I wanted to underscore what Mandy said about revenues and if on the detailed tables were to almost microscopic print, the big fall office local receipt. So we are really dependent on recovery of our commercial sector, all the efforts that have gone into supporting our local businesses. And I may or may not be a winning battle depending on whether suddenly the vaccine starts taking hold and we can reopen. But I think every town and city around the country is facing what we're facing in their commercial sector. And that doesn't give us any solace, but this is a really tough environment and our commercial sector was never very big to start with. But it's a huge plunge in those revenues. Thank you. Anything else at this point? Not, I'm going to- Yes, I'm sorry. I can't seem to raise my hand.  It's not your fault. I'm having some trouble with the sound too. If you could give me just a second here, I think I'm having a problem with which screen I'm on. Thank you. Can you hear me now? Thank you. Great, thank you for your patience. So a very minor edit, but since you're going to have to change the date anyway, on page five, marijuana is characterized as providing money only through payments from agreements. That's not factually correct. It is, of course, payments from agreements and taxes, whether you call them taxes or excise, you specifically mentioned taxes like short-term rental taxes. Short-term rental taxes are just that. Marijuana for recreational slash adult use has taxes, just like short-term rentals does, comes from the same place. And then also the host community agreement payments. So just to be clear that there are two things coming from the marijuana side, and because of course the host community agreements apply to both medical and recreational use, whereas taxation only applies to recreational slash adult use. One of the things I found difficult about these guidelines is that, again, I think reflecting something we said earlier tonight, educating the public is incredibly important, but I found it rather strange that we spent so much time emphasizing efficiency and effectiveness when we do that already. And I'm not sure why the finance committee needs to say that to people. I find it a little weird, given that we usually say, oh, just let the town manager decide. But in here we talk a lot about making sure people understand we're expecting them to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. And I can tell you, having done this for a really long time, you're not likely to see a lot of words that describe, we did X to enhance effectiveness and efficiency. They're just gonna say, we looked at it again, because they always do, because that's their job, that's their official job. So I find that a little frustrating. And I really am not comfortable with the amount of real estate in a nine-page text document exclusive of microscopic charts on our sustainability and our social equity goals. There's very little in here about that. And it does not feel like we're putting substantial emphasis on that in comparison to the other things we're talking about here. And of course, once a school committee member, always a school committee member, I understand why parents are worried, obviously. And we all understand the economic impact we have if families do not choose to use our schools because they feel the schools have been decimated. The school committee always has to walk a fine line between saying things are bad, so you need to give us more money, but they're not so bad that you should run away. It's a really difficult balance for them to have, which is perhaps different than some, not all, of our other town departments. So the fact that this, while yes, it's early days, yes, there are many moving pieces, and I really appreciate Sean mentioning that to us as well as Andy. I don't see in here that there's any sense of flexibility associated with the school's financial difficulties that are going to be extreme at this point. So I will not be voting in favor of these guidelines. And Andy, on the issue of marijuana, is that just a addition to that sentence? I can't answer, I think it is, but I think that's a fairly easy point to get clarity on in an amended version. So that is an easy step to take to just make sure that that's correctly stated. I won't try and do it now. Does anybody else from the finance committee that would like to make a comment in response to any of Alyssa's points? I want to address two of them. Without having the environmental, with the ECAC report, and without having the report back from the community of safety, working group, it's very hard to expand beyond recognizing that those are priorities and that we look to making budget adjustments to them because we don't have details to expand with. That having said that, I mean, that doesn't mean we couldn't make more of a big deal about it, but it's very hard when you don't know what the requests are, because you don't have recommendations at this point from either of them. With regard to the schools, I think we've already addressed some of that and as we go forward with the flexibility, but you have made your point. Are there other comments at this time? Okay, so the motion's been made and seconded and there was a small amendment about marijuana revenue being coming from more than just the agreements. So that the motion would be to adopt the FY20, the town council budget policy guidelines as recommended by the finance committee report of 12, 21, 2020 as amended, although we've not done an official amendment, but there will be an amended document. And the motion's been made and I believe it's been seconded. Is there any further discussion, Dorothy? No, I was just gonna second it. All right, and we're going to move to just vote on the guidelines. Evan Ross? Yes. Will Brian? Yes. Hector Shane? Yes. Steve Schreiber? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Sarah Schwartz? Aye. Melanie Ball-Millm? It doesn't look like she heard you. Melanie, thank you. Alyssa Brewer? No. Pat D'Angeloz? Yes. Darcy DeMont? Yes. Lynn Griesmer's aye. Mandy Johanicki? Aye. Dorothy Pam? Yes. The votes 12 in favor and of adopting the guidelines and one opposed, no abstentions, and nobody absent. The next two items are being lumped together and we have joining us tonight. The Amy Rusecki, Assistant Superintendent of Public Works and Beth Wilson who is an environmental engineer. We are not actually in possession at this point of the bylaws but they are going to lay out for us what this is all about. And then the motions later will be to reflect the bylaws are available that they will be immediately referred to TSO and to GOL. So with that, I'm going to ask that we go ahead and put the presentation up. And I believe Beth, you're making a fair amount of the presentation. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. All right, well, thanks Lynn. And I want to thank the council for taking the time tonight to listen to this presentation on the proposed storm order bylaws. As Lynn mentioned, this presentation is really an introduction to the program that's behind the bylaws and the reasons that we need them and what they can accomplish. So I hope it provides you some background for when you're actually reviewing the documents which sounds like it'll be at your next meeting. Okay, so the first slide. Next slide. So what is stormwater? Stormwater is precipitation, melted snow or rain that runs off of surfaces including streets and lawns, parking lots, roads, sidewalks, roofs. What is stormwater pollution? When stormwater flows, it picks up a number of contaminants, common contaminants that you are found in stormwater are sediment and nutrients from fertilizers, bacteria, oils and trash. What is our stormwater drainage system? It's the catch basins and manholes and piping, drainage swales and outfalls that carry stormwater from developed areas and discharge it into our streams and rivers and other water bodies. It's maintained by the Amherst DPW and it's also called our municipal separate storm sewer system or MS4 which is a name given to it by EPA and DEP you'll see that acronym MS4 in the bylaws and also throughout this presentation. So next slide. Stormwater regulations. So these are the EPA and DEP regulations not any town ones. We'll be talking about town ones as we move along but municipal stormwater drainage systems are regulated by EPA's NIPD's phase two stormwater program. And that program requires any municipalities that have storm drainage systems within urbanized areas to have a discharge permit to discharge stormwater into water bodies. And on the right hand side of this slide, it's a little zoomed out, can't really see it that well but it shows the urbanized area within Amherst. Urbanized areas are defined by the federal government and they're based on census data. And so that's the area within Amherst that is regulated under the NIPD's phase two stormwater program. So that within that area, our stormwater drainage system is regulated under that program, so requires a permit. And in Massachusetts, EPA and Mass DEP created the municipal separate storm sewer system, our MS4 general permit. And the most recent version of that is 2016. It's a general permit, which means it's a permit that any all towns apply to but it's the same for all towns. So our requirements under our MS4 general permit are the same as Northampton or Belcher Town. So the town of Amherst applied in 2018 for coverage under the 2016 MS4 permit and were granted coverage in 2019. And the overall requirement of the permit is the towns develop stormwater management programs. So next slide, stormwater management program. The goal for all towns stormwater management program is to improve the water quality of your MS4 systems discharge so that it meets the state and federal surface water quality standards. And the MS4 permit kind of sets up a system for towns to reach that goal. And what they've built is six minimum control measurements. These are the things that are required to be in our stormwater management program. They include public education and outreach, public involvement and participation, illicit discharge detection and elimination program, construction site, stormwater runoff control, stormwater management in new development and redevelopment and good housekeeping and pollution prevention for permity owned operations. I'm not gonna get into too much detail about each one of these aspects of the permit. I'll just say that we have started public education and outreach and public involvement and participation. We've done some work on that in 2019 and now into 2020. So what we need to do is start working on the next three minimum control measures and the first requirement of those three minimum control measures is to establish a bylaw. So we've put together a draft IDDE bylaw and we've put together a draft, what we're calling stormwater management bylaw, which will include the requirements of for construction site, stormwater runoff control and stormwater management in new development and redevelopment. And then there is one more requirement under the permit that has to do with water bodies that are listed either with EPA or MAST DEP as impaired water bodies. And within Amherst, again, I'm not gonna get into too much detail about this, but within Amherst, we do have a few requirements under that, which has been built into like the public education and outreach that we've already been doing. So next slide. Next slide. Anybody else seeing that? So I'm seeing the MS4. Permit schedule. Would you, Beth, wanna schedule? Yeah, let's go, there we go. Okay, now I'm seeing the schedule too. Yep, MS4 permit schedule. The MS4 permit phases implementing the six minimum control measures over time. And what I'm showing here is just the major tasks through the end of 2022. This schedule extends all the way to 2034, I think. It's got some tasks that don't need to necessarily be accomplished for 10 to 15 years. But I just included the most upcoming tasks. And I highlighted the two by-laws. So there's the IDTE by-law and the stormwater management by-law. And you can see that the reason that we're talking about them tonight is that they need to be in place by the end of June, 2021. That's coming up. And then the only other