Today is Wednesday, May 29th, and this is the Amherst Planning Board 7 p.m. And we're going to start the meeting The first thing on the agenda. We have approval of minutes, and I do believe we have one set of minutes from May 15th They were in our packet are there any Comments or does someone want to make a motion to approve? Okay, there's far anyone second that great Any discussion any issues changes? Everyone looks good. Okay, so we'll vote are ready to approve the minutes raise your hand if you approve If you that's unanimous, so we're good Okay, so the next thing on the agenda we have Appearance of Attorney Bob Ritchie member of the bylaw review committee And he's going to speak to us about the proposed changes to the zoning bylaw to bring it into conformance With the Amherst home rule Charter Welcome Yeah Hold it I don't want to repeat anything you've already Heard or know about it It'd almost be preferable if you just ask any questions, but the gist of it is that the Charter has charged the committee that I chair to review the bylaws the old bylaws and Look at them with a critical eye to see how they adjust well to the form of our new form of governance So there were two committees I chaired the last committee the first committee which Sees to exist when the new committee came in and now we're a committee of five three members of our council on the committee so we have elizabeth brewer Evan Ross and Pat DeAngelo's So we've been meeting our charge Includes the general bylaws and the zoning bylaws But obviously our attention has been significantly drawn to the general bylaws which is where most of our hard work is taking place but the charge is also includes the zoning bylaws and The first committee did what it thought was an adequate job to form them in such a way that the council could enact them as the zoning laws of The of the town under its new form of government there were relatively few changes So the first committee made that recommendation to the council elect and then to the council The council chose not to act quickly on the theory that it would rather take its time since urgency was not of That importance and they could take their time reviewing it and so instead of quickly going into the legislative process to enact them They deferred the matter until the second committee to review the bylaws had a chance to work The first committee Produced a document that the planning board Had reviewed and reported To the council it had a life span of 90 days that came and went Precipitating the necessity of doing it once again. So this is a redo of what the board did before With virtually no changes. It's exactly the same so the the timeline dictated by the Statutes and the charter is that the planning board will hold a public hearing on the proposed zoning change Which is something you're all familiar with this is all hat to you It's a 14-day notice To successive weeks prior to a public hearing of the planning board that is mandated by General law chapter 48 section 5 You know that this is the same same old same old that you've done all the time So we're going to have a planning board hearing on your stand schedule for the 5th of June And that would be occasion where you do it once again have the hearing public comment and then make the a report with recommendations to the council Once the council get to report with recommendations it can proceed to the next phase of them Which is To have the proposed changes read at two successive meetings of the council followed by the the actual enactment of the of the new bylaw So what you have is basically a repeal of the old and an adoption of the new You have seen summaries of the changes there relatively few Unlike the general bylaws the zoning bylaws has evolved into a a well integrated reasonably well planned Document the general bylaws by comparison There are no resemblance to the general so we really needed to do a lot of work on that We make some recommendations at the end of the Report that my committee made that how we might in the future Want to make the zoning bylaw that we're about to enact better and to have it be work Sort of integrally with the general bylaws. So we have a coordinated code for the town both general and zoning We have some recommendations about how you may wish to label and number and title the components of the zoning bylaw, but that's That's for future work You know the my committee will probably wrap up its business and that would be just Grist for the mill for both the planning board and the council going forward and So I think that probably sums it up unless you have any questions of specifically general I can I can answer for you Are there any What what you might think of as substantive changes that you're proposing other than simply Substituting a town council for select board and things of that sort. Yeah, that first level wash is to delete references to select board and and insert the town Manager the council and in some instances the Board of Licensing Commission. So the personality swap was the first wash that the next the next collection of Changes would be relating to numbering sequences that had been identified as a problem which we sought an opportunity to fix a few things That are sort of organizational rather than substantive I don't think there's any substance It's all low order stuff and they're all summarized in the report that we made to the to the council In three or four pages it summarizes what those changes are I Can I can reduce them to a single page if you'd like me to just run through them boy Have we received that summary? Oh? That's really hard This time around I gave you the full Bylaw with the changes marked in red. I sent it to you right email I'm happy to make copies of the paper copy if anybody would like that for next week You did receive the report that mr. Ritchie is talking about For last December. I didn't think of giving you that report tonight But I can certainly put it in your packets for next for next Wednesday. Would you like that? I would yes It's not really exciting reading, but there are so few changes that I think you can do it rather quickly Maybe the best way to acquaint yourself with what was done is to take a look at the report of the by-law committee to the council because they're Enumerated and it summarized there the the changes in in article 3 mainly changed the method of Appointments to conform to the charter in article 7 there was some Suggested changes that emanated from this board to fix the numeration of sections There was a change of non-conforming temporary signs Allocated to the town manager an article 10 dealt with the appointment of alternate members and members of the board and One one section aggregated provisions relating to marijuana Into a single coordinated clump of provisions rather than being sprinkled around and that's pretty much it As I say there are no substantive changes It was thought best to establish a baseline document for the changes that This body has thought about doing But before the changes that you are working on really go forward It'd be good to have a new baseline document that conforms to the charter that you could then modify in the ways that you're Currently contemplating doing with future changes to the by-law So Chris first just want to ask you so you're gonna include the three page summary in our packet Yeah, okay, and this it's the same as what we got in December. Yeah, yeah Chris I Can also include the minutes of the December 12th meeting so you'll know who was there That would be useful to me yes And if any questions occur to you during the twilight hours when you can't read Go to sleep let Chris know when she can talk to me and I'll try to provide answers to you before your meeting on the fifth I have one other question What What authority are we operating under at the moment? Since the current by-law refers to things that no longer exist are we still operating under the current by-law? it's a very good question and The authors of our charter took careful attention to that and there was a provision both in state law and Reflected in the charter that the by-laws of the town of Amherst that we've known and loved for many years continue in full force and effect With the obvious changes to be understood to have been made So if there were a necessity to enforce a by-law in which the select board was supposed to do something We would now assign that depending on whether it was a legislative or an executive function to either the council or the town manager So those Changes would automatically kick in In fact the town of Framingham a number of years ago has undergone through what we've done and they still have the old They they're surviving. It's a survival strategy there, but not well. We're doing it right We're going to create that new baseline document early in the game But all is not lost. It's a very good question because we can live with the old by-law, but it's clunky We always have to ask how do we change it? To read consistent with with the law and we'll eliminate that question Once we once the council and acts the new one so You know in for all practical purposes this body should continue to operate under the existing well under the 2017 revision of the by-law until such time as the council passes a new by-law Yeah, the charter and I think article 10 addresses that the provisions of the Existing code of general by-laws and so on about continuing full force in effect until a new by-law is revised adopted repealed, you know until that process goes on There was a switch over point and that point is when the council acts up until that point the old by-law Continues in full force in effect and from that point then the new document will kick in Okay Chris One more thing. I just wanted to make sure everybody knows that there was a by-law that was Published and it's online. It is dated November of 2018 and it includes all of the By-law amendments that were adopted through the spring of 2018 we didn't publish a lot of these because we knew we were going to be changing so so quickly But if anyone does want a hard copy of this by-law Happy to give it to you and I also wanted to ask who besides mr. Dvert whistle would like a copy of the