Recording. Good evening. It's August 21st, 2023. This is a regular meeting of the town council. The open meeting law has been extended. This allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present. But I would like to welcome to the council room tonight, nine councillors. It's nice to see you all. We do this while providing access to the public. They can either be in the room, they can be on in real time by Zoom, they can be on the phone, they can watch the live broadcast of Amherst Media, Channel 9, or the live streaming. Given the fact that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the August 21st, 2023 council meeting to order at 6.33. I'll call upon each councillor by name. At that time, you should indicate that you can hear us, and then please remember to mute your mic again. It's important that we know you can hear us and we can hear you. Shalini Balmilne. Present. Pat DeAngeles. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Present. Lynn Griesmer is present. Mandy Johannick. Present. Anika Lopes. Present. So unable to join via camera. Okay. Michelle Miller. Present. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. I'm here. Kathy Shane. Here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Todd. Here. And Alicia Walker. Here. That means that all 13 councillors are present. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please make sure you let Athena and me know to make a comment or ask a question. You'll use the raised hand button. And if technical difficulties arise as a result of using the remote participation and Zoom, we'll decide how to address that at the time. There is a change in the order of the agenda as posted. Upon conclusion of items 8A to C, we will take up item 14. With less than 40 hours, notice we will begin the discussion about the process to replace school committee member Ben Herrington, who has resigned effective today. We're going to go on to the announcements. Do you want to put them up on the screen, Athena? We do have council meetings in September on the 11th and the 18th. And our committees are starting to actively meet as they have been all summer, frankly. CRC, finance, which is tomorrow. The GOL, which is next week, and TSO, which is next week. Continue on, there's no hearing. So this is the point at which, if you would like to make general public comment and you're in the room, please make sure you've signed up. If you'd like to make public comment and you're on Zoom, please raise your hand at this time. Are there any other people on Zoom who would like to make public comment? We are going to rotate back and forth between the room and the Zoom, and we invite residents to express their views for up to three minutes. This is based on the number of people who have said they want to speak. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. And public comments are not reflective of the opinion of the town council. So with that in mind, Athena, let's start with the room. James Muspratt, please come up to the microphone, state your name and address before you make your comment. Thanks. Thank you for this opportunity to comment. Three comments, brief. The both concern parking and densification. Okay, could you please state your name for the public? Sorry, James Muspratt, 38 North Prosprec Street. You all recall, I'm sure, the 2019 August report on parking. I would like to recall your attention to the third item which requires or advises that we maximize underused private lots. Can I ask the council and town management, has there been any progress in negotiating usage of private lots? The second point I think is that the current report before you begins with the assertion that the downtown supply of on and off street parking spaces is in high demand. Do we have data to document that? Is it higher than in the past? And if we don't, why not? And thirdly, the parking overlay of zoning which excludes, which excuses developments from providing parking spaces for their residents. There's a direct clash here with difficulty parking and the densification of downtown. I would like to hear what you think about the resolution of that conflict, the fact that that zoning overlay was put in the past before densification was even thought about. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for joining us and for coming to the town room. The next person, is there anybody else that has signed up from within the room, okay? The next person is from Zoom, Ira Brick. Please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Hi, I'm Ira Brick, 255 Strong Street. Considering the problem of downtown parking, please consider this. Instead of paying millions of dollars to either expand the boltwood parking structure or build a new garage on North Prospect Street, first implement the several suggestions made by the last parking study which concluded the downtown has ample parking nearing capacity only at peak dinner times. Suggestions from that study included shortening parking spots, improving signage and other simple cures. Also informal studies by neighbors on North Prospect Street showed that that parking lot wasn't full even on a busy night at the Drake when students were in town. If the problem is worse than since that study because five-story dorms are built with little or no parking, how about those developers of private dorms downtown build their own parking for those residents away from town and provide a shuttle for their residents to get to and from the parking? It seems the