thing that really is listed for fiscal year 2021 is the stormwater management regulations, which once we establish the stormwater management by-law, it gives the authority to put together those regulations. And by the end of June, we just need to have a draft of those regulations. They don't have to be voted on and approved by town council yet, because those will take some discussion. Anyway, I just wanted to show that's really the reason why we're talking about it at this time, those two by-laws right now. Okay, next slide. So the illicit discharge detection and elimination by-law. This by-law will establish that it's illegal to discharge anything except stormwater into our MS-4. Dumping is a good example of an illicit discharge and something like a sump pump in the basement of a restaurant or something that's connected to our storm drainage system is a good example of an illicit connection. And this by-law will give us, give the town, the authority to investigate situations like that and remove them and basically tell people that it's illegal to do any kind of discharging like this. And the by-law includes enforcement with fines. The by-law will become part of the IDD program. And how that all ties together is that the IDD program includes investigating and sampling our outfalls or storm artists' outfalls. And if we were to find contamination at a certain outfall, we're required to delineate the catchment of that outfall and investigate that catchment. And these are the kinds of things that when we're investigating the catchment, we may find. So having this by-law that gives us the authority to inspect, remove, even have people help with restoration if there's a big enough impact from some kind of a discharge. So basically this by-law gives the town, the authority to deal with these kinds of situations. And next slide, the stormwater management by-law. This by-law establishes authority for the town to create stormwater regulations. The regulations will include stormwater design for new and redevelopment projects. And the regulations will regulate that design to meet the MS4 water quality and low impact development requirements. The regulations would also regulate stormwater system post-instruction maintenance. So these designs that get reviewed and have to meet the MS4 water quality and low impact development requirements. Once they're constructed, this would regulate that they continue to meet those standards. It would also regulate construction, stormwater runoff. The by-law would give the town the ability or the authority to issue stormwater permits with fees. And then again, it would give the town the ability to enforce this by-law with fines similar to the IDDE by-law. Next slide. And then next steps after these by-laws come and are put in place. Like I said, the written IDDE program needs to be developed, which would include outfall inspection and sampling and then ranking of those outfalls and the ones where contamination is found. We would require to delineate their catchments and investigate their catchments and then make catchment improvements. And then in terms of the stormwater management by-law, the next step is creating the stormwater regulations, which would detail permit requirements. So somebody who's proposing a new development project, what they need to provide to the town about their stormwater design. And then the permitting process who would be reviewing all the design documents. This is really a stormwater report and plan sets. And just the whole permitting process where who would be issuing the permits and permit fees and all that. So the stormwater regulations really get into the details about all of that. And that's the next step after the by-law is enacted. So that's all I have. Sort of a general look at our stormwater program and the MS4 requirements. All right, we'll move then to questions from the council. Darcy DeMond. Hi, I just have a quick question about how do your permitting requirements interface with the municipal vulnerability preparedness program, climate resilience, like the niche, I think niche engineering was hired to also look at green infrastructure and in stormwater management. So maybe, I don't know, maybe Paul knows about that. Well, I would say both programs, the MS4 program and then certainly what niche has come up with probably suggesting a lot of the same things in terms of stormwater BMPs that would improve stormwater quality at our discharge points. And like I said, the MS4 program is sort of based on investigating our stormwater system as it is right now at the outfalls, actually sampling water quality and determining areas that need these type of BMPs and improvements. So I think it does all tie together. And I know there's definitely been consultants niche but other consultants under other grants and things that we've gotten over time that have looked at where the best places are to put in downtown green infrastructure. So it all does tie together. I'm just wondering if there's duplicated effort here somewhere.  I just want to mention that Beth, before she became the environmental scientist for the DPW was a conservation administrator and worked cube to cube with Stephanie Chickarello. So they are very familiar, they're in close communication. So this is a coordinated effort. So it's not different silos or anything like that. Thank you. Shalini? Yeah, I had a question about imagining that this bylaw would be applicable to new subdivisions that are being developed and then they would be transferred to the town. That's right, right? It would apply to those. And if that's the case, when would it kick in? I read the day June. So if they are in the process of transferring then should the town be looking, will the town be looking at them based on the old things or anticipating the new? Yeah, so we don't even have the bylaw in place yet. And then once the bylaws in place we have to work on the regulations which would really detail a lot of that. So I would say at this point we're still dealing with the older process for reviewing storm water systems. Okay. I have a couple of questions. It's really just overall about the program. So I gather we applied to be in this program. And but that is not a requirement that every municipality be in this program. Is that correct? Right, you have to have a storm water drainage system that's within an urbanized area. So that map I was showing you is something that was created by the federal government by EPA delineating these urbanized areas. So a town like Shootsbury, I live in Shootsbury. We don't have any designated urbanized area. We don't have a drainage system either. But if we had a drainage system and we still didn't have an urbanized area we wouldn't have to get a permit under MS-4. Okay. So are we required to be part of this program? And I'm seeing Amy's head yes and that's the answer I was about. Applying and now being part of this program which we're required to be in. Are there additional dollars and technical assistance that come from the state with that application? No, that's the big problem at the MS-4 program. It's unfunded mandate. Unfunded mandate. Unfunded mandate. Unfunded mandate, it is. So then that's going to bring me to my next set of questions which may not be answerable at this time. And that is what is it going to cost for us to implement this bylaw? Do we have any defense of cost? We don't know that. And it's a good question. It's certainly a question that we need to keep looking at as we go along. But yeah, we're gonna have to just kind of keep looking at that. And some of it's gonna be just based on what we see and what we end up having to do or how we figure out to do it. So some of it's in how we set it up but then some of it is also the state's gonna tell us you have to clean these manholes every six months and we're gonna have to look at how to do that and do we have the staffing and do we either shift staffing to get that done or do we have to get additional staffing or additional trucks to get that done. So, and then how fund that is a whole another thing that when we get to the regulations and when we get to really setting it up it's gonna be another discussion that you guys are gonna have to consider. Paul. This is most likely the most controversial thing about this program because most communities put on a fee and it's a substantial fee. And then that's the thing that funds the program that's required to be done by the state in order to meet the MS4 requirements. So I think in Northampton there are a couple or a year or two ahead of us and this became very controversial in Northampton a couple of years ago and that's gonna happen here most likely too because there is a cost, we don't have funds for it. There has to be funds generated to meet this cost. And then that's gonna be the rub that people are gonna start to feel. Is there any way as we look at these bylaws to start getting some of that estimate and is there flexibility in the regulations that would either cost us less or cost us more? Will there be flexibility in the regulations? I don't think there'll be too much flexibility. As Paul mentioned, then I should just say that in the bylaw, in the storm order bylaw we do mention a utility that it's saying that this bylaw is giving the town the authority to develop a utility in the future if they'd like to. Utility is not anything that's required by the MS4 permitting program but there are towns like Northampton that have established them. The only thing that has come up within the program is some grant opportunities. The state's come out with some MS4 grants and I'm really hoping that over the next few years they develop that more and they really have some larger grant opportunities to meet some of the requirements. Well, I may wanna come back with some more questions but let me go back to the other counselors. Mandy Jo? Yeah, on that fee issue, I was looking at the, we had draft bylaws that aren't quite ready for presentation yet in referral but they had permit fees amounts in them. And I noticed the two sample bylaws you gave us from I believe Northampton and Eastampton also had permit fee amounts that were wildly different. I was amazed at the variation in the numbers. As we set those amounts since they will be bylaw amounts, I guess one of my questions is do they need to be in the bylaw because bylaws are harder to change than somewhere else? And so I guess one of the things I would potentially encourage is keeping those numbers, especially permit fees versus fines out of the bylaws if possible. But as we start setting them, I know the town's been reviewing all fees seeing, looking very carefully at those fees to see if they could cover the costs over a utility. And my guess is that's not entirely feasible to put it all on the fee versus a later utility. And I guess your answer's explained why there is the potential for utility like the sewer fund for the people watching that's similar to our sewer fund and our water fund for using water and sewer. And I'm not gonna ask my questions about how that would work and who would be charged right now because that's further down the line. But it did answer my question as to why communities do potentially create that fund. So thank you for that. Andy? So several mentions have been made about the fund. I guess first of two questions was whether those funds are set up as enterprise funds or are they just set up as funds within fee revenue coming into the community and into the general budget and expenditures out of the general budget. So that was the first question was whether enterprise funds is ever considered or possible for this kind of arrangement. And the other is are there capital costs that we will incur at the beginning in order to establish the system? I think the answer to your first question, I think that really varies town to town. There is a list. I'm not sure if I included it in my memo to you all. I think there might be a link in there too the about 25 towns across Massachusetts that have utilities and it's a spreadsheet and it has information in it about how each of those towns have their utilities set up. And that is something that we need to if we're gonna head in that direction just to do more research about because I don't really know