Thank you very much then everyone welcome to the March 4th select board meeting We have I just want to make one note about an agenda change from last week as far as what people's expectations might have been We talked last week about the fact that we were planning to have the 2013 paving plan this time, but we're not going to do that That's going to be that's been postponed until March 18th Mr.. Mr.. Sandy will give us a kind of a brief preview of that during the town manager's report But we're gonna have a full presentation of that and discussion comment, etc On the 18th, so just so folks are aware So with that I would like to get started with public comment Can I have a sense of how many folks are here for public comment on things not on the agenda? Okay, perfect. Very good to not so bad. So please come forward to identify yourself at the mic and Hi, I'm Jack Hirsch. I live at 400 400 flat Hills Road And I'm here to express concern about the potential Development of the land that's in chapter 61 owned by Cinda Jones We live in a quiet rural neighborhood. This is the kind of housing that's going to Be the most dense for automobiles that you can imagine I mean if it were families, they might have one or two cars per cottage But with four students per cottage, they'll undoubtedly have four cars It's a quiet area. This is beautiful conservation land. We'd love to see It used more in the sense that the master plan tried to encourage for a conservation land So needless to say I'm Organizing with many neighbors opposition you'll hear from us more in the future We're very concerned. Thank you very much for coming in sir Thank you, and I'd like to thank the board for this opportunity to speak with you My name is Jeremy Coleman. I'm also own home on flat Hills Road actually Jack's neighbor and also here to express concern over the proposed housing development for That part of town. I've lived there for about a year and a half We move there because of the natural beauty of the area and the woods I'm a wildlife biologist. I specialize in wildlife conservation and I have great concerns in addition to one that the jack mentioned for habitat degradation and impacts to wildlife in that area we have Lots of trails in that area the Robert Frost Trail is there the Madinok Trail is there the Walt Whitman Trail and One of the things that drew us to that location is the natural beauty. We have barred house in our backyard We've got red-shoulded hawks that nest right next to us probably with beckers and You're also very familiar with the what we call herbedo fauna the salamanders that are found in that area and I see this proposed development as having major impacts to the wildlife that's there clear-cutting that area Putting in the parking areas the housing development Could cause erosion and lots of downstream impacts. It's a pretty steep sloped area If you're familiar with it, we could have major impacts to the spotted salamander crossing zone that is very famous for that part of town and We could also have other impacts from the pollution automobiles and in this time of green building and concerns over carbon footprints Locating a high-density student housing development far removed from campus that requires Driving and busing of students back and forth to campus. I feel is is Going in the wrong direction. We I would think that the University UMass and the town of Amherst would be looking for solutions to a housing problem that would be more green friendly than requiring lots of driving so There are other impacts that Jack mentioned some to the local area for traffic and Kind of just general impacts to our quality of life there that I think are also part of our concern and as he mentioned We have been talking with lots of neighbors around Many of whom I've spoken with also share these concerns Thank you very much Anyone else for a public comment for any issue that's not on the agenda Okay, so as folks know we don't deliberate anything that happens during public comment But I will take this opportunity to just let the public know what to expect as far as the Process involved with the development of the land that was just being commented on So this land is in chapter 61 That means that it in order for it to be developed it has to come out of chapter 61 Chapter 61 means that the town has the right of first refusal on that So whether or not to exercise that right will first be considered for recommendation to the select board by the Conservation Commission and the planning board they will consider those issues make their recommendations to us and then the select board would ultimately Make a decision to exercise or not exercise that right The the only option there is whether the town would buy the land That it's not that the option is you keep it in chapter either we take it out of chapter because that's the request and Either it gets to be purchased by a purchaser Or it could be purchased by the town so the town would need to come up with money to to do that After that assuming that all happens as planned The the process will then be determined by the details of the plan the details of the plan are not have not been submitted to the town yet This will either be a process that goes through special permit through the ZBA or through site plan review through the planning board Conservation Commission will also have a role because of the environmental impacts that you talked about This will not come to the select board again at some point the select board may Desire to take a position to support or not support this as it goes forward But the place to Express your concerns your environmental concerns and your other impact concerns will be at the zoning board of appeals or the planning board Whichever whichever permitting route it takes and environmental concerns would go to Conservation Commission I would we don't know what the timing is on any of this stuff yet Something that I've advised some of your neighbors about is to sign up on the town website for notifications You can get email notifications of all meetings that are posted so that way you can be sure to Be informed about the meetings that will be addressing this topic so that Because a butters receive direct notices, but not everyone who's concerned about this is a direct a butter So so I would recommend you do that and and by all means be engaged in the process at all of those levels because your input will Will help to shape whatever comes forward? That's all. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else for public comment on anything? Okay, we have a couple minutes then before we get to our first timed items So let's take care of a couple of untimed items First I'll say the approved language for nuisance house by-law amendment article I don't have language for you to approve yet the status of this as I told the select board several weeks ago is I've been working with a resident to try and make some changes to the to the nuisance house by-law I haven't heard from that person in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if she's decided to pursue it as a petition article It's a little bit of a pain to deal with because we just dealt with this at fall town meeting So the language has gone to the Attorney General's office, but it hasn't come back in its approved form yet So dealing with the different kinds of cross-outs and whatever was just a little bit more than I could do to To get this ready As I told you when we talked about it last time this would be focused on a couple of minor changes that That the select board had already indicated a probable support for when we had the discussions about nuisance house by-law last time which were when When this was brought forward in the fall for town meeting we had concerns about the fact that the by-law has all along a Included information about response costs being assessed at the first second potentially being assessed for the first second and third occurrence To the property owners or property managers Everybody kind of thought that it was only on the third Occurrence not the first two so that would take care of that it would actually The changes being proposed would have it not have response costs not Be assessed at the first or second Occurrence but would actually accrue to the third So if you if you ended up at the third place then then you would get them The property owner or manager would get them for all three responses It would take out fire and ambulance from those response costs because that's not really that relevant and people are thinking that that's not That's not an intention here as to It's really about capturing the police response costs It would also strike out that sentence that talks about the calendar year that there's currently a sentence in there that says that if That it only applies to three violations that happen within a calendar year per Per the same residents so anytime the residents change the The or it said not calendar year. It says 12 month period So it would strike that part so that it would be Which really makes it more of a nuisance house violation on the tenant rather than the property and the goal is to make it about the property We do have one point of non-agreement Between the resident and I right now About one other thing to strike and I'm not sure if because of that she'll want to pursue it herself And that is the part that currently says No violations would be a penalties would be enforced against a Landlord or property manager who is in the process of evicting the tenant the resident home working with considers this to be a loophole I don't consider that to be a loophole The more I've gone through the safe and healthy neighborhoods process the more I recognize what a very strong and Difficult action eviction is and I just don't see why you would enforce a penalty against somebody who is who is really doing the ultimate As far as trying to solve the problem So I will I will either put this forth that the select board is still good with it as a select board article in time for the warrant deadline Or the petitioner will do that and I just don't know the answer to that yet, but if nobody is dissatisfied with the lack of certainty about that then that's kind of how it proceeds. Yeah, I would just add a related note Police chief Livingstone has reviewed with me a an outline of a detailed schedule of police response costs that would be a logical Accompaniment which is already called for in the existing bylaw and you can expect I've asked him to translate that into a you know Detailed memorandum and I will forward that to you when I receive it as early as later this week Thank you So miss Burr. So just to clarify in terms of date since next Monday at noon Is the deadline for citizen petitions will you just go ahead then given the long description? We've had in the previous conversations. We've had about this at select board Will you just go ahead with your piece and assume that it'll go in at noon Like other everything else and then if she happens to also do a citizen petition then we sort it out later I'm hoping to get it worked out before then because there's actually a lot of work on my yeah I Would really like to coordinate with her. Yeah, so so I don't want us both to be doing this Okay Two more minutes, so let's do a couple of motions. How about how about the special liquor licenses because that's easy I move that the select board approve its special all alcohol license for a student casino event in the Keith Campus Center Amherst College on Friday, March 8th 2013 from 8 p.m. To 11 p.m. Molly then catering manager second for the discussion I move that the select board approve a special wine and malt license for a reception Eisenberg School of Management atrium UMass Amherst on Saturday April 27th 2013 from 3 30 p.m. To 5 p.m. Judy Bardwell clerk talk with top of the campus Okay, it says on our agenda one about friends of the Jones library We don't have that motion in front of us. That was actually supposed to be postponed until next time We're still trying to figure out what's going on with that. So Let's see Sure, yep I move that the select board accept a gift of tangible personal property from Anne Bronner of Hadley, Massachusetts as provided for in mgl chapter 44 section 53 a and a half Described as an original Stephen Hamilton watercolor for addition to the collection housed in the Amherst police department Second for the discussion. I will just note that This is a lovely gift from a local resident woman was in Hadley She had read about the police department having a collection of Stephen Hamilton paintings So she wanted to donate this and this is a It is because when you give a gift to the town somebody has to make a formal acceptance of it So that is the select board's role here We did extend an invitation to miss Bronner to to come in and be recognized for her donation If she wanted to do that she opted not to do that So we thank her very much for her generosity and are happy to accept this gift on behalf of the town For the discussion all in favor say hi. Hi. Hi. That's unanimous Okay, good timing 645. So now we have the most fascinating 15 minutes of local television this is when we We sign our names about a hundred times on bond Bond notices, but first we will have an introduction to the bond topic from collector Claire McGinnis and finance director Sandy Poehler and as usual folks who are following along at home We'll find all of the details about this in the select boards We have a great memo that summarizes everything and and then we're going to be signing for a long time. So Miss McGinnis and mr. Poehler take it away So this is a bond issue to fund projects voted at the last two town meetings The tree planting project is included here. Half of the amount is borrowed this time A dump truck for the public works department repairs to central fire station communications equipment for the police department and Million dollars for road improvements and the largest by far portion of this is over four million dollars for sewer extensions To the neighborhoods called Harkness Road and Amherst Woods So Standard pours conformed our credit rating at double-a stable, which is great news and The resulting total interest cost for this combined issue is under 2% Money is very affordable right now. We got 1.819 percent total interest cost on this issue So it's a lot of documents and I'll go through an introduction to all of that after questions Does anybody have any questions about this as noted all of this borrowing has been previously approved by town meetings So we are just fulfilling their wishes and taking care of this One question that I had was about the the first part of the motion Looks unfamiliar. Do we usually do this the thing about issuing refunding bonds? the town occasionally refunds bonds some Depending on what you say when you first sell a bond you have the chance to have a little do-over and refund in other words you If you borrow at a certain interest rate before you finish paying off the bonds you basically get to Pay them off early and re-borrow that same money at a lower interest rate Those opportunities come up every now and then it all depends on where you are in the life of the bond and whether at the Time you originally sold the bond you reserve the right to refund that bond Sometimes the town does that sometimes it doesn't So I think the last time there's refunding was four or five years ago This bond just happened to come up at it be eligible for refunding with interest rates so low our financial advisor David Eisenpahl from Unibank said would the town could save approximately sixty six thousand dollars in interest costs By doing refunding so that's why you see it here. It is not something that you typically see in a pond Okay, thank you other questions. Miss Stein I'm just curious what it means when you say as part of the sale the winning bid provided