red-lined By-law that you're going to be considering next week or is the electronic version sufficient Okay, any other questions for mr. Ritchie Thank you for coming. I'll see you next on the 5th. What's that? We'd be here on the 5th. Oh, yeah I'll be here as I say if any questions arise In the meantime and we stay in touch with the the town attorney on all of this although. I am an attorney I am not in this case. I have no attorney-client relation with you I'm just one of the work of bees along with you to that have volunteered to help the town out through this process so we we do touch bases with Joel Barden Lauren Goldberg as circumstances Require make sure we're on the right my opinion doesn't matter is there there's does We want to be right. Well, thank you for your hard work Chris I Just wanted to make one more suggestion. I think it would be really helpful next week We may have an audience because we have advertised this as a public hearing and there may be some people who are just Catching on to what's going on So if mr. Richie would give the synopsis that he gave in the beginning of this meeting I think that would be helpful for everybody to understand what's what's being done here. I think that's an excellent idea Okay, I'll be here. Thank you So the next item Public hearing site plan review SPR 2019-04 Amherst community television Amherst media corner of Gray Street and Main Street. This is public hearing continued from March 20th 2019 and there's a request to continue again to push this meeting to in July So Chris do you have anything to intro? Yeah, I recommend that you continue this meeting to July 17th, which is a Wednesday at 705 Okay, and I will mention that in your packet. We got a letter from the Zengineer requesting that they push this meeting back to July And Chris has told me that we need to approve this So first off does anyone have any issues or questions about this? Okay, we're all good Anyone want to make a motion to continuous? Yeah, I move we continue the hearing until July. What was the 17th? 17th And party seconds. Thank you Is there anything else we need to do with this? Okay, that rolls along great. Oh We have to vote great. That's right. I'll raise your hand if you approve and It's unanimous Thanks Next public hearing planning board rules and regulations PBR dash 1 dash 19 planning board rules and regulations planning board and this is continued also from March 20th 2019 To review and update and amend the planning board rules and regulations to bring them into conformance with the Amherst home Rule Charter as adopted March 27th 2018 So we have some stuff in our packet for this For Chris we got a couple of emails from mr. Bard on His comments on this and then is that the set? Yeah, and we How about could you give because that can you give a summary of the fees one? That was the new one the the one dated May 24th So Joel Bard is our attorney our town attorney. He's an attorney with Copeland and Paige and I asked him to review the changes that were proposed for the planning board rules and regulations and he had two comments one had to do with What we call? Well, let's see. What do we call it? We call it third-party review and We are the planning board is able to Require funds to be deposited from an applicant to pay for a Review of some aspect of an application that they're not comfortable with in other words if it's an engineering Issue having to do with stormwater management or a traffic issue You don't quite believe what's in the traffic report or something like that. You can have The applicant put money in escrow to pay for a review by an engineer who is competent to review the material and so what We had had in our in our rules and regs said that when When there's a dispute about the amount of money that's going to be put in escrow or the for the Individual firm that's going to be hired to do the work that the dispute would be Adjudicated by I believe it was the select board in the past. Is that correct? Yes, it was the select board and so I Had thought it should be the town manager because the town manager is acting as a an executive But Joel Bard thought that it should be the town council Because they are they can act as a quasi judicial body and the town manager really can't act as a quasi judicial body so in his opinion that duty of adjudicating the appeal of Who is going to do the third party review and what the fee is would go to the town council so I'd like you to Think about whether you would like to approve that and then do you want me to go into the other? Suggestion that he made or okay, so the other suggestion has to do with voting and What he said was that? We had a discussion last time about site plan review decisions and whether they should be a majority or a two-thirds vote and So in mr. Bard's opinion, it could be either a majority or a two-thirds vote But many cities and towns do Just go with the majority vote and he suggested some simple language as opposed to the kind of convoluted language that we had previously And the simple language is the concurring vote of at least four Members of the board shall be required for any decision on a site plan application So that would be for your consideration However at a previous meeting mr. Stutzman had suggested that you merely refer to the zoning by-law for For the method in which some as I plan review would be approved and I'm trying to find the page where that is Applicable here. I think it's towards the end Page 104 There it is it's on page 14 Mr. Stutzman had suggested that you say That the first site plan review that the vote of the planning board on a site plan review application shall be as stated in the zoning by-law article 11 section 11 point two five and that uses the old language and Eventually you will probably propose to town council that that language be changed But for right now it remains as it is it remains that it's either two-thirds or Minimum of five So you need to choose whether you're going to go with mr Mr. Bards Suggested language That you have in your email or whether you're going to merely refer to the zoning by-law and put this Decision off to the future Could you read how it says in the zoning by-law? And I think Michael is that 106 you said yes, it's page 106 11 250 So in the zoning by-law it says for a planning board decision on a site plan review the Concurring vote of at least two-thirds but not fewer than five of the members of the board Participating in voting shall be required for any decision on a site plan application Abstaining members being considered not to be voting not to be voting So that's what it says. This is based on a membership of nine That's what the assumption is here, but we haven't changed anything of substance in the by-law So So that language remains as it is in the zoning by-law Does anyone have any? Well, maybe we should just break it into the two How about we deal with the first one the the consulting third-party funds and We'll talk about that and then we'll move to this the second one So does anyone have any questions or issues with the first or the change? dated May 24th that email from Mr. Bard about About the third-party funds and changing it from town manager to town council No, that's eminently sensible. Excellent. Okay, so now we'll go back to this other the voting What are people's thoughts on either going with what mr. Bard is suggesting the simple language or just do the refer to the zoning? By-laws and hope that it gets changed at some point Well, my thought would be to use mr. Studsman's language from last time referring to the existing zoning by-law and Personally hope that it's not changed But it seems to me that it's an issue that we can postpone just to such a time when we can have a Perhaps a more substantive discussion about Value of a two-thirds majority vote for such an important issue as a site plan review Yeah, I prefer to stay with mr. Studsman's Proposal right now because I think it's just safer. I would rather stay with mr. Studsman's suggestion for the moment Jack I Like but Joel Barn actually did it. Does this it's just simple You got to have for whether you have you know, you got to have your quorum, but it's just gonna be for Anyway, slice it sort of thing and I was wondering what you thought Chris I think that the four is consistent with the spirit of the by-law and the research that we did in the spring that most cities and towns do use a majority and since the Planning board has shrunk from nine members to seven members that makes sense to me to shrink the number of voting People who need to vote in favor of something from five to four because that's Essentially a majority of seven. So to me four makes sense Maria The question I have is so does that for me if like tonight there's five people or have to vote Yes, and if there's four people, that's not quorum. We wouldn't have a meeting. No, that's still it is So we have to be a hundred percent So for us to go with mr. Bards, it means either, you know, I have four out of five I don't can't do them, but for this or a hundred percent for down to four or five planning board members Which to me sounds a little extreme So I think that I mean I'd prefer the word majority But if it's too much to sort of rewrite and have another version sticking with the two-thirds until we can get it sort of fully fleshed out I Prefer not to have The four from mr. Bards, but then two-thirds also feels too high That's my thing Chris So I agree that this discussion may well be postponed to a time when you're actually looking at the zoning by-law and Looking at changing it. So I think it's reasonable to leave mr. Stutzman's suggestion in place for now so Looking to make it clear. So with the way that it would be with the zoning by-law How would it work, you know? If there were say six or five people The zoning by-law requires five people to vote in favor of something So if it was like tonight all five would have to That's correct. Yes. So the keeping it the way it is is more extreme. It goes against the usual practice in Massachusetts Like some of the research we had done it we realized places like Northampton And Cambridge and Sturbridge and lots of other towns They not only do just the majority instead