exactly. Capital costs, maybe Amy can chime in on what other capital DPW might need that you can think of right now to meet some of the MS4 requirements. Yeah, I mean, some of it we're not gonna know but from my understanding of the program, I think initially like it's almost gonna be like we kind of ramp up into the program in general. The first few years we should, we're hopeful to be able to do meet the minimum requirements or a little above the minimum requirements with the infrastructure and the personnel that we have as we try to, at some point, we might need to have a second sewer jet truck to be able to clean out the catchments that we have but I don't see that that's something in the next year or two that we're gonna have to do or the additional manpower to run the sewer truck but that's something that that might be a reality in a couple of years as we get into this. So there are some capital needs but I don't anticipate any in the next few years I guess as we're setting this up and just getting the ball rolling. I just wanna make note that in the motion we don't include the finance committee but it sounds to me like we probably should also refer this to finance. Alyssa. Thank you for adding that Lynn. I think that is a really good idea because this is actually a financial prospect that Andy and I have known about for many years because we've known for years that this was coming Paul mentioned Northampton for example and we keep saying what kind of money is this gonna cost? Are people gonna see fees? How's this gonna work? We've been asking that for more than two years and so we need to make sure that as this continues to be developed that we're really clear in communicating to the public which things are just like new fees. So if you're not building a house, what do you care? And which things are ongoing expenses. I think that's really important especially in these really difficult times for people to say, wait, what? And as Paul also mentioned there was quite a bit of controversy in Northampton about how they set it up initially and I think they may have gone through some changes although perhaps I'm thinking of another municipality. The other thing I wanna make sure is clear is we're on a relatively short timeframe here for a by-law that we've been wondering about for a really long time and is now suddenly needs to be in place for June and we don't have it yet. So when we're sending this to TSO this may be one of those times that I again say to the president I think we need to have a conversation at the town council again about this because unless the TSO is presented with you can choose this variation or that variation on section three sort of like what we just did with ranch choice voting what good is it sending it to TSO? I mean, if it's the by-law that is the by-law that Massachusetts communities of our size have to do then it's the by-law. So there's no value add in having TSO describe it but if there are decision points if there are variations that are better for our size community as opposed to some model by-law then obviously I'm all for that but I'm not all for expecting all the town councilors to show up at the TSO meeting to hear the same thing they could have heard at a town council meeting. So I hope that that will be made clear as this is developed and presented and automatically referred assuming we passed this motion that if it turns out there when we get the by-law there has to be a cover that says you can choose between these three options or this is the only by-law that you can possibly pass and this is how it has to be that just needs to be super clear up front. Great. Okay. I'm gonna make the motion and look for a second. Upon future receipt to automatically refer the stormwater management by-law and the illicit discharge detection and elimination by-law along with the Elizabeth Wilson December 14, 2020 memo Amherst MS-4 stormwater permit stormwater management and IDDE by-laws supplemental information to the town services and outreach committee the finance committee and to the governance organization and legislation committee for review and recommendation to the town council within 90 days of referral. Second, DeAngelis. Is there further discussion? Kathy. Just a quick point. Number one, I thought that was a fabulous memo that you sent us.  So on the actual drafting of the draft by-laws I noticed they're not quite in the same format of the way our by-laws have lately been drafted. So on the referral to GOL, I think that's great but I think it should be like quickly get them into the format that they can just slide right into the by-laws. So whether that's town attorney or just focusing on the format, they weren't far off. I mean, that's almost the same. That request has already been made. Okay, great. I just thought it was so well done. We're giving ourselves 90 days but we ought to be able to move it as quickly as possible. Right, no, the reason you don't have the official by-laws tonight is because they have been referred back to the town attorney for formatting into our format. Mandy, Joe or Paul, you were involved in that conversation. Either one of you wanna add to that? Nope, okay. So the motion has been made and seconded. Was there a second? Yes, okay, Pat, that's right. Thank you. Then we're going to move to a vote and we're going to start with Kathy Shane. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Sarah Schwartz. Sorry. Yes. Okay. Shanley Bamil. Yes. Alyssa Brewer. Hi. Pat DeAngelis. Hi. Garcy Dumont. Yes. Lynn Greysmer. Yes. Mandy Johanicki. Hi. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Hi. George Ryan. Hi. It's unanimous. Thank you so much for your very, very detailed report and for joining us this evening. And Amy and Beth, I have a feeling we'll be seeing you at various other committee meetings at the town council. Thank you. Thank you. And Amy, Beth, say hello to David. Hello. Hello. Okay. The next item is retreat follow up and I've gone back and forth. I really feel that rather than try to get into the details of whether or not we're going to vote on these tonight, we're not, okay? But I would like a brief discussion about some of the suggested changes. And then I'm going to ask for another round of council input and bring these back on January 4th. So is there any further discussion on the Jones library memo? Let me just tell you, I feel like we need to have it put into parallel structures so that whatever we're asking about the renovation and addition, we're also asking to the extent that it's appropriate, the same questions about the repair. So are there other questions or comments at this time? Yeah, Kathy. I agree with what you just said, Lynn, and you're getting as much parallel as possible. And I saw one of the comments from wherever it came from was why is the operating budget even on the list? I think it should be on both lists because I think we need to know whether in the future we've got to pull on the endowment fund and we can operate the thing. So the parallelism makes total sense. It goes for both. And one would be a larger space is the point. And I think the library said they can manage it with the same number of people. So I would just like that the parallelism makes sense to me, but I think the operating budget is relevant. I couldn't quite tell in the markup, it had lots of initials. So I think you just tried to consolidate all the comments you got. Yeah. Yes, I did not try to, I tried to not identify individual counselors. Any other comments at this point? Shalani. Yeah, regarding the racial equity and social justice, I agree that we have something coming up from community safety working group, but that to me represents once piece of the issues that we're looking at with respect to safety, but I would still like more discussion around addressing other systemic gaps and have that discussion as well. Is this related to the Jones library? Oh, no. Emma, okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Are there other comments with related to the Jones library, Emma? Oh, sorry. That's okay. All right, so then let me just go on to the other one, which is the future agenda items. And there's been a lot of comment here and one counselor actually has submitted some additional comments that might have been in the form of emotion that some of these things just don't need to even be referred. Some of them are, you know, we've done them, done. Mandy, Joe, you were that count. You were- I was. So I might as well talk a little bit about it since it's not in any of these, it's not really in the memo itself or under those comments. I am concerned that, you know, I had a couple of different sets of concerns about some of the stuff that's in this. The first one is there are five items that have already been referred to committee. So I'm not sure why we need to even have them in this memo. I can identify them along with dates that we've referred them previously to committees. Right. There are items that I don't think are within the council's jurisdiction. There are three of those at this point in my opinion. The structure and items to include in town committee reports, the structure and items to include an elected body and board of license commissioner reports, and whether we should avoid instances where one committee has a quorum of another committee, where one council committee has a quorum of another council committee. I don't think they are within the town's council's jurisdiction and therefore I don't support referring to GOL those items because GOL can do nothing with them if the council has no jurisdiction over those items. And there are some items that really don't have any action associated with them. One is, in my opinion, one is that non-voting resident members of finance and should we consider two year terms? Well, the charge already has two year terms for non-voting resident members. So I don't see an action with that referral that's being suggested. And then particularly with Hickory Ridge, the finance committee at this point doesn't really have anything to do with it since the money's already been voted. So I'm not sure a motion to refer that item to finance is has any action to it. And then I would question whether we should be, whether it's premature to refer that to CRC and TSO when there's no plan yet. And that goes to my other item of there's, I think a couple of things that are premature to refer. Hickory Ridge might be one, analysis of alternate ways of setting water and sewer. The town manager has already said they would work on that. And so until we have a proposal, I'm not sure we should have it in finance and fees for parking and on street parking. Again, the town manager is already working on it. But then there's to me the more important items which are, do we really want all of these items actually referred to committee and committee spending time on items? And I have a list of five, six, seven, eight that I don't think in our limited time and our limited committee meeting are important enough given all of the other referrals that our committees have that our committee should be spending time on. And I can go through that eight or I can just send them to Lynn for questioning. But I think we need to really consider where our committee time is most valuable. And if these are important enough for the council that we want committee time spent on them, I mean, GOL had a list of, oh my gosh, I don't know how many GOL had a list of on this, 18. You know, that's a lot. And GOL is just not gonna get through that. And so I think we shouldn't be referring anything that someone thinks is there. I think we need as a council to get rid of this list and down to a manageable number. Oh, and then one, sorry, one other thing. There were some things on here I didn't quite understand. What does a referral about zoning update mean to CRC? What does a referral about major capital projects mean? And what does a referral to finance and what does a referral about other major capital projects downtown athletic fields to finance mean? What's the returnable or the deliverable on those referrals? Because they're just statements right now. So that I think needs cleared up too. So let me just mention, before I call on Alyssa, that then as I put together the item that did