committee? And is it worth it to the council to explore the just that initial question? Let's take a look at how much time we think this is going to take to figure out how many resources, what the resources are. Unless there's somebody who hasn't spoken yet. Okay. We're following the rules. I think that gets back to the idea of that criteria too, because I think we also don't want to have everything have to get voted to refer twice, right? And so I think that it would be interesting to, to consider how that might, I appreciate those questions, right? And I think that that's something that we should make the criteria to say things like time it would take, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, kind of level of evolution, like where it is in its, in its kind of development should also be in criteria to refer in the first place as, as well or inside. Yeah. The, the, the other side of that coin is that there's been, there have been conversations about, well, just, you know, just vote it down before it even gets referred. It's possible to vote something down on the floor. It does not have to be referred. And I think I tend to, I tend to be more lenient in, well, maybe there's something of that that's worthwhile. There's a nugget of good in it. The rest is really extraneous. But how do you, how do you, how do you discover the nugget if you've killed it on the floor? Even though sometimes I would, I mean, it hasn't occurred to me necessarily to kill it on the floor. It is an option. I've been thinking about the protecting the majority, protecting the minority in terms of referral. One, I've never thought I could vote against the referral because it always seemed like a good idea. So that's singing in my brain. But the other piece is if, if there are two people on a five-person committee who feel strongly about something being implemented in three who don't, is there a not some way for those that minority in this instance to have, to take time, you know, if we agree that we want to pursue it on, on an outside of a meeting and then bring it back to the committee, why, why would that not be something that could happen to protect the minority? It just seems important to me. That's probably the other reason I always refer because I think things need to be looked at. But maybe we can make some kind of many committees, subcommittees within committees based on, I don't know, opinions. Creating a committee is also a decision to allocate resources. Right? Yep. So it's interesting everyone gravitated to referrals because that is some of the smallest and least time consuming things our council does during a six-hour council meeting. We talk a lot about things we have final votes on. And so some of the things that have struck me over my four years on the council is we've gotten a lot better. And this is kudos to staff and pushing of our leadership to staff to have memos that describe action, memos that describe everything, the reports from the committees and reporting out that include a lot of the discussion more extensive than say minutes or when committees talk over it for five or six meetings, you have to condense that into one memo. Those memos and then making sure we all read those memos, I think gives us and that preparation time is so important because I think it can cut down on the amount of discussion we have or the questions we have. One thing I've taken advantage of sometimes is emailing Paul some questions ahead of time on things that I was like, oh, I don't like this. I'd want to mend it, but is there a reason why it's this way? And Paul's and his staff have been very good at getting back to me sometimes that has then saved me pulling something from consent sometimes because I got that question answered. So I think we have to take a little bit more responsibility on ourselves to prepare for meetings, committee