a premium of 263 thousand one hundred ninety five dollars What does that mean? Yes, what does that mean exactly my question? It means that We have sold bonds and Those bonds carry a certain face value interest rate most of them are between two and three percent However the bond the people who bought the bonds they're competitive with each other and So they are essentially Giving us back some of the interest that we would have to pay them up front. That's called a premium So it's a way for them to have us overall pay a lower effective interest rate when Claire said the interest rate on this is 1.8% It's because when you factor in the face value of interest rate you pay Minus this premium you get an effective interest rate of 1.8% and that's just part of the bidding process when people bid on bonds They sometimes throw in a premium and sometimes don't that's really helpful because I couldn't understand why the interest rates look so different So perfect, thank you Other questions All right, what else do you want to tell us before we start signing anything? I Guess the thing we didn't say about the refunding is its project is to save us over the remaining life of the Crocker farm Bond issue which was done in 2003. It's projected to save us about $60,000 All right, so then before we start signing tell us what we have to make sure We is it just black ink or black or blue or something like that black or blue is fine There are I'm gonna try to give them to you and bundles that make sense If they get out of order, don't worry about it I'll collate and count at the end because it's kind of a lot It's my understanding that mr. Hayden continues to be the clerk so I have a couple of special documents for him alone So else if this works, I'll start well You read the motion because I have to sign in front of you and then I'll have Documents ready to circulate. All right, so miss Stein will now read the motion for the next five minutes Which I will and then the audience at home and everyone here should understand it's a page and a half single space So bear with us. I move that the select board approve The bond issuance And it's stated as this approve that in order to reduce interest costs The treasurer is authorized to issue refunding bonds at one time or from time to time Pursuant to chapter 44 section 21a of the general laws or Pursuant to any other enabling authority to refund all of the towns four million dollars general obligation municipal purpose bond loan of 2003 bonds dated October 1 2003 mature maturing on and after October 1st 2014 inclusive Perennis collectively the quote refunded bonds end quote in Parenthesis and that the proceeds of any refunding bonds issued pursuant to this vote shall be used to pay the principal redemption premium and interest on the refunded bonds and costs of issuance of the refunding bonds and Further approved at the sale of the six million eight hundred and forty seven thousand dollars general obligation municipal purpose loan of 2013 bonds of the town dated March 14th 2013 Perennis the quote and bonds end quote Perennis and Perennis to Robert W. Baird and company Incorporated at the price of Seven million one hundred and sixty-four thousand five hundred and fourteen dollars and eighty-four cents and accrued Interest if any is hereby approved and confirmed the bond shall be payable on October 1st of the year And in the principal amounts and bear interest at the respective rates as follows 2013 four hundred and forty seven thousand dollars to that two percent 2014 six hundred and sixty thousand dollars two percent two thousand fifteen six hundred and fifty thousand dollars three percent two thousand two thousand sixteen six hundred and forty thousand dollars three percent 2017 six hundred and thirty five thousand dollars three percent 2018 five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars three percent 2019 three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars three percent two hundred and twenty $325,000, 3% $2,021, $325,000, 3% $2,022, $325,000, 2% $2,023, $200,000, 2% $2,024, $200,000, $2,026, $400,000, 2.125%, $2,028, $400,000, 2.25%, $2,030, $400,000, 2.375%, $2,032, $400,000, 2.5%, and further approve that the bonds maturing on March 15, 2026, March 15, 2028, March 15, 2030, March 15, 2032, brands each a quote, term bond, end quote, end parenthesis, shall be subject to mandatory redemption or mature as follows. Term bond due March 15, 2026, in the year 2025, $200,000, year 2026, $200,000. Term bond due March 15, 2028, in the year 2020, $200,000, in the year 2028, $200,000. Term bond due March 15, 2030, in the year 2020, $200,000, in the year 2030, $200,000. Term bond due March 15, 2032, in the year 2031, $200,000, in the year 2032, $200,000, and further approve that in connection with the marketing and sale of the bonds, the preparation and distribution of a notice of sale and preliminary official statement dated February 20, 2013, and a final official statement dated February 28, 2013, the quote, official statement, end quote, end parenthesis, each in such form as may be approved by the town treasurer be and hereby are ratified, confirmed, approved, and adopted, and further approved that the bonds shall be subject to redemption at the option of the town upon such terms and conditions as are set forth in the official statement and further approve that the town treasurer and the select board be and hereby are authorized to execute and deliver a continuing disclosure undertaking in compliance with SEC rule 15C2-12 in such form as may be approved by bond counsel to the town, which undertaking shall be incorporated by reference in the bonds with the benefit of the holders of the bonds from time to time, and further approve to authorize the execution and delivery of a refunding escrow agreement to be dated March 14, 2013, between the town and U.S. Bank National Association as refunding escrow agent and further approve that each member of the select board, the town clerk and the town treasurer be and hereby are authorized to take any and all such actions and execute and deliver such certificates, receipts, or other documents as may be determined by them or any of them to be necessary or convenient to carry into effect the provisions of the foregoing votes. Is there a second? Second. Is there further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That is unanimous. And we keep signing. Diana's next. I would just add and I don't want people to adjust their sets at home. Well, the execution is, yeah, I'm sure thrilling, but not to get lost in kind of the legalese and the signing of all the paperwork is a very fundamental story here in that we've gone to the bond market as a town, issued $6.8 million, $.88 million in debt for projects approved by town meeting. We've secured a winning bid of net interest costs of about 1.8%, which, you know, Sandy, Claire and I have been talking. This is by a substantial margin the lowest interest rate in my 20-something year career related to a municipal bond sale on effectively a 10-year bond to have the net cost be below 2% is terrific. And then the second point being that just allows our capital budget to go that much further because we're paying less in interest and more on the actual projects as a percentage of the total. Standard and poor is affirming our, on an independent basis, affirming our double-aid bond rating with a stable rating while the economy is beginning to recover. It's still, you know, you can still call it as a, describe it as a fragile recovery. The S&P citing, again, our strong and stable economic base anchored by the flagship campus of UMass, as well as Amherst and Hampshire colleges, good income and wealth indicators, which are particularly significant given the high student population. They cited us for good financial management, good reserve levels, and I would add growing. And low overall debt burden and a rapid debt amortization. We pay off over 80% of our debt service within the next 10 years. So all of those things collectively, being a very good picture of the town, especially given what we've been through the last several years and it's reassuring to me as town manager to receive an independent review like that of the town's financial condition. Thank you. Mr. Walton. Can I just ask, is there anything to be said about the fact that OPEB and Debtedness has mentioned for the first time, not affecting our bond rating but simply mentioned there? Yeah, I would ask Sandy to talk about that for a moment. So after citing all of the strengths that the town has in its finances and management, the S&P bond rating report specifically mentioned a however, and that is that we have a very large OPEB liability. And I'm talking with the analysts about it. They made clear that if you look at our OPEB liability, it is I think 125% of our annual operating budget, which on a national level is very high. Probably within Massachusetts it's not that unusual, but they're looking at bonds all over the country. And as you probably know, typically we tend to have higher benefits here in the Northeast. We also tend to have higher income so we can support it. But I think it is an indication that Standard and Poor's is taking OPEB liability much more seriously in its analysis of bond ratings than it ever has before. You would not have seen that same sort of comment a year ago. And I think it's just indicative of a trend. And for us I think what it means is that we need to continue our efforts to fund OPEB to work toward a sustainable way of putting money aside for OPEB on a year in and year out basis that will make more of a difference. As much as they've appreciated and noted our one-time contributions, I think they'll be looking for us to do something on an ongoing basis. So I think that's the import of having that comment there and just a reminder to us that we need to continue to work on funding those long-term health insurance obligations and retirees. Ms. Brewer. Do you have any sense from them if it's the regularity of it or the amount of it that's of primary importance? I mean obviously lots of money all the time would be a good thing but in terms of realistically how we might approach it from their standpoint? Well that's a good question and we're trying to get a sense of that. I do think having a regular funding plan is very important to them. If it was a regular funding plan of a penny a year that probably wouldn't be so good. So there has to, you know, you have to make some material progress toward your goal. So I think that's important. They also, in our conversations with them, also mentioned our unfunded pension liability. And if you look at where Hampshire County Retirement Board is now, they're I think 56% funded, which is a dip from where they were a few years ago because they're still absorbing some of the losses of 2008. So we have a couple of big pots of empty money there, our liabilities. Hampshire County we will be funding on a regular basis and I think as that goes up over time that will help us. Within our own budget we have put money aside in the water fund and the sewer fund and our proposed budget for FY14 to fund the annual minimal required contribution which is about 15% of our overall liability. So by taking that step with the enterprise funds, I think we're taking an important step toward regular funding, at least a slice of that liability. And then the challenge will be to continue to do that with the general fund for the town and the school budgets. Anything else we can talk about while we find? I'll just mention on OPEB we do have a final evaluation for our latest valuation as of July 1st, 2012 and so I was just talking to Indy Steinberg, the chair of the finance committee the other night about getting something scheduled for a joint meeting with finance and the select board to present that actuarial to you. So we'll be working to get that before you. Secret until then? No, it's not secret. I just think in the past it's just for efficiency's sake and bringing in the actuary and that's more efficient than it was once. The long and the short of it is our liabilities continue to go up both because we hadn't set any money aside. Things tend to grow and this actuary did things a little bit differently than the previous actuary and actuaries are always looking at things like mortality tables and I find it fascinating actually that there's just not one set of rules that every actuary in the state has to follow to do these things but be that as it may, some of those things did affect the numbers and so we're up over a hundred million dollars now and I think it's 104. Interestingly, if this legislation that the governor has introduced passes that limits the health insurance benefits that retirees get and links it more to your years of service, if that passes any time in the next two years then our next actuarial will look very different too. You'll start to see a kind of break on those long-term liabilities because after all there are two ways to bring down your overall obligations. You put a lot of money aside to match against your liabilities or you bring down your liabilities by limiting your exposure. So I think it's going to be an interesting couple of years to see what happens at the state level with that and these numbers are going to be I think in flux for the next couple of years. Interesting. Thank you. Is there anything else we need to know or do related to the bonds? All right, thank you. I can only imagine what it takes to prepare that paperwork to get it in order for us to have to sign a million times each of us so thank you very much. Thank you for all the work that went into putting the town on the bond market and getting the excellent results through Standard & Poor's et cetera and really everything that went into what you had to do for tonight very much. Okay, so we are now behind but our seven o'clock item is on my agenda which is gone. Here it is. Okay. Seven o'clock item is the public hearing. This has been duly noticed. This is about a variety of changes to downtown parking regulations. We have a memo in our web packets, in our select board packets rather than available on the web that details these changes and I am going to hand it over to Mr. Missanti to talk us through these items. Thank you. And I'd like to briefly walk through a series of recommendations and look forward to your comments and questions. So as Ms. O'Keefe has said, these are summarized in a memorandum to the select board from myself. That is in your meeting packet and is on the posted online packet. The recommendations which we do periodically for parking regulations, the revisions, these have been developed with a lot of input from many people including staff and I want to particularly recognize Claire McGinnis, Treasurer Collector who also is heavily involved in our administration of the parking system, the DPW and Guilford Mooring and staff, Police Department, Chris Pronovost, our parking enforcement officers, Sandy Pooler and others. Also received a lot of good feedback, reviewing draft recommendations with the Amherst Business Improvement District, Alex Crowe-Grabbe and members of the bid. We've talked with others affected by these proposed changes including management at the Lord Jeffrey Inn. I've talked with multiple neighbors who are affected including many on Gaylord Street, which is one of our recommendations. And I want to just punch through these. Before you do that, let me just interrupt you. Just to note that I opened this public hearing at 7.10 when I first started talking about it. Thank you. That is all. Go ahead. Let's be very formal about these things. My minutes thing there for a moment. So just getting to the recommendations themselves, the first set of recommendations relates to commercial loading zones and there's an accompanying map to the memo. The first recommendation is to add one commercial