not get into your packet until this morning, the issue of what all is on our potential plate, if you will, for the year 2021. And it's a draft, okay? It's one of those things where we have to look at it. Some things are required. Some things will be, yes, we think this is a high priority and some things we're just gonna have to say, no, we're not gonna get to that, okay? So in many ways, this referral memo has now meshed to that other memo. And that other memo I personally think is where we really need to spend our time. And not as much on the referral memo. Because once we decide what we're really gonna try to accomplish in FY, in calendar year 21, our last year as this council, then we can be much more clear about what has to get referred and when does it have to get referred? Does that make sense? Again, you didn't get it until, you may have seen it late yesterday, our mid-afternoon yesterday, Alyssa. So I think you may have found us a way out of this lens just now when he said that, in that I'm gonna disagree, I know, shocking with Mandy Jo as to whether certain things are within our jurisdiction. That's her opinion, that's not a fact. And so I totally believe that because the charter says annual reports have to be provided to the town council, that the town council absolutely can dictate what's in those annual reports. There's no indication that we have no control over that since those might not be what the charter commission envisioned, that's not what the words say. The words say annual reports come to the town council, there's every reason to believe we should have some control over what at minimum, for example, they might include similar to a conversation we're going to have later tonight about what does charter section X mean associated with signatures. I'm not saying it's a huge priority of anyone's, but I'm also saying that the reason it was on the list is because we're setting a precedent, right? This is our first three-year term. Is it a high priority? Is it something we want to spend a lot of time on? Probably not. I don't think it's up to any of us individually to decide it's not worth doing. These things all came out of our retreat. We had, we spent time together for a reason, but maybe what we do then in order to figure this out is we take this list, we combine it with that list that Lynn has just provided us about future agenda topics and we see what we think fits and what was clearly going to be handled at the town council level versus possible referral. But then beyond that, so maybe we decide this next time rather than tonight is beyond that, it's fine to refer something to a committee and have the committee say, that's dumb, we're not going to work on that. And they can report that back to the council. Nope, GOL has a million other things to do, including by a law review. These are the five things you sent us, we're not going to spend any more time on this unless you have more specific direction. That's a perfectly okay thing for a committee to do. What's not okay is for somebody to decide it's not within the town council's jurisdiction or somebody to decide it doesn't make the cut before it ends up going over there. If that's true, then we need to have another conversation about why it is that 13 separate town councilors are sending questions about the North Common to staff to get those answered, rather than those questions coming from the town council, the group that is the town council should be asking the questions of staff through the town manager, not 13 individual town councilors. So we can't have it both ways. I will say that the original memo, I believe, the original memo said that these would go to committees and the committee would then say, we're going to dispose with this by not doing anything or we're going to recommend this. For example, one of the ones that's on there is further clarification about liaisons. I don't personally think that there's a whole lot more to be said or done about that. And GOL could just say, needs no further action. So it was brought up and communicated because it was brought up. So again, I think the place to focus at this point is really on what are the potential items on the 2021 agendas and make sure that we decide what our priorities are. We're not going to do that tonight. We've only gotten the first pass on that. Darcy? Yeah, I made quite a few comments on this particular memo and they were mostly with regard to those that were on the GOL list and mostly because I would like topics to be, you know, a number of the topics to be decided by the full council first before they get an automatic referral to a committee. And we decided way back more than a year ago that we should amend the rules to create a rule that said the committee should take no action that shall bind the council. And there are a couple of issues involved in those issues with regard, especially to those items referred to the GOL. Policy issues, I believe, should be discussed and voted by the whole council. And then if we want to refer the issue into a committee for refinement and final draft, that would make sense to me. So there are about eight items on that list that I thought fell into that category. I believe our committee processes should be uniform. They affect all of us and the town in general. Our committee, council committee review processes, our outreach processes and our town council committee application and interview processes, I feel should all be governed by our rules of procedure. And it doesn't make sense to me for them to differ depending on the committee. I think we've seen this over the two years that, you know, different committees all spending lots of time coming up with their own processes. It doesn't make sense for committee to make recommendations regarding policy matters because another reason is because everyone should have an equal say on the policy even though they might be outvoted when it was discussed in the full council. If a recommendation comes from a committee, the recommendation is given weight that unfairly steers the vote of the full council on that matter where counselors would otherwise have an equal say. And I feel like we're kind of feeling pressure because we're short on time. We have so many agenda items to cover that I feel like we're getting feeling pressure from that. And I also want to note that committees can have such different composition and can come up with different recommendations. And the current composition of GOL is very weighted to the kind of like the power elite on the council and including the chair of the committee, the council president, the council vice president, the chair of the finance committee and nothing against those people. I just feel like this is a daunting group to be initiating discussions on policy issues where I would like to have equal say on that policy issue that affects the whole council and the whole town. And I also want the initial discussion in public view because if things get automatically referred to council committees, the public just are not able to keep up with that and follow it and figure out where the discussion is taking place. So I think that GOL and its charge, GOL is able to advise on internal rules but the discussion should start in the full council on those important policy decisions. Comments, you need done mute. Sorry, I'm having difficulty. I think the committee process is sometimes frustrating as someone who's tried to pass bylaws and resolutions through. But I feel like referring to committee supports the full council. When a group of five people gets together and discusses the issue in a committee and then that committee reports on its thoughts and recommendations, that does not mean that any other councilor off that committee has to support the committee's recommendations. I guess I'm not as trying to think of a reasonable word here. I don't feel as suspicious as some people do of the work of committees. And I often don't agree or don't like what comes out of a committee. I'm particularly don't see GOL as the power elite because I'm on it. And I've been on it since the beginning. And what it is is a committee that works very hard to stay within its charge. And we wrestle all the time with whether we're dealing with substance issues or not. Whether a bylaw or resolution is a clear, consistent and actionable has nothing to do with power plays or grabs. And I think we need to, I need to say that. And I think I really wish that we were a collaborative body and not a body that seeks to divide itself. Are there any other comments on the memos at this point? I'll try to figure out what to do about it. I'm going to go on to the next item. And it comes up because there was a email sent initially to the clerk of the council. I mean, I'm sorry, to the town clerk. And it was about section 8.1 of the charter. And that resulted in the town manager responding to the request about what is it and how shall we interpret section 8.1 of the charter? And town manager did that and included, and that is all included in your packet. Basically, this motion then refers this now to GOL because it's a rule of procedure to further clarify what we want to do to handle this piece of the charter, okay?  I did want to say about the previous topic that our agendas are too full. There's almost no way to prepare for them. We have no staff, at least I have no staff. And, you know, we do have an election in a year and there may be some people who are thinking of running for town council. And they should not say, I can't even imagine doing it because it just takes up your whole life and it's too much work. So somehow we have to get to a manageable meetings and manageable tasks. That's all. Absolutely, thank you. All right, back to this issue. The motion is to refer the town managers memo 12 of 12, 14, 2020, which includes KP law charter section 8.1 open meeting of the residents to the GOL committee for review and recommendation regarding the acceptable form of requests under charter section 8.1 to the town council in 90 days. Is there a second? Panicky seconds. Is there further discussion? Nancy? I guess I was just confused by this referral because it is for to come back with an answer within nine. First of all, I'm not sure why if we already have the opinion from the KP law why we need to do anything. And if we're saying that GOL doesn't have to come back for 90 days, how does that affect the petitioner? The petitioner has already done their petition. It turns out that they petitioned the school committee, not us. And so the school committee basically took the recommendation and the petitioners followed that. This is to help us formulate the response for future petitions. It's not for the one that initiated the investigation to begin with. Alyssa? I just wanted to add that I hope that we are not limiting, I know we're all exhausted and we have a long way to go yet. When this gets referred, I'm really not caring at all truly about what the form of the signatures is or the phone numbers, I really don't care at all. It's nice if we have a procedure so that people know what it is. And I appreciate the concept of if we've already gotten some guidance, that could be helpful. But there is a larger issue here that I think this does not address at all. It's only talking about things like whether or not phone number is gonna be on it. What's far more important in my opinion in terms of giving guidance on 8.1 is to give guidance stating how it is that people are supposed to comply with the words stating one or more specific issues or concerns related to matters upon which the requested body may act. That is a far more useful piece of guidance to anyone than whether or not they have to put a phone number or a wet signature on something because we have already had numerous people come to us individually for topics over the last two years saying, do I wanna use the petition process? It's like, is it even something that's related to a matter upon which the body you're asking about can act? And so that to me is where we could really be helpful to people to figuring out if this is the path they wanna take or if they wanna take some other path. But so I would hope that the referral would include some mention of that because that's not discussed in