of the two-thirds, but they also do what have just members present So if like tonight it would just be three people So we're already being very conservative here in Amherst by doing If it if it was just a majority of because it's of the total council So it has to be a minimum of four and we're going to very ultra conservative leaving it the way it is You know, I would be for going with the professional recommendation of mr. Bard because it sets a tone from us that You know, it's a nice balance. It's not is the you know is Looser is what generally happens in other towns of Massachusetts yet. It's not treating it like a site plan review I mean a special permit which The problem is that SPR is is basically by right and pushing it up into the 70 percentiles And sometimes a hundred percent of members attending. I think is extreme So I'm you know Chris So there's one sort of Practical issue which is if you change the rules and regs tonight to be for to go with mr. Bard suggestion Then you can't really use that because the zoning by-law hasn't changed yet So that's why mr. Stutzman recommended his version which is you put language in your the document that you can control and then refer to the other document that needs to be changed and Then you would have an opportunity to make a recommendation to town council about changing the zoning by-law So I think that's a clean way to do it So but when could we anticipate that happening? You know that the town council will get to Be receptive to hearing our Proposed changes to the zoning by-law. I don't know what the town council's priorities are and Whether this would rise to the higher level of a priority to be voted on sooner rather than later I don't really know. I mean they have a list of things that they're eager to tackle and So I couldn't guarantee that this would be handled anytime soon Unless you really pushed it which you could of course push it you could Make a recommendation to change the zoning by-law for that specific item Along with the other smaller things that you're currently talking about so That would be really up to you, but my sense is the town council. Well, and yes, and that if you did that They would have to follow a schedule to get to voting on your petition your so by Ruzel If we went with mr. Bard suggestion that would send a message to town council that this is important to us And we want it to be looked at Because we're going to be looking at the zoning by-law anyways for lots of different things But you're saying if if we don't push it it could be more than a year It could be a long long time longer than how long some people even be on this board Yes So I think it's challenging to The town council right now to think about changing zoning by-laws because they don't really understand how it all works And they need to you know have more familiarity with the by-law before they launch into changing it So I'm not sure that if you proposed something like that They would immediately understand what it was you were proposing and you know jump on board to approve it They might just say let's leave it the way it is So I think there's a lot. There's a lot going on so the the easiest route would be take mr. Stutzman's language and Go with that and wait until a future date to change the by-law wait or wait and Try to engage the council to take this on as a higher priority You could engage the council to take it on as a higher priority. Yes Any other thoughts from board members? Yes, Michael Yes, I want to Speak a little bit about this notion of Site plan review being a a by-right Operation It's it's very clear from the zoning by-law on page 106 11 2501 that denial of the site plan based on a determination a Insufficient insufficient information or be that the project does not meet the requirements section 11-2 is One of the options that the board that the planning board has in dealing with a site plan review It can be denied and we keep talking about this being a by-right Operation and that's not really true. I'm not a lawyer and but I'm just trying to read this by-law and understand exactly What it says and it seems to me that it's absolute absolutely Incontrovertible that it is this body's right to deny a site plan review So that puts it for me into the category of a significant decision at the same level of special projects about special permit and I am Fully convinced that those two operations should be parallel that they should have the same kind of voting requirements the same kind of procedures and they should be Paralleled in the the various documents that we refer to the the rules and regulations of the Zoning Board of Appeals Specify exactly how voting should take place. I think the rules and regulations of this body should specify Exactly how the regulations should take place. I think the notion of referring To the zoning zoning by-law as a stopgap is appropriate and I think you should approve mr. Setsman's Proposal from last time But I really think that we need to carefully evaluate At this point what? that denial of site plan based on determination actually means and no longer take for granted the Opinions of mr. Tucker who whose ideas have been referred to us on several occasions About this issue in the last several years as gospel. They are not mr. Bard says that a four eight a Two-thirds majority is Reasonable is legal. He didn't say reasonable. He didn't use those words, but he said it is permissible under the statute the fact that more Municipalities choose a majority vote than a two-thirds major than a two-thirds vote is a fact I think But it's not necessarily the determining fact and I think we need to be very careful about this and I know well I think that I'm Maybe in a majority in a minority on this position But I would like to have a fuller discussion of this at such a time when we're not bound by the need to Fix the the issue relative to the Newtown Council's needs to have Bylaws in place that are Referred to the town council properly which is basically what this what we're trying to do with this document, so in short I think we should approve the notion that The zoning that our by law our rules and regulations should on this issue refer to the zoning by law and Take up the issue of what the zoning by law should be at a later time I just want to Clear up a few things when we look at our zoning by-law you have to remember where it came from it came from decades and decades of slight changes and new thinking and new changes evolving and part of ours has have been changed or fixed in a long time and Site plan review is basically a by-right You know mr. The history got from miss bestra Some of it is his his interpretation and mr. Bard gave us his But if you look at recent history in the state of Massachusetts in the last two years both Democrats in the house have proposed bills and the Republican governor mr. Baker has Proposed two bills very similar that is trying to make it statewide that site plan review would be a simple majority because it hinders Restrictions that are not very often not legal and what happens is this is when planning boards get sued and There are legal cases that we have one of them is Osberg versus stir town of Sturbridge where it It was found too restrictive and it actually what came out of that was that it should be a simple majority of Only members present planning board members present at the time So actually even if we go with what mr. Bard is saying it's still much more conservative than what is been has evolved through lawsuits and and and our own Let's state legislature is trying to fix Which I anticipate in the next few years. They will get it fixed and then you know It it will be fixed here But anyway, so the key part to remember here is even mr. Bards is Conservative in the fact that it says you have to use the whole count of seven as the majority Meaning for and not what the industry standard for the state is pushing and evolving to which would be a simple majority of members present Which could be as low as three if we only had four members at a quorum So anyways times are changing things are changing We do have old bylaws and and I hope either now or later They will be looked at and and you know, it'll be more about just The numbers of voting but we're looking at it holistically on trying to control and encourage the development We want namers and yet still control, you know The basics what you can but by right is a tricky situation Just I'm gonna go with Jack I was gonna say there's often members that will abstain Or recuse themselves and that further makes it I think more in line with this two-thirds by by virtual two-thirds When we're missing one of our members because you know, they have they have one of those basic things where they have to sit out but So I Think the four is a is a reasonable number in it and it you remove if there's someone with a conflict of interest and I just think it you end up with a virtual two-thirds very easily Do the dynamics of the board? Just a technicality question Is it even possible that we have this discussion when they're full house instead of just the five of us Could we could we have this discussion when all of us like in a meeting there? Almost all of our it's only one person because the other person will be here and Yeah, so you want David here when we talk about this I mean I I don't I don't have any particular Request for anyone in particular. I just think that there are meetings in which there is more of us present There's only one other member as of in a month So mr. Stutzman isn't here today, but he could be here on June 5th So so you could post on this discussion to June 5th, and then you would have mr. Levenstein and mr. Stutzman here, so all seven of you would be here on what date Okay, and would fit that in with that Could I ask for mr. Bard to actually he never addresses the part about? His thinking on whether it should be based on the full board number of seven or the industry practice of members and of Who are there above quorum quorum above? Yeah? It took me about a month to get this answer from him and he's on vacation this week, so I Don't think I could get the answer by June 5th I'd appreciate if you could still put it on his list then