Amherst media, are you ready? Thank you. I want to note that we have press in the audience with us tonight. This is the first meeting of the town council in which we have remote participation. So I'm just going to go over a little bit about what that means. Okay? Both councillors Schoen and Councillor Balmell have petitioned and received permission to participate in this manner because it was unreasonable for them to be here. This is permissible under 940 CMR 29.105. The information shall be recorded in the minutes and I will now be checking with each of them to make sure that they can hear, etc., and they will need to go off of mute and respond. So first of all, Kathy, let the record reflect that board committee member in this case, the town council member, Kathy Schoen, is attending remotely via speakerphone for the meeting on January 7th, 2019, for the reason stated above. Councillor Schoen, can you hear me? I just want to ask if you'll speak up just a little louder when you talk. Okay, let the record reflect that Councillor Kathy Schoen is attendance via speakerphone and can be heard by all present at the meeting if you're very quiet. Okay, Councillor Balmell. First of all, let the record reflect that council member Shalini Balmell is attending remotely via speakerphone for meeting on January 7th, 2019, for the reason stated above. Shalini, can you hear me? Okay, we're going to ask you to speak up as we do this. Okay, let the record reflect that Councillor Balmell, attendance via speakerphone, can be heard by all present at the meeting. So because we have remote participation, all votes taken during the meeting with a remote participation shall be by roll call vote. Therefore, all votes, the president or the town clerk will ask for the individual vote. In this case, we asked the town clerk to do that. I'm sorry, Mandy. We should check to make sure Kathy can hear Shalini and Shalini can hear Kathy when they speak. Thank you. Kathy, can you hear Shalini? Yes. Shalini, can you hear Kathy? Okay, thank you very much. If technical difficulties arise as a result of utilizing remote participation, the president will, should supersedes or should suspend discussion while reasonable efforts are made to correct the problem. If remote participation is disconnected, that fact and time of disconnection and if subsequent reconnection is achieved shall be noted in the meeting minutes. I have asked each councillor in advance who is participating by remote to provide us agenda items in general that they would like to speak to. They have done so and Councillor Haneke will indicate that the council participating remotely wishes to speak. So if you see Councillor Haneke going this, this are jumping up and down, it's because she's representing three people tonight. Not representing, but she is making sure that three people are heard tonight. Remote councillors are asked to speak by stating their name and we would like them to continue to go by our general rules of not adding, only adding to conversations not repeating. Seeing that we have a quorum, I want to call the meeting to order. It is now 634. So welcome. This meeting is being broadcast live and recorded by Amherst media. Copies of the agenda are projected up on the screen both in front and in back and if you are interested in speaking, we ask that you sign in in the sheet at the front door. Are there any announcements by members of the council or the town manager? Okay. I just want to mention two things real quickly. The rules of procedure ad hoc committee has asked that we try a different form of addressing councillors during this meeting. I have been asked to address councillors by their first name and I am asking councillors to address me by Lynn. So we're going to try it. Okay. And we also wish to thank the League of Women Voters, Amherst media and Stan Rosenberg for creating and hosting byline with Stan Rosenberg. The first edition of each of the shows can be seen on Friday nights at 8 o'clock and then on Monday nights at 6 o'clock. There are no resolutions. However, I just want to mention because we are expecting one and several people are aware of it, that the resolution and support of full funding for our public schools will be a topic at our January 28, 2019 meeting when a representative from the school committee will be present. No hearings. So we will proceed to presentations and discussions. So we have three presentations and discussions this evening. The first is going to be with council Bachmann, excuse me, manager Bachmann and his staff. And then we are going to proceed with an agenda item on the station road bridge and then on the energy and climate resilience committee proposal. We will also have public comment toward the end of the agenda for residents who wish to speak on a different issue other than these two items. So in other words, there will be different times. While our town charter requires a public comment period at every public meeting, the council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during the public comment. If your comment specifically relates to an item later on our agenda, please bring that comment forward after the council has reached that item on the agenda and stated their own position and or observations. The format for discussion when we get to that point will be as follows. The item will be introduced by the president. The president will call on the person's making formal presentations, whether they are member of the council or town employees. This order has been predetermined. All council members will have an opportunity to speak and ask questions about the issue. As appropriate, the town manager or other town employees will respond to those questions. Only after the council has completed their discussion will the president ask for a show of hands of people who would like to be recognized to speak about the topic presently on the table. Depending on the number of people, we will limit that to two to three minutes. If you go over, I reserve the right to ask you to cut it short. Finally, when making comment, please advance to the desk. We now have our staff and manager Bachmann with us. Push the button on the mic. Identify yourself and where you live and then proceed with your comments. The first item for which there will be no public comment is the community participation officers. I'm calling on manager Bachmann. Thank you. Most esteemed and honorable president. That's okay. Most esteemed and honorable president, which is what you told me to call you when we first started. No, I did not. I did not. But we'll go back to Lynn. Thank you. Thank you. So section 3.3d of the home rule charter calls for the manager to appoint a community participation officer. The purpose of this role is to increase participation in local government by diverse residents, as described in section 3.3c, and says such officer may be a current employee. So really what the community participation officer is designed to do is provide support for individuals interested in being involved in local government, devise and implement strategies to enhance public engagement, conduct community outreach efforts to increase participation by underrepresented residents, aid in planning and conducting the district meetings, analyze data on resident engagement, regularly submit reports to the town manager and the town council and carry out any other duties designated by the town manager. So as I thought about this, it seemed like that was a lot of work for one person and that we would be highly benefited by having a team of people that would take on this task for a couple of reasons. One, a team of people brings a much broader set of relationships and experiences to the table. And it also taps into the talents that they have already established. So specifically, I've assigned this job of community participation officer team to three individuals who are already employed by the town. Angela Mills is the executive assistant to the town manager. Jen Moisten is the administrative assistant in our office. And Brianna Sunrid is the communications manager for the town. These three employees have a wide range of experience. They all have children in the public school district. They are involved, many of their children are involved in sports. And I think these types of attributes are the things that are going to help engage the community. So what I wanted to do tonight is you've read my memo, so I don't have to reiterate that, which I just did. Have each of them say a few words about themselves so that the public gets to meet them, so you get to meet them, and we start this engagement process. The other thing I want to mention is on Friday, we do a normal coffee, cup of joe thing on Friday from 730 to nine. This week, I'll be joined by some, if not all of our officers here to help engage the public, and it'll be held at Starbucks. So first, just pass it down. My name is Angela Mills. I'm honored to be here. I have lived in Amherst on and off since 1991. I am a 1995 graduate of Amherst College. I've enjoyed all of my volunteer efforts for our town, most recently as a youth sport coach in volleyball, basketball, and baseball. I'm on the board for Amherst baseball. I was the co-chair of the cargo farm PGO for three years. And I also served on the LSSE commission. So I come to the community participation officer job with an open heart and also a great enthusiasm to work with my colleagues. I did learn Spanish before I learned English at home. My parents immigrated to the US in 68. So Spanish was my first language. And I think that would be a great way to kind of reach out to newer parts of our community. I'm also really interested in the growing senior population that we have. I think they're a great, untapped resource and I know it's a burgeoning population, so I look forward to working with them. And then as we started to brainstorm, I really thought families with very young children, some of those families stick around and raise their children for all of their schooling years here in our town and other families come and go due to the colleges and the university. But I think everybody should share the talents that they have during their time here. So I look forward to working with you and finding you space to meet with your constituents. And thanks for having us. And yes, my name is Jennifer Moisten, and as the town manager, I'm the administrative assistant for the town manager's office. I'm also a human resources assistant. I grew up here in Amherst, and I'm currently raising my children here as well. My community involvement right now consists of coaching football, basketball, and I'm also a board member of the Amherst Survival Center. What excites me most about becoming a community partnership participation officer is connecting with people and the residents. I'm a very people person. I love working with people enhancing the opportunity for public involvement and diversifying our boards and committees. So prior to working for the town, I didn't know the impact that the boards and committees have on the decision making of the town. And so there are many people, residents and folks out there who have great ideas and just don't know exactly how to get those or who to bring those ideas to. So I'm very excited about being able to be a gateway or an opening up a gateway for those people to become involved and diversifying it so that our boards and committees and hopefully employment are more of a reflection of what is of who lives in our community as well. Hello, counselors. Thank you for having us. My name is Brianna Sunrid. And as the town manager said, I'm the recently communications manager for the town. I work in the IT department. I've lived in Amherst since 2003 when I came here for undergraduate at UMass Amherst. And Amherst actually got me my start in local government. I worked for LSSE as a senior and it really changed how I wanted what career I wanted to go into. So I thank Amherst for that. And I was lucky enough to come back here after doing working for nearly three years for the city of Worcester in a similar capacity. I was actually their first public outreach coordinator, very large diversity of over 185,000 residents. And we were able to create brand new programming there, which my experience with that I'm really excited to bring some of those elements to Amherst. Some of the things that we're doing now in Amherst, we're trying to create those avenues of access to participate in town government and utilize our services better. We have a couple things on the horizon, a website redesign, trying to find different ways to engage with local students through civics. I'm actually currently a part time graduate student at the University of Massachusetts in public policy, where my focus is on digital governance. So we get to utilize some of those things that I'm learning at the University here as well. And we actually will be having an independent study graduate student aiding us in community participation work this spring semester. And we're really excited about that. Our chief goal, just jumping off of what Jennifer and Angela said is to make the town of Amherst approachable and accessible and inclusive to our diverse community. So we're excited to work with you. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments at this time? Yes, Darcy. I'm just interested to know how you're dividing up the responsibilities. I'd like to know who to call about what. Well, you should if you know. So it's it's early days. So we've just started to coordinate weekly meetings. So it hasn't been completely ironed out yet, but we will have an email that reaches all three of us as well as a phone number. From the big picture standpoint technology website wise, that's kind of more will be in my wheelhouse. So I can at least speak to that, but we are working on more clearly defining those. And if you ladies have anything to add, feel free. Jennifer and I can help with space for your meetings. And if you have great ideas about constituencies that we can help you with, I think Brianna, I think the three of us are ready to handle that test. Are there questions or comments? Indie jump. I was just thinking about answering Darcy's question. We haven't emailed that was sent to us get involved, which apparently they know we'll send if you want to reach any of our community officers. Just pointing that out. I could not hear that. Okay, I try to speak up. Is that better? Hello, can you hear me? Should I just type my response? I was thinking, can you try to say it again? Very loud. I think we can sort of hear you. Communication officers, the email would get in broad. Yeah, if you could repeat that. So Shalini, I'll repeat what I think we heard referencing the memo from Paul dated December 29, where to facilitate contact, we've established an email address that will reach all three officers. This email address is get involved at amherstma.gov. Is that correct? Yes, Dorothy. If one were having a community forum and wanted to do a Facebook event kind of page, is that something you would help with or should we go to the IT department? So the good thing again, Brianna Sunrid, the good thing is I am part of the IT department. So by going through us, you kind of get that service as well. So you would coordinate with the community participation officers. And if there's expertise we need to borrow from another department, we'll do that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Yes. Pat, I'm interested in finding finding out what you think keeps people from participating in our town government. And also, when I was in Boston, I led a parent leadership team and we had translators when we were in different communities. So here we have a Spanish translator. Are there other, will there be other opportunities, if necessary, to have a Cambodian translator or things like that? Thank you. We certainly look into that. Having done that previously, it depends on the meeting and the population, because if you are hiring people, it gets very expensive very quickly. And while the goal would be to have multiple translations at any meeting, that's kind of a hard part to achieve. Are there other questions or comments? Yes, Pat. I asked what they thought kept people from engaging in town now. Thank you. So we haven't made an exhaustive list of barriers to entry, but it is something that we've been thinking a lot about and we've identified a number of things that we feel are potential barriers to entry for participation. And I think that's our chief task. And I believe Angela. That's something to add. Angela Mills. So we actually brainstormed this a little bit today. And in terms of cross-pollination, it would be an undue burden for us to go to an organization that has volunteers and say, hey, we're looking for volunteers for all of these commissions and committees. So that is really the crux of our challenge. And it's a big boat, but we're happy to row it with you. So we are brainstorming that. Other comments, questions? Seen that. Then let me just say, Angela, Jennifer and Brianna, thank you very much. We really look forward to working with you. And as I think you know, we have already set up our own committee that which is dealing with communication, outreach and committee appointments. And we will want you to be working closely with that committee as well as all of us as counselors. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the Station Road Bridge replacement. And this is an item being introduced to the Council by the town. And there will be a period of public comment at the end of this particular part of the agenda. Mr. Brackham. Thank you, Lynn. I'm here with Superintendent of Public Works, Guilford Mooring, and he will be doing the major presentation. And while he sets that up, I'll give you a little background on this. So on September 20th, 2018, the Department of Public Works in consultation with the Mass Department of Transportation Bridge Team, Bridge Inspection Team, determined that the condition of Station Road Bridge was unsafe and closed the bridge to vehicular traffic. I am requesting an appropriation of $332,800. $162,800 would fund the engineering work that has been contracted to move the permitting and construction for both a temporary bridge and a permanent bridge forward. Roughly $170,000 would fund the construction and installation of a temporary bridge. Those funds would be appropriate from the town's road repair to the town's road repair account that is used to pave town roads and sidewalks. Additional funds, we're estimating this very early stage of about $1.2 million will be required to construct a permanent bridge if state funding is not forthcoming.  In terms of public outreach, we had a two public meetings, one on October 30th at the Fort River Elementary School and one on December 19th at the Banks Community Center. Both were very well attended by residents and people just concerned. And we have continued to, we have established a web page on the town's website to keep, to maintain communication with the public. The way we're looking at this is the key issue for the town council is two. One is you are the keepers of the public way. So what happens in the public way, which is a bridge is a public way, is really under your jurisdiction. The other is we need money to move this project forward. We have allocated some funds from an existing account that is usually dedicated to road and sidewalk paving because there is an urgency to move this project forward in my estimation. But we are also asking for an appropriation of funds. My request is to the council tonight is that it gets referred to your finance committee so we can go a little more in depth about the funding options and things like that. And if you're ready, but this is not showing. Here we go. So good evening, Madam President, council members. I've always wanted to say that, sorry. And I only have a couple of things I've never said and I'll probably work that in sometime in my life, I hope. So this is an update that the CDM, our camp dresser, Mickey Smith, our consulting engineers, provided to us. And it's just a quick overview of what's going on. I'm sorry I didn't come play with this computer before, but it's not kind of doing the same thing my computer was doing with the presentation. So this is the bridge. Project need, basically, as Mr. Buckleman said, on the 20th, we kind of went out there and decided we needed to close the bridge. The Master EOT inspector who was standing on the bridge on a car drove across it and hopped him. He agreed quite quickly that we needed to close the bridge and concurred with our findings. You can see there's a lot of corrosion on the bottom of the stringers. That's the part that's failing at this point. What's been done so far is just kind of a list of all the things we've done. We haven't been just waiting to see what was going to happen next. We have been working pretty diligently. The biggest things we have done is we have submitted an application to the Master EOT for their small bridge municipal program, which is to get money from the state to actually replace the bridge. The only issue with that amount of money is, is that's a reimbursement account. And you get reimbursed and you only get money from the date they approve the project. So until they approve the project, everything we spend on this project comes out of the town coffers and they will not reimburse this program. There may be other programs that might come into play, but at this time that's the only way this program works. We've also submitted the technical drawings and technical specifications we need to for a temporary bridge. And that's being reviewed by the DOT at this time as well. So when we first started out this project, we were looking at three options. Do not pay attention to the dates. This was very early in the process. CDM was working with me trying to figure out what the options were and what the cost would be for a temporary bridge. We kind of narrowed down this first one, a prefab cage structure, which was going to have the least impact to the wetlands and the resource area and the least impact to the actual roadway that was there. For the temporary bridge, we've worked our way through the items here. We have basically a foundation design. We have basically an allowable loading we can put on the foundation and we have a basic type of bridge we can accept without doing a lot of changes. Mass Highway, like I said, is reviewing that and we're hoping they'll approve us until we can go out to bid. So these are the type of bridges we've been looking at. These two at the bottom are basically what are sometimes referred to as Bailey bridges. They were designed during the Second World War as a temporary, fast, expedient bridge. The only issue with those is that you do raise the road surface up or you have to dig down deeper to put the bridge in. The safety box bridge, which is in the top right corner of the screen, my right corner, that bridge takes less space out of the existing roadway and take less space from the waterway below it. It's a little bit better design. This is our schedule we've been working on. Right now we do have a conservation commission meeting on Wednesday. So the NOI has been submitted. The conservation commission will start reviewing that. There is some other additional impacts or input into the conservation. Natural Heritage has to speak up about the endangered species that live there. We do have two endangered species that live in the area. So again, this is what our requirements are. Everything about this bridge is in critical habitat or in a resource area. It's just a bridge over a stream, which has got a lot of wetlands around it on both sides. So we're also working on the permanent design. The foundation for the permanent bridge is probably the biggest issue we're working on right now. We had a soil boring company out there and they drilled borings into the ground and took samples of the soil. The soil is nothing but silty clay sand, which has got 80 feet of that. There's no bedrock anywhere around to set the bridge on. So we have to come up with a type of design for the foundation, which is a little different from what most people do in Massachusetts. It's not different than what you do down south. It's basically the same foundation that I started out in my career. It's probably going to be a pile foundation on top of the sand to bear this load. But it is different than what they do in New England and it's different than what most people used to up here. The bridge will be longer. It has to be longer because it has to accommodate the stream crossing standards, which is what's been put in place to provide a better passing for the water and for the environmental critters that live in the stream and pass through the stream channels. We have a lot of ride-away issues we have to deal with. Basically, we've got to stay within the ride-away. We can't go outside. Conservation land on three sides and one side is what's called Watershed Protection Land. In order to use those lands, you have to go to the state and you have to get permission from the state. One is the legislature, one is the Department of Environmental Protection. So anything, tell them to go to the state that just slows the project down so if we stay within the ride-away, we'll be much better. And we think we've been able to do that. And then this is our schedule we're working on right now for the permanent bridge schedule. It's not as big as the temporary one because as we start getting into the more of the actual topics, we'll start expanding those out and having more tasks we have to do in those topics. But this is the basic outline of what we have to do for the permanent bridge. Again, lots of, we'll have to get back to the CONSCOM to get permitted for the permanent bridge. There'll be lots of additional requirements we have to have because we'll be working in the water. We'll be working in the home of one of those endangered species and we'll be working close to the habitat of one of those endangered species. So we'll have to deal with that. We'll also have to do some replication because we'll be taking some of the resource area. We'll have to find a place to do some type of replication and we'll also have to do some type of compensatory storage because we'll be widening the bridge out and we'll be filling what's the floodplain. We have to figure someplace else to accommodate that area we're filling for the floodplain. Those are the things beyond the bridge. It's not just a simple bridge you put in. You have to fit it into the environment that the bridge is in. This is right now the proposed temporary bridge plan and I'll skip this and go to the next presentation because I talked more about money which I think everyone's dying to know. Are there questions either first as clarifying and or specific to the presentation this far? I'm sorry Pat. When you say widening the bridge you have to have it closer. When you say widening the bridge out are you talking to expanding the two lane bridge or what? I turned myself off. Sorry. Mandy. This one's for me. You mentioned a national heritage review. Is that a federal government review and if so is that on hold until the document reopens? That's the state agency that does that review and they have already started and we expect to have some comments back soon. We've had a lot of experience doing stuff with natural heritage and they have a lot of experience with us and they know if they don't speak very quickly with us at times. They are already started. Dorothy. You said you would take some money from those funds. Would that money be replaced at some future date? I think the town manager will address that shortly after I finish with this. Andy. I had two questions and one was related to what was just asked and that is if there's any specific projects that were planned for this year from the road and sidewalk funds that will be done this year as a result of this change it would be helpful to know about that. And the second question is having worked with you on the bridge that's below Puffer's Pondam which is almost completed in it but in process how does that process that was used compared to the process we're engaging in here? Actually let me work that into my presentation here about how the process will go. Okay. Any other clarifying questions specific to the presentation this far? Yes. I have a request from Shalini. Shalini speak up please. Can you hear me? Yes. Yay. So the question was have we considered loaning a bridge from the state? Yes we have. So I'll go ahead and answer that question and that kind of goes back to the slide we had if we borrow a bridge from the state they have certain bridge types and that requires us to actually build up higher the road higher and put more impact into the actual resource area. So we've been trying to stay away from that and try to reduce the impact into the little site we're in. It's a very tight site. We have a water line on one side and there's actually a skew in the road and when I bring the picture back up that shows the layout of the temporary bridge you'll see this skew is pretty dramatic. If we use anything the state has like a maybe or a Bailey bridge you actually have to make it a good deal longer as a temporary bridge just because of the way it's designed to have a bunch of safety factors built into it. We end up with a 30 foot long bridge and the 30 foot long bridge would actually shoot you into a part would direct you, sorry not shoot you it would direct you as you're driving some people might shoot their car that way but it would direct your car into a wetland area and then you'd have to make a sharp adjustment to the left to get back on track and not go into the water. So from the alignment of the structure a longer bridge makes it a little more difficult and I'll show you in the picture and I'll point that out. Other questions at this time then let's go on with the next presentation. Okay this is what everybody sees when you go to the bridge now so we've broken the project I kind of broke the project cost down to reflect this is the permanent bridge cost here and in your memo you have an overall cost and as I went through I broke out the overall cost and I broke out some of the money because as you see in the town manager's memo he's kind of rounded numbers together and this is kind of more of an exact number and you can see where some of the rounding comes in but for the permanent cost we're looking at about $740,000 for the bridge and because we're so far out and constructing the design right now we have a very healthy contingency of 20% which is another $150,000 and then we have a mobilization demobilization charge usually that's inside the bid documents but this number we've pulled out because that's the way the consultant likes to do it is keep that separate but we expect to find that number in the bid when we bid it so we're looking at roughly $925,000 for the structure for the contractor to move on site take out whatever's there but whether it's the old bridge or whether it's a temporary bridge to actually relocate the waterline and to install the new bridge we're looking at as a possible cost right now just to put in the permanent bridge temporary bridge we're estimating to be about $170,000 we put a contingency cost on that one and a MOB cost on that one a D-MOB and this is roughly around $200,000 and that's what we've rounded it off in the town manager's memo so if we continue with the plan we're on now to do a temporary bridge then a permanent bridge we're looking at $1.3 as the being our total cost for this project if you round it off it's $1.4 so that's kind of where we're at