plan for a North Prospect Street garage in a local historic district is planned mainly to accommodate those long-term five-story dorm residents. Also, how about the town have a dedicated bus that continuously stops downtown and at all the village centers so that people can park at the village centers and take a bus to town? That would alleviate parking pressures downtown as well as pump some more life into the village centers. Imagine if for the cost of one bus you could park at any of Amherst Village Centers and get to the village centers and downtown. It's good for the planet, good for downtown, good for parents whose kids could walk or bike to the nearest bus stop at a village center and good for village center who might get new business from people who park there and discover what there is at each of them. Please explore these ideas and consider that additional parking lot downtown will mainly help the developers of those private dorms built without parking. They had claimed to the planning board that those students would not bring cars to school but it turns out they did. Also, today I did a very informal 10-minute study of Boltwood Avenue, which seems slated to be turned into a one-way street with the development of the North Common. And in 10 minutes, again, not a scientific study, 13 cars were headed North, four were headed South and I would much prefer it personally if it remained North or two-way and not South. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Ronnie Parker, I'm assuming that you want to make public comments, so please enter the room and let me just note that Ronnie will be making a presentation soon after this. So, Athene, if you don't mind, we'll leave her in the room, okay? When she's finished with her public comment. Ronnie, please go ahead. I will turn on my video when I make my remarks regarding the Human Rights Commission just in all fairness, I'm speaking now for myself. And it also concerns the parking. I was really shocked to see this on the agenda, frankly, because the very first thing I heard about it, I heard from my own representative who had just heard about it yesterday. So, in fact, I haven't honestly had time to look at this and I feel a little concerned that complicated documents get put out on short notice without any of us having a chance to review and comment before it goes to the town council. But in any event, Ira has expressed a lot of my views, I think, so I will just confer with him. I'd like to add that particularly the idea of the shuttles, I know they do that in New Haven and it works really well. I wish we could look to that. My additional comment is really about a new book that's come out by Henry Barbar. I don't know how many of you know it, but it's a very detailed study of parking in America and the American culture of expecting to arrive at the doorstep of where you need to go and be able to leave your car right at that spot and unwillingness to have to go around the corner to park to go get your coffee. This is something ingrained in us and something that has a historic basis that he explains in some detail. What's really interesting to me about his work is that it reflects Amherst's talking about the country, but it's really no different than us. And a lot of the studies everywhere show that people feel there isn't enough parking and a lot of money is spent on parking and the results have not been good. The garages are built, people still don't park in them, businesses move out to the suburbs because they want to be where people can pull up to their doorstep and then the towns are left with these huge structures. So financially in the long term, this is really not good for us. And I urge everyone to look at what he has to say that you can also Google NTR because they interviewed him, I believe in May. But I would ask you to refrain from any decision-making until many of us who have a great interest in the center of our town, the historic nature of our town, what makes our town so attractive. So many of us can be protected. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. And Ronnie, we will have you as soon as we get done with public comment and the consent agenda, okay? Ken Rosenthal, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Thank you. My name is Ken Rosenthal. I live at 53 Sunset Avenue. I want to speak to item seven, which is the Boltwood Garage Report that you are going to receive. I don't know whether you've done studies recently, but several of us have been keeping count of the need for parking as demonstrated by the available parking in the town lot that is on Prospect Street, North Prospect Street. And I can tell you that on what I believe is the busiest time of the year, which was the commencement of the University of Massachusetts students last spring, there was never a time when there were fewer than 11 spaces in that lot that were available, often 15 and more spaces. I don't know how you are determining whether there's a need for parking. I would encourage you this weekend, the weekend after this, when the University students come here to do for yourselves a look at that lot and verify that that lot is never full. So there was a question at all about whether at all we need a new parking space garage. But if we do, I've read the Desmond Report and I want to give you my opinion, which is that option 2B with two levels in a basement is the option to choose. It would provide 201 additional spaces in town for parking. That would be a lot of new spaces