because if we Put pressure on the council, and they're willing to look at zoning on the sooner rather than the later We'll have the answer because I think that type of question is going to come up If you had a quorum present and you had a majority of the quorum would that be sufficient right the industry based on like Osberg versus Sturbridge, you know and all the other tech so the research we did Chris I found you know dozens of towns they just have it on members present they have it say SPR It's a simple majority of members present And I just want to hear what his thoughts are you know as if this is going to become a full You know think out and redo you know for the council whatever it's gonna we should have that information Yeah, Michael um Osberg didn't decide this case It said Osberg says without deciding whether in municipality without statutory authority may impose voting requirements It said without deciding they did not decide that you know you're missing how the law works So what happened is that happened and then in the history of the next five years fallout, you know lawyers use a case to Because other lawsuits were happening. So what happened is by? 2005 a massive slew of Massachusetts towns and cities have Adopted the this actual one line that says simple majority of members present And if you Google that if you actually take that quote and Google it Dozens of towns will come up that have just implemented what came out of this lawsuit the lawsuit itself didn't create the wording of what Legislatures use for their site plan review. That's right. So we don't refer to the lawsuit as precedent What's precedent was? Presidential is the fact that various towns have taken the action to create certain voting requirements Specific voting requirements. Well, they're my laws. So we go to What are those classes we take in Worcester at Holy Cross? Citizen planner training collaborative. Okay, so they're a huge, you know, I assume that nonprofit But they, you know, are a free guidance to municipalities in Massachusetts and they have a handbook and if you go to their SPR They actually have that same line is what they recommend to all towns and cities to use as their voting for site plan review So it no it's not about one case or multiple cases or how many but over the last 25 years this has evolved to be the standard line that Municipalities use and all I'm saying is that is even You know what even if we went with what mr. Bard says today that is still far more conservative and restricting than what? You know the average norm is for towns right now for voting with their SPR. That's all I'm saying Anyone else have any comments? I am you know, we can postpone this to June 5th if people are up for that We could do a little more research a little more thought I think that would be helpful for everybody I just suggested that and the spirit that it will really genuinely help me also make up my mind Yeah, excellent all the members. So I think it would be really helpful to agree a bit more time No, I think it's something that we should think about because I think it's important in some ways We could just you know default to the Incorrect language of the zoning by-law, but you know, this is an opportunity We could send a message to the town council to along with that We feel that it's a priority that we want them to work with us to help improve and clean up our zoning by-law So much do we have to make a oh Maria go ahead just real quick The zoning so many had three amendments that we've been drafting sort of reports on and this was one of the three So we were pushing it as a priority, you know the marijuana buffers Supplemental dwelling units and this issue we thought might be nice ways to have them step into how Zoning amendments are made. So I don't know if we're still pushing this one Equally with the other two since we also have the attorney working on it simultaneously But we were trying to push, you know, some of these into their Sort of attention to periphery, but I'm not sure the sort of traction we're getting on this So that's correct that the zoning subcommittee was pushing that and they were saying that these are three amendments that they wanted to bring up Early before town council. I had forgotten that so yes, this would be included in those Great, so maybe that can be on the agenda for the zoning subcommittee also for next week. Great Do we have to make a motion to yes, this is a public hearing so someone needs to move to Continue it to June 5th Sorry Great any discussion Or you already vote, okay, so So raise your hand if you're in favor for that great all in favor unanimous great All right, so then we have Planning and zoning report zoning subcommittee report Nothing to report So Chris do we have any old business I don't think so and do we have any new business? The only new business really is to discuss when people are available this summer and I got a little panic today when I was realizing how many members would be on vacation or Whatever so I think I'll send an email out tomorrow and you can all respond to it and tell me when you're going to be here There there are currently six meetings scheduled for the summer one of them is July 3rd Which is right before July 4th. So that's you know, you can decide whether you want to have a meeting that night or not I'm sort of planning around that but if it turns out that you do have a meeting. I'll Put that together So Chris, what do you think of a doodle poll and you could list all the upcoming dates through the summer and then Yeah, I'm sure Pam can help me with that. Yeah, it's I Would even be willing to come in and help you But I think that would make it easier than everybody trying to like write down dates Great So so we're on to form a and our subdivision applications We have two a and ours tonight one is something that you might be familiar with it's on Redgate Lane and Jonathan clate has gone back and forth between whether he wants to Have a flag lot next to him or not and he's currently decided not to have a flag lot next to him And so he wants to combine the flag lot that he carved off earlier, perhaps a year or so ago Combine it with his property and I'm going to pass along a Map that miss field Created for us and you can see what the existing condition is it shows two lots one outlined in yellow That is Mr. Clay's house lot and the other one is outlined in blue that is an existing flag lot And the idea is to combine these two lots Yeah And where was the flag lot made No, when was it wasn't that long It was made in the last Yeah, okay Not have it be developed and he carved it off as a flag lot and it went through a special permit process with the zoning word of Appeals and then there were issues with that. So I think that in the end you decided The advice here to sign this Does he have to pay a fee Is one of these changes Yes Yeah, really Upcoming oh was there another one. Oh So the second one is a little more complicated. It's property down on West Street. That's currently owned by Barry Roberts and he has a riding arena down there. It's down near Camel Hassan's barn Which used to be a furniture store and is now a tax shop So we have Three parcels outlined on this locust plan There's a yellow parcel that is a flag lot and then there are two blue parcels one Has a house on it and the other one has a house and a couple of barns on it and and he wants to reconfigure these Strangely enough the way the properties exist now And I don't know how they got this way, but the way they exist now to property lines go through a major riding arena So that's not allowed. You can't have property lines going through a building The building has to be set back from the property lines So I'm going to pass this around and you can see it and then I'll bring around the the proposal for the new Property lines Chris, what's the zoning on this? What is the zoning on this area? Do you know? The zoning on Barry Roberts property is RO residential outlining. Okay. Thank you A garage here with a house Really So Chris what what might have happened that the building ended up Across the property lines like that. I don't know It's unusual because he would have had to get a building permit to put the building there So I don't know how someone didn't catch that when the building permit was Issued so it's just one of those things that slipped through the cracks, but he's making amends now So that's Upcoming ZBA applications Sadler field can address the field Sadler can adjust that So I think we've been through all of these before but Cooley Dickinson healthcare wants to put a driveway on North Hampton Road or route 9 Just east of the intersection with University Drive So they went to the zoning board of appeals and said that they thought it was a de minimis change And the zoning board of appeals said there are too many issues with regard to this We'd like you to submit a special permit application. So they are going to do that. They're going to submit a special permit application There's a project on Fearing Street where someone is converting a garage to living space I think I've told you about that before and that did go before the zoning board of appeals last week And I think it was approved The Project on Bay Road you signed an A and R plan to separate out a flag lot And it was a very complicated flag lot. It was a few weeks ago that you signed it In the end the applicant has decided to withdraw the application They were submitting a special permit application for a flag lot to the zoning board, but it just got too complicated So they decided to withdraw that And then reporting on some things that the zoning board did act on already they approved Hickory Ridge the Hickory Ridge golf course to have the solar arrays and now the town is trying to Get CPAC money to purchase of a big portion of that property And then the herbology group, which is a group that wants to be able to sell medical and recreational marijuana in the Property that's currently occupied by rafters They're going through their special permit process and they have to come back to the planning board with further information about their parking And how they're going to fence off some areas upcoming SPP SPR sub applications So I'm expecting a dog park application to come in tomorrow And that would be the town of Amherst applying to Instruct a dog park using money from the Stanton Foundation And the dog park is going to be built on old Belcher town road It's on the old landfill site, and it's right next to the road and It's a small area that's going to be fenced and I think it I think it will be a nice addition to the town, but you'll have to decide When you say small like is it a half acre? Like, you know, I don't have the description here do people walk their dog?  