right now we're below the number of $227,000 for engineering costs we're around $163,000 $164,000 right now that's basically the way we're doing the task orders to the engineer there'll be a final task order for the construction oversight we've worked with CDM a great deal they know what we're capable of some of the things we're able to do as far as inspections and onsite supervision as we move towards the type of structure we're building and we actually bid off the permanent structure we'll sit down together and we'll figure out what the town will oversee the consultant engineer will have to oversee for us so that number of $227,000 may go down because we may do more of that oversight as we've done in the past with projects with them but right now we're looking at $21.4 when we started this project out the rough estimate we had was $2.4 million and we've whittled a million dollars off so far and as we keep working this project we're hoping to get some more of our savings out of it but we're not going to see another million dollars with our savings we're talking about the next probably amount of savings will be either $100,000 or $200,000 at the most but this is how this has worked so I know you have my original memo where was the original and now we've kind of worked this down and as we work it down as we get closer and find out things and understand more what's going on soil exploration was probably one of the biggest things that we had to find out a lot about and we know a lot more now so that was a big unknown the wetlands issues we now completely understand those as well and we also understand the hydraulic issues the water flow through the channel as well so those were big answers that's the overall cost we're still on track with the schedule I just put this in again this is the same schedule I showed you earlier permanent bridge schedule if we keep going the way we're going we're hoping to be done by the end of August of 2020 the temporary bridge we're hoping to have in place mid April of this year if we keep going the way we're going and then this here is the alignment I was telling you about so as you see in the middle this is a little part right here is the bridge and that's the temporary bridge lined up that's to avoid kind of shooting off into the side over here into the water if you're coming from the east and to keep from having to relocate the water line now right now before the temporary bridge the water line is right here on the side of the bridge we're trying to not move that right now that would just delay installation of a temporary bridge but as you can see this blue dash line is your wetlands wetlands over here and then property ownership this side is conservation and then watershed land up here where Swarm was so that's the overall layout what the bridge will look like when we're done is a little like this bridge which is on East Leverett Road when we talk about widths of the bridge it will be two lanes so it will be two eleven foot lanes or two twelve foot lanes depending on what the state tells us to do the difference between this bridge and East Leverett Road if you want to look at it and the permanent bridge is there will be some type of shoulder there will be a four or five foot shoulder on each side so that's another possibly ten more feet have added space sidewalk is another issue we have to decide what the state will agree whether we put a sidewalk on the bridge state requirements is that you have two travel lanes two shoulders two sidewalks so we're going to have to apply for some waivers from the state hopefully you can wave out the sidewalks and just do shoulders on the side and then have the two travel lanes so that is Indy's question was about how this compares to how it is compared to the process in the Puffer's Pond bridge so the really great thing about how this compares to Puffer's Pond bridge is Puffer's Pond bridge was state money and a state project the state controlled that project from the start to the finish they came to the town and asked us if we want them to fix the bridge we said yes we want to fix it sort of like this and then they went off and hired an engineer they controlled the engineer they directed the engineer and now they're building the project and directing and controlling the project the amount of money the town has in that bridge project is less than about $10,000 because I did some changes to some storm drainage which actually made the project easier for them to design it and kept us from having a lot of extra pipe out there so that was totally managed by the state if we're approved by the municipal small bridge program we manage the project we drive the project if we get no money from the state and we have to pay for it with town money we manage the project we drive the project so we don't have to do a lot of stuff with the state except get their approval on the designs and once their approval is done on the design we can make things happen at the rate we want to make them happen so that's the two differences the state project on the middle street bridge was totally funded, totally managed by the state what we wanted to do is have them fund it to let us manage this project and no matter what we'll probably manage this project what's not going to get done right now if we're like I said we're like $160,000 into this project if we don't replenish that money back to the road repair funds that's money we can't use in the spring for doing pothole patching what we've been doing is taking money we receive it in the capital and we can try to keep 100 to 200,000 left over actually try to keep 200,000 left over so as soon as the asphalt plants open in the spring we can start patching roadways you cannot use chapter 90 money for patching the roadways you can only use chapter 90 money for actually doing overlays and repairs major repairs to your roadways so that $160,000 out of that account there's only probably about $50,000 left for pothole repairs in the spring additional questions I'm sorry Mandy Joe again this one's on from me a couple you just touched on one of them which was the $160,000 that is being spent or is a portion of the town manager's request is currently it has been taken from pothole repairing so I guess one of my questions is part of it is to the town manager is there anything of that $162,000 that hasn't been already contracted out such that if a temporary bridge if the council doesn't approve a temporary bridge is there any of that money that would not need sort of refunded to road repairs and I guess I've got a question on the permanent bridge timeline of the design on a temporary bridge is very quick but the permanent timeline had it quite long eight months and so what's the difference in that timeline as to why a permanent bridge design that's not the bid part because I understand that takes so much longer than the one that you've been working on for temporary so what's the difference is as I told you the task and the temporary bridge are already kind of exploded out this task for the permanent design is compressed it also has all the environmental permitting in it so as I told you before we're going to have a lot more environmental permitting in the permanent bridge because we're going to be in the water we're going to be taking resource area we're going to be impacting the flood plane so those are things we're not impacting those three things are not done in the temporary bridge so that's not something part of that permitting process but it is definitely part of the process that will be in the permanent bridge design so there's more environmental permitting which has been lumped in right now with the bridge design that's if you read that once that includes environmental permitting so there's three more tasks in environmental permitting that we're not doing for the temporary because we're not being required right now to do that and as for the funding so we have contracted you can help me how much I know how much we've contracted for but I'm not sure how much we've spent if we were to say if we were to say just stop everything now I'm not sure how much has actually been spent at this point in time maybe Guilford knows that but much of the work that's being done now will apply for either a temporary or a permanent bridge a lot of the environmental work applies to both so I don't know exactly how much we've spent in their last invoice to me the thing to do is look at the schedule so we won't have to do the finalize the plan for the bid we'll have to be able to stop talking to Mass DOT and there will be no advertisement no shop approvals and none of that stuff at the bottom of the project all that work will stop on the temporary bridge if you say stop the temporary bridge so there's probably about ten grand in there of that one sixty that is the detail probably towards that work and that's probably a low estimate but it's probably about ten grand Dorothy I don't know how much the Puffer's Pond bridge cost but I felt there was an implication when you were stressing that the town would be doing all the supervision that somehow you think you could do it cheaper is that correct there's no DOT employees there are we do do it cheaper if you talk to most communities when they build something with chapter 90 your town funds it does come out cheaper it's just there's a lot of oversight and a lot of protections and a lot of a lot of steps built into the Mass DOT project because the way the Mass DOT projects work we have protections we have oversight we don't do it to the extent they do it so there is some savings there we also we also can make the project go a little smoother because when there's a change that comes up it doesn't have to go all the way to the district office or doesn't have to go all the way to Boston to be approved it can be handled rather quickly it's normally handled in my office and that's as far as it has to go it usually is taken care of quickly so it doesn't drag on when you have larger projects like Mass DOT does they have more oversight and more the stuff built in and it's protect themselves and protect the state money on these bigger projects these are much smaller and we can move a little faster so yes we typically do save money Garcy is it possible to reuse or sell the temporary bridge once we're done with it it depends on what type of bridge we get and it depends also on how comfortable we feel the design of the permanent bridge if the temporary bridge comes in as a rental someone bids a rental and says we're going to rent you this bridge and the rental price is going to be within our budget we may just rent the bridge and then turn it back over to them and then we don't have a bridge we have to deal with if it comes in as a good price and we use the bridge we can turn around and try to use it again someplace else we do have bridges in the watershed area which they have to be approved by MAS DOT they have to be approved by the town we can possibly take one of those bridges out and replace it with this bridge there's all sorts of possibilities depending on what the bridge type is that we actually choose so yes there's a good possibility we can either reuse it or resell it it's going to be harder to resell than reuse Mindy Joe Kathy has a question Hi can you hear me okay yes in fact a little too loud okay and now we can whisper I couldn't see the slides as it was being described about sidewalks are the sidewalks issue only for the temporary bridge will the permanent bridge have sidewalks so the temporary bridge will only be one lane of traffic there will be no sidewalks on the bridge and no shoulders on the bridge because we don't want to change the width of the impact area we're hitting right now so the temporary bridge will just be big enough for traffic to go across trucks there will be no ability for tractor trailers to go across it some of the garbage trucks will not be able to go across it there might be a few landscapers who have really big trucks and long trailers who may not be able to go across it it will be able to accommodate passenger vehicle pickup truck small trailer on a pickup truck and an ambulance fire truck no fire truck other questions yes listen this is perhaps more for the town manager and I realize you indicated earlier you were looking to this have this referred to our brand new finance committee but could you give us a sense I believe I don't want to mistake but I believe that it was indicated that there would be no money for pothole repair in 2019 if we were to do this and I'd like to be clear on that and if so I would be happy to do that because it's obviously not impossible to figure out other ways to do that but I would like to know what our take away right now is we do this no pothole repairs in 2019 thank you for I should clarify that it's a really good question so we would take the money that we're already spending and then replenish the pothole account with free cash probably we have not gone to where the source would come it could come from stabilization free cash and that's a discussion we'd want to have with the finance committee as to where that money would come from so we would have a new infusion of money to make the pothole account whole basically I have a question and that is if you did not do the temporary bridge could you deliver on the permanent bridge faster so that was a new question I hadn't heard before and I was asked that earlier today and I sat down and started thinking about it a little bit but later is more than likely there's a lot of things you can do if you don't have a temporary bridge there once if a temporary bridge is not put in you could start realigning the water line or making accommodations to realign the water line now instead of waiting until the bridge construction starts someone else could do that those pieces if you were not to have a temporary demolition on some of the bridge although that would impact people who walk we haven't taken the bridge out now because we've been leaving it open for walkers and bicyclists so it would kind of depend you would be in a situation and it's an iffy situation you don't know really the answer right now the state could come back and say everything's okay with a permanent bridge and we can start bidding and we might go faster which I don't know if we really can or not it's a big if there could be things we could do we may not be able to do things even if we don't have a temporary bridge there it may just sit empty until we start construction in 2020 so it's kind of a hard question you need to know a little more we have to be farther along to know a definitive answer but if we're farther along than that we've pushed off the temporary bridge okay are there other questions from the council yes Evan so just for clarification the state funds that we've applied for any money we spend it's a reimbursement but any money we spend prior to receiving them if we do is on our own we would be reimbursed for correct that's correct do we have any idea timeline of when that funding decision may be made we do and we don't talking to the district office they're reviewing it now so they will have a very good idea of whether they would recommend it or not soon the question is is there doesn't seem to be much money or many of these grants being made right now it's supposed to be a revolving application and as the applications come in they look at it and then they fund them based on that so we haven't got a definitive answer from Boston about that so the state will know pretty soon what they want to do how they want to proceed and then they'll let us know and then we'll just have to see if they actually get money other questions yes Mendejo what's the life span of the permanent bridge I think of like cost of permanent versus the requested cost of the temporary here so what's the general lifespan of a permanent bridge that