loading zone on Main Street next to the Town Hall lot on Main Street west of the PVTA bus stop. So as you turn left onto Main Street from North Pleasant, there'd be a commercial loading zone. There's plenty of room there. It can really serve as a loading zone without taking up any other regular parking spaces. Also recommending that three commercial loading zone spaces on the north side of Main Street by Town Hall be converted. One to a 15-minute free high turnover space and two to regular metered spaces. We think those are the most appropriate uses of those spaces, particularly at the main entrance to the Town Hall and across the street from a number of restaurants and other retail establishments. Second set of recommendations adds three 15-minute high turnover free parking spaces at three additional locations. One I just mentioned near the main entrance of Town Hall on Main Street. One in the lower Bangs lot behind Rayo's Coffee and then one on Amity Street next to the Jones Library near the Book Drop. Third set of recommendations creates some late night taxi stands. One of the things we heard as we were working on taxi regulations in the latter half of 2012 was a need for a greater number of taxi stands, particularly at high demand times. I have a recommendation to repurpose five metered spaces on the east side of South Pleasant Street in the area between the Spring Street parking lot and the Main Street parking lot. To late night taxi stands Thursday, Fridays and Saturday nights from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. They would remain regular metered spaces at all other times, but that is a high demand time for taxi services in the downtown. That is also a safer location in terms of pedestrian and vehicle access at that location. Next, number four, minimum charge. This is a common item. We didn't have this here for the multi-space meter machines when you're paying with plastic, debit or credit card, having a minimum charge of two hours. It's basically a minimum charge of a dollar to use those machines. And the basic purpose of that is to not lose money on the transaction. Not really gain much money, but not lose money either on a very short-term transaction, given the cost of fees, et cetera, with credit cards. Fifth, a couple of recommendations related to town center permit parking. This would have the north side of Spring Street between Boltwood Avenue and Churchill Street, which is the block on either side with Lord Jeff on the south side and Grace Church on the north side. That would convert to town center permit parking, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Now, the meter heads would remain and can be used as a metered parking at all times, during the weekday would also be used for town center permit holders. And what we have found since we converted to exclusively metered parking there was that the utilization has been very, very low during the daytime, creating some other kind of domino issues in terms of overcrowding on the permit parking further down Spring Street and some of those other side streets. So this will allow more of that space to be used more often during the weekday time. The second item related to town center permit parking is a recommendation to convert the south side of Gaylord Street from unrestricted parking to town center permit parking, which are sold to residents or those who work in the downtown, which again would be applicable Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Having some ongoing discussions with many of the property owners and others in the Gaylord Street neighborhood and there's been an issue, a concern expressed about the narrowness of the street, which is obvious, but concern about parking and ease of access up and down the street and in particular being able to get out of one's driveway in a reasonably safe and way. And so we're working at the staff level with Public Works and Public Safety to finalize a detailed set of parking and no parking areas along Gaylord Street that is sensitive to that need for an appropriate turning radius for those who are attempting to navigate that street or even get out of their own driveway. Number six, a couple of recommendations related to Boltwood Garage reserve parking. We have reserve parking in the lower level. There's a couple of recommendations here. Increasing by three, the number of reserve spaces in the lower level to a total of 28, but also increasing the annual rate for reserve spaces from $750 per year to $850 per year, which would be the first such increase in nearly two years. Lastly, we are recommending an introduction to the new parking lot permit option for regular parkers in our downtown. This would create a new permit program for weekday parking during business hours, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. You would be able to purchase, using any metered space in the lower level of the Boltwood Garage for a sticker that you would have put on your side window of your vehicle. That would cost $600 per year. If you wanted to add Saturday mornings to that, you could do that for an additional $25. We want to offer the same option in the town portion of the CVS lot, which is a lesser use lot. That would be $400 per year and also an additional $25 if you add Saturday. We think that will encourage some of the reserved pass holders to convert to a weekday pass instead, which we think over a longer term can free up some spaces, particularly at the peak time, such as the dinner hour in the Boltwood Garage area. I'll stop there. Folks, this is a public hearing, so the way this will proceed is the select board will start with questions and comments, then we will go to the public for questions and comments. When we're all done questioning and commenting, we'll close the public hearing and then deliberate. Just a technical thing before we get started, and for both of those, I'll go in order because that makes the most sense in dealing with them one issue at a time. But before we do that, item number seven, the parking lot permit parking, was not actually part of the agenda. So this has been noticed as a public hearing. I'm not sure if the wording of the noticing of the public hearing will cover that or not, so I would recommend that the select board proceed with it and then we ask council if it is legitimate or not, and if it is not, then we'll re-notice that part of it and consider it again. So, okay. It's possible that all these things are covered, but just to be on the safe side so that we know what we're doing appropriately. Okay, so starting at the beginning, commercial loading zones, select board members, Ms. Brewer. Yes, and thank you for the maps in the packet. They're helpful, although flipping back and forth sometimes with little blue dots is a little funny, too, to try and figure out. So with the new commercial loading zone, that's just west of the PBTA bus stop. Yep. That's a 24-7 CLZ as per the map. I want to make sure I got my shades of blue, right? Yes. All right, and then some of the things that we're removing in the commercial loading zone are currently the 630-1130 AM, and that's what's considered the AM commercial loading zone. Those still exist a couple of other places in town, and those are noted, and I've seen the sign, but people always get confused. Does that mean I'm really allowed to park there after those hours? And the answer is yes. But if it just says commercial loading zone, the answer is no. The question and comments about commercial loading zones. Mr. Hayden. I'm just curious. Are these responding to specific requests?  Is that where this comes from? We think the new, the addition is a safer spot. And the remaining commercial loading zones, including ones that were added down by the black sheep, and there's one across the street on Main Street as well, that those are you know, heavily used and the most, I don't know if I guess you could describe the most popular one being the one on the other side of Main Street on the retail block side of the street near the sidewalk, the handicapped accessible sidewalk. So it's easier to unload, load, unload from the trucks and service the various businesses there. Good questions or comments on commercial loading zones? I was, I mean clearly the answer is yes, but I was curious about the location of the new one. It's not next to anything and people would have to cross the street. The truck drivers would have to cross the street with all their goods, so they're not actually near anything they would be delivering to and I know that there is there's like handrail going along a significant part of that. Did you sort of you considered all those things and still thought it was a good idea, right? I would ask Claire McGinnis. The use of that space in particular is already happening. So this formalizes what we already know that drivers find that space useful and convenient. It's always open because it's parking for no other purpose. What they are near is several crosswalks that gets them to businesses. Okay. And my other question is that's the commercial loading zone is an expensive ticket and I was wondering if there's any way to call attention to the change because some people are parking there as regular parking these days so if this is going to be a change that suddenly you're going to get a very expensive ticket is there any way to call attention to that or have like a grace period of getting a different kind of ticket for some amount of time because that is an expensive ticket, right? It is one of the more expensive tickets and what we talked about was a round of notice with our business partners and merchants saying hey, we have new commercial loading zone and then a round of warnings and then a round of and then actually getting out to ticketing because the net change is fewer for retail users there's actually more space available which means fewer tickets less confusion because there are fewer spaces marked commercial loading zone after these changes compared to before. Okay, that sounds good. Thank you. Alright, anything else? Ms. Stein and then Ms. Brewer. She already asked a question so you have to go next. I was wondering about the idea of maybe having a commercial loading zone in the area, the parking spaces next to say Johnny's because the trucks are often standing there blocking three or four parking places for people trying to get into bangs so I wondered if that had been considered as a place for commercial loading zone. There's really not room and because of the deck of the garage there's a where issue and a facility what's the right word John there's a facility management problem that we don't, we're not going to encourage heavy trucks on the deck because we know that it happens but it is wearing out that facility faster than it should be if we could try to keep trucks off it. So we tried to protect the commercial loading zones near the tunnel and also near the lower level by Clark House, not Clark House, Webster House the lower access that goes along Boltwood Walk. So we didn't take away anything there because we are going to try to encourage trucks to stay off the deck. I have become confused and so I'm hoping we can clarify this so this new commercial loading zone right in that's to the west of the PBTA I can picture the bus shelter very easily so what's there right now are meters there's nothing there there's nothing there so technically who's parking there now? I'm confused by that. So I was assuming we were turning spaces into commercial loading zone but we're not so what does that mean? It's being used unofficially and has been for a long time as a loading zone but it's not actually marked as parking spaces not marked or signed that solves many problems so it's on the street side of the median where the meters are for Main Street lot but it's on the street side and creating a parking space where there hadn't been one so you don't have to worry about what I was thinking because evidently PBTA's not worried about pulling around trucks they're good and they have lots to practice because they're already there because it's been done unofficially for a long time and the street is wide enough where it works not currently marked for parking thank you alright anything else on loading zones 15 minute parking spaces Miss Stein they're great, I'm glad we're adding them I think they're really useful to downtown businesses and I can tell you that of all the various recommendations that I talked about with the business improvement district folks they were most enthusiastic about adding the 15 minute spaces because they agree that that's been a very favorably received by people who want to do business in the downtown any other questions or comments about 15 minute parking okay Taxi Stans I'll get to the public after, sorry Miss Brewer she's just shooting her hand up so okay I didn't go over and look at the signs again recently but the Taxi Stans that won't be the late night thing because that won't interfere with meters at all because obviously nobody's putting money in the meters at that time but the two that remain next to the little yellow house so they just say Taxi Stans what does that mean to me as someone who's driving does that mean I'm not supposed to park there ever it means it's a reserve space for taxis only do we run into a lot of people parking there who end up getting tickets I mean I'm asking you just off the top of your head rather than to actually do the research because I don't want you to waste the time but those signs have become a little disheveled over time and I'm not sure that people really grasp what they are there the only time I see this in violations is during the farmers market okay that makes sense because of course there are 24-7 signs okay thank you we may just need to update the signage are there questions or comments on Taxi Stans so is the violation for parking there ticketing? not towing just ticketing correct again that'll be a weird one with the signage because that's going to be different for folks so you're going to have things that are Taxi Stans all the time and things that turn to Taxi Stans at 11 o'clock for 3 nights a week it'll be marked, it'll be signed that way in a way that I'm sure we'll find perfectly clear that's my sarcasm font it makes sense logically it's just the signage and were Taxi Stans considered closer to the actual bar area this is having people go most of the folks are going to UMass though that's not 100% the case that's making them go the opposite direction we talked about that it's very close to where you might expect a large number of pedestrians to be out at that hour but this was developed with lots of feedback from the Amherst police about inappropriate double triple parking by Taxis looking for customers encourages a congregation of people to remain as opposed to having them all if they want a Taxi going to a designated spot that is nearby there's also things like the regular PVTA stop that has some late night service it's down by the post office and the you know the sober shuttle that's been introduced this semester which picks up passengers down by Kellogg by the post office as well for that you know that concept of people naturally walking in that direction right speaking of signage because unless they're going back to Amherst college they're going to be taking as you said away from UMass so can we put a sign out by Antonio's or something in that general vicinity that says Taxis that way how else would they possibly know that the Taxis are the opposite direction of where they're going in terms of I know that the problem is right now the Taxis are pulling up and taking them and then it's not a problem they don't have to find them because the Taxis are right there and having their cooperation to go to those designated spots which they will have for the first time it's a team effort to make it work and then the word of mouth if