So I think it's Acre and a half total so the small dog obviously I think it's Somewhere between a quarter and a half acre and the other the for the large dogs is an acre And there's a special gate system to where the dogs don't get tangled up and because that's like the most That's where problems occur in the entryway. So and the Berkshire engineering Has done like a dozen of these designs and take a different stand and they We've been working hand-in-hand with them and so it's there's a lot of proven unknown concepts and and Parking is is an issue there because there's not It's there's no parking available on the road other than just, you know It would be parallel so there that's going to be a change but it has water And It's on a landfill So it's kind of restricted in terms of what they're going to do But what they're going to do is bring in a lot of fill and so the cover will not be impacted there So that couldn't be compliant with the existing solid waste closure permit. That's that's there Excellent to know. Thank you. And that that is pretty sizable. So the dogs have enough room to oh, yeah run and Planning board committee and liaison reports PVPC Yeah, we just have that dinner meeting which is described in the minutes Thursday, June 13th. I plan on going Our community preservation at committee Michael No real report, but the There seems to be some pushback on the issue of on the single room occupants single room occupancy project from Valley CDC on Northampton Road. There was a large meeting last night Which I did not go to but apparently according to the paper. There's some some neighbor Negative reaction to that. So that project is somewhat Unhulled in spite of the fact that it was the most important project that CP AC Was voted on was strongly in favor of it So remains to be seen what will happen there Thank you Oh, yeah, so The town council recognizes that there is a man of consternation that has erupted or arisen. I should say that's a better word They're planning to host a meeting on the 18th on June 18th I think it's in the bank center, and I think it's at six o'clock. I can't I will send you the information about that but it's an effort to have Valley CDC and the neighbors come come together and Talk about the project talk about what the concerns are and talk about the details of the project and and see You know just a conversation about it and and see if they can come together on some of these things So you might want to attend I'll send you a flyer about that Hmm Agricultural Commission parry are you still in limbo land? Yeah, okay Design review board Michael. We have not had the meeting since our last planning board meeting And Greg's not here, so I don't know if Chris the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust if you knew anything I Don't I can't give a report. Okay Thanks, and Well zoning subcommittee Maria there was eat next week nothing for you tack and downtown parking working group the consultant Nelson I guard continues to work on a draft of their report Before I go to report of the chair. I just we didn't do public Comment earlier because we didn't have any public but there is I Nothing to great. Okay report of chair. I have nothing to report report of staff Um, I do not have anything to report, but I look forward to working with you all for the next year And I'm so happy that you're here Well, uh a German. I mean, yep. Good dawn


Welcome everyone to JSA TV and JSA podcasts where we're covering the latest stories, news, trends, innovations from leaders across the global connectivity and digital infrastructure space. I'm Barb Mitchell from JSA and I'm very pleased to be joined today by Emmanuel Rochaus, CEO of Orange or Orange, whichever country you happen to be in. Nice to meet you. We last spoke, it's been a year already and we spoke last year at Capacity Europe and I know a lot happens in the course of a year but most significantly today you had some exciting news come out. Can you share that with us? Yes, actually this morning we revealed a new brand for our world selectivities which is Orange Wholesale. It's the continuity of the new strategy that Orange announced in April this year with a clear focus on wholesale as a key pillar for the group growth and revenues. And a key focus also on capitalizing on our existing infrastructure and developing more infrastructure. So this has translated into a new organization that was put in place in April which is Orange Wholesale. It's a division which is gathering into one organization with one boss which is sitting in the group executive committee. And this organization gathered the domestic wholesale activities in France, the international wholesale and also the totem which is our tower call and also Orange Marine which is our fleet, our cable ship fleet. So that's a new organization and now we have a new brand. This brand is intended to show the power of Orange in this market, the wholesale market and also leverage on all our existing assets and be able to invest more and show to the market that we are one single activity around wholesale at Orange. It feels like a very pivotal time to be speaking with you about this. That's a fairly major announcement I think and so important for your organization globally but also important I think for the customers that you serve. And so one of the things that is spoken of a lot in our industry is the idea of network as a service and so can you speak to that and your perspective on that? Yeah that's one of the key elements of the promise of the Orange Wholesale brand is to provide services on demand to our customers which means that we want to transform our current customer experience with wholesale connectivity into something which is more like what you have with our customers experience with the cloud. That's a very important and very transformative strategy because it first goes through our network transformation. So we are currently at international level, completely reshuffling our international networks in order to make them more virtualized, more layered. So having an infrastructure layer, transmission layer, service layer and orchestration layer, those different layers are fully independent one from the other. So enabling to do very innovative models in terms of wholesale. So having some external services working and running on our telco cloud or a telco infrastructure or bringing our services on another's infrastructure or transmission network. So that's really a key element network transformation and the other element that we need to transform is our customer relationship. We are digitizing and automating as much as possible what we offer to our customers. So having porting our offers to the web and also through APIs for our customers and this is now we have four or five offers which are available fully online, fully on demand. And it's going from IP transit to EVPL cloud numbers and very soon CDM. So you I mean it here we I mean we're it's October almost the end of October. So we're getting close to rounding out this year 2023. A lot of major things have happened for you already this year and whether that be, you know, the new announcement that you made today with with your orange wholesale but but also with some of the solutions that you offer. But when you look even further ahead now as if you know it's we never like to just rest for too long right what's next. What's what's coming up that's exciting that you may be ready to share with us. Yeah, well actually we have two two key areas which are very exciting. One is on the service side. We are we have launched three weeks ago a new CDN offer on the market, which is a trusted CDN offer European with managed by a European player orange. Based on the European technology with all the data hosted in in the European Union and this well this is the beginning of the story. So we have launched this offer. Now we have we have deployed it in in France mainly and we're starting in in Q4 this year to deploy it in Africa and the Middle East and then probably in Asia and America's. So next year will be really the year where we will see this offer anchor into the market and get attraction. So that's the first one and the second one is about infrastructure. I mentioned that orange wholesale has been created to to capitalize on the orange infrastructure and also develop them. And we are now we have a lot of interesting projects to develop new infrastructures and marine cables but also terrestrial projects in Europe. And also working with the satellite players in order to be, I would say, under the sea on the on the on the terrestrial and in the sky. Interesting. Yeah, real global push, right? A lot of global solutions and infrastructure. And so you're here for the rest of the week and for people that want to maybe catch up with you and hear a little bit more about what we've been talking about or some of the other things that you're working on. How can they find you? Oh, it's it's easy. We have a orange has a room, a meeting room, which is on the second floor. So you can come in and see us. There is always somebody to to to to welcome you. So I would be very happy to talk with all the customers partners that we have in the marketplace. Amazing. Thank you. So great to chat with you again. We look forward to hopefully it's not a whole nother year before we talk again. But if it is, we look forward to seeing what happens in this upcoming year. So thank you. Thank you for joining us. And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA podcasts. That's it for today. We'll be back again tomorrow with more news and updates for you on JSA TV live here at capacity Europe 2023. Happy networking.