and that's the place to have it. It's right where there already is a parking garage, right where there are facilities that expect to have parking right next to them. And it would mean, again, that you would not need to build or want to build a garage on North Prospect Street, which is a general historic district. Now the clock hadn't started running so I don't know how much time I have left so I have one more statement I'd like to make, which is, as I've said before, I think the process you are using for public comment is all wrong. The time you should want to hear from us is after the presentation of a given topic. This is not unusual for Amherst. It's what happened at town meeting. It's what happened when the Board of Selectment was active, that you had presentations and then you had conversations by the Board or by the members and then you opened it to the public on the very topic that was being considered at the time. That's when you want to want to hear from me. That's when you wouldn't hear from me if I was redundant because I wouldn't say anything that was already said but I might add something that you hadn't heard. And I hope that this Council or the one that succeeds you will consider changing your opportunity for public comment so that it comes after the topics that you are considering. And again, let me urge you to take the rundown with Prospect Street when the university students are arriving in a week and a half and see for yourself whether the Prospect Street lot is full or not. I think you'll find that it isn't. And that may tell you that you do not need any additional parking at town expense. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us, Ken. Jay Silverstein, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. My name is Jay Silverstein. Oh, wait, okay. We can hear you. You can hear me? Okay. My name is Jay Silverstein. I live at 32 North Prospect Street unit four. Number one, I'd like to thank Ira Brick for his letter that was printed in the Amherst Indy. That's where I thought it was pretty impartial and it assessed the problem and the situation pretty well. And if you didn't read his letter, I told you where it is. One of the things I was trying to do before I got here, before I only received this feasibility study today at about three o'clock or so. But I tried to find out how many apartments have been built in the last few years. And I've come up with one East Pleasant Street or 62 Main Street, 26 Spring Street, 11 East Pleasant Street, 57 East Pleasant Street and 40 Kendrick Place. I don't know what to imagine. There's about 400 to 500 units that were built. And as far as my knowledge goes, I would say there was only about 40, if that many parking spaces. I find that very concerning that this board approved this. I've been a microbiologist for over 50 years and me in science, it's black and white and there's very few gray areas of gray. I was born and raised and lived in New York for over 70 years where I developed New York skepticism. I find it hard to see housing being built in inadequate parking spaces. The same council is now trying to rectify the mistakes by revaluing and eliminating the attractive and historical district, which is the pride of downtown Amherst. I don't even know how it got considered to build a parking area on North Prospect Street. You're taking some of the wonderful stately houses and you're putting structures in front of them. I don't know if this council's goal is to make Amherst just for students and have residents, a non-student population move out. I just see no rhyme or reason for your actions. I thank you for your time. Thank you. Susan Musbrat, please enter the room, state your name and where you live. Did we lose her in the transfer? Oh, there she is. Susanna? Susanna Musbrat, 38 North Prospect Street. Other speakers have made a lot of the points I was going to make, but I just want to inquire why it took so long to make this report available to people. I understand it's been in hand for several months and I think it's a mistake to be airing it now at a time when so many people are not here in the town of Amherst. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. I believe we're now done with public comment. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. The following items were selected because they were considered to be routine. If you would like to remove an item after the initial motion, please let me know that does not require a second. And I also want to note that counselors can vote but also ask for more information. Actually, we intend to have much more information and discussion on several of these agenda items tonight. So you don't need to remove it to vote on the referral, okay? Is there any question on that? So the motion is to move the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit. 8A, referral of funding options for increased accounts or compensation to the finance committee. 8B, referral of draft charter review committee charge to governance organization and legislation committee. 8C, rescheduled November 6th, 2023, regular town council meeting to November 13th, 2023. That's because it's the night before the election. And 11A, approval of August 7th, 2023, regular meeting minutes.  I think it would be good to get some public response to 8A, I don't believe we got much when it was brought up before. And just suggesting that we do give the people a chance to talk and to say something. So when it's referred to finance committee, the finance committee will take public comment and counselors will have an opportunity also to make comments this evening as well as when it comes back with a recommendation to the council. Okay, I do remind you that the finance committee meets during working hours. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. The finance committee meets during working hours. I mean, it's not everybody shows up at a finance meeting except other town counselors. And it will rarely shows up there. That's all. We did not schedule it for public comment tonight. Perhaps if we need special public comment we can do that when it comes back. Did you want to remove it from the consent agenda? No, I think that's a good idea if you include public comment at some time. I just don't want it to not have public comment. It's an important issue. Okay, thank you. Michelle. I was going to ask to have it removed but then I heard you say, Lynn. So we are going to have a discussion about this but if it remains on the consent agenda that means it's automatically referred to the finance committee. If I remove it, ask for it. We'll still be voting to refer to finance and then finance committee will come back with a recommendation at which point the council will either vote for the recommendation or not. Okay, so if I wanted to discuss it being referred at all to the finance committee then I should remove it. Yes. Okay, then I'm going to remove it, please. Thank you. All right. That's referral of 8A. Are there any other comments? Kathy. It's a question, the referral of the draft charter review. If we have some questions we have about that will we have a couple of minutes tonight? So GOL hears it. Absolutely. Thank you. This is only a vote to refer. There will be a conversation when we get to 8B on the agenda as with 8A and 8C.  Okay, so the motion now is to move the following items and the printed motions they're under and approve those items as a single unit. 8B, referral of draft charter review committee charge to GOL. 8C reschedule November 6th, 2023, regular town council meeting to November 13th and approval of the August 17th regular meeting minutes. Alisha, do you have your hand up? Yeah, can we also remove the item on councilor pay? On councilor compensation? Yes. We've already removed that. Thank you. Okay. So right now, although it was in the original motion, the change to this motion is to remove the item on councilor compensation. Okay. We need a second. I do need a second. Second, Demogathir. Okay. Is there any further question or comments? All right, then I'm going to start with Pat DeAngelis. Aye. You need to use your mic. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Mandy Johanicki. Aye. Anika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tob. Yes. Alicia Walker. Yes. Chaleney Balmille. Yes. Tunanimous. Let me just take one moment to mark up where I don't leave votes. Okay. So we have no proclamations tonight. So let me begin the presentation and discussion session because I think it's important to spend a little more time understanding our agenda. When something is on presentations and discussions, it really implies that there will be no vote. We're in receipt of something. We've decided to have at least a preliminary presentation. It may not be the final presentation, but it is an opportunity for, in one case, a committee to actually talk about their report and another case for the town manager and his staff to talk about the parking study. And we'll talk a little bit more about that first. So with that is Ronnie Parker. Now in, hi, Ronnie, how are you? And I also wanna recognize Liz Haygood, who's in the audience with us back here. I believe the two of you are now co-chairs of the HRC. Okay, Ronnie, we need you to unmute. Yes, we are, thank you. And welcome to both of you. When we received your report, we asked if we could have you come and talk a little bit about the report and this is that opportunity. Thank you. I think on behalf of the Human Rights Commission, I am very, very grateful for you to have read the report and to be here and to speak with us about it. I just want to make a few remarks. One, perhaps most important right now is that a majority of us are new to the Human Rights Commission and have been on the commission for less than a year. I became the co-chair last month and Liz Haygood joined me as the other co-chair last week. So a lot of us are new and they're very keen to have a full commission. We have three vacancies. We are a very, very committed group. We take human rights very seriously and amour. Having said that, I just want to say a few words. You may already know this, but you may not about what we do. And there are two big things we do. The first thing we do is that we have a lot of events over the course of the year to celebrate the diversity of our town, to celebrate ethnicities, genders, whatever differences we face individually, but are all part of what makes us one town, one community. And so we want to celebrate everybody and that's why there are these events that we spend a lot of our volunteer time on. So the next cultural origin type celebration is Latinx Heritage Month, which we will celebrate on September 24th, a Sunday from 12 noon to 3 p.m. These events not only recognize and celebrate all the richness that is in this town, but they also provide an opportunity for the general public to know us and to know that they can speak to us if they encounter a human rights violation. And that leads me to the second main