you need a cab cross Main Street and you know you got hopefully five waiting there for you right that's what I was trying to understand it's how to tell those folks as they're pouring out of various buildings to do that direction instead okay anything else on Taxis stands minimum charge alright so I have a question about that so do we have data on the usage of credit cards and how many kind of in general and how many of the credit card or percentage really up are coming in at lower than the minimum you're looking for like do lots of people use credit cards I did this analysis but I forgot to look at it again today I did this analysis when I first presented the idea to John and Sandy our most frequent swipe is under a dollar right now which is less than a two hour purchase and when it's a cost to revenue ratio changes dramatically at the two hour purchase so that was how we chose this price point or purchase point I'll have to get it to you because my concern is that that's a major convenience so I'm wondering how many people were inconveniencing and that was to me a real selling point with the new machines is you don't need to have a coin all the time so if suddenly you're going to say alright you use a credit card for kind of a minimum purchase that significantly eliminates the convenience factor and I wonder if maybe we're willing to subsidize the convenience because that was a big part of making the change well we're subsidizing the convenience with every swipe because every swipe has a merchant fee which is over 25 cents per swipe so we need to do something and this was the point where the ratio indicated just said right there that's where you need to target your minimum purchase I'm glad you brought that up because that's exactly the way I feel in terms of we were trying to say oh you can do it on your phone or you can do this, you can do that, it's going to be so easy don't worry about having the quarters and I know it's only a few quarters but it's still quarters people don't have to have I think that especially given that the signage for credit card credit card users seem to be even more typically confused than cash users in my absolutely anecdotal experience walking around downtown so is it possible as we go through this and we get to the point of voting that we could choose to take pieces out of this in order to delay them for consideration at another time yes we absolutely, I don't know what the motion says but we need to vote on everything separately and certainly we could remove anything I would just say on this and I get the points that people are expressing the notion of a minimum charge place in public parking facilities what is much less common is how low our parking rates are for a charge system and so we're offering the credit card convenience but at a very very low hourly rate which we want to preserve that low hourly rate and we're hoping and I think it's natural that over time the percentage of users using plastic will grow as it is in many other types of transactions that people make nowadays as much less currency floating around the system but it is a cost to doing business and it just seemed eminently reasonable to me on a situation like this the statistics I did look at today I can tell you that 30% of the revenue through those metered machines is in the form of a card swipe and that's very consistent over the entire year and a half that we've been using them Miss Stein? The only thing I was going to say is I don't have a problem with the minimum charge because if you go into the black sheep there's a minimum if you go into the bakery there's a minimum you to use a credit card below a certain amount so a two hour purchase doesn't seem onerous to me Other questions or comments on minimum charge Miss Brewer? Since we don't actually have the rate chart here I'm sure someone remembers off the top of their head that it's 50 cents in the machines so two hours is two bucks $1 It's $1, right This is why I do the finance stuff you know so two hour you're looking purely at because I think that's an important context spending a minimum of $1 when you park if you're paying with a credit card that's what we're talking about If I could just point out if you don't set a minimum you're almost better off not charging for parking because we lose money on every transaction so that's why we did look at where the cutoffs were and the arcane world of credit card pricing and it gets pretty it can get expensive but sometimes it's 50 cents for every swipe it just depends on what kind of credit card you're using so we did not want to be in a position where the town is losing money every time it does a transaction and that's why we came up with this minimum thank you okay other things questions or comments on minimum charge alright town center permit parking questions or comments Ms. Brewer I'm so boring where it talks about and I totally appreciated your explanation on spring street and how you may as well let permit parking be there as well if it's not getting used with the meters do we do that anyplace else wondering about as our system continues to evolve we don't have that in place else but I mean it's the this is actually an easy one in terms of the change because you just tell you know who your permit users are so you can tell your permit users by the way you can park over there now which is a lot easier than just saying to the general public guess what we give them all a map and I know that from early on after the conversion to metered spaces boy we wish that could be reconsidered for permit parking and the idea of being able to be either I think okay thanks you know I had missed that the first time around that you could continue to use meters there that's very interesting so the the parking enforcement folks are okay with that that's a reasonably efficient thing to do yes weird okay other questions on town center permit parking okay boltwood garage reserve parking okay let's see I've got I was just interested in the rates I like the idea that we're increasing them and I would like to see us increase them sort of regularly to see what the what the tipping point is I checked northampton just to be curious they charge $90 per month for their reserve spaces and have a waiting list so that comes out to more than $1000 so I really think that when you're when you're basically you're leasing a piece of town real estate you should also have the convenience factor built in so I'm not sure usually when you buy things sort of in bulk you get a discount but this time so I can see you get the discount that's cheaper than if you were to pay for parking on all of those hours but but I think there's a convenience factor of you never have to look for a space and you're basically buying a piece of town real estate for that amount of time that I would think that the price point could be higher but I'm glad to see it being increased and I can see how we might want to continue to monitor the situation I think you want the price to be as high as possible before you end up losing spaces you know once you have a vacancy then you know that you've just hit that point but Miss Brewer since you've done a bunch of analysis associated with this and I'm not going to put you on the spot but if you remember that's totally fine if you don't with eliminating the monthly rate it seems like it would be much simpler to just go ahead and charge people for a year have we had issues with people who say they want the parking space but then don't pay on in a timely fashion and then we don't know what to do with their space if they're really going to pay for it or not we do get into that more with the monthly payers but the reality is that right now we have the 25 spaces only one person is going month to month so that's really good to know this is just sort of easy for them too yep excellent thank you other questions about what we garage reserve parking right parking lot permit parking so this is a totally new concept very different Miss Brewer because I'm desperate to ask these questions so this is like yeah you could look to the parking enforcement people as all I can say this lots of different things for them to keep in track of now so I just want to be clear that we are talking about it is very specific so even though it's called parking lot permit parking it's the bolt would garage lower level permit parking during the day or it's the town CVS lot like your chart says here it's not you know any parking lot people should not get confused it's these very specific spaces that are underutilized and that we think we can do this with that's exactly it because during the week days the lower level of the garage and some portions of the town CVS lot are they have a high vacancy rate so we want to encourage more regular parkers to use those spaces as opposed to the prime spots that you know customers who might want to come in and do business and be conveniently next to the shop have greater access to those spaces great so following up on that again since we just don't have the chart with me and obviously I can't even add 50 cents at this point is what is the since this is another kind of permit we know how much the reserve parking is in the garage the current town center permits that because what I'm looking at is this is an alternative for an employee so an employee might be feeding a meter an employee might be buying one of these day permits or an employee might be buying a town center permit what's the price you know just to give me a context I mean obviously I know you came up with this for a good reason but so I did the math and 250 business days a year if you were here for 6 hours a day at 50 cents an hour that's $750 nice if you are somebody who arrives at 2 to work a late lunch into a dinner hour obviously it's less if you're somebody who has a true business day and is here for 8 hours that's $1000 so it's a significant if somebody was truly trying to keep up with meters for all of that time this is significantly discounted the beauty well it's the beauty but it's the reason that we identified these two areas as permit parking as John said is because they're mostly vacant so it's encouraging people to get into less or use space the other way I looked at this pricing is what do those spaces make us right now in revenue and try to replace it's not a money maker for us but it's a replacement trying to encourage people to get into our underutilized space as well as to park legally because they don't have to repeatedly feed the meter all day and get rid of the hassle factor of having to go out to the meter repeatedly absolutely and then how does it compare to if they're weighing their options which hopefully they're not feeding meters but they're looking at this and then they're also looking at a town center permit say they don't live they don't work exactly close to one of these what's a town center permit run people these days only $25 so the difference is this way because it's a shorter walk because it's right in there as opposed to being in the outlying areas okay excellent other questions or comments on parking lot permit parking alright now I will open it up to the public for questions and comments and we will again start at the beginning because that's easiest commercial loading zones nobody cares about commercial loading zones 15 minute parking spaces can identify yourself Alex Karabay executive director of the Amherst Business Improvement District I think this is a great recommendation as many of these are I'll address them one at a time as we're doing but in general I applaud the work of the town staff and putting these together and I hope that we can have more changes to policy in the future but the 15 minute spaces as the time manager said was one of the strongest recommendations from the bid three is great I think even more might be good in the future but we'll see how it goes with this but this has been loud and clear from businesses thank you very much anyone else on 15 minute parking alright taxi stands minimum charge for the credit card Mr. Prograda is the maximum amount of time on the lots is that two hours in some places as well four hours at the for the parking lots it's four hours oh yeah right so then on main and spring the minimum and maximum would be the same amount so there's only one purchase you can make on those by car by car yes on this any matters with parking I think we should keep convenience in mind very strongly because one of the the bids concerns about parking downtown is that people don't want to come downtown because they think parking is too much of a hassle so if you know I don't have feelings about this other way I think you know town staff is doing a good job but analyzing this stuff but it sort of seems confusing in some places for the lots to have a minimum charge and then in some places for it to be the only charge you can make on your card just make sure we're keeping convenience in mind as well as finances thank you town center permit parking this involves gay lord street are you sir are you also so I need to know what you're doing first before we get into this personal what's gay lord street I suspect you need to come forward and speak at the mic please I just want to introduce the remarks ahead of the Colin there I'm Dennis Porter I live at the bottom of gay lord street and number 33 and I would just like to draw your attention to our handout which I believe have and to a few points Mr. is already gone over the ground to some extent of the problems of parking on gay lord street I would just like to underline the fact that this is an old and narrow street with all these cutouts with these telephone poles and lots of problems and narrow driveways from which you try to get onto the street with the car right in front of you and you probably only got about eight feet at most between these are the sort of issues and it gets worse when there are banks of snow but basically I should perhaps remind you that the why this is a problem now and it wasn't a few years ago is for two reasons first of all they have a town center permit parking up to South Prospect street gay lord comes off that so that pushed people down to park on our street to begin with and then about 18 months ago we had this very fine sidewalk put in place which is about twice as wide as the original sidewalk and berms on the other side which does a great job for drainage and it's nice to be able to walk up that sidewalk however it does mean the street is now three feet narrower than it ever was before which you can see how the problem accumulates I'd make a couple of other points first we understand the church a hope church may have somewhat different interests here but as far as we're concerned as far as I'm concerned hope church is and has always been and remains a good neighbor so we want it to flourish when about 10 years ago or something like that the idea was that hope church may move to North Amherst I was horrified and I have to say I was very happy that they stayed on Gaylord street so in that sense we don't want in any way to disfavor or antagonize the church but we do feel that they you know they're mostly there on Sundays obviously and on Saturdays and perhaps possibly arrangements could be made for them on other days if this seems to be necessary so that's basically what I wanted to say thank you so if you give a give an overview give a sense of what your presentation is so we can see how much of this we need our presentation is covering the details of what Dennis described my name is Colin Hill I live at 15 Gaylord street my name is Colin Hill I live at 15 Gaylord street the the issue is as Dennis described an issue of roadway width and because the roadway is what it is that is between 16 and 17 feet wide what we're dealing with here is a road that is unsuitable for parking of any kind you can make a legitimate argument that this roadway