Marine, serving with the First Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion Police Advisor Team, welcomed the Afghan New Year with the Afghan Uniform Police March 22nd. We come together for a lot of our holidays. We celebrate it our Christmas and our New Year. We celebrate their New Year. We celebrate their Eid. We celebrate things together because that's what we are. We're together. You have to have the continuous interaction with these guys. You know, we're only here for seven months to truly make an impact. You really have to embed yourself with the Afghans and the only way to do that is to live amongst them, live with them. It's just a proven technique that's really helped out and it just assists in the report building. It assists with everything that we do while we're here. Reporting from Kanishin, Afghanistan, I'm Marine Sergeant Michael Cifuentes.


Isitera pigeantuita, kwa kwa hika na mga, yubian nga kwa kuwia iwe-in kwa kwa wia communit ya, mba ubea mga. Mako, ya kwa mtukwa, na kwa hiki nga nii pwikit nga, isidi nga nii kwa kwa hikia na niki nii kwa ayo. Ya, kwa hiki nga nii kwa kwa kwa hiki nga nii nii kwa kwa hikia na niki nii kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa ubea. Nпu chubak nii kwa kwa. Ya, panu na nii nga na niki nii kwa. I was singing before I started rapping, you know, in high school then I joined some other bands before I decided okay, I want to do hip-hop. Ya, do you know when somebody tells me they've been in a band, I'm just like, whoa, mad respect. If you haven't been in a band then I got to you. You're on another level because you can't just take a mic and start singing to be honest, not in a band. You know, like for you to be in a band that means you're very extremely talented. And I think that's why I think you've gone to those levels of working with, you know, big artists and we can't wait to see what else you're going to work with. So I know Kamakawida, our interviews are usually very quick because of Kafiu. We know by 9, especially when an artist comes to the studio, we have to do this really fast so we can let them go because I know you're trying to keep safe, right? Let's go straight to it. There's a song you've done before the one you've done with Sean Kingston or is it Vice Vasa? Ya, I did one last year. I think two tracks, Ya Elevator and there's another one called Way Up.  I think that Way Up is actually the song that really blew Sean Kingston's mind and wanted to work with me. It's not on YouTube but I think I'm going to like put it on YouTube because of Apple Music and other platforms. So out of curiosity, I want to know how did it come to, you know, that you had to work with Sean Kingston.  I was just about to start like, so why are you just chilling and you drop like, you know, slide into my DM. He's like, yo, can we collab? How did it come to fast that you guys work together? Ya, Sean Kingston is big, he's a multi-planet selling artist. It's not easy to work with someone like that. Even people like Khaledraf, it's not easy. So you can imagine how hard it is to get to Sean. So Sean was through his manager. His manager is actually a producer. And there is this platform called Beat Stars where producers and rappers can find beats. So I use it a lot to find beats. So that's how I got connected with this manager, his name is Kelo.   So I told him I want to work with him. Did you even believe him first? You were like, scar? Ya. I had to do a Google search, you know. Ya. So I saw some of his interviews talking of managing Sean Kingston that way I believed him.  Ya. So did you produce a track or at the time you produced the track and then you worked on it? Like how did it work? So it was produced again by another producer I met on Beat Stars. He's based in the UK. He's really talented. His name is Blank Beats. So, you know, the song I had done it on my own. Then I sent it to, now he's manager and he sent it to Sean and Sean loved what I did. So that's where he decided to open the track. Okay. I was just like, as guys are here struggling, we're like, you tears to wear, you would like to work with me for the next tomorrow. These dudes don't even respond. They never respond. You know, I mean to get to Sean Kingston, that's a big step. So for the video, the video that you guys, you've done the video, right? The plan was to do the video in April. Then COVID. COVID came. You know, everything was set up in Miami. I had to go over there and do the video. You know, one thing is that, options is not the only track I've done which one Kingston. I've done up to five songs which one Kingston. So he was like, you know, we cannot wait. Let's just put it out, you know, and start promoting it. Since we've done like five tracks, once COVID ends, you know, you come to Miami, we do videos.  So we're going to play just like that, you know, cool.  Yeah, Miami.  That's a big deal. Like it's a really big deal.  Yeah. It all starts back here. But also if you have an opportunity to search your music out there, I mean, why not? Like what's your plan like? You know, every artist would love to have a fan base all over the world. Absolutely. Every artist, you know, if you have funds in Latvia and Azerbaijan, you would appreciate that. So for me, anywhere is okay. I'm okay with building a fan base over here, building in the US, UK, you know, Zambia, whatever. So that's the plan. You know, the thing is that if you get an opportunity like this one, you have to take it. You never know when something like that is going to come again. So I had to take it, you know. Yeah. I like that. We're going to be playing you so.