we're looking at and then the other question I had let me see if I can find it is let me start there so life span normally is 50 years so we normally build a bridge the last 50 years and then have some type of rehab that will give you another 50 years of life out of it we have many bridges in town which are well over 50 years and they're doing quite well the bridge on bridge road that had a small repair probably about 25 years ago I believe before I came here and the bridge is in very good condition so there's other bridges the bridge on west street has some minor issues with guardrails not with the structure of itself that was done in 80 85 cool thing about that bridge is there's only 8 pages to the plans I got a copy of those plans I was really excited there's only 8 pages there's probably going to be 100 pages in the bridge plans for this bridge and I'm going to be like really but anyhow but that bridge is still in good shape too so most of the bridges last definitely 50 years and then you go from there all if you have to I remembered my other question it relates to if we install a temporary bridge the timeline you're not so sure on a permanent bridge and we don't know about the grants so I guess my question relates to if the temporary bridge is installed does would that potentially last long enough or if we don't get a mass bridge grant this year to be able to wait and apply again in order to maybe fund again and keep that temporary bridge in place until we could potentially get funding even if it's in a year or two so that the permanent bridge maybe takes longer I hope you're getting where my question is going on that yes depending on the type of bridge is if you do back to the Bayley type mayberry type bridges their maintenance intensive but they can last a long time as you're always tightening bolts you have to tighten bolts, you have to inspect them make sure they don't get loose the other bridge is a one piece construction it's welded, it stays in place it's pretty much there until you take it out so there is the possibility that your temporary bridge could be there longer there are communities that have temporary bridges that still are in place there's one in Northampton when you go to the wildlife refuge over there in the meadows the name of it missing my brain right now it starts with an A Arcadia Arcadia David says yes there's actually a Bayley bridge over there that's been there since been there longer than I've been in this area for 21 years what would the exact savings be or close to the savings be if we did not do the temporary bridge right off the bat I would say you're going to at least save the 200,000 that we were asking for for that bridge other questions yes, Dorothy but that would mean a long period of time in which a fired engine could not go across the bridge is that correct a fire engine will not be able to go across the temporary bridge either so we would be in August 2020 before the bridge opens yes, Paul can I just address that because a number of people worried about the public safety and so the first thing we did when the DPW was thinking about closing the bridge was contact the police chief and the fire chief to say what is the impact on public safety and the police chief felt like there was minimal impact because they could get to wherever they needed to go anyway and the fire chief felt that they would they may take an alternate route to get to where they need to go often times if they're going to the neighborhood and Amherst Woods they might go up Belcher Town Road in that way anyway because they cannot go down southeast street because of the overpasses the trucks cannot get underneath the overpasses if one of the concerns from many people was well if I need to get to Cooley Dickinson fast station road they know for a fact and everybody knows it's fastest to go down station road which is true when I raised that issue with the fire chief his response was the most important time increment you want to look at is how long it takes us to get to the patient because he says we have a virtual emergency room on wheels having a paramedic at the side of a patient that needs support and there is the most important increment and the biggest thing that impacts that is actually traffic in the time of day as opposed to the actual route because they can get pretty much anywhere pretty quickly additional questions from the council yes bandit and at one of the first public meetings you talked about a bridge on the station road it was Pomeroy road or Pomeroy court that is also potentially being watched for closure and I know this doesn't really relate to the station road bridge per se but is that on the actual main Pomeroy road or was it on the court because I guess I'm thinking about if that one's close to potentially being closed and we put a temporary bridge in you're still not getting your traffic so it is the bridge on Pomeroy road not Pomeroy court it's actually we're watching it not because of a bridge issue we've actually been trying to figure out how to replace the bridge for sidewalk so we can connect the sidewalk which goes from the south common to the Pomeroy village center so we've been watching the bridge and we've been trying to get the state to look at it more because we want to replace it for sidewalks and I forgot that piece when I was at the meeting but my town engineer reminded me that that's the reason why we're watching that bridge we're trying to push that one for a sidewalk project more than anything else so it's still it's been inspected recently it's okay and it's the state actually put it on their small bridge municipal small bridge inspection list and it's still being looked at but that one we're pushing on more because we want to put sidewalks and connect that so it's not a structural problem with the bridge two questions if we put a one lane bridge in here is it correct to assume that we would have stop lights or something at either side of the bridge the consultant is proposing that we use stop signs I see and the line of sight is sufficient it will be we will back up if you so the stop line will be here and the stop line will be here so you're getting pushed pretty far back from the bridge where you have to stop and let another car go across I'm not sure Mass Highway is going to agree to that but that's what we're proposing right now the second question is if we put a temporary bridge and do we damage our chances of getting the state money for the small bridge program originally I thought we might damage our chances for that but since the program doesn't seem to be on a continuous rolling basis people submitting things and constant review going on it doesn't seem to be happening I don't think we're going to damage our chances as much there's a possibility we'll know sooner I think there will actually be a damage to our possibilities if we put the temporary bridge in in the proposal for the temporary bridge actually for the permanent bridge for the small bridge program did you calculate into that reimbursement for our labor since we would be overseeing that and doing the work if we actually end up doing a lot of that work so it is reimbursable and is in the numbers if we decided to just contract it out it's all covered in those numbers as well okay thank you other questions from the council yes Mandy Jo just a quick one if we get in the small bridge program what's the percentage of cost they cover is it 100% of after approval or is it some lesser percentage usually it's 100% of what they approve the question is what do they approve it's much like the school projects we've been talking about in the past where they won't fund a pool so if we come up with something we want to add on to this bridge which they don't think is necessary they may not fund that piece to it it's highly unlikely that we'll come up with something like that although I've been told there used to be a diving board on this bridge and that we should historically recreate the diving board they would probably not pay for the diving board but they would have to do that so that's the that's where you're at in this program yes Mandy Jo and this one Shalini has a question Shalini please yeah this is Shalini so what would be the increased time for an ambulance to go from the house to a hospital like a base data Cooley Dickinson if you didn't have a temporary bridge this is Paul Shalini I don't have an increased in time increment exactly so I don't know the answer to that question again when I talk to the fire chief about it he says sometimes they would choose to use station roads sometimes they might choose to use a different road depending on where they were going in the traffic patterns but I don't have an answer to your question okay thank you for other questions from the council alright let me just ask for a show of hands of those people from the audience who would like to speak to this issue only I see two, three four is there anybody else okay have you all registered if you have not please make sure that before I call you up you do register and you'll come up you'll sit at one of the mics make sure the mic is on we'd like to have you contain your remarks to no more than three minutes and if the person before you has already made the point we ask that you respect your time as well as ours and move on to any new points you would like to make may I have the first person come on up sure please both of you alright so I'm Martha Hanner I live at 18 Ellison Drive in Amherst so I am in the area of South Amherst that is impacted just want to say that this closure of Station Road is a big impact on the whole traffic flow in the South Amherst area when you stop and think that Station Road is the only direct east road in between east west road in between the town center and Bay Road way down at the south end of Amherst and so we really do feel the urgency to get a temporary bridge in just as soon as possible local businesses are also impacted I've spoken with several everyone that makes deliveries is concerned because they are having to pay their employees extra time to drive around the detours and making deliveries and we are concerned about hazardous conditions on these detour secondary roads during wintertime as well so we would like to request certainly that the council approve the temporary bridge we'd also like to request that the council help to expedite any areas that are under your control such as approving the funding or working with our local conservation committee to expedite things so that the proposal for the temporary bridge can go out to bid and get the contractor and get to work just as soon as possible thank you thank you Ms. Hammer I'm Peter Berick I live at 87 Woodlott Road like Martha I'm in one of the areas that's most affected by the absence of being able to get across Hopbrook on station road I don't want to repeat what Martha has already said I think she said it very well at the I want to thank Guildford mooring and Paul Backelman for the priority with which they have been presenting information about both stages of the bridge project and I hope you find that helpful to you and your deliberations at the meeting on December 19th the engineers from CDM Smith spoke about the possibility that a permanent bridge design could be done in such a way it could be built in such a way so that the temporary bridge could remain in place while the bridge phase of the permanent bridge was constructed and then removed after it was possible to use the permanent bridge use half of the permanent bridge I'm wondering whether that plan is still in the work so whether there is any possibility of avoiding that five month period with no bridge at all once the construction starts for a permanent bridge thank you the other people that would like to comment yes back way back here on the to my right young man please come forward I would just like to remind everyone that the fire chief and police chief said that there isn't any safety impact to having station road closed and because of that we shouldn't really worry about that issue thank you and your name sir oh Julian Heinz 54 high street thank you another there was one other comment yes I've met a resident of 10 poets corner in East Amherst for since 2001 and I really appreciate this input this evening about the appropriation of sidewalk finances if they would be taken away in this case to support any changes that may be needed in this case for the new bridge or for the bridge I have become increasingly concerned and have started an informal needs assessment in my neighborhood of the landlords and residents and students in the landlord properties concerning the safety issues of the sidewalk that goes specifically from the intersection of main street southeast street northeast street down to ward street across from the Amethyst Brook the lack of lighting is dangerous the lack of cut through into the earth that goes along the sidewalks and the gravel that has not been removed I don't use a car so I have been accustomed to this now for the last eight months where I'm on foot and I see the issues that are not safe so as a course of public way Mr. Bulkerman referred to and my own safety I will walk home tonight it's 1.6 miles and part of it is in the dark this is an area that I would like to see the town looking into coincidentally it did come up this evening I thank you very much were there any other comments this is where I very briefly am going to try to summarize and then ask for an action obviously this is an issue of serious importance to many residents of our town and we have had a number of opportunities where both the town manager and Yolford have been available and made presentations they will also be available to the finance committee as they do further deliberations and perhaps some of these additional questions might be forwarded at that time obviously the question before the council is whether or not to build a temporary bridge or move directly to a permanent bridge what is the cost of that and what are the tradeoffs in terms of what else we might not be able to do as a town with that I'd like to ask a council member to make the following motion to refer the question of the station road bridge replacement to the finance committee and ask that they review the matter as expeditiously as possible and return to the council on January 28th 2019 with a recommendation for action regarding this matter do I hear a motion Mandy Jo so moved because it's too long to repeat it by memory that's fine second Pat so that was Mandy Jo made the motion and Pat seconded it this is the first of our is there any other discussion at this time regarding the motion if not then we yes I'm sorry just to clarify the motion requires that the finance committee submit its recommendation by our next meeting yes any other clarification questions all right so we have to do a roll call and I will ask the town clerk to conduct that roll call if you could let's do the first two people that are remote so that we make sure that happens councilor ball mill yes councilor Shane yes councilor Brewer d'Angeles councilor Dumont yes councilor Grismer yes councilor Hanneke yes councilor Pam councilor Ross yes councilor Ryan councilor Schreiber yes councilor Steinberg yes councilor Swartz yes unanimous the vote is unanimous and thank you very much for those of you that have been here for that part of the meeting do you want to break okay we're going to make take a brief very brief five minute break and come back okay can you confirm yes thank you and council ball moon yes thank you we're going to move on to the energy and climate resilience committee this is a proposed committee and in this case we're actually going to begin this being introduced by two councillors Darcy Dumont and Evan Ross they have worked countless hours to bring this to us this evening and I can attest to that