is suitable for no parking and barely suitable for two-way traffic at 17 feet as the minimum for two-way traffic is 18 feet and you can get the DPW input on this they'll tell you that they want one-way traffic or no parking I gotta tell you one-way traffic isn't gonna solve a problem here related to width because you still have one lane of traffic which we have now and one lane of vehicles the standard width for a parking which right now are unmarked and essentially a haphazard implementation on the street is 15 feet by 9 feet nationally Amherst luckily has a slightly narrower standard at 20 feet by 8 feet due to the math here you end up with between 8 and 9 feet of drivable roadway unfortunately the state of Massachusetts says that's not suitable for any lanes of traffic so ever parking is not suitable for roads where you don't have a passing distance of more than 10 feet now there are other concerns there are a number of elderly residents on the street and of course anyone would find the need for fire and emergency vehicle transit on the roadway the operative standard for this and this is not a regulation it's a standard favored by fire chief Tim Nelson and other fire departments around the country excuse me that standard defines 12 feet minimum transit between any parked cars on the roadway and the side of the roadway and of course if you talk to any emergency personnel they'll tell you don't worry we can drive on the sidewalk well that's great unless you've got telephone poles there because I guarantee you a telephone pole is going to fare better than my car it's also going to fare better than a fire engine unfortunately the the facts are that but what it amounts to is we recognize the importance of Hope Church in the community we recognize that they don't have any private parking of their own near their facility and we want to try and accommodate them so in spite of the fact that it's highly dangerous to have parking on the street we want to make sure that it is possible so we have a proposal we ask that regardless of whether the board votes up and up or down the town center for parking for Gaylord street we ask that provision be made for safe parking on the street that is we would effectively need to remove a number of spaces unfortunately because as I said parking tends to be haphazard on the street now on a bad day you'll see 20, 25, 30 cars on this street as and Mr. Santee may be able to correct me on this DPW envisions 18 parking spaces on the street is that a correct number we're still working out those details currently in the current configuration it's in that range but not 20 not 25 and not 30 so when you have 20, 25, 30 cars on the street you end up with vehicles and if you turn your attention to the monitor right along the street the entire length of the street blocking and infringing on driveways both on the same side as parking and also on the opposite side of parking now the issue with vehicles on the opposite side of a driveway on a 17 unfortunately we're having some technical difficulties here unfortunate there was one moment the issue with having vehicles on so Mr. Hill while you're dealing with your technology let me just kind of summarize where I think this issue is so we have the question in front of us about whether to change this to town center permit parking the select board doesn't really get into the specific safety issues per space and as Mr. Musanti has noted town staff is already working with the residents to try and designate which spaces are safe so I think that the select board is going to leave that to town staff to continue to work that out I don't think that's an issue for us to be I think your correct what we're asking as the residents as a whole are asking and the names of those we represent is we're asking that the board recommend to the DPW to take care to ensure safe turning radius on into and out of driveways on the street because it is such a narrow street the intersection formed by the driveway and the roadway itself is unavoidable if you were to park opposite that driveway so simply saying you may not park opposite a driveway and provide a an area around that driveway on both sides of the road will serve the safety goals that we were hoping to serve so we're looking for a recommendation from the board to you in that regard the packet that you have details what I was hoping to demonstrate here you'll see on page 2 breakouts of the turning radius these using turning radius overlays provided by the department of public works this is the standard method by which we can say determine the turning radius out of driveways and intersections and as you can see we position vehicles outside those turning radiuses such that safe ingress and egress from driveways can be maintained even during maximum parking times when the street is fully occupied I understand your recommendation we need to move this along a bit more so if the select board is looking to get a summary of detail with its recommendation then we'll ask you more questions about it but we so we'll call you back during the deliberation if we have more questions about that thank you very much thank you for all your information yes sir in the back if you can come forward and please identify yourself my name is Mario de Piles Jr. 27 Gaylord Street and I support what Colin just said about need for radius I don't have a problem getting out of my driveway because I have a fire hydrant opposite me and so I don't have a problem but I would like to see that the church get parking permits as a part of this and perhaps additional parking permits during weekdays and if they need to should be asked if they need more and they should be granted more there's a minimal amount so if you do vote for the parking permits which I don't have an opinion on I would like them to have more even if today if you don't vote for the parking permits for that street it would be nice for them to have more parking available to them so even today I think they would benefit from parking permits okay thank you very much other folks want to have comment on the town center permit parking okay boltwood garage reserve parking Mr. Krograbek anyone else all right parking lot permit parking all right then at this time I will take a motion to close the public hearing at 803 I would move to close the public hearing at 803 second further discussion all in favor say aye all right that's unanimous okay so now it's like we're deliberation so we can still ask questions for any clarification that we need during this period so I think taking these one by one is easiest because that lets us know where we have issues so commercial loading zones anybody have anything but support for the commercial loading zone recommendation okay 15 minute parking spaces good taxi stands minimum charge so I don't like the minimum charge thing I think we've got serious convenience issues I can appreciate that we are upside down in that financing model but considering the whole point and particularly the idea that 30% of the usage is currently coming from credit cards that seems like a significant number of people who are taking advantage of that convenience factor that we've given them and I just I don't know what the implications of that would be I think that that was such a selling point of the machines that's a concern so I'm not sure if it would be better to just rethink that part of the recommendation or to just vote it up or down but I can't support it and it's current I can't support it as is what do other people think I was going to recommend I wasn't quite clear on exactly how our process was going here but I was going to recommend that we remove it for consideration and I mean not I'm not going to tie our hands by saying we have to do it at a future time but my intent behind it would be another period of time with some additional signage about just how to use the bloody card in the first place and then revisiting as part of potentially in my mind the whole 2, 3, 4, 8 hour issue as well so I would be fine with removing it from tonight's consideration Mr. Hinn I kind of like the idea of the table as well partly because I'm very slow on the uptake and I made the motion before I had the question and now I have the question which may not have been answerable tonight anyway and that is how switching the cell phone network will affect that usage right now it's extremely difficult because of the waiting times and uncertainty about some of what the screens are really saying which the sign will help but it's not convenient to use a credit card right now in fact it's darn near impossible I tried it once and couldn't figure it out but that's maybe because I don't park that often at any event so I like the idea of tabling it until we can figure out what's happening with that I imagine the 3G will speed it up that more people will want to use it and I don't know if that affects the charges either at the same time it does mean that presumably the more people use it the more trouble we'll have with the pricing it will help but the screen doesn't go blank for 2 minutes at a time that would be a nice feature that's fine I'm wondering if we can get some data to solve this issue and that is if there is any way that Ms. McGinnis could rate down credit card charges for the last month at least and say well this was for 2 hours this was for half an hour it's 30% sounds like a lot of people using it but it may not be for tiny amounts of time and the thing is I think the credit card option is a convenience and I don't think it should end up costing the town money that's my concern about this so I wonder is there a way we can get more data about are people really using credit cards for like 35 cents or a very ridiculously small amount we can get that data to you so maybe we could table this until we have the data Mr. Wall I understand the town is concerned about the money but it is convenient because often you don't have change and you have to pay for parking ideally you'd have a machine that gave you change there or an ATM or a system that stored parking on a card or maybe you could create 15 minute free spaces in these lots for those who would pay but there may be other ways around the problem that wouldn't resolve this but I think right now we can't solve it so I'd be happy to table it that's an interesting point about the change machines which I think we got rid of as part of the change to the parking machine so I think no, they're still there I thought we were going to get rid of them so it just strikes me as really a fundamental change to the concept of having gotten the machines for their convenience factor I think we need to be looking at it not just at the money part and maybe there's a way that the money part can be made up in some other way I'm not sure what that is but it's a fundamental change so I think we have agreement to table that until we have more data bring that back town center permit parking Mr. Wall just for the sake of the viewing audience could we explain what the parking situation on Gaylord is thank you I know the street very well and I understand the problem that's very narrow and it's hard to park there right now it's two-way traffic and there's no parking on the north side of Gaylord and there is unrestricted parking on the south side what we're doing here is not really going to address the issue right now you can park there already the theory behind the town center permit is that your eligibility for those permits are if you are a resident of the street or work in the downtown but I mean we're not debating the actual location of parking spaces which is the concern of the residents not in this motion other questions or comments on town center Ms. Burr so currently it's similar to where we're putting in the new commercial 24-7 commercial loading zone or perhaps even less so and there aren't meters there now there's no permit parking there now and on the north side it has signs that says no parking at any time period and on the south side it's just unmarked and it's just a street and whoever parks there parks there I can understand why we would like to have some more spaces set aside for town center permit parking it's always nice to have any choices for people do we have any indication at this point that it's getting filled up with something else that we don't want to be there or is it just that the spaces are underutilized and so that's why we want it I'm not sure how we got to this point I think it was an attempt to reduce the utilization of parking by outsiders there so the town permit parking would potentially be full of town permit parkers or people might find that to be not a convenient place to park anyway so we'll either be getting money for the parking that's happening there already in the form of town center permit or not or no one will park there which is okay too if nobody wants to park there with a permit okay so to the points that the neighbors put up so no one has offered any concern about the town center permit part of this it's only the spaces themselves so I feel confident in asking the town to continue to work out what safe parking would be on that road particularly I can see how the changes that were made in the last two years changed the facts on the ground there so the town really does have a role to go in there and try and fix what kind of got broken as part of all the other fixes that happened the curbs in the sidewalk had a lot of certainly a ton of benefit and was the neighborhood was really looking for that so so the degree of specificity of the recommendation that we were asked to make by residents of the city I think it strikes me as beyond what we need to ask from DPW I think that this is there are lots of standards here and everything I don't want to put us in a position of seeming to be experts about anything that we're not experts on anything we don't know anything that's why you pay us the big buck so to leave this at the discretion of neighbors and whomever to make this rational is that kind of a good enough recommendation I mean I think it's important that the select board say yes help these folks to improve the safety and practicality of parking on their street but that we don't necessarily need to micromanage how they do that thoughts on that Mr. Hayden. I'd like to recall the last time the select board did road design and how well that went I agree I know it's a problem that the Public Works Committee has been working on for more than a year now so nice to see it come to a conclusion Any other thoughts about that part of the recommendation? The thing about the extra permits for Hope Church that isn't something that we've dealt with what is this permit situation for Town Center parking? There's day passes that are available to permit holders up to a certain amount but that can be handled at an administrative level so it's clear it deals regularly with Town Center permit holders in that situation. Let's begin. So if the street became permit parking on the southern side every resident would qualify for a permit their $25 each Hope Church being a resident would qualify for pretty much as many as they asked for as long as it didn't become prohibitive in some way to the rest of the street. So the other example that lends itself obviously is Grace Church next door is much closer to Town Center and is a much bigger organization and the permit system works perfectly with them. They have two or three employees who actually pull the permit and park in Town Center permit areas and the rest of their activities mostly happen on weekends and no permit is required. Thank you. Other questions or comments then about the Town Center permit stuff? What would garage reserve parking concerns? Permit parking innovative improvement? Alright then I think that we are looking to support all of these things except to table the minimum charge part of it and we have further