Our next speaker is Michael Ann Gardner. Michael Ann believes in building Zion through any means you can. This includes her professional work as a marketer and fundraiser for the nonprofit sector. It also includes her favorite hobby of learning about and implementing environmentally sustainable lifestyle choices. She serves as treasurer on the board of LDS Earth Stewardship. Great, thank you. So, as stated, I have a little bit of a bias, so I am part of this group called LDS Earth Stewardship. It's my other Mormon fringe group that I'm involved in. And what I really found fascinating is how I think actually these two fringe groups, so to speak, actually have a lot to learn from each other. My presentation is primarily a theological one and a question also of culture, of how the Mormon culture interacts with itself and how we can improve it. And I think that these two groups have a lot to offer in terms of making us more of the culture that we could be. So, first of all, the question I have is what do Mormons believe about the Earth, right? So we believe that the Earth is created by God. The Earth is our inheritance. We even have this sort of like Eastern mentality that the Earth has a spirit or a personality. But here's an interesting thing. So my friend George, I know him through LDS Earth Stewardship. He's one of the most prominent LDS researchers on LDS attitudes towards the environment. And he makes a statement where he says, many years ago, I began research on the relationship between Mormonism and the environment. I was struck by how many authors, all non-LDS, either assumed or directly asserted that the LDS Church was officially anti-ecological. So this is interesting, right? For a theology and a culture that sees the Earth as having even a personality, yet we're seen and sometimes even perceive ourselves as being anti-ecological. Sorry, one second. And the question I have to ask myself, of course, is why? Why is this the case? Why is it that we don't see environmentalism as a valuable aspect to incorporate into our lives? And there are a lot of reasons for this. There is everything from political to not enough time. But I think actually there's a lot to do with our orientation towards morality and what we consider to be moral actions and what we consider to be morally valuable. So here's an example that I think is really amusing. This is a parody written by Mormon blogger. And this is what he says. Glenn Beck, global warming debunker, morality savant, and one having the common sense to know that we humans cannot, through consumption or pollution, affect the planet, knew that there was a connection between the Japanese tsunami and what he called, quote, the stuff we're doing. So the next time you hear some wild-eyed tree-hugging environmentalists tell you that our expanding waste lines and our nation's ever-expanding consumption of the world's resources affect in any way nature. Tell them that such talk is patently absurd and that it is sins, bad thoughts, evil words, non-beliefs, drinking coffee, cheating on a test, gays wanting to get married, not attending any meetings, and or anything you could think of that at the time that is causing nature to become disruptive and even deadly. Now, that is not crazy talk, but a sound understanding of how natural disasters set in motion. So this is a parody, right? But if you've ever talked to just a general conservative Mormon like Glenn Beck at church, they're gonna tell you that in the last days there's gonna be a lot of calamity coming, right? We're gonna have tempests and we're gonna have floods and there's gonna be all this destruction going on on the earth. And why are we gonna have it?  I mean, they may not out and out say that, but that's the assumption that they're making, right? That in the last days, wickedness will increase. And I'm not here necessarily to make a statement about sin or about God's judgment, but to me, it's interesting that we make this very clear connection between things that aren't related at all and we say this is God's judgment. What's fascinating about it too is that our theology in general is not a few different things. First of all, it's not magical. An example Paul Cox gives is that a God who works in magical means could have easily and instantaneously restored lost 116 pages and erase the memories of evil men who have seen them. But instead the law foresaw the calamity 2,500 years before it occurred in inspired Nephi. Truly worship a God who can work through small means. So we don't believe in God coming and just making things happen out of nowhere without any relation. Our religion is not anti-science either. And Brigham Young said, our religion will not clash with the contradict that facts of science in a particular. You may take geology for instance and it is true science. To assert that the Lord made this earth out of nothing is preposterous and impossible. Our theology is not isolated. We believe that what one person does affects others. We talk about salvation. We talk about it in terms of families, in terms of nations, in terms of cultures. We know the whole city of Zion was saved. We're also not a denial of man's ability to affect his world. On the contrary men are agents unto themselves. So if the main viewpoint in our culture is that things are going to be happening in the earth unrelated to anything realistic or probable and yet we're not magical, we're not anti-science, we're not isolated, we don't deny our ability to affect the world. Why is it that we don't see environmentalism as valuable that we don't see environmentalism as valid? I think it has a lot to do with where we're orienting our moral compass. In the book of Nephi, we talk about the liahona which was a compass or a ball that led Nephi and his family to know which way to go. And it worked. It functioned primarily by, well it was a spiritual means, right? But it functioned by the things that Nephi chose to give his focus to. I think that as a culture we've given our focus to perhaps I might say the wrong kind of morality or the wrong aspects of morality. I think that in contrast, a morality that focuses on the environment acknowledges that what we do, what we do affects other people. It's a theology that acknowledges that we have a not only a right but a requirement to care for the earth. I think of Mormonism that would turn its morality from this focus on sexual sins and its morality from the individual and what the individual can do and accomplish. But instead of focus on the broader perspective would actually have the power to be one of the strongest environmental movements that there is. If we change our morality from a sense of what I can build for myself, but instead have our goals set on what we're going to be accomplishing in the long term. An example here is changing our moral value to wanting to grow wisdom and knowledge as practice for the millennium. Brigham Young dismissed the notion that man's degradation and pollution of the earth is something that would be swept away as if by the wave of magic wand upon Christ's return. Not many generations will pass away before the days of man will again return, but it will take generations to entirely eradicate the influences of delitiary substances. This must be done before we can attain our paradicycle state. Secondly, if we can acknowledge that our morality, that what we do affects other people, that it's not just about going and trying to maintain a kind of personal morality, but seeing the widespread effects that we have in a more concrete way. When we turn to morality as simply about sexuality or simply about the actions of individuals, we fail to realize that our unsustainable living practices are preventing us from being able to build Zion. They're preventing us from being able to care for the poor and for the needy. And on another point too, it's fascinating that if you go and you do a search for morality on LDS.org, you pull up talks, for example, from Tad Calister, where he says that to be moral is to be sexually clean, or you might pull up a definition of how the world is falling to pieces because our internal character is not being controlled to make sexually pure choices. Constantly throughout Mormonism, these two are equivalent. I think there is room for a different definition of morality, but it's not explicitly talked about. That's kind of my basis, I think, for saying that we need to change our moral orientation. It's the fact that over and over in these talks, we're not focusing on the ways that our actions can help us prepare for the future, and we're not focusing on how our actions and our moral actions can help us care for other people more effectively. So the last thing that I wanted to touch on was transhumanism's ability to sanctify Mormon progress. This is kind of a play on Don Bradley's, his talks title, which he titled, the ability of Mormonism to sanctify human progress. But I think that transhumanism has the ability to really transform Mormon morality and Mormon progress, and not just with environmentalism. I think that transhumanism and its acknowledgement that our actions matter, and the acknowledgement that human means can contribute to a greater human accomplishment and a greater goal that we want to achieve, those two things that transhumanism brings to the Mormon conversation, I think have the power to really help us be more environmentally moral and otherwise moral. The thing that is interesting to me as well is the number of times in our theology that we do talk about the need to focus on cause and effect and our ability to influence the world around us. One of the best examples that we have actually is the brother of Jared. If you may remember from the Book of Mormon, the brother of Jared goes and he takes 16 small stones. He's trying to cross a great deep in boats without any light. He takes 16 small stones, he refines them with his own power, his own tools, takes them before the Lord. The Lord touches them and makes them glow, and then they're able to transport themselves across the great deep in light. What I love about this story though is as many philosophers and theologians have pointed out, is that it was his own means that he brought to the table that enabled him to achieve godliness. Now, when we think about Mormonism and our desire to have an effect on our environment, so many times we talk about environmentalism. We don't think that we can have any effect. We don't think that our actions even matter because God's going to come and just wipe it all away. He's going to kind of make things clear for us. But as we observed with the Brigham Young quote, we know that that's not going to be the case. We know that it'll take our actions, they'll take many generations of our effort to entirely eradicate the influences of what we have done to the earth already. So as we, like the brother of Jared, learn to be moral participants with God, as we learn to turn a morality from a narrow set of definition to a broader focus on other people and on the actions that we can have in the world, when we, like the brother of Jared, are able to do these things, the brother of Jared was able to see the face of God. And I believe as well that as we bring these aspects of transhumanism to our theology, our own morality will be transformed, our own ability to be Godlike will be transformed, and that we will also be able to see the face of God.