here. I think that's an excellent point, Alyssa because at least in this initial discussion, it was not clear that if it came to the council that it was anything we would act, could act on in a discussion. And so what you're suggesting is that along with some guidance about what the request might look like there might also be guidance about how is it judged as to whether or not it's an item that the body can even act on. Okay. Any other questions? Okay, the motion has been made. Seconded? Athena? Was the motion seconded? Yes. Yes. All right, any further discussion? Uh, we'll start with Steve Schreiber. Aye. Andy Steinberg. Aye. Sarah Schwartz. Aye. Shanley Balmillan. Yes. Alyssa Brewer. Aye. Pat DeAngeles. Aye. Darcy DuBont. I think I'm gonna abstain. Okay. Rhysmer is an aye. Hannake? Aye. Pam? Aye. Ross? Aye. Ryan? Aye. Shane? Yes. It's vote 12 for referral. No opposition, one abstention, no absence. We now go back to item seven on the agenda. And the first is the discussion of the role of the president and the vice president. In your packet were three items. One was those sections of the charter that refer to the president, role of the president and the vice president. The second, which was not, I apologize for this. I thought I had submitted one where I thought I had actually identified in yellow what the rules of procedure said regarding the president and the vice president. Instead, you ended up with the entire rules of procedure, which is the way you have to be reading all the time anyway. And then there is a short list provided by Mandy Jo of responsibilities as she has fulfilled them quite ably as vice president. The purpose of having all of that is a discussion because on January 4th at the end of the meeting we will have the election of the president and the vice president for the last year of this council. So the floor is open for discussion. Alyssa? I asked for this discussion because I find it incredibly offensive that people make these decisions outside of a posted meeting. And they do that because that's just the way humans are and that's the way humans are even under open meeting law. So I know it's awkward to have discussions at the time of the election, but I think we're going to go down that awkward road as we have in the past where people will not only say why they think they will be an excellent officer, but we actually have the opportunity to speak to the characteristics we are looking for, not why I think X necessarily is super, but what particular characteristics we're certainly looking for and also give people the opportunity to ask questions. Otherwise what consistently happens in municipal office is that everyone makes their decision outside of the meeting. We go through the routine of just nominating and seconding and then it's over and the public has no idea why we decided what we decided. As preface to that, rather than trying to include it in the same meeting, I asked that we have this focus briefly, obviously it's very late on what the roles of those bodies are since we really only have the two officers and to give us a chance to think about whether we're willing to discuss it tonight or not in a broader non-focused on individual candidates issue versus next time when we'll be talking about how amazing each of the candidates is and what they bring to the table and we'll hopefully ignore the sore spots we might feel anybody contains. But the larger issue, that's why we're doing this. If nobody participates in this, then what we're telling the public is nobody needs to discuss this. Everybody just knows what the president and vice president do. There doesn't need to be any discussion, so it's fine. Just trust us to do the right thing. I think we owe the public and ourselves a little more than that. That being said, my biggest concern remains that has remained from the day we joined the town council so to speak is that we are treating the president and vice president as an executive team and we are frequently not aware of some of the things they're working on and some of that is purely due to time. I'm not saying anybody's withholding information from us. It's due to the time constraints. As Dorothy mentioned, this job is ridiculous and trying to get people to run for it has already gotten some of us laughed at. So when we consider the officer's positions, the president in particular, that's true even more so, absolutely, 100%. It's a huge job and that little tiny extra in the stipend, I'm sure does not make up for it. But I think we need to be clearer on what our expectations are for the president, vice president going in. And so in addition to we only get the candidates we get, we also should be able to have some kind of general discussion about what we expect. I for one expect that pre-COVID we were going to do a better job of incorporating other town counselors into agenda setting. That didn't happen. It happened for a little while. It did not happen consistently. It was not something that this president and vice president prioritized. That disappoints me. But if that's not important to anybody else, then that's what this town council has decided their culture is. This is our opportunity to say, it matters to us to know that you talked to UMass about something. It matters to us to know that you talked to the town manager and made decisions about what ends up on the agenda. It matters to us to know what are coming up for future agenda items, like we have now that memo of future agenda items, which is really helpful. So I think this is just our opportunity to say what we're looking for so that the people who are candidates who either already announced or are considering over this wonderful holiday period, what they want to do, what, how they might meet those requirements that we're looking for. Um, Darcy. Alyssa, I really appreciate that you did ask for this to be on the agenda because I also think it's an important discussion to have. And it's hard to have it on the day of the election, obviously. So, and I also have had a lot of discomfort with the fact that we have had this, you know, president, vice president duo that is very powerful. And, you know, I just commenting on Mandy Jo's memo, her list of the task that she took on as vice president. I, you know, feel that Mandy Jo is kind of like a special circumstance. You know, she's a former charter commissioner. And I feel like the fact that she took on all of those responsibilities should not, should not be a precedent setting, not precedent, precedent setting for this council. I really myself prefer to have the vice president role basically as described in the charter as only substituting for the president in her absence. And I like the model of the president assigning multiple counselors to do different things rather than having, you know, a president and a very powerful vice president working as a team like Alyssa was saying. And I think that was a kind of a once, a one time deal because of the combination of Lynn and Mandy Jo. And so I'm hoping that when we elect our next vice president that the role is much more limited. Dorothy. Just a short statement that I really don't like the idea of a powerful team that works together because it has the effect of, of kind of shutting the rest of us out. I think that a really great vice president would be one who brings some different points of view so that we have the conversations between president and vice president would be that kind of stimulating one which encourages more variety of thought. Sarah. I'm tired. So I'm gonna hope this makes sense. I think when we first had this discussion and when we were first elected about the role of the president and the vice president, we were hoping that most of us were hoping that the roles would be a little more simple than they are right now where the vice president again was just stepping in for the president when the president couldn't be there and that the president would have the luxury of actually not having to take on all the things that you have taken on Lynn. So they could, one of the other things is that the president could also feel more like one of the counselors and be able to express themselves freely. And I think that the vice president I think that what people are saying is part of how the president and the vice president has to those jobs have been executed this very first time. I do think that both you and Mandy Joe needed to take on a lot more because we were first getting started and we had a lot of rules we had to establish and there were a lot more moving parts or parts we didn't even know where they fit. But I think as we're ending our third year I think that we really need to start thinking about the rules that we set up for future councils and counselors so that they're not just thrown into something where a lot of rules are not there or unsaid or implied. And I am really hoping that I'm hoping that there's some way we can make this clear so that the role of the president isn't so daunting. You have done an amazing job and it's definitely been a leadership role but I don't know that it always has to be. And I think in some ways it would be better for the president again to be able to feel more like they can say what they want to say on something and not so much that they've got to try to lead us which I know was important in the beginning. And I really do believe as other people have said this that we should have more of a vice president that doesn't do as much. And also I hope that we are starting to and I don't know if we could put this into a rule but even with a council that turns over every two years I think it's really important that we are looking to mentor counselors as they come through so that we give a lot of people a chance to be chairs. We give a lot of people a chance to see what agenda setting is like because then you have more of a pool of people who are ready to step up into jobs as chairs, president and vice president. So these are things that I've had on my mind but I haven't said out loud. So there you go. Thanks. Thank you. Excellent comments all the way around. Any other comments at this time? Okay, then we fulfilled that discussion. So the other item under seven is in fact I referred to this earlier. What I've been trying to do is collect in one place all of the things that people keep saying we need to do in this last year. The list is daunting. It is not achievable. I just want to be very clear about that. And even then it's not complete. And so what I did was I started with the goals of the town that we have given the town manager and then and looked at what our actions might need to be under any one of those goals. Then I also looked at the memos that we've just discussed and I looked at our calendars and even then I didn't get through all of it because I didn't list exactly all the forms we've done or the proclamations that we pass every year. So what I'm asking in this is that each of you look at this list individually. I'll send something to you where you can add to the list or make comments about the list. Once we get done with that, I also would like each committee to look at this list and say are the things that my committee needs to get done on here? And then we'll bring it back to the council and we're gonna have to make some tough decisions. We're gonna have to say this is important or this is not important because if you think we can get all of this done more power to you, I think it's daunting. And I think we need to decide what the legacy is that we want to leave. So there's really, unless you wanna discuss it now, there's really nothing to discuss. It's really a matter of starting the process. George. Just I think to a second comment you made earlier that I prefer this approach that you've given us here to the earlier one that I think Mandy pointed out and others have pointed out has a number of challenging issues to it. So that's really what I, my thought is let's go with this and come back to you and set our priorities and our plan for the coming year as best we can. I'm less concerned about the earlier document that I think is problematic. Dorothy. I just want to take a moment to congratulate all of us for continuing to function. And this certainly includes Paul in a time of craziness and COVID as I have great appreciation of my students who survived the sudden switch to online teaching in the middle of a semester. And basically just showing up and everybody always shows up here. It's amazing and doing what we do. And it's the 20, I think today's the 21st of December. It's Christmas time, it's holiday time. I think we need to take a little bit of a break if it may be just a few days or something and relax and be people because we have been working so hard. We might not finish everything we do but we will finish some of it. And things we don't finish will be in better shape than they were before we started on it.  