data. Miss Stein would you like to make the motion as appropriate? Sure you want it all right. I only ask because it is a page and I'm happy to do it but I didn't know I can do this. Well we could also you do have plenty of practice even tonight you could say as described as noted on the motion sheet if we wanted to do that. Why don't I try short hand for this? I move that the select board approve the proposed changes to the parking regulations as follows and as noted in the handout for the commercial loading zones for the 15 minute parking spaces for the taxing stands for the Town Center permit parking for Boltwood garage reserve parking for the parking lot permit parking and the minimum charge for debit or credit cards be tabled to a future meeting. Second. Perfect. Thank you for the discussion. I'll just note that that the select board sense on the Town Center permit will be noted in the minutes and that we are supporting the idea of finding good safe parking situation for those folks. Further discussion? Well they were saying hi. Hi. That's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you all for the effort that went into this stuff. I thank you to Town Manager and the bid and everyone for coordinating to come up with this stuff. You turn a dial and it turns a whole bunch of other things and so we understand the complication of this. All right. So I apologize that we're later on everything than we expected to be. But now we are up to food truck regulations. Last week I presented to the select board the draft of the draft details not the regulations themselves but the details to be turned into language of food truck regulations as Mr. Krograbé and Mr. Morales of the Chamber and I had worked on since that time we have distributed them to licensees. We have distributed them to Town staff. Is that right? Mr. Krograbé and we are soliciting comment from folks. So first of all I wanted to check in with select board on your comments any thoughts that you've had over the week. I will note that we had one bit of comment that came in public comment through email and that is in your packet and is on our web packet. We also have a letter to us more comment from one of the licensees on our desk this evening and so first I will open it up to the audience. Mr. Hayden? I'm wondering if we missed one parking regulation which is one that would tell us where we might allow these trucks to park generally. Besides that and in light of the comment that we had I just want to note that it has been observed in a number of hearings we've had a little while ago the fact that these things do provide a service that people do want so it's not a matter of getting rid of them without getting rid of that service. Thank you. So it's good to do this. And it's good to kind of get ahead of it before it turns into a hundred applications suddenly that we don't know what to do with. Ms. Brewer? Following up on that actually just the same thing I said last week which is that as you know, if that's them they will find places to plug themselves in as to who enforces what. So it's just super clear to people. If I have a problem with X this is going to go over here and this is who I should call it. If I'm concerned about this happening or meters or whatever and just lays these various pieces out that we've been just trying to deal with as we move along and whether or not you bag spaces or et cetera. We can look at. We'll just simplify a lot of things. All right. So we are getting feedback from staff on that. I gave a sort of a soft deadline of the 11th for that feedback to see. The goal is to get these in place as quickly as possible but not to short circuit the process. So if it turns out that it needs longer time then this will take as long as it needs. If we get all the comment we might get by the 11th then the goal would be to turn these into language potentially for the 18th or if I can't manage it for the 18th then it would be for the first meeting in April. So that's our general time frame. Any other comments, concerns from before I open it up to the public? I would just say that given that we don't have a lot of experience with these this type of vending, food vending in this spot. They happen all over the world of course but other places in the world are not immersed. We have different requirements and different properties. So I'm going to bet that we don't get it exactly right the first time but that's okay. Continue to tweak them just like we do the rest of our parking stuff. Okay, thank you. Alright, folks from the audience would like to comment. Yes sir, please come forward and identify yourself. Hello. My name is Martin Carrara and I have a business here in downtown Amherst called La Veracruzana and we've been here since 1998. And I'm not here tonight to oppose food trucks because maybe one of these days I may want to have one here in town. So but what I am here for is that I feel that currently the process is not a fair process. When I look at how long it took me to open up my restaurant here in Amherst which was from the day that I first leased it and started paying monthly rent. I think it was a three month process in where I had to go to the planning board, zoning board, design and review board and that was three months in order to get my permit to build out. Okay, so then it took me another two months to do the build out which is five months. With these food trucks I think that we are not asking sufficient questions of how they should operate as the questions that we ask restaurant owners. Every year I get inspected by the building inspector, I get inspected by the fire inspector and I get inspected two times a year by the health inspector. I think that it's more than just the recommendations that Tony and Alex made and that the select board has worked on. I think that this is requires like I said in my email last week that we set up a committee to come up with regulations that are pertinent to this type of industry so that we don't create something that later on we may feel that we need that is out of hand such as let's take into consideration I looked at the regulations in Austin, Texas and one of the things that they had stipulated that if a food truck is more than two hours in one spot they're required to enter into an agreement with a business a brick and mortar business so that they can use their bathrooms so that the employees of that food truck can use their bathrooms. Do we right now have such a regulation for the food trucks? Do we know where their employees are using their bathroom? That's important. The other thing is I don't own property in Amherst but through my rental charge my landlord pays his property taxes and that's what restaurant owners here in the downtown area do. We help our landlords pay those property taxes and by us allowing in the community for food trucks to use public parking spaces we are taking those public parking spots very good shortage that are for people to shop in downtown in order we're allowing it to somewhat subsidize a business and I just don't feel that's right I think that there are sufficient private lots that food trucks or food stands can enter into agreement with private owners in order so that they can do their business and like I say as a restaurant owner I'm not opposed to this form of business but I also feel that the process needs to be just as rigorous as the process is to open up a restaurant you know they need to go before the planning the zoning and design and review board the yearly inspections that are required maybe not at the cost that regular restaurants do but they need who's going to check to make sure that that food truck has their fire extinguishers and their Ansel system every year done is that a regulation currently in place? so they are they do have to hold the health department permit and they are required to meet all of their inspection standards also I don't actually know about the fire part of it and they also have to make arrangements for a list of bathroom facilities that they can use that's part of the health permit also from a bathroom do they have to have the agreement with the owner of that building? they have to submit something I don't know whose agreement it's with but they have to submit the list of bathrooms that they are allowed to use well I use the bathroom at let's just take for instance my business well I use the bathroom at La Verra Crizzana well I don't disavow people from using the bathroom if they come in and ask for the bathroom but that doesn't mean that I should that and I don't say hey are you operating a food truck? you know but as a business you know they should be required to enter into formal agreements for that bathroom I had thought that was the case but if it's not then we can look into that for sure and so what I'm saying today and what I'm asking the select board to do is to set up somewhat of a committee so that we can write regulations into this new industry that is good for Amherst good for the industry so that we don't have this sense of division in where you know restaurant I mean when you look at I can take you several examples Camelitos in South Amherst the little burger joint that was going to open where in Michelson's gallery and the restaurant that's going to open next to it they're all they all had to take a lot of time to open based on having to go through rigorous by the building inspector and things like this so what is good for restaurant businesses what is good for food trucks but we need to set up this committee in order so that we answer a lot of questions that are pertinent we can't go piece by piece every year or every six months you know I think that it's time because we've already allowed it that's great but let's set up a committee so that a lot of questions are answered thank you very much for your comments I appreciate it other folks about food trucks Alex business information district again as I did last week I want to voice my support for the process that led to these regulation proposals and also I just wanted to talk about some principles that I think we should look at when we're thinking about this in general first of all is safety and certainly the health department is looking at that closely for both restaurants and food trucks both brick and mortar and mobile food trucks and we just want to keep that in mind as a paramount concern in all cases but I think we've got that under control mostly already the second thing is consistency I think that food businesses should generally be going through the same process whether they're brick and mortar and the third thing is efficiency so Mr. Carrera was talking about the difference in process that it is to set up a food truck versus a brick and mortar restaurant and I think it's we need to address how efficient it is to open any sort of business in this town certainly there are processes that everyone expects to go through but you know if there's a difference in how long it takes to open a brick and mortar restaurant between that and how long it takes to open a food truck the problem I see there is not that it's too easy to open a food truck the problem is that it's too hard to open a brick and mortar so beyond that I just want to reiterate something I said last week and something that Mr. Keith has voiced that we've all received a lot of comments on this issue in general both supporting the vibrancy and excitement and innovation that food trucks bring and respecting the investment that brick and mortars give to the town and the permanence they offer so I think the important thing is to have a balance to strike a pretty good balance so that's all thank you very much I'm Paris Valley I'm one of the food truck owners Paris and Tide and I went over the notes the only concern I have really is my generator that has been complaining that it's loud when I started the truck here and I was trying to get a quiet one but with the storms I couldn't get a hold of one so I invest a lot of money into a new one which I include you a piece of paper with thank you and that that's my big concern you know in the parking regulation it's going to have to work itself out yeah we're looking for feedback from the parking management enforcement folks about how best to do that the recommendation as currently stands is not to have a limit on it but then how do we manage that and I would like to add one thing to the comments about things maybe being licensed and being easy for us I don't think so I own a restaurant for 15 years you know I have the same standard as a restaurant so I don't know where the information is coming from because I get inspection and it goes to the truck she already been there twice thank you very much anyone else on food trucks okay Ms. Burr I know that on your list is bathrooms I know we talked about that last time and parking and how that's going to work and I just want to make sure that I didn't lose sight of two things that I had put in my notes one was had we I can't tell from my notes if we had thought that we would have a town council's opinion as to whether or not we need to do anything associated with bylaws as opposed to just straightforward regulations and the other being the hours on the license which is something we've talked about associated with all the other kinds of licenses we do too but maybe we could go ahead and adjust that now and it would apply to other things too so when somebody tells us they're going to be there from 3 to 4 I mean really who's going to ever go look at that so why do they have to even say when they're going to be there unless someone is planning to at some point go ask them to move so I think we need to be clear on what the point of that is if it's simply for the Board of Health for example for a length of time to refrigerate things you know that's a different problem than just if you're open from 11 to 9 or 11 to 11 what does the select board care but yet I don't want to have people putting things on their license that then somebody else's will actually they were there until 10 it's not clear that there's any purpose to being concerned about those hours what what do those hours represent and who follows up on that is something that's been true for all our licenses okay we can follow up on that maximum enforcement what that means okay other comments or questions about the regs as presented okay so so the next steps would be to continue to get a comment to continue to try and flesh out the answers to some of these questions that we've gotten and to bring recommendations forward just as soon as I possibly can my intent unless I hear otherwise from the select board is to continue on the route we're going to not actually address a committee issue as Mr. Guerrero recommended to us now to go along with Mr. Hayden's earlier I think that this is something that we can continue to adapt to as necessary and if a committee became more necessary down the road then I could see doing that at this point we still have a very small food truck population and so I don't I don't personally want to create more infrastructure than we need as part of this process but if the select board is looking for something different then you should let me know that now Mr. Hayden. Maybe just just and this is this is still the thinking out loud stage for me certainly maybe there is one piece of infrastructure that the suggestion of a committee puts into my mind and the idea that there is a value to these things. I'm wondering if we oughtn't have a mission statement or preamble description of what the object of even considering to allow these things at all would be something to you know guide us what are the ideas the ideas are that yes this is it helps our town in some way nice to describe what that way is or be clear about what we think or somebody thinks that those ways are really nice if they supported sort of the rest of the mission of our downtown which