Good morning. I'm Tim Beko, and I work with the protocol support team of the Ethereum Foundation I'm here today to talk about the people and the teams who helped transition Ethereum from proof of work to prove a stake I'm but before I get started I just want to take a minute to explain what protocol sport is because it's like the first time we use this and When I told my family I was joining the EF's protocol support team They said it kind of sounded like Ethereum's call center or like people would call if like their transaction is stuck Or like they can't run their node and and that's that's actually not what we do So the main thing your team does is we help coordinate and facilitate network upgrades to Ethereum But beyond that we also spend a lot of time trying to figure out how we can better Align the community across the people working on layer one all of the infrastructure and teams around them and the people building applications on Ethereum Another thing to spend a lot of time on is figuring out how can we onboard and retain people to contribute to Ethereum? There's a few things we do on that front most recently We announced the Ethereum protocol fellowship, which is something where folks who want to come and work on the Ethereum protocol can do so for a couple months and Hopefully then find a job full-time working in the space Another thing we've done is we've helped launch protocol guild Which is an on-chain organization that helps thousand individuals and anyone who wants to contribute to fund protocol contributors directly And lastly, we spent a lot of time doing like weird little mementos and things for the community when there's big milestones that happen Whether these are things like the 1559 NFTs at a merge manual that just went out We try and think about like how can we Like memorialize all these big things both for the community and for all the people who worked on it I'm yeah, so that's what we do a process support, but that's not the main thing. I want to talk about The main topic of today is basically the what I've called like the heroes of the merge all of the people all of the teams who helped get a theorem the proof of stake and Obviously, there's way too many people for me to go over in just a short talk And but at least there's a couple core buckets that are worth highlighting The first is everyone involved on the research side it took many many many years of research and Dead ends and new specs to come up with not only a specification for the entire beacon chain and proof of stake But as well as the transition The EF research team was obviously a big part of that but they weren't alone and there were other teams such as TXRX Quilt who played a major role in this Aside from from these the next kind of logical one is all of the consensus layer teams They're the people who write the software that powers the beacon chain and literally run proofs runs proof of stake So these are teams like lighthouse, Nimbus, Prism, Teiku and Lodestar And obviously they have all their counterparts on the execution layer So all of the people who wrote the software to run a theorem on proof of work and that still manages basically the EVM Transaction Ethereum states and all of that These are teams like Basu, like Geth, like Nethermine and Aragon And last but not least The merge was a massive massive testing effort There's not like a single team or even a single project that we can kind of list and encapsulate all of that So I just want to give a shout out to everyone who's worked on all of the testing efforts Whether this is Hive, whether this is all the infrastructure to set up shadow forks and test client combinations before going live Whether these are the reference tests that Kylian teams kind of implement against folks who works on the specification On the consensus layer side who worked on EIPs and everyone who worked on the security side as well Including the bug grantee program. So I'd ask everyone to please give a massive round of applause to all of these teams All of these individuals who moved Ethereum to proof of stake As we were getting closer to the merge this summer I was trying to think like can we do something that will stay around with all these people After DevCon is over, you know to kind of highlight this contribution Um, and it was a bit weird to find the right thing So I spent a bunch of time talking with different client team leads people in the EF people in the community Asking them like, you know, what could we do for like all the folks who worked on this? Um, and I had a neat conversation with Ben from the Techoo team And so he was telling me like all of the people on his team Often end up not being able to go to ETH conferences because they're kind of so in the weeds working on their stuff That they literally forget about tickets going live They can't find one and then they show up and they can't get in the conference for the protocol They literally rebuild and it's not like they don't want to pay for it or anything It's just like they completely miss it and then they're like stuck at a door for the theorem conference Um, so it seemed like a solvable problem like something we could we could do to make their lives easier Um, and so I spent some time talking to some folks figuring out the best approach for this And I'm really I'm really happy with what he came up with so I'm excited to announce what we've called the merge or pass So this is basically a soulbound token that we're gonna be giving to everyone who's contributed to the merge That'll guarantee them access to all of the top of theorem conferences for the next few years Yeah, thanks Thank and one thing that's neat about this, you know, because this all be on chain It'll be public so anyone in the community can obviously extend it and build on it But I'm really excited today to say, you know, the first partners we have for this are etc in global dev con at con I've all agreed to honor this for the next several years So can I please get a round of applause for all of these partners? Thank you


Biden and Trump started a sharp campaign against each other. U.S. President Joe Biden has told his supporters on Twitter that unless they want Donald Trump to run the country for another four years, they should donate money to his re-election campaign. The president's ultimatum comes in response to Trump's appearance at a town hall event hosted by CNN on Monday the 10th when he attempted to make the case for his third presidential bid. It's simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that? Biden wrote following Trump's televised speech. If you don't, pitch into our campaign, he added, linking to an act blue donation page which enables U.S. citizens to send money to the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris campaign. Voters are asked to contribute anything from $10 to $2,000 or even more and can commit to making monthly payments. On May 10, former President Donald Trump sat down for a town hall event with CNN's Caitlyn Collins. He touched on a number of topics, including alleged election fraud, the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, the Ukraine conflict, and U.S. debt. Trump is currently considered to be the most likely Republican challenger to take on the incumbent president in the upcoming 2024 elections. According to a Washington Post ABC News Survey published on May 7, Trump is six points ahead of Biden in a potential presidential matchup while the sitting president's approval ratings have plummeted to a new low. The survey suggested Biden's approval rating has slipped to a mere 36% down from 42% in February. Among those aged 30, his approval was even lower at just 26%.


St. Lucia's traditions, Creole language and heritage is coming into sharp focus for celebration as the month of October begins. The launch of Creole Heritage Month 2021 on Friday 1st October, so presenting agencies, events, company or St Lucia, the Monsignor Patrick Anthony Folk Research Center and the Cultural Development Foundation, announcing the program for the month-long celebration for Mois A. Wittage-Quiole. Melcher Henry is the Acting Executive Director of the Folk Research Center. He provided insight into the calendar of activities and the theme for this year's virtual celebrations. We have quite a number of programs that I would like to go through, but I want to reflect a little bit on the theme. Quirte says Jévisant, and also it goes on to say Quirte sa pensée et dépensée pe. We can look at it in a literal sense by examining the fact that we have these herbal remedies and we will come to that in a while. These herbal remedies that we need to explore further, find out how best we can use them in our sustenance and so on. And at the same time, there's another interpretation of Quirte says Jévisant is to look at it as a re-examination of ourselves, to establish the values by which we should live our lives. Executive Director of the Cultural Development Foundation highlighted the entity's involvement in Mois A. Wittage-Quiole. This year, for the CDF, it's no different from last year. Amidst all of the pandemic and everything, we are committed to bringing our culture to St. Lucian's. We are once again bringing you the Cultural Icon Series, as well as the Margaret Festival that traditionally falls in October, October 17th. Our Icon Series is a series, a platform that celebrates the life and work of St. Lucian's who have contributed at least a 25-year body of work, who have presented a 25-year body of work. It's a platform that seeks to highlight the excellence in the arts as part of our cultural and historical footprint in the arts and the contributions made by our people. The Cultural Icon Series this year will revisit and celebrate the work of past icons.