because a couple times I actually sat and worked with them so we'll begin with their presentation about the proposed committee and then Mr. Bachman will introduce some town presentations as well and then we'll go through a similar process to what we've done here which is questions and so forth from the council and then eventually audience participation so Darcy thank you I'm pleased to be introducing my first piece of legislation which you can see in your packets the motion and committee charge of an Amherst energy and climate resilience committee which I've worked on in collaboration with Evan Ross as opposed to councillor Ross a sustainability committee for Amherst it's been on the drawing board for more than a year now and the new town council has been looking forward to forming such a committee as a very exciting and positive act of unity in the new year it's been very gratifying to work with a council president town manager and town staff who deeply understand the importance of prioritizing climate action as we all know climate change is a global emergency this year we've had major wake up calls reminding us that we need to act locally and we need to act now to curb its long lasting and devastating effects the 2018 UN international panel on climate change report underlined the impacts of exceeding global warming of one and a half degrees of climate change to integrate above pre-industrial levels the report says in the starkest possible terms that humans have at most 12 years to fix their addiction to fossil fuels and drastically reduce carbon emissions if we're to have any chance of staying below that goal it's very exciting that almost 50 members of congress including our own congressman Jim McGovern have signed on a green new deal an aggressive new jobs program to move the United States to a renewable energy economy within 10 years however it's unlikely that a green new deal bill will be passed by the current congress or signed by the president in action at the state and federal level on bold climate proposals highlights a need for local action Amherst has a history of recognizing a challenge presented by climate change and the town will be providing a presentation about the sustainability initiative it has spearheaded over the last two decades so though the town has accomplished much we do have a long way to achieve our ambitious climate action goals over the past six years I've been volunteering around the state working to get climate action going I've worked closely with climate action now mothers out front, the Sierra Club environment mass and top legislative leaders on moving climate action forward this has allowed me to meet other advocates from all over the state and to find out what those advocates are doing in their communities what I've found out is that Amherst has some catching up to do for example Watertown is the first town in Massachusetts to require solar on new commercial buildings Salem, Newton and Framingham are some of the towns putting solar on municipal buildings and parking lots Newton is on track to supply almost half of its energy locally on schools, libraries and other municipal land and buildings our own UMass now has solar canopies on two parking lots and panels on buildings some towns are transitioning their fleets to electric Lowell has three wind power facilities in addition to its nine public solar facilities over 140 municipalities have authorized community choice energy with many of those choosing to green their supply through the purchase of more renewable energy Cambridge is one of the most bike friendly cities in the country Northampton has implemented a program called Button Up Northampton where volunteers canvass door to door to educate homeowners and renters about energy efficiency and conservation and how to transition to the use of heat pumps at low cost under a green communities grant communities that have the most vibrant programs have a combination of these three elements a motivated mayor or town manager a sustainability director or manager and a citizen driven climate action or sustainability committee Amherst needs to join these cities and towns by establishing itself as a municipal energy and climate leader and by doing it now let's not delay let's make this discussion the last step in the process that will result in a vote on January 28 in support of a new committee that will drive climate action and Amherst Evan. Thank you. Thank you Darcy for your comments highlighting the important need for this committee and providing some of the larger context in which we begin this discussion I'll use my time instead to speak to the process through which we came to this committee the focus and scope of the committee and also my hope for how we might proceed. So the draft in your packet as Darcy mentioned is the end result of a long process that began prior to this council being seated such a committee has been suggested by our town manager and town staff long before counselor Darcy and I picked it up and I want to thank them for their efforts and their commitment to making Amherst a more environmentally sustainable place the current charge though further represents countless hours of work by several players over the past month counselor DuMont and I have revised and refined this proposal together with each successive draft substantially different from the previous we also met with our council president several times our town manager our assistant town manager and our sustainability coordinator in every meeting each collaborator came with their own vision of what this committee should do and should look like and we worked to find common ground and produce a proposal that included everyone's ideas and intent to a practical practical extent the result is a proposal that looks different from certainly different from the original draft that Darcy and I promulgated and also different from the proposal that time manager Bachman put before the select board I believe last February so as such this charge is the result of negotiation collaboration and compromise and I'm proud of the work that went into it and the process through which we arrived at it I also want to speak to the focus and scope of this committee I believe the scope and focus of this committee fits our current moment in the past Darcy mentioned several reports but in the past two weeks the administration released two other fairly groundbreaking reports one is the Massachusetts comprehensive energy plan and the other is the lengthy two-volume report released by the commission on the future of transportation and these two reports set some fairly ambitious climate and energy recommendations for the Commonwealth above them I'll just read a few quote to promote fuel switching in the thermal sector from more expensive higher carbon fuels to lower cost lower carbon fuels quote address the split incentive this is going to be particularly important here between landlords and renters for investments in energy efficiency quote enable and promote a ubiquitous electric charging infrastructure and quote make all current and future critical state and municipal transportation infrastructure resilient to a changing climate meeting these goals necessarily requires action at both the state and the local level and necessitates municipal planning prioritization this committee with its focus on climate mitigation and building climate resilience will help establish the necessary structural support for Amish to partner with the state to play its requisite part in moving the Commonwealth towards these goals second the climate focus charge of this committee provides the body with a clear mission and trajectory forward while sustainability is an off to use buzzword its borderless nature means that it can be difficult for the public to conceptualize an end goal for sustainability that makes long-term planning prioritization difficult and also makes leaves us susceptible to miss prioritizing and losing focus someone who's worked for years in some capacity and environmental protection and conservation I've often felt the frustration of a public that is enamored with contemporary sustainability fads at the expense of more important but sometimes unglamorous work with a focus charge that commits this committee in assisting the town towards a carbon neutrality goal and with a complimentary focus on building our town's resilience to climate change the public will see not only the means of the committee but also the ends to which the committee is working and understand how these actions fit into a larger path forward I believe this focus mission is important and would caution against diluting it finally I also want to emphasize that while the scope of simply climate and energy may seem narrow at the surface the work of this committee will be anything but because so much of our society is tied to the combustion of fossil fuels and because so many aspects of our town affairs will be impacted by climate change the charge of this committee permeates throughout the various sectors of town climate mitigation is more than just solar panels it also requires tackling demand and tackling our transportation and building paradigms climate resilience is even broader it involves questions like can our storm water infrastructure handle a future with more intense precipitation can our farming community adjust to more erratic climate and changing climate zones can our vulnerable populations withstand increased cooling costs from more persistent and frequent heat waves so in many ways this committee's charge extends beyond the traditional definitions of sustainability and necessarily incorporates all sectors and communities of our town it also means that this charge above this committee is a heavy lift and it will require a committee that is proactive focused well-inquipped and inclusive last I just want to give my hopes for moving forward putting together this charge has been an exciting laborious process as I mentioned earlier all sides made concessions and I believe we have crafted a charge that finds a good balance between being prescriptive yet flexible ambitious yet rational oriented yet prudent so tonight's discussion I hope will serve as this final step I'm looking forward to hearing comments from my colleagues who have had a chance to read through this and also from the public so that we can take on board those comments make some final revisions and bring back an amended charge for a vote next meeting so I thank you and I look forward to hearing your comments and also fielding any questions that you have regarding this charge okay so I will go on and have the town make their presentation but thank you both Darcy and Evan for your comments and your introduction of this very important issue Mr. Bachmann. Thank you. Well we are all the town so town staff make this presentation and I appreciate the two counselors very thoughtful and articulate remarks for bringing it to the public nearly a year ago this issue came up and the select board began to consider it the change of government recognized it was a pretty large undertaking by the town and felt it was inappropriate for the select board at that time to take it on as a major commitment from the town in anticipation of the change of government so I'm really thrilled that it's come back up as one of the first major initiative of the town council it's really important for the town council Darcy talked about different roles but I think for our community the town council weighing in debating considering this initiative is probably the most important thing you are the elected leaders of the community you're the ones who have to set the standard and the goals for where you want the town to go staff is charged with making working to make sure we can get there our job with you is to say what's achievable your job is to say this is the direction we want to go we look forward to your direction if you agree this is the direction you'd like the town to go in I'm not going to talk anymore because we have our assistant town manager David Zomac our sustainability coordinator Stephanie Ciccarello here and we just have a few slides that we want to go through to give some background on where we've been so you know as you start to consider where we should be going Thank you Thank you very much I'm Dave Zomac I'm the assistant town manager I also have as part of my title the director of conservation and development I think that's very appropriate to just mention tonight because many of the departments within the town that are involved with planning master plan efforts inspections and building in town as well as conservation and sustainability are all housed in the doors behind us here to the south of this building on the second floor and all of those staff members including Stephanie and myself all collaborate together so I think that's kind of a theme that what Stephanie does and what we're talking about tonight really as mentioned earlier by the two council members needs to be infused and part of everything we do in town I'm joined this evening by Stephanie Ciccarello Stephanie has worked for the town for many many years in conservation and in 2016 her position was made full time and given the title of sustainability coordinator prior to that she worked on a number of different initiatives as our wetlands administrator I'll let her talk about the various things that initiatives that she's been involved with through the years she's well known and respected by her colleagues here in the valley as well as in the Commonwealth and as I said before where Stephanie sits within planning within inspections affords her the opportunity to work with staff engineers and DPWs our schools our facilities department as well as various local and regional energy and sustainability related nonprofits and groups so we're looking forward to working with all of you we're looking forward to working with the many people behind us that support these efforts and many people at home we're excited about this initiative and with that I think I'll turn it over to Stephanie so she can talk more specifically about what we've done and where we hope to work with you good evening Council President and Council members particularly thank you Council members Dumont and Ross for your work on this initiative I'd like to just go over a history of the work that at least I've been involved in since I've been with the town since 1997 the work that I began doing on this initiative was probably starting in around 2000 the town of Amherst made a commitment to an organization called ICLEI local governments for sustainability the name used to be an acronym for something but now it's just kind of an odd name but they have a wonderful program called the cities for climate protection program which launched us into looking at our greenhouse gas emissions and looking at the issue of climate change and part of the charge when the the town convened an ad hoc committee the task force committee one of the charges was to put together a climate action plan so the action plan was released in 2005 and what we discovered was that really our emissions if you look at our 1997 is our baseline year for that greenhouse gas emissions inventory that was done most of the of the emissions this is like the entire community so including town government institutions industry the government portion was fairly small compared to the community at large the community sector as I said is here represents residential, commercial, industrial of course industrial we have very little so it's a very very small portion but the largest piece of our pie here is actually the commercial includes the institutions of higher education the town shifted its focus in 2012 when the green communities program became available in the state green communities program launched in 2010 and it was an opportunity