That's what I want to say. Are there other council comments at this time on the memo? Okay. Then. I was a little bit late.  I was just a little bit late raising my hand. Just one comment, I must admit I didn't look closely at this before this meeting but in looking at it, I think one thing that would be helpful is things that have to get done versus things that are choices. I see on here budget and capital improvement plan, those things that we do every year because we have to do them might be nice to separate out so that we know we can't get rid of those. I agree with you. In fact, you'll see there in the fourth one when we actually rank them, they actually get identified. Must do, have to do required. We have to pass a budget. We found out tonight that we have to have passed two other bylaws too. But I can sort those out in the next round to begin with. Okay. I've also by the way asked Paul to look at this since he will identify things I think that he knows might be coming up that we just aren't aware of yet. Are there other comments on this at this point? He backed to make sure I don't miss a hand since I almost did. All right, then we are going to move on to the town manager appointments are already done. We have a town council appointment to the finance committee. I'm going to call on George Ryan to introduce that. Yes, we met at our last meeting and we interviewed three candidates. All of them were exemplary and we spent a fair amount of time trying to make the usual difficult decision. And we finally voted four to one to recommend Jane Scheffler to fill the position of non-voting resident member of the finance committee for a term that will end in June 30, 2022. We felt and it's in the report. Really, I don't need to repeat it but essentially that Ms. Scheffler brought an extraordinary energy and a passion. And we felt her voice would be an added addition to the work of the finance committee. She has strong background in finance though it's in the nonprofit sector. And so I was four to one. The dissenting vote was in particular moved by another candidate's strong background in schools, regional schools in particular. And that was what we did. So the motion is in accordance with the town council rules of procedure rule 10.9 to appoint Jane Scheffler as a non-voting member of the finance committee effective immediately for a term to expire June 30th, 2022 as recommended by the governance organization and legislation committee report of December 21, 2020. Is there a second? A second. Thank you. Thank you, Alyssa. I know nobody's in the mood for discussion but I can't let this go. So here it goes. I'll try and talk really fast. I have no understanding as to why the GOL process is not described more thoroughly in the GOL report. We've, we, we can talk all we want about having separate or the same processes for each of our committees but we insist that the town manager include what feels like 75 elements in his appointment memos and GOL has included almost nothing in theirs. For starters, they didn't attach their process. They didn't attach the statement of interest for the person they're recommending. There's a nice little paragraph, yes, but there's lots of stuff that isn't here and we've been talking as a town council about how, well, we're not gonna pass the town manager's appointment if he doesn't give us XYZ piece of information. And now we ourselves are doing the same thing. So the GOL, yes, it's true. If you look in the GOL packet for the date of the meeting, it absolutely talks about their process and it absolutely talks about what their selection criteria is. And that's wonderful. And that should have been in the report to the town council. The town council should not have to go hunt for those things. Those things are in the town manager's report to the town council. And the other thing is, you know, okay, so that's attachment. So suddenly we don't have to do attachments if we're one of the town council committees but the town manager does. That's one issue. A second issue is that it's not described at all in section six where you talk about your particular process that your interview process is completely different than the previous OCA process. One would never guess that from just reading the words there but you interview candidates one at a time. You ask them different questions based on their qualifications, not the same questions. And you don't have a consistent timeframe for any of their answers. So it's a very different, much more casual. I'm sure people are very fond of it and can defend it all day long. The point remains that when you have had a process in the past, as I said, when you disbanded OCA which GOL is a group that pushed for that to happen is that if you are going to ignore the OCA process then you need to have a justification for doing so. Simply saying we had interviews is not a justification for why you have changed the process entirely associated with non-voting members of the finance committee. You might have a rationale for doing that. We haven't heard what it is. Most finally and on a very minor point but still an odd sticking point is that it seems very strange that when we were on OCA and we complained about the fact that the finance committee was trying too hard to control the process, GOL now points the finance committee member that's non-voting and GOL has three of the five members are finance committee members. Again, that's a separate issue but I am much more concerned with the fact that we have expectations for the town manager or what's supposed to be in the packet, expectations for the planning board and ZBA appointments of what's supposed to be in the CRC packet and GOL took a pass on all of those things. I don't think that just because the person is non-voting makes what they're doing any less important or we wouldn't bother having them there in the first place. I'm going to vote against the recommendation not because I don't think the person is qualified. I agree with you that they are all qualified. I heard their interviews. I'm just really frustrated by the lack of process here. George. Our process was given to the council many months ago was available to everyone and this is the first I've heard of this particular complaint. So in the future, maybe people need to read the document and then communicate to us what their concerns are. It's not in your report, George, you know that and it doesn't say in your process that you are going to have varying interview lengths, a varying amounts one at a time. It doesn't say that in your process. So no, I couldn't complain about a process that I didn't know the details of. You are exactly right. Sarah. So I would have to say also that one of the parting things that was said to OCA as we were disbanded was that people were very sure that other committees would be respectful of the process and or Alyssa's right, we would be, it would be something that was plainly told to the rest of the council. And so I have to say that I do find the fact that it was changed so radically, surprising, shocking, somewhat offensive and it does feel disrespectful. I mean, CRC definitely deviated from it but we did give very detailed reports all the way along about how the process was changed so that the rest of the counselors could talk about it. I have an issue with it. Marcy. I just wanted to say very quickly, this just goes to show that we should have a uniform process across all of our committees for all these, for application to join our council committees. Mendeja. In defense of GOL, I think it's important to note that six months ago, GOL made a recommendation for a finance committee appointment and used the exact same process that it used to make this recommendation today. This process was adopted by GOL, was reported in GOL reports. I believe was even identified where things were modified from the OCA process that was transmitted to GOL in that process. I understand that maybe the GOL report at this time didn't include some of the things that process would say it would normally include to the council, except at the same time, all of those items were forwarded to the council throughout the process. And so maybe the issue is not that the council didn't have them, but that the councilors want them multiple times in multiple locations so that they don't have to remember that they got it a week ago during the interview process itself and during the recommendation process, they want it just handed to them four times. If that's the case, then it would be helpful for the committee chairs to know that ahead of time when they're drafting their reports that they have to include the things they've already sent to the committee, to the council that comport with the process that was adopted at the time the process told them to send it to the council, because that was done. But I did want to point out that this is the same process that was used in June and July to recommend appointments to the finance committee then, and none of this came up at that time. Evan. Yeah, so I just wanted to pipe in as someone who has written several reports on appointments. But I will say that when I read the report, I was a little disappointed at how short it was. I know OCA's first ever planning board report clocked in at like 30 pages and you all said, don't do that to us again. And so I'm certainly not expecting that, but I do know that when I wrote OCA reports, I did try to provide both a thorough discussion of a thorough description of the discussion and the rationale, and then also at least include the interview questions, which I understand would have maybe been difficult for this one, in the selection guidance. I know we received it, but we received like 400 things every week. I'm going to be supporting this recommendation and I respect the right of GOL to alter the process now that it is their process. I went back and looked at the last GOL report, which also didn't have those attachments and I want to recognize that I did not make a fuss with that one, but I did, looking at it, it did provide a little bit more depth of description. Did we just lose Evan? Yes, something happened. Evan, you just froze. It happened, Steve. Yeah, okay, come back. He may have to re-log in. Dorothy? I do understand what Mandy Jo is saying and it does seem annoying to do it and it's a waste of paper. And when I get the town manager's appointments and I get the same criteria again and again and again, pardon me, and I print out stuff because that's how I do it. I think, oh, I'm wasting stuff, but the fact is it's really helpful. We get so much material and I'm sure Mandy Jo that you actually have, because I know you do, you have your computer organized in a much better way than I have mine. It's just sometimes you just say, I just can't go looking for it. I'll have to just do without it. So I think that we've all been yelling at the town manager for his reports and he's sending us all of these pieces of paper. We have them. If we wanna look at it and check it, it's there. So I think that let's be uniform in that way, that we include all the material. I'm not upset that different people have different interview forms. I think as long as it's rational and you've agreed on it and it seems to get good people, great. But I do think that we should include all the relevant documents when we send things and maybe in the way that the town manager does. Thank you. Evan is trying to re-engage. However, he was done this comment. Is there anybody else that would like to comment at this time? All right, then we're going to move to the vote. The motion's been made in second. How many have they hand up? I'm sorry, Shalini. Just a quick question. There was some concern about the process. And I'm just confused that, okay, so different committees have different processes for appointments and is that, are we all okay with that? And what is there going to be a discussion about it at some point? One of the lists, one of the items on the list is in fact that very issue. Okay. It's the issue both of what is the process and should our process be identical for all? These appointments, which would include planning board ZB and finance committee. Okay. Thank you. So when we get to the point of prioritizing, that's one of the issues we'll decide on. Okay. Evan, you're back. Yeah, sorry, all my computer decided to restart at the most important moment of the meeting for me. So, but I was pretty much done and just to sum up, I'm going to support the recommendation. I ain't mad, but in the future, I am requesting that you all just provide a little bit more information regarding the discussion and the rationale behind appointments and the relevant attachments. Okay. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we're going to go to the vote and we're starting with Steve Schreiber. Well, hi. Andy Steinberg. Hi. Sarah Schwartz. Hi. Melanie Baumann. Hi. Elizabeth Rur. No. Pat DeAngeles. Hi. Darcy DeMonte. Yes. Gries Merzai. Hannah Key. Hi. Pam. Hi. Ross. Hi. Ryan. Hi. Shane. Yes. Votes 12 in favor, one against or no and no abstentions. All right, we're going to move to the rest of the agenda, which is almost done, believe it or not. We're now moving to committee liaison reports. Mandy Jo, anything further for CRC? I will be very quick. This is not necessarily CRC related, but more of the council related. The chair of the planning board had invited the CRC to a meeting of presentation from Doug Hall of the PVPC regarding what the Pioneer Valley and Amherst are looking at with regard to the short-term and long-term effects of COVID on our communities. In consultation with Lynn, as president, I asked whether that would be something the whole council was potentially interested in. So instead of just CRC going and working with the planning board to attend that presentation, whether it should be the whole council, she agreed. And so I realized we hadn't actually announced that date yet. So that is January 20th, 2020. It will be at a planning board meeting. It will be noted as a full council meeting, assuming that there are enough counselors that are interested in it to do that. It will start at 6.30, and it is set to be approximately a 40-minute presentation with Q&A afterward. And we'll make sure you get all of the connections and everything else that need to go with that. Andy, finance committee. I don't think I have anything else to add at this point. Okay, let me just mention that on next, on the January 4th agenda is the memo regarding the inventory. It was in this meetings packet, but it will be in next meetings packet. GOL, George, anything else? Nothing more. Kathy, JCPC, when's your meeting? It's not been set up yet, but in theory it's starting in February. We don't have a date yet. Got it. Dorothy, no, Darcy. I guess I would just say that our next meeting is on January 7th. We had one presentation on the North Common and I will be sending something out to counselors asking for further comment, hopefully not repeating ourselves. And we will be hearing about whether or not we're going to have staff back on the 7th and the 28th or perhaps just the 28th. I'm going to be talking to them about that and hopefully they'll be able to respond to additional counselor questions. So that is ongoing. And Darcy, thank you for allowing us to join TSO for that presentation. I thought it was a very healthy discussion. I do believe we focused on the 28th as being the next time they would come back, but please let us know, okay? And that whenever it is the counselors will be invited again to attend. There were 10 counselors that attended at the last meeting on Thursday. Yes, are there any liaison reports? Okay, we've done the minutes. Paul, town manager's report. You're muted, Paul. Technology has not been our friend tonight. Yeah, that's bingo. That's one of the bingo things we had for our staff party. If you said you're muted. So I just want to second what Dorothy said, because I do think it's the end of the year you should take some time and recognize that this council is not treading water. A lot of people are just trying to get through the year. You're taking on things still moving forward. So I think it's really important to recognize that and just congratulate yourselves on that. Couple of things I want to mention. One is testing is really important to us right now. The asymptomatic testing at UMass is continues going forward tomorrow. We will have the second round of symptomatic testing. Very important for people if they feel they have symptoms or they're not eligible to go to UMass, they can come to Mill River and be tested for free. And we hope to have one more session like that after Christmas. And we're starting to see some serious uptick in COVID and community spread. We're seeing it even amongst our staff. We are de-densifying our buildings as best as we can. And we anticipate the next four, six, eight weeks to be pretty difficult times. So we want to make sure that we don't have spread within our staff. So we're trying to have people, as many people as possible to work remotely during this next phase. If you have any questions, I can answer them. Amanda Jo? Yes, I had a question not about COVID and all, but the bang the table initiative that was in your report. Is that something that the council and council committees will be able to use for things like the zoning changes that we talked about, the housing policy that, you can tell I'm thinking CRC, but, and how would we get either training or how would we, when it does go into effect, how would we work on getting it used? So we were able to purchase it using CARES money because it was a way to engage people remotely, which we needed to do. So that was the reason for us. We've been looking at it for a long time, but could never really justify the funds to do it. We were hoping to initiate it with the North Amherst Library because we want to try it out and see how it works. And so Brianna will be the one who knows, she's the only one in on staff who knows anything about it. So with that, we're looking at using it. Then we started talking about, well, Pomeroy Village downtown, all the different projects. It's a good place to congregate all the material and to let people weigh in, tag everything, communicate and whenever they're available, instead of having to be at a certain meeting. So yeah, I think once we get it up and running, we know what we're doing. It can be used exponentially. Thank you. Kathy. Yeah, I was gonna, actually, that was a question I had, Mandy too, and Paul, as you know, I sent you some questions that had come in from the community about the North Amherst Library. So there's interest in district one about featuring that. And then both Lynn and Pat said, combine it with something with district two because it's a shared feature. So I didn't know whether you're thinking of, first just there's been a committee set up whether bang the table went a date, but if you give us any sense, we would do something that would combine it with letting people know that that's there. As a way to weigh in. The only comments I had, people were so excited about the design and you've already answered this.  So I had one other question on a piece in the memo on an RFP for location, potential location for DPW. And my question, those were the memo we sent about DPW that when you do an RFP like that, are you gonna be saying we need this amount of acreage but it could vary from a low of this to a high of that because we had some discussion on does DPW all have to be on one site or not? And I just wasn't sure how you do an RFP if you don't know what you're placing there. So maybe you're not that far along on that yet, but it was. So we have not issued the RFP, it's still in development. In terms of our operating principle is that we have a location for DPW. I know there are other options out there people want to consider, but at this point in time, we're looking at a location for FIRE DPW, the four projects that we've been operating under. We would probably put in a range of land that is needed. We think we've identified all the parcels, but we just need to do our due diligence to see if there's maybe somebody sitting on something we aren't aware of and they want to say, hey, I've got a bunch of acreage for you. And Paul, you're required to do an RFP for that purpose, right? Yeah. Okay. Dorothy, do you have your hand up? Just a quick commercial. Today we went to UMass for the non-symptomatic COVID test and it was so absolutely efficient and completely safe. And I figured out how to also to make the appointments on the internet, which was pretty good in the first place. So I just, if you haven't done it, I just want to encourage you to do it. And I was happily surprised to find it was not that you didn't have to stick the thing all the way up your nose. It was the milder one where you go around the bottom nostril 10 times and then 10 times the other one. So it wasn't even horrible. So if you haven't done it, I would say do it so you get comfortable with the whole thing. Okay. Any other questions or comments about the town manager's report? Okay. I have no further comments on the president's report. Any, I'm almost afraid to ask future agenda. Alyssa. Yes, I actually have two. One may, I assume they're going to be handled through your future agenda items memo that's now informed by the previous priorities we all tried to state. One thing is that I've alluded to earlier this evening and then Darcy brought up as part of the TSO report. I think we as a council, and then the next council might decide a different thing, but I think we as a council need to decide just as we have rules of procedure, when it is that something's coming from the town council and when it is something's coming from 13 individual town counselors. And I have two topics for that item. One is the example of the North common discussion we just had. So the counselors who weren't on the TSO did most of the talking at the TSO meeting. And those counselors, some of them had also written questions ahead of time. Some of them are going to continue to write questions, not all the questions that were asked at the meeting, which were said didn't have to be answered then have been written down. And my question is as a town council, do we believe that despite the fact that the charter says things like we can call the town manager in front of us to ask certain questions if we give X amount of time. And of course we've never had to use that because we have a very cooperative town manager is that it's okay for us to take 13 sets of questions. And whether we recategorize them or not, which we may not do effectively because we may not know what the person actually meant by their question and then expect the town manager to ask staff to answer 13 sets of questions. Or is it that we as a town council or as a TSO in this case, for example, say these are the things we're hearing about these are what we're concerned about that thing that those two counselors want to fight about that's just the two of them. This is what the town council wants to talk about. So I think we need to make that decision. And I think the decision we are not we are not being consistent about this. And I also think that it depends on what's your particular hobby horse. And if everybody's fine with their hobby horse being the thing and so they won't complain about other people's hobby horses, I guess that's something. But I think we should proactively make that decision. Either it's from the council or it's from individual counselors. It's not whichever way the wind blows on a particular issue. And then feeding into that to feed my aggravation today we got the really kind and thoughtful email that we get from Paul every so often asking us for our priorities not for our town council priorities but for our individual town counselor priorities. It makes no mention of the performance goals that we struggled with to try and incorporate it all 13 of our ideas associated with them. It makes no mention of the finance committee guidelines we voted on tonight that represent the 13 of us. What it said was, I want to know your personal goals for my performance and your personal goals for the budget. If I'm reading that as a counselor, I'm like, cool, I'm set. I get my personal priorities. That's again, a conversation I think we need to have as a town council because it's all well and good if the town manager says, well, that's very nice Alyssa thanks for that. But over here, I have these budget policy guidelines and I have these town manager goals. And so I appreciate that you explained better what you meant by that, but it's not your personal goal. That's not what the email says. And I am not just complaining about the way the emails phrase, I'm complaining about the way we as a town council have a culture of I called the town manager and I got a thing. I called the town manager about my priorities. Either we're a body that works together or we're 13 individuals all talking about our own agendas. I think we need to make a clear statement as to what we are as we're going into the next town council so that the next town council knows what to expect. Are there any other future agenda items? Any other final councilor comments? No other topics, no executive session. I wish you all a happy holiday in whichever way you plan to celebrate it, but be safe. Enjoy. We're dismissed. We are adjourned, I should say. Dismissed. I'm dismissed. Dismissed. Yes. Dismissed. Love it.