is support the bricks and mortar as well as getting a multitudinous of services for our rather eclectic clientele. There is a revenue piece there is the health and safety and sanitation piece and all that sort of stuff. We don't have any of those ideas that are being dealt or pulled together at all. We have a sense that we need to regulate them traffic wise. We have a sense that we need to be fair to the people who have invested lots of money in the bricks and mortar downtown. We have a sense that people should be safe using it but no words. Give that a shot. Thank you. I will give to her and if you don't get it done oh wow. I can appreciate the point that we can frame this a bit. So I can try to frame it and see what you think of that. The alternative is why we are not preventing them prohibiting them. If you are looking for something like that that is probably not the track I would go on but if you want to engage in the thought exercise of prohibiting them. Hyperbole helps me think through things. It is an interesting point. People do raise interesting points about the property taxes and about the process. I think that Mr. Krograbi and I were starting from or at least got to the point of this is a good thing and it is about striking that balance because it does add a different kind of vibrancy and change to the downtown that at this point we are thinking is worthwhile. There are other ways to look at this for sure and that could become persuasive either now if one wanted to try and persuade that way or in the future. But I think we are currently working from a place of we think this is good and we want to make sure it works for as many people as possible considering all the different interests. And how can we tell that it is working and what well is? One thing I think that I would like to look into is the permit fee for this. Typically our fee are not typically I think the legal thing is that your fees can't be a profit center. You basically can't charge more than what it takes to administer the whatever it is that you're doing a fee for. But I think that what we're talking about particularly with the enforcement issues and everything I believe the fee is currently $100 for a food truck license and I think that that might not adequately reflect the fees that are involved in trying to manage this from a parking perspective from well the health fee is different. I'm not sure but if the slide board wouldn't mind my looking into that that is something I could explore and I think that would be something that I would like to share with you. Thank you. I was just going to add the little side note to that. One of the things that's so fascinating about these fees is beyond the fact that they can't be a profit center there's often a place in mass general law where it says and it won't be any more than X. So even if it turns out that in everyone's reality it costs more than that with liquor licenses the one-day liquor licenses et cetera too but we're always looking to maximize but not prevent and yeah that would definitely be worth knowing are we limited to 100 or is there a calculation that could be made? Right and so that's an excellent point and I'll check that part first before I go through the other homework of it instead of finding that out at the end. Okay anything else to say on food trucks right now? This would be so easy. So easy yes thanks everyone for your comments and for your amazing written comment really appreciate it and just keep giving feedback as this process goes along because you know it's it is a dynamic situation and we really do want it to work for everyone. And I'm sorry to belabor this but I just want to try and make it clear to people that you know we kind of already do have a committee and that committee has been you and Alex and Tony working on this we've talked about it town staffs working on so and and hopefully everyone's hearing everyone else's this will be put you know posted on our website just like it normally is when we are ready to look at it it's not like we're going to sit here and craft it one night you know on the fly and then say that's good enough I mean it's that it's continuing to go through these iterations and it will be people can go look at it before we come here even though it's not the same thing as a public hearing as we have a lot of the things. Right there's a good chance it wouldn't be ready much before the meeting especially if it were the 18th. That's exactly right and and I think I said this at the beginning but it's worth reiterating this this will take as long as it needs to take we don't want it to take longer than that but but you know if whenever it's brought forward for for recommendation if it isn't ready yet then it will take longer right that will give people another opportunity to say oh that's what you meant oh you actually covered these five things but you forgot this one thing right thank you okay moving on from food trucks and let's see where are we I should never leave the house and say yes doesn't look like a very long meeting. Okay so now it is. Oh let's wait another five minutes and call it an hour we're an hour behind budget discussion found in state Miss Brewer submitted to us. Why she did I was just thinking this would be a perfect place to slap this in well you have talked before so you led us to this point you have talked before about whether or not we might be in the position of as we have frequently done in the past with this particular select board of written letters of support to our to of course our very supportive representative and senator but also being very specific about the things that Amherst will find beneficial and that we think are beneficial to the Commonwealth so when I saw this I was so excited to see that the governor came up with this technology and they came up with these interesting maps that they presented which obviously you need a magnifying glass before you're going to look at them in this size but it's an interesting approach to transportation and education and then they made these for each of the representatives and senators made a big deal out of this so that everybody can go and say to their representative or senator hey this is what we're talking about this is why this is what we're talking about because it would advantage all these things in terms of education so I wanted you to see that this was out there because this is a new thing that they haven't done before and it's something you know we are very fortunate as we always say here that Stan and Ellen know what we like know what we want but it doesn't hurt to reinforce it now and again and it's also really interesting that now other communities can now do this perhaps you know they're not always talking about the government's and now this information's been delivered to each of those representatives and senators already and so now they're just encouraging their constituents to go and talk to them about it so I didn't know if we're at the point where we felt like it was time to write something because obviously we've got a thousand other things you're writing right now but were we to do so this could be another piece of supporting documentation for that absolutely that I had learned that the governor had actually put these out per map per district which is brilliant so this is so people completely understand this this is the governor's plan for new tax revenue and where it would go to and so three of us and Mr. Marie Santy were at the governor visited Amherst the other day to do an interview on Amherst media which I recommend everyone watch to talk about his budget plan I'm really stressed this idea of regional equity the state the citizens of Massachusetts have really been burned too many times on the idea that oh yes it's going to pay for stuff everywhere when in fact it all just goes into the giant black hole of the big dig or for whatever other reason doesn't make it you know east of 495 or whatever so this is saying in very clear terms okay here are what the benefits would be for each of the districts for the representatives and the senators and it's worth looking beyond just our district to look at the region especially from a transportation perspective we all know that transportation isn't just about the roads and the infrastructure in your personal town but it's the roads and infrastructure and the places that you travel to so this is the governor really kind of making a very detailed promise to the whole state of what the benefits would be on the transportation elements of the budget he said that the governor said that it's really critical the reason they're putting this information out there is a to educate but b to inspire people to call their representatives and senators to let them know that this is important to them as we know the idea of tax increase is really kind of anathema to elected folks so they're not going to do it on their own they're going to only do it if they hear what we know this is really important to us we appreciate what the money would go for and that is worthwhile the house is going to be making its decisions really mid-march, mid-march is the critical time for them so this is when that advocacy needs to happen and that when we were in this meeting the other day I was like whoa mid-march okay that's like a week and a half time just passes very quickly so yes this is the time, this is the time for us to put out a letter to Stan and to Ellen to the chairs of the House Ways and Means Senate Ways and Means to MMA so that they know and also to get it into the paper you know if this is the select board is recommending that this is important to Amherst and that the citizens of Amherst should support this if they support this they should let those folks know also, Miss Stein. And it's important also to send it to Theresa Murray to the Senate and to Delio right. The key opinion leaders and decision makers on Beacon Health. And the governor and our reps would support our doing so because she has Ellen Story has been for a tax increase for a long time and this is a really rather progressive way of increasing revenue by a taxation so I'm totally for sending those letters. So, Mr. Moussanti has agreed to help me with communication points, key communication points about these details. This all will happen before the next select board meeting. Would folks mind if this just happens? We would love it. Good enough letter and get it circulated. Okay. Can I just make two other points in particular about the transportation process. District by district map puts some dollars next to the solution. Looking at Amherst, we have a $16 million road backlog of needs. It was $21 million. We've borrowed $4.5 million from property tax which is a finite source of revenue. But we still have $16 million to go. The governor's proposal for the town of Amherst over the next 10 years and this would be in the form of a 10-year commitment that we would know that in calendar 2013 and we have a certain amount of money coming to us. Like any business out there or any family, it allows you to plan. With that sort of commitment we would be able to put together one or more bond issues to be paid back with those funds or at least a large portion of those funds to allow us to do these roads sooner rather than later because I don't think there's any disagreement that we have major road needs. Pick your street. Triangle Street, Northeast Street, Pine Street Portions of East Pleasant Street any number of side street residential streets that haven't been touched in 20 or more years. There's a very long list we have it that can be part of our documentation and it's not just the dollars but it's the multi-year commitment that would allow us to do it at less cost today. Particularly if we're going to bond this stuff at less than 2% over a 10-year period like we did on tonight's bond issue. Now is the time for action on the part of our friends in the legislature and the second piece of this is related to regional transit to end this never-ending cycle of service cuts and fare increases. The governor has put together a bold proposal to fund regional transit including the PVTA which serves over a million and a half riders every year in Amherst. There'd be substantially more stable funding beginning this year that allows us to preserve service keep fares reasonable and in a very selective way look at expanding service where appropriate and I'll fight for our fair share for Amherst on that in my role at the PVTA but we can't do that without dollars and that's part of the whole conversation that the governor and legislators are trying to have right now. Thank you. All right so we will get this out ASAP. Thank you for doing that. Thank you to both of you. All right then moving right along I'm just wondering if we could I don't know why this gentleman is here but I wondered if he was for these parking media preservation requests No, this is the same gentleman who was here for Gaylord. Now he's just enjoying it. I can't imagine anything better to do on a Monday night either but Okay. Thank you Thank you for noticing that. Exactly. Okay so tell managers report. Sure. First safe and healthy neighborhoods working group update the work group is I believe and hope in the home stretch there is a another in a series of weekly meetings tomorrow March 5th in the afternoon at which the work group will discuss in more detail specific possibilities and options on penalties and violations they'll get an opportunity for dialogue with town council on all those kind of legal questions related to rental regulations and they'll review another updated draft set of regulations that I believe and it's been a laborious process I believe is directly responsive to the objectives that have been identified as the key priorities for things to include and not include in improved rental regulations. Tomorrow night there'll be the second public forum from 7 to 9 p.m. in this room where there'll be a review of draft regulations and another opportunity for the public to make comments and I think they're still very much in the home stretch looking to complete a set of recommendations to me ideally next week but we'll see how it goes tomorrow another important meeting. I'll be there. Thank you. Questions or comments about if they can help me? Alright. Next I want to talk about not St. Patrick's Day but an event that is held the weekend before St. Patrick's Day and some work I've been doing with downtown bar owners, a handful of them and police chief and Stephanie's been able to join us for a couple of those discussions and the goal is to allow these businesses to continue to operate and you know make a living but not have unintended consequences of having extraordinarily large congregations of patrons outside and doing inappropriate things outside so we've met with the owners of Murphy's and Stackers and urge them into their great credit they've been attempting to be very responsive to this and coming up with a they'll be open for business regular hours on Saturday March 9th but in a way to not encourage excessive numbers from waiting to get in outside basically doing a ticketing process within the limits of their occupancy limits for the early parts of the day beginning at 11 a.m. with a couple of ticketed entries between 11 a.m. up until 3 p.m. We'll also have additional police presence in the downtown to try to have that day occur so that all those who want to be in the downtown and do business in the downtown can do their thing and get the most out of it. Thank you and I'll just add to that that emphasizing the point of how cooperative the folks from McMurphy's and Stackers have been on this we met with them last year after the event to say okay this was kind of a mess what do we do to make it better and we met with them a couple of weeks ago to say okay all the stuff we talked about before you know are we ready how's