for communities to focus on the municipal side and energy efficiency but it came with funding tied to it so that communities were able to receive the chance to actually implement energy efficiency projects and this was a real game changer actually for many communities within the commonwealth because when you create these climate action plans and you identify these initiatives they of course come very often with a price tag so this was an opportunity for the town to get funding to actually do some of these efficiency projects which ultimately although it's focused on energy efficiency really is moving towards the green house gas emissions because that is one of the primary ways in which we deal with reducing our green house gas emissions is to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy usage so one of our very first projects in the first grant that we got was for an LED streetlight retrofit and the total project cost for this was about half a million dollars with the green communities funding we got 302,000 for our very first grant and then tied to the utility incentive nearly three quarters of the project cost was covered either in green communities grant funding and with the utility incentive funding so that the town portion although seeming fairly sizable we were able to do a project that actually yield a pretty fairly quick return on investment because the estimated cost savings was roughly about 48,000 once the project was implemented so the emissions are important but also one of the things about the green communities program that has been really a driver for a lot of communities is the fact that it's also tied with cost savings as well in addition to energy savings we used 2011 as our baseline year for the environmental I'm sorry the energy reduction plan that we created as part of the green communities application that is a the green communities application is really a five milestone or five five milestone process that you have to basically achieve in order to to become a green community so one of those things was to create to pass the stretch energy code and another was to create an energy reduction plan so the five year energy reduction plan used 2011 as our baseline year and when we looked at our we created a new greenhouse gas emissions inventory in 2017 we used 2011 as our baseline year and then compared it to 2016 and we saw that when we looked at the community wide greenhouse gas emissions really we really hadn't seen any change in the community wide sector whereas when we look at the municipal greenhouse gas emissions we did see some some fairly sizable reduction but again we're looking at a heavy lift with greenhouse gas emissions reductions because it's not enough to just say well look we're doing this and that's great we really need to continue and when we look at what's kind of not even nationwide but even globally the bar is higher now we're looking more at carbon neutrality it used to be just to sort of reduce our emissions by a certain percentage by a certain year really a big a big lofty goal now is to really try to achieve carbon neutrality so as I mentioned the municipal reductions between FY 2011 2016 were fairly sizable but if we're looking at carbon neutrality you know that's a much loftier goal if that is the direction we go in and those kinds of projections are still something that really need to be examined and looked at so as this council makes their decision and creates a committee and the committee moves forward these are things that we have to consider what would be our target what would be our year for our target and these are things that we'd have to look at so this is a very quick a summary slide a quick thumbnail of what are some of the more major initiatives that have been implemented since 2000 the year 2000 when we really started work in earnest on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and the town pretty much focused on partnerships and programs with the utility with other nonprofits and we looked at our municipal our municipal efficiency are the things that we actually implemented through green communities and other specific projects so these are the projects that have been driven the solar landfill I will mention it because it has not gone away that project really is moving forward we're making progress we're just about to fully execute our purchase agreement so we're very excited to see that project continue in the transportation sector we've had a number of initiatives as mentioned greening the fleet is certainly something that we would strive to do and we've purchased two electric vehicles we've installed three dual head electric vehicle charging stations and as many of you I hope have noticed over this past year we launched valley bike share which has now given us a bike share program where people can actually use bicycles which are electric assist bicycles to help them with some of their short quick errands instead of getting in a vehicle and driving and we are noticing that actually Amherst has been one of the largest users of the entire network in the valley because of UMass a lot of the students are actually using heavily using this program so that's really exciting for us and I think for our community and speaks a lot to what we're doing and then when we look at you know sort of your role in the bylaw and resolutions that we've had over time since 2000 several of these initiatives have been this legislation has been passed within the community that has moved you know moved us forward to these goals some of them have been town driven some of them have been driven by advocacy groups and some of them by individual residents so there are initiatives that really have been moving us in the direction but again as mentioned you know we still have a ways to go and when I started this work back in 2000 the predictions of where we would be with climate change there were you know there were sort of you know the best case scenario the medium case scenario and then the worst case scenario sadly we're at a worst case scenario in time and so we're we're really at a point where we need to look forward and do things more aggressively because this does have a direct impact on the residents and our community and we look forward to working with you and moving this work forward we're going to move now to the council discussion and while I I'm sure there's additional questions about what any of the speakers have made or any of the programs going on with the town I'm going to imagine that most of the conversation will be around the actual draft for the committee charge but counselors please your questions your points of clarification Mandy Joe I'll start the title of the committee is energy and climate resilience and in doing a whole bunch of reading that you guys thank you for providing all of those links about the issue it seemed to me in reading the charge that there wasn't a lot of resilience in the charge so can you speak to there weren't goals of resilience that the committee has to come back with it was in there as you can if you want for the resilience part the part of say dealing with stormwater drainage as you mentioned Evan or if there's excess water the agriculture part which for this town is huge if we're going to get 60 some inches of rain every year like we just did that's a some sort of thing we're going to have to deal with in this town and in the charges as much as the title implied so can you talk to you know can you talk about where that would be and what the thoughts are on that I could start off on that the charge does mention in addition to climate mitigation adaptation so I think we wanted to include that in the title it is also a concept that comes out is referred to repeatedly in climate community choice energy as one of the benefits and that is a direction that we hope that we're going in so and we did hear that some counselors were confused about whether it meant the climate is being resilient but that is not what it means so do you have more to add to that Evan Evan yes so resilience really there are no resilience goals and my short answer to that is I'm not quite sure what specific resilience goals would look like whereas it's fairly easy to say emissions are something that are calculable and you can say okay we want emissions reductions at this percentage or at this rate percentage of energy supplied by renewables that's something that you can actually set a goal for resilience is a bit harder I would argue that resilience is I may take this statement back after I say it but that resilience is less goal setting and more planning and so looking at the charge resilience really appears in two places one would be 3B which is that the purpose of the committee would be in part to recommend to either the town council or the town manager whoever has jurisdiction actions to implement anything that builds climate resilience and so the assumption being that some of what the committee would do would be to work on mitigation but it would also be recommending policies programs that would also work towards resilience the other part of that would be under 5A which is plan and prioritize cross sector efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience so the word resilience may seem like it does not appear that often in the charge but it is tied to what I would argue about the significant actions of the committee which is one promulgating new policies and programs that it would recommend and two sort of long-term planning at this stage I think that the planning is probably a bigger part of resilience and something could come after that and perhaps our sustainability coordinator can speak a bit more to what that looks like and I think that would be the first step for what they have done for resilience planning but that would be the first step before you could really set any type of goals whereas we already have a 2005 climate action plan that talked about emissions reduction so a lot of that ground work has already been done Questions? Yes Steve So Madam President Lynn had asked us to send her individual comments so I thought that I might share the first I think that kudos, I mean I think this committee is very much needed and so really my concerns are not so much about the need for such a committee but some other issues namely there's a staggering list of boards and committees in Amherst some are required by master law, some are required by the charter so really the coordination with those other committees so a lot of what you're describing regarding resilience is planning and we have a planning board who is also very focused on these issues within its jurisdiction so how so I guess I become concerned about boards and committees that are perhaps even working at odds with each other are working not coordinated with each other so one of the suggestions I had forwarded to Lynn was of the membership perhaps some of those members should be members people who are on other committees so we have two counselors proposed and then seven others but perhaps some of those seven others can be say a representative from the blank the other one were sort of nitpicky comments so a lot of green house gas concerns have to do obviously with architecture with buildings and so you would address that with nets or buildings and energy retrofids but there's a bigger part to the puzzle which is people that can understand sort of the community applications of all of this so one can connect the dots between say net zero buildings because there's a upside to net zero buildings on a downside downside that it favors certain kinds of sites in certain kinds of buildings so not every building is easy to be net zero energy, net zero water but someone who can sort of help the committee evaluate what the holistic goals for the community are I think are very important in choosing membership and so maybe one last comment before I before I forget what I had written to you was it's not clear who actually chooses the members so we say that these shall be the members but I don't think it says anywhere or maybe I missed it who the appointing authority is there you go council, okay I stand corrected that's why I said that Andy well first of all I want to thank the counselors who worked so hard on putting this together and getting us started in this conversation in its newest chapter as a member of the select board I was one of the people who was involved in this discussion quite a bit over the past year and was part of the decision to say this is really too big for the select board to responsibly make the step for the town and to postpone it until we had a council and I'm pleased we're here and I'm pleased we're taking it up as a first issue there were several observations that I made about it and I hope that we can keep moving on this and so my observations are meant to stimulate the discussion in the next stage so that we can still come back and on the schedule that we're talking about and get this done one is that reading the draft of the charge committee charge and comparing it to all of the other committee charges that I have worked with over the years in my various capacities with the town this is by far the most detailed and specific of committee charges that I think that I have seen and we all received a compendium of current committee charges that was put together by select board chair Slaughter for us to consider and in comparing those I think that you'll be able to understand what I'm meaning by that one of the reasons to not be overly specific in a charge is you don't want to be too prescriptive for a committee as far as what its duties are and you don't want to set up a committee charge that needs to be constantly reviewed and revised it's something that needs to have a living capacity to it so that's issue number one issue number two is that in my role as a select board member we had leisons to committee and I was leison to the recycling and refuse management committee and that committee was doing a lot of very good thinking and good work around issues that also relate to sustainability and they have put forth a refuse management plan that is in need of a lot of work towards implementation and I've learned a lot about that about the whole role of committees working towards implementation through my work with that committee the problem that I see coming forward is that I don't want to see the two committees competing with each other and I don't want to see the committees by being two committees eating up resources as Steve said a couple minutes ago we have an awful lot of committees in this town and the original thought was to have a sustainability committee that would contain both of these issues and the reasoning and the thinking behind that was not to create yet another committee that requires more staff time and more of our time as a council to oversee yet another committee but to try and revise the committee and expand the committee's goal and role and that thought process has been lost in this and if we did this then the question comes in as what happens with the goal for the refuse management plan and then the final thing that I wanted to just touch on is that we talked about the carbon neutrality as a goal is an end goal and I'm not sure where that sits and that was similar to something that came up with the refuse management plan was zero waste the goal in an aspirational sense in other words we wanted to work towards it and get as close to achieving zero waste or did we believe we really could achieve zero waste and I think that the same thing applies when you talk about carbon neutrality and it's just something that we need to clarify because the impact on the town on our residents on our institutions and on our businesses is tremendous if we put forward requirements through implement trying to implement a goal that's an absolute