Jesus Christ Will it test? We got a sign boys And it actually looks pretty cool and they have the art here Hey, that's a towel Towel for Max for us That's actually a pretty cool shame. That's not even X flight.  That's not even X flight And there's this huge thing. Oh my god, okay. I have one of those t-shirts skulls So the station is Underway with the weird stick sticking up in the middle. So yeah, I was right about the exit The exit's gonna come around here Around there. Ha, I was right ha ha There's setting up a lot of the queue Um, yeah, I'm just waiting for another launch Testing with both trains is good. So the security people just said July 3rd is member access to MaxForce and then July 4th is the Grand opening for the public for MaxForce


From a pure software company into a pure systems company that comprises the software and the hardware, the applications, the middleware, the database, the entire stack, it was interesting on Sunday night hearing Larry Ellison talk so much about hardware as a software company, and one of the topics that he continuously has been hitting on this week is Flash. Flash, as we talked about in Wikibon and SiliconANGLE, is really changing things. It's changing the IO architecture. Our own David Floyer has laid out a future of data, led infrastructure, led by Flash, where all active data will be in Flash. And we're here with Jayman Bowen, who's a technical lead at LSI. LSI is a company that provides critical technologies to OEMs and sells through the distribution channel. It's made acquisitions to really step up its presence in Flash, made a lot of investments there. And first of all, Jayman, welcome to theCUBE. Dave, thanks for having me. Appreciate you being here. You guys got a good booth here, a lot of action going on. Tell us about what's happening at Oracle OpenWorld. Sure, so I'd say it's always a great show. There's a lot of people coming here that are looking for ways to accelerate applications. And having come here about nine times, I can see that every year the profile of Flash gets raised and raised and raised. And this year is no different. So you can see that it's definitely moving in that direction where Flash is being considered more of every server type of deployment, rather than just something special that you would look at for really the edge of the IT mainstream. Now you guys still, so let's talk about where you fit in the LSI organization. Many of you might be familiar with LSI and part of the company that was Ingenio. Ingenio was spun out last year or sold to NetApp. That's right. And Ingenio essentially sold OEM disk subsystems. So that leaves a really pure play focus on the systems and the core technology business at LSI. So it really was a move to get you guys more focused. And so talk about that a little bit and what the impact has been and really where you fit in the organization. Sure, so one of the nice kind of effects of having that separation between doing our components and doing the storage systems is there's not as much overlap with some of our customers where that was a little bit more difficult where you can see there's a lot of different pieces that LSI makes of different silicon pieces of SAS, RAID controllers. And now what we have is the flash controllers as well. So LSI's flash components division is a real leader in the space of the chips that allow the difficulties of dealing with flash at a media level to be handled so that it can be an enterprise level product. Can you talk about some of those difficulties and how you address them? Sure, so I think the top of mind of everyone when they hear about flash is worrying about endurance and wear out. Because that's something that people are aware of is that flash, well, it's very fast and has different price mechanisms. It also is a media that can wear out. And there's basically a few ways that that can be handled. It's either through wear leveling or buying more expensive types of flash where there's SLC, MLC, and EMLC. And each one of those has a different endurance. And one of the unique things that happens within LSI's flash controllers is this feature called Durarite, and that allows us to extend the life of the flash pretty dramatically by reducing the amount of rights that happen on the back end media. Okay, now, and you guys sell to OEMs, I mentioned up front, into the distribution channel. Can you talk about that a little bit? Can you share customers or even types of customers? So basically the division that we're representing here at Oracle World is the accelerated solutions division, and we focus on actually making the entire PCI product that is sold more towards end customers and more OEM than into different solutions. And so this is a full package of our silicon and flash controller and flash media into a product. So this is sold through OEMs and through like bar channel partners. You can look this up on CDW, for instance, and get a price. And this is a, it's a PCIe flash component. We also have the ability to use this as a cache device, because that's a big part of where people are seen using flash in general, is not just making it fast, but also making it smart so it can be used alongside of disk. So you have an online archive and accelerated performance. So we've seen, if we go back a few years, probably I guess 2008 timeframe, you had EMC with the enterprise flash drive into its symmetrics. And at the other end of the spectrum, you had at around the same time, interestingly, FusionIO with its PCIe card. Right. And since then you've seen an evolution of the flash stack or the flash hierarchy, if you will. And you're now seeing flash everywhere throughout that hierarchy. Can you talk about that evolution generally and specifically where LSI plays? Sure. So it's basically part of what I'd say is flash is becoming mainstream. And there's a couple steps to that. One is to get it to more than every server type of deployment rather than on the other edge. So a big part of enabling that where LSI is focused is on using standard drivers upstream into the Linux kernel, just freely downloadable, go and use this PCIe flash. And the other part of it has been the storage vendors themselves embracing different models. What I would say is, at the sand side, without flash devices, you are able to support a very large number of disks without a performance bottleneck. And when flash came onto the scene, it kind of changed that. Where one device can do hundreds of thousands of IOPS. And there's no longer this easy cut and dry ability to have capacity centralized management and performance. And so what we've seen is basically people are embracing, leveraging flash as a cache pretty generally, like EMC and also NetApp and others. And using it so that they're able to do high performance, local, not going across the network flash, and then also have an array on the backend that still has that centralized management. And I think that's kind of an important step in preserving the features that you get with the traditional models and the revolutionary performance you can get with flash. So essentially you guys participate in that entire hierarchy, right? So we're closely allied with our partners and we're looking at supplying multiple pieces of that solution set and not trying to force one way or the other. We're just trying to make sure that we're part of the flash solution as it moves forward on its own. So it's a crowded space and you've got companies popping up all over the place. Now you supply a lot of those companies, I realize as well, but talk about how you differentiate from that field. Sure, so the key premises that we look at from the accelerated solutions division is providing solutions that are fast, smart, and easy. Because table stakes is fast. If you're going to sell flash and it's not fast, then you're in the wrong line of business. So that's a given. And we have very powerful controllers that enable us to do that. The second part is smart, because we know you could throw everything on flash. It'd be very fast, but that wouldn't necessarily be that smart. And so we're looking at, either with partners in-house, ways to use flash alongside disk to have a more cost-effective solution. And the last part where I think LSI is uniquely positioned is easy. We're leveraging our existing driver stack the mega-rate investment, the SaaS investment, that allows us to be just deployed and using the same tool sets people are used to. It's a lot easier for OEMs to integrate our technology. And it's that easy part that really differentiates solution that you get from LSI. So what are you guys doing here at Oracle OpenWorld? What are you showing at the event? Maybe talk a little bit about the Oracle customers that you service, either directly or indirectly. Sure. So, at our booth, we're showing a number of ways that we're using flash in that fast, smart easy mode, where we have disk systems running TPCC, like OLTP database, and using either all disks or using flash to accelerate those disks. And in our booth, we're showing basically one demo. It's doing three times the number of transactions per second and that roughly equates the amount of users the database is able to support. And we're supporting end user response times that are as much as 30 times faster. And that's a very important metric in the Oracle community where you're deploying an application and what you care about is how many users you can support and what their end user experience is. And we're able to showcase that by adding flash intelligently to that deployment, you can support more users at a lower response time and have a very effective ROI. What kind of people come by your booth? Is it your OEM customers? Is it Oracle DVAs, a mix? Talk about that a little bit. At this show, it tends to be mainly DVAs who are interested in understanding how to use flash in general. And in the conversations that we have, we explain our products, but we also find out where it is that they're getting their infrastructure and it's often aligned with our OEM partners because we have a very close partnership with our OEMs and are trying to make sure that there's ways for people to use the equipment in whatever environment makes sense. Excellent. All right, Jamie, well listen, thanks very much for taking time out of your booth duty schedule to come by theCUBE. It was great to see you again. Dave, good seeing you, thank you. All right, keep it right there. We'll be right back. We've got some segments coming up this afternoon. We've got a demo to show you. We've got Pauline NIST coming up. Always a great guest from Intel. Keep it right there. This is Silicon Angles theCUBE, live from Oracle OpenWorld. We'll be right back.