this going to work so they have really been terrific partners they're doing great messaging about this they've got great big signs outside on their windows right now talking about the whole plan for that day which is next Saturday March 9th they're also doing all of the messaging about it on their Facebook pages so people are aware and I want to emphasize this is I believe this is the 14th year of this occasion as it's been being celebrated this only kind of grow into a problem in the last couple of years for many years this just kind of went on and nobody even paid any attention to it part of that is social media just kind of increases everything exponentially and part of it is just kind of the culture has changed and so what I really want to emphasize is that this is no longer just a bar event this is really kind of a collegiate event that is marked all over the country the problem does not start or end with people marking the occasion at the bars so it's important to not place blame inappropriately to this we could you know there are all kinds of articles out there about what has happened in other places Pennsylvania State College Pennsylvania has a big marking of this occasion they do theirs this year at least they did it in February they call it State Patrick's Day and they actually paid all of the retail establishments anybody with a liquor license whether it was a package store a restaurant or a bar to not sell alcohol on that day it cost them almost $200,000 and that reduced their amount of alcohol had a couple hundred arrests so what my point is you don't need the liquor outlets on that day for this to be an occasion so I just want to kind of have people keep this in perspective I believe the university is going to be messaging to the students about expectations for this I think that the new strictures that we've put in place are definitely going to help especially in the downtown weather you know if it's a beautiful spring day then there are going to be a lot more people wanting to participate in this and there are going to be a lot more regular families downtown doing going about their business whereas if it's cold and drizzly that much more of all of us will stay home so it's very hard to know but we are we and the businesses take the community concerns very seriously about this and we are trying to get this back under control and into something that everyone can enjoy safely Ms. Burr appreciating all of that positive messaging and really because I know you're approaching it through a bunch of different directions and really some of the mail that we get about this sort of thing one of which I didn't even open today is kind of the same thing we're hearing associated with safe and healthy neighborhoods we're working on it you know give us a little time we're working on this oh yeah whatever and people are just out to work on how this year goes I think that it is important for people in the community to also understand that in addition to all this positive messaging were things to be the same as last year or worse there's every possibility that we would consider not selling alcohol that day or insisting that private security be hired or I mean there are other draconian things that can be done which are have limited success perhaps other people are not just saying this will be I'm sure it'll work out better this year it's that you're having these conversations we're assuming things are going to be a little better there's only so much control we have but there are other measures we could consider in future but they don't seem to be appropriate right now I think that's an important thing for people to understand because you know it's one thing to say well we'll have extra police there why should our police be there if it's just people lining up outside the bar 50 deep and people can't get by them so you know in terms of dealing with that level of resentment and that kind of criticism I think it's just I think we're saying we continue to have this conversation and we didn't need to have it until a couple of years ago like you pointed out life is changing on so many levels and we are certainly hoping that everything will go better this year and if it doesn't then we'll continue to have the conversation and maybe there will be some other things but rather than saying oh well the obvious solution is to just do this draconian thing I think it's smart that we're not doing that but that we have those options still theoretically available to us in future all right so I think the most important point is that we continue to monitor and see how it goes you know draconian is actually way more complicated than you might think right off the top of your head so whether we would go down that so that's partially what I was saying about this isn't just about the bars and restaurants so the question of who you hold responsible for what kind of behavior people aren't even in the establishment they've never even been in there this is now kind of a this is a pseudo event a pseudo holiday that has its own infrastructure around it so we'll see what dials we could continue to turn if necessary but hopefully with all of the messaging with the steps that have been taken this will be in a better place the other thing I want to emphasize is because this is a point of confusion every year no bars or restaurants open early on that day everyone will only open at their licensed time they could they would be in violation of their liquor license if they opened early no one has requested to open early if they did I'm sure we would not approve it considering the circumstances the police chief and the officers go around and speak to all of the establishments leading up to this just to remind everyone you're absolutely not opening early or you're being shut down there's a great deal of communication and coordination that happens for this event they did not open early last year I mean there's just no so part of the idea is that the people lining up outside makes people think that it's open but it's not so just because people are lined up doesn't mean that they are open at the same time part of the messaging from stackers and McMurphy's is don't even bother getting in line if you don't have a ticket and if you do have a ticket then you can't get in line but they are being ticket based they are only selling up to capacity for an 11 o'clock opening and then later for a one o'clock opening if there is capacity you know people leave between 11 and 1 too bad nobody's going in again until the next bunch of tickets start at one o'clock so it's a lot of thought has been given to this and you know this won't be perfection it won't be some silver bullet but it should be progress and it certainly will do a great deal of collaboration so it's great to do. Moving on. Without belaboring our talk about the transportation thing preview of 2013 paving plan just note next meeting on March 18 I'll be presenting along with DPW staff specific recommendations for the 2013 paving season this Thursday night the seventh The Public Works Committee is meeting in this room at Town Hall, 7 to 9 p.m. A portion of the meeting will be a second preliminary design hearing related to Pine Street improvements. Encourage people to learn more online and ideally come to that hearing. That is a multi-million dollar project. We are attempting repeatedly to secure state grants for a portion of the work, but a more detailed design is a concurrent process and we want people's input on that. And I'll be meeting with the Public Works Committee later that night to review the various lists for residential streets as well as some of the more major heavily traveled streets and what makes the most sense, given our limited dollars to recommend for the current year. So we'll have some details on that at your next meeting. Next, you had asked, at your last meeting we were talking about parking system related issues, one of which is signage, which there will be signs going up next to the multi-space machines sometime in early April. You're interested in the draft text and in your packet is some draft text including beautiful colors. And so it's meant to be kind of a step-by-step, eye level, easy to read sign. So either now or by email or follow-up. Any and all feedback is more than welcome. We haven't made them yet. Is it possible for us to get the template, this is a good beginning, but there are changes I would like to play around with. I can also just send an email, but it would be lovely if I can fool with the absolute template. I suspect we can send something to you, to the board electronically. Thanks. It's a good beginning, but I think we could make it better. Other questions or comments? Mr. Hayden, I hope. Just, like I said, only use one of these things once and not very well.  It's just a random thing. It says okay, you know. Unfortunately, no, that doesn't work. And that's actually, I'm pretty sure pressing okay at the end doesn't work. And that to me is one of the big problems. And I'm not sure if the slowness of the system once that's dealt with that will be kind of dealt with. But I don't think so. I think there is a lack of closure when you're using it. So you put in your coins and then it says okay, an hour and then it starts ticking down. And there's a guy behind you. But you don't want to step away because if he comes up to the machine, then he's going to press something. Who knows what's going to happen? Is that going to make your time go away? Is he going to add to your time? But if you press I for information at the end, then that actually kind of zeroes out your thing and lets you start over. I don't think okay works. Okay, no, okay doesn't work because okay takes you to the credit card options. After you put your coins in there? Yes. It automatically brings up the credit card options, which is frustrating. So I'm thinking that adding a line about I to sort of... But you don't want to go to zero. You want to say I'm done. That's it. To sort of close out. Exactly. It's like, yes. That's it. Thank you, thank you. It keeps waiting for you to put in more coins and then it takes a while or credit card. I actually went through both of these today because I was curious and you're right. It shows you 29 and you're thinking 29 what? And then suddenly it's gone and so you don't know what's happened. And then I did it with the credit card on a different machine just to see and that was a little bit better. And I did it with this in hand. So I was trying very hard to get this thing to work. It is not so clear as we would like it to be for visitors to our town. It's amazing the degree of frustration I hear about these things. And I don't know why. I don't find it hard to use really. I find it to have a little bit of annoyances here and there. That's because you bike. Park way too often. So, so, okay. So we have this and we'll we'll offer comment. Just a couple of quick things. One is, of course, we aren't going to do the two hour. We probably won't address that before you want to print the signs. So I don't know how that's going to work. But if we do, I think we should be considering looking at a $2. Say we part past tonight's thing. I would rather it said $2 minimum rather than two hour minimum. Because there are going to be lots that two hours are maximum too. And so, and I grant you when we change parking rates, we're going to have to fix the sign. But the signs are going to be beat up by them anyway. So what I'm saying is if it says card and debit, not debt card debit, which I know you're going to circle right now on your little. Sure. List there so that it doesn't say that. It was an evening for debt. Worth considering. I'm luckily having myself actually used a card. I would just ask that really these machines expect you to put your card in twice. That's ludicrous. Either this is wrong or that's ludicrous. I think that's just the picture. And I think it's in the wrong place. Well, it's numbered. Four and six. It's numbered. Oh, so six is really just supposed to be a picture. That makes so much sense. Okay. I want to play with this. That's why I'm going to do it. We'll go back and I'm spending a lot of money to test the system, but I will do it. Hey, you get 300 gross a year. Come on. I know. My only other comment is this, and I'm not sure. Just to think about amongst ourselves as to how we say this. I'm sure this came up when you bought the machine in the first place because I know a bunch of different people tested it, et cetera, is the thing that I think people don't get. And it's not really reflected in the directions either. You enter your space number. Look and see how much time is left. That's one of the things that confuses people is that they don't know how that part of it works. And so if you look and you've got 29 minutes, your problem solved potentially. So I think because these aren't machines that, you know, sense magically when you drive away and start over from zero, like some individual space machines are in more high tech places, I think that it's important that part of the reason there's the confusion, there's the 3G thing associated with the credit card. But I think just in general, people are trying to throw coins in and they're not taking the moment to say, I'm trying to find out how much money's on this machine. And then I need to add to it. And I think that's true for both cash and credit because if there's already $2 on there, well then you don't have to worry about it. Okay. All good comments. Send further feedback. I'm going to send you by email and we'll keep trying to get this right. Okay. Next. Recent and upcoming. Sure. A couple of things. Well, you mentioned the governor's visit, but this past weekend on Saturday, two school related events in the morning, the Amherst Regional School District Planning Committee Forum, the Amherst, or the RSD PC, as it's affectionately called by the committee members. We had the Amherst Forum at the high school library. A number of us were there and, you know, a modest, I guess would be a diplomatic turnout. We have describing the turnout of Amherst residents, but very informative hearing itself. And I know the study committee is planning to reconvene next Saturday the 9th and hopefully forward some recommendations on whether and how to proceed related to school regionalization. In the afternoon, most, if not all of us, were at the four-town meeting, which we meet periodically on the regional school's budget. The long and short of it is a superintendent gave a budget update. The four towns, in their own way, expressed support for the budget as proposed and their willingness and ability to fund the estimated assessments that accompany the budget. So that was positive, and it's only March. Yes, those are good meanings. Good shape, Ms. Brewer. Do you want to add anything to those now? I'll do it. Okay. Are there questions or comments from Mr. Musanti? All right. Thank you very much. So then JCPC update. Okay. This week, this past week, the fire department came and made its requests. I was amazed to find a placeholder for $8 million. Well, you have to admit that's a large figure for the possibility of a fire station. Should we be able to find land, or should it be donated to us, or somehow miraculously appear? A highlight of the meeting was getting a demonstration of a mechanical device that delivers CPR to people who have stopped breathing at the appropriate and approved rate of 100 compressions per minute to see this working on one of the dummies that they also, mannequins, that they also plan to buy for training purposes, which will save the town money because they won't have to go to other municipalities for training. But to see it working was amazing, and the whole JCPC got to see it. And it's astonishing, but you can clamp this device to the stretcher so that the compressions continue as the patient who is not breathing is being