goal that have a high cost on them and I'm a little bit nervous because we would be doing this as a matter of adopting a committee charge as opposed to the much more complex process of adopting a bylaw and there hasn't been the opportunity for community discussion and input on what the benefits are of this goal and what on the other hand might be the costs so I hope that in the next few weeks as we assign this to a committee that that committee can sort of explore some of these questions Yes, Mandy Joe. There are requests from both Kathy and Shalini to speak. Kathy? I'm just is my voice the right volume? This is Kathy. Speak lower. I don't want to come across this Okay. I want to build on some of the comments on the need to be thinking cross sector and cross our committees is attempting to do and it's quite exciting the talking about emissions one of the slides talked about how much of it comes from cars and transportation and buses and we don't really have a cross cutting set of planning issues around roads and around development that says what if we could get out of our cars and be walking more or be riding in electric buses or have sidewalks where people could get back and forth to school a vision of not using cars or using electric buses and I think trying to weave a few of these in linking committees would be very helpful because they tend to act in silos so I think I'll just stop there because it is this sense of not it's not so much that we have lots of committees but the committees don't talk to each other and come up with an overall vision and I think it's really important and I might just mention I'm calling in from an old European city and what I'm struck with is the number of people who are walking vehicles and taking buses and cars just aren't there and the air is cleaner you can really sense how much the emissions that are coming that would normally be coming out just aren't there and I'll stop there Thank you Shalini Shalini make sure you're off mute Oh yes, okay Is my sound okay? Yes I'm continuing with this theme of the intersectionality and so what I would like to see more of in the proposal is how are we going from the goals well firstly the goals to expand them to include the different dimensions such as social, economic, cultural environmental or whatever way we decide because when you think of resilience again it's cross-sectional and it's impacting different aspects of our town so the goals need to reflect that and as an example if we had transportation as one of the areas where we set our goals as Kathy also mentioned that would determine it would influence our funding priorities as well if that in these is our goal so instead of where do we put our money do we first fix the potholes or do we ensure that we have bike lanes and sidewalks so just making sure that we are thinking broadly what our goals are in terms of resilience and then to get from our goals to the outcomes I'm seeing there are programs and policies what I'm not seeing is strategies or the strategic vision to lay that out more clearly so that again we are including all the different sectors including all the different communities the vulnerable populations and the different sectors so having more of a comprehensive plan and a roadmap that takes us from our goals to the end and then the programs and policies become more the action items rather than the strategic vision and the third part of that is in terms of the membership of the committee because it's impacting different cross sections of our community including the different committees that already exist transportation businesses UMass being a big contributor or businesses to have their buy-in and to understand the unique challenges that each stakeholder or each community is encountering I feel the representation in this particular committee should take into account all these different voices and their perspectives thank you other councillors yes, Evan just to lightly respond to some of just to point out a few things so 5B and C has to do with the committee working alongside relevant multiple member bodies and also coordinate 5C the text is coordinate with other multiple member bodies Tom departments, businesses and residents regional organizations and the university of colleges university and colleges with the intent there being to have some of that interaction between committees that councillor that Kathy suggested and also get at that intersectionality that Shalini brought up also just to point out 4B in the conduct of its work the committee may propose and incentives I believe that speaks perhaps a little bit to what Shalini brought up about going beyond programs and policies and looking at strategy and that's specifically looking at strategy to overcome some of the many barriers to implementation that we may find financial and otherwise other comments Darcy I just like to add to that that the town is already engaged in a process called vulnerability assessment and it will be conducting getting community input on our vulnerability to climate impacts maybe you could talk about that a little bit Stephanie yes the town received a grant this was a pre-charter effort where the town secured a grant through the state for technical assistance to participate in the municipal vulnerability preparedness program this is kind of a very formulaic program where communities across the Commonwealth are encouraged to look at their vulnerabilities in the face of climate change and so the first part is a planning process and you will hear more about this in the coming month the town will put together two stakeholder meetings in which many a broad spectrum of the community will be invited to attend and to look at identifying what our vulnerabilities are to climate change so for instance there will be obviously representatives from each of the institutions but also those within the business community those with work with our more vulnerable members of the community as well and everyone will be gathered and broken out into groups and will be able to identify our vulnerabilities and then the second part of the process is to then have a second meeting with the same stakeholders where we identify some kind of action and then from that process there will then be a community listening session in which everybody in the community is invited to attend and the feedback is gathered from that process and then that's all put together in a report that is then provided to the town where it identifies the vulnerabilities and also some of the steps to take action but it also makes a recommendation for a next sort of a next phase so for instance depending on how things pan out within the stakeholder meetings there may be some recommendation for instance together a climate action plan or a resiliency plan so that will be spelled out in that report and then that allows us and opens us up to the ability to apply for an action grant where we can actually then implement some of the actions that are identified in the report. Thank you. Other councilor comments? Yes, Dorothy. I just want to say thank you to Darcy and Evan for all the work they did I think this is an incredible document and I think it's wonderful that the town of Amherst has been active in this area for really a long time and that I'm hoping that we can move forward quickly because time is running out. Sarah. Excuse me. Sarah. Hard to follow that up. I was just going to make a point to the fact that we're talking about different committees and whether they would or would not be working against each other. This committee is set up I don't think that its charges are too broad but I feel like it brings together a lot of the things that other committees are trying to work toward so I feel like instead of other committees fighting against this or not being heard I think especially when bringing up membership and bringing in other committees I think it's a chance for say the refuse committee and also I'd like to say the ag commission because farming and us being able to feed ourselves is huge you know you if you can't feed yourself then the lights might be on the heat might be on but you might not be there for very long but I see that these smaller well they're not smaller but the committees that are smaller that are working on specific goals would then be able to do extra work for this committee and then no one would be lost. Everyone would actually be working towards more immediate goals together. Yes, George. I have two specific questions concerning actually two questions the first has to do with the in 1A the request that the committee set a date certain for two very specific goals both in 1A 1 and 1A2 I wonder if you could just address that a bit it seems like within 90 days for them to set a date certain for achieving carbon neutrality given all the complexities and multiple factors involved is that an aspirational what's the thinking behind that first question. Garcia Revin which one? I think that the goal that most states and cities have been looking at up until now is a date by by which they would become carbon neutral and the 2050 is the date that's commonly looked to so but we were not we didn't want to be prescriptive so we wanted to give the committee the opportunity to decide what date some communities have come up with a date that's sooner than that the the new legislation the 100% renewable legislation has also set out an interim goal by which communities could become 100% renewable electricity and the goal there is to get towns and the state to electrify their heating and their building and transportation sectors and then if they set a goal for 100% renewable electricity that actually gets the bulk of the work done by that date and the state legislation that date is 2035 so there are towns now that are setting these final dates and interim dates and some setting annual dates in order to be able to fulfill their end goals so it's I think that it would be not that difficult to look at what other communities have done and the process that they've gone through we don't have to reinvent the wheel and it wouldn't be that hard to come up with our goals additional comment yes Darcy said most of what I would have said I think the key points here because it does seem like a fairly short span of time and they do seem like significant goals one of which is this is perhaps one of the areas that Amherst is slightly behind on and that there are many other communities that have gone through this process and so I think that there's a lot to model on the other question which is sort of unaddressed which Andy brought up earlier is whether or not these goals should be viewed as aspirational or absolute and I want to speak on behalf of myself and not on behalf of Darcy here because we haven't had this discussion but to some extent I don't think that was within our scope of work to determine because we wanted to give the committee the work and the responsibility but also the ownership of what these goals look like and so I think that how these goals should be interpreted what those dates are that should be the work of a committee that is obviously broader than just Darcy and myself sitting in a room keeping in mind of course the recommendations that they put forth for these goals will by the design of this charge come before the council and so the council would have another chance to ask the committee whether or not those goals are aspirational or absolute and what their reasoning is behind that so this will not be the last discussion on these goals and did you Shalini has another question Shalini I think one of the other things I wanted to add to the charge even though it's mentioned in 4e that the committee may propose to town council funding opportunities I think that should be an important part and that this committee should be doing is looking at the funding and revolving loans and all of these different options to make it feasible for the different communities to adopt these goals okay yes listen thank you and I do not actually have comments because they've already been made associated with the content in terms of all the good things we're trying to do I have some comments about the mechanics and I think probably the best way for me to do that is to submit through the chair restructuring simply of how this looks all the meaty parts and the mental no worries those aren't being changed it's just the part about where things fall in the charge document this doesn't look much like any of our previous charge documents it's a new kind of charge document and that's great because we should be doing new things but it's also I think hard for the public to follow for example composition of the committee should be right at the beginning should be right after the headings it shouldn't be something you have to wait until the end of the second page to read because if you're looking at this online which I hope people would they would say oh I could be part of that because I could be one of the seven members oh it's a town council standing committee that's only got three town councilors on it oh well then I'm not going to be part of that committee and they can move on to the next charge simple things like that but I did have a couple of substantive concerns associated with membership and I don't know how much of that was assumptions based on what we might do or was strongly felt commitments from the people who drafted this I didn't see any reason at all to put a staff member on the committee non-voting voting completely doesn't make any sense to me to have a staff member on the committee staff support should always be assigned by the town manager but having an actual staff member voting or non-voting did not seem relevant at all there's a good deal of confusion based on the way the references are set up in terms of who is doing the appointment and I believe based on all the accompanying material we received and what we heard tonight that this is intended as I would have hoped as a standing committee of the town council therefore as a standing committee of the town council it's appointed by the town council it's got nothing to do with town manager appointments so that section would be removed associated with that assuming that we then have a conversation later about how town councilors are normally appointed by the president to town council standing committees we haven't yet had a situation as we will also have with our finance committee where other members of that standing committee need to be appointed one assumes by the council because the charter says we can appoint standing committees it doesn't say oh anybody who's not a councilor gets appointed by the town manager so therefore I would we would just want to clean that up but if there are any particular as I'm you know have this reoriented if there are any particular rationales that people still feel strongly about in terms of having a staff member on the committee having the town manager there's also some wording in here that I think may simply be due to unfamiliarity with committee charges and our existing committee appointment handbook that talk about electing a chair and vice chair we don't have to talk about that in this that talk about serving for a three year term we don't talk about that we do need to talk about if somebody thinks it's important whether or not councilors themselves the two of the nine can serve as chair and vice chair because that's called seems to be addressed in here in a confusing fashion and so I think we need to straighten some of those things out so that once I have it in a different format it would actually have the words in it you want to thank you other comments yes bandage Joe so I'm going to build on what Alyssa just commented on on a couple of things I was also confused as to whether this was intended to be a standing committee of the council appointed under as it said or a committee of the town in general one of that confusions I think was the fact that I've always thought of committees of the council as having a majority of counselors on it then residents on it and this one does not yet so I think we need to clarify which the intention is is it a committee similar to the recycling and refuse or transportation committee or these other committees that are town committees or is it a committee of the council membership wise I've agreed with most what everyone said on membership I think it's extremely important on a committee like this to have an representative from UMass in reading all that we were given given the fact that UMass is emissions represent approximately 42 percent of our total towns emissions we're not going to be able to accomplish any goals we set without their complete cooperation and so I know they have their own climate action plan but if they don't meet theirs we're likely not going to meet whatever we got because they're half of our emissions and so I think we need to relook at the membership portion and then I there were two parts of the charge that talked about the committee itself requesting funding for the committee's operation and I wanted some background from the individuals who proposed it on what you had in mind when putting that particular issue into the charge and then you know because I'm myself not familiar necessarily with any committees themselves actually formally having a mechanism to request funding for their operations outside of just the town manager doing it most committees don't operate with funds specifically assigned to them I don't believe someone correct me if I'm wrong so I'd like to hear about that because it is one thing that does concern me about the current charge one of the things that we would possibly be asking for funding for would be and it this is just possible because we it's possible also to get grant funding for some things would be to write a climate action plan it's possible that we would need a consultant to help with that or but it's also possible that it could get grant funded so that's just one possibility just to clarify at least my personal vision because as I read this I could see maybe where you confused confused is that it does sort of read as if the committee has its own working budget perhaps that it would request which was not necessarily my thought my thought was that there were actions that this committee may recommend that would require some type of appropriation from the town and that it would have the authority to ask the town for that money but I would not expect this committee to sort of come and say here's our operating budget okay other questions yes Steve yeah so I I guess I saw this committee as being for 01002 as opposed to 01003 UMass because I think UMass has its own sort of fully formed approach to these exact issues and I think by including them as say equal partners or whatever as into our efforts in a way muddies the waters I think that this should almost be you know almost outside of UMass in fact outside of maybe even the other educational institutions how we can you know approach these problems these very real problems the other thing is the committee of the town council versus committee of the town is a confusing one so I saw this as a committee of the town never never of the town council but someone will have to explain to me exactly what the difference is okay other questions going back to Shalene's comment about intersectionality etc there are a couple of places that talk about environmental justice communities and reaching out to them and I think that's important to look at but that brings me to a question of membership of the council we're talking about experts in all of these particular areas I would like to see some people who are experts in how they are impacted by the decisions of this committee so that they can be part of the collaborative process of reaching some kind of consensus to support the goals across the community and the costs across the community other comments from the council okay we are going to move to public comment could I see a show of hands of the number of people who would like to speak five we'll go with the number five and given that we'll ask that you keep your comments to three minutes I do want to say in advance of that I do not hear from the council anybody who is opposed to moving forward in this direction so the comments that we really need to hear from the audience are things that help us think about how to structure and move forward you're looking at 13 people who I think are very anxious to see us move forward so Russell Vernon Jones thank you I live at 17 Gaylord street I think we do all know the climate change is a big and important issue and it's not an exaggeration to refer to it as the climate crisis or the climate emergency however it can be really difficult to keep our attention on how dire the situation is for the whole world and even more difficult to think that we can do something truly significant about it so we know the bad news is that climate change is threatening to make our planet uninhabitable by human civilization as we know it the good news is that we can do something about it and third there are vitally important things that we can do locally if we don't delay and put barriers in the process the recent report of the UN intergovernmental panel climate on climate change the IPCC makes it clear that the problem is worse than many had believed that we as humans have 12 years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% that's an immense task but it is possible people in many parts of the world are already seeing catastrophic storms agricultural disruption and starvation deadly wildfires the spread of diseases and increasingly deadly conflicts the report says that unless we move quickly to get off using oil and gas to heat our buildings fuel our businesses make electricity move people and goods in only 22 years we will be seeing worldwide food supplies affected flooding of coastal cities fierce storms and fires and huge numbers of climate refugees all seeking somewhere to live safely this requires action everywhere every bit of emissions in the world including Amherst makes the problem worse local action is particularly important right now in the United States because the action at the federal level is all in the wrong direction what I find exciting is that we can participate in solving what may be the biggest crisis ever faced by our species there is so much to figure out about how to make it happen and you as the council will play a critical role not just tonight but in the future and forming this committee with what I think is an excellent charge as it stands is an indispensable first step please do not delay thank you thank you additional hands yes my name is Ayala Carter I'm an Amherst native and currently a graduate student in business and public policy administration at UMass I am strongly in favor of the formation of the sustainability committee and that its formation and actions not be delayed this is both because it is in the town's interest to pursue sustainability initiatives in a more organized and efficient manner and because it is in the interest of the citizens of Amherst to be a leader in sustainability the committee structure would be a considerable improvement over the way the town currently manages sustainability programs and I would like to illustrate for you why this is the case Amherst is arguably better positioned than many other towns in the country to be a leader with respect to sustainability we have a population that is both highly supportive of sustainability and willing to adjust their behavior to support green initiatives and we see many town residents voted for their council members based on their positions on these issues and crucially our community has a greater density of scientists, engineers policy makers and activists who work on sustainability issues than almost anywhere else in the country Amherst College, UMass and Hampshire and the individuals in their orbit give the town access to nearly unrivaled body of experts and advocates who can help make projects a practicable reality I would argue that we have a moral obligation as a community to take full advantage of all these resources to attempt to make innovative and meaningful progress with respect to sustainability and a committee structure that brought together elected officials and community members would certainly do so UMass is home to the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center a federally supported organization and a recent conference at UMass which I helped organize drew over 50 practitioners and policy makers from around New England well representatives from Boston Burlington, Vermont and Hartford, Connecticut were present representatives from Amherst were not in addition the schools are home to dozens of student-run organizations such as the UMass Environmental Community Outreach Club and a chapter of the Sunrise Movement which happened to be founded by a UMass student and dozens of students like those doing graduate work in sustainability or public policy that are eager to engage in local sustainability projects a committee structure would be able to take better advantage of this untapped community resource we need a dedicated committee to undertake all the good work that the town can and should be doing with respect to sustainability sustainability initiatives initiatives are wide ranging and complex they cut across traditional lines of town bureaucracy and require stewardship over years and decades work this complex and urgent requires more direct management and resources than the existing coordinator position is designed to provide a committee such as the one being proposed will allow the town to efficiently manage its sustainability resources thank you I just would like to ask that again people speak to issues regarding the charge the structure again we're not here to be convinced we are convinced additional speakers Rudy here push does that do it yep hi Rudy Perkins district too oh and it'll stand great thank you you know obviously our federal leaders have basically abandoned leadership on this and our town and many other towns are going to have to act urgently to change the situation and we're going to have to act because this is going to directly affect our town our kids our grandkids in terms of our energy supply now it's if you look at the fourth annual climate assessment that was just released the chapter on the northeast one of the things they focus on is how vulnerable our energy system is to climate disruption now we have an interconnected electricity grid and with coming anticipated extra summer heat in the northeast it's going to put extra strain on our electrical systems in terms of air conditioning, water pumping and treating loads and so on and so forth most of our energy the report points out most of our power is being generated by stations on the coast and our fuel facilities are often on the coast in the northeast so the New York City comments that the New York City power plants are only 16 feet above sea level in many cases and the Sandy storm surge was 14 feet so when we talk about our town we need to think about our own current energy vulnerability obviously there's potential impact from climate refugees we saw that with the 2017 climate field hurricane in Puerto Rico and Maria we had a lot of people coming to our valley that we had to scramble to take care of who were climate refugees our local farms have crops rotting in the field from too much rain and so forth so let me just talk a moment more about energy because I think as we plan for net zero buildings for example we have the opportunities to create better resilience for our communities when I was doing some housing developments I looked at the solar on our roof that we were putting in and wanted to go an extra step to find out how that solar could power the building during power outages we should be looking at things like this the charge specifically talks about micro grids that's another defensive measure where we might be able to go out grid with key municipal buildings so I think a committee like this will be very useful in focusing the conversation both to urgent achievement 12 years is not very long urgent achievement of net of carbon neutrality and then developing more resiliency in how we plan our capital projects how we increase our ability to grow food locally and so forth those are important things that this committee could weave together but I would suggest that this committee's focus stay on energy and climate because I think if you add too many topics it's not going to be able to achieve the sort of incisive urgent work we need on climate change so that's one point and related to that I think you need to have people who have expertise or commitment in this field as certainly the bulk of the committee that's because you want to be able to get right up to speed right away and focus on what we need to do there will be plenty of opportunities for community forum and for community meetings to get input from other sectors and the wide variety of opinions and populations in our town but I think the core of the committee should be people who have expertise and experience in this area so that there's no learning curve we get right on this so that's probably more than three minutes it is thank you very much please this gentleman hello my name is John Roode I'm the chair of the town of embers recycling refuse management committee I've already spoken with three members of the town council I appreciate what the commitment that all of you do have and I Andy was as he mentioned the liaison to our committee and we received help through the years on a number of issues our major accomplishments I think are the solid waste master plan that Andy referred to and while we did have a couple of bands you know this and the plastic bag band another major but that's important but not that impactful I would say in terms of the total amount but the other thing that we've done is we've been able to get the assistance through a grant and through matching funds of a town waste reduction enforcement coordinator she's going to be leaving in about six months so we used to have the support of a time waste excuse me recycling coordinator Susan Waite she's now with Northampton full time and we have no one we have no dedicated staff so that was one of the items on our wish list and I should say that solid waste master plan was enthusiastically received by the select board but it was not a document that had that was a plan in the sense of here's what we need to do first then next these are some excellent ideas which the select board agreed were all good ideas but it's stalled in the water nothing's happened since and of course forces beyond a lot of people's control things have been in flux and that sort of thing so I do want to share some concerns that members of our committee have in terms of what we would be able to do going forward as you're aware at this time solid waste issues are not included in the charge of this committee my concern about that is we have only four members at this time we're supposed to have seven that means that even to meet all four of us have to get together we've been doing virtually nothing it's very difficult for to even get and there's if even one of us leaves then our committee is defunct and that's likely to happen fairly soon I don't see a way forward to attract new members because the way we have always attracted members is by having a vibrant you know extent meeting that people could come and visit and watch us work so I I don't see how and and I did meet twice with Darcy about talking about these issues and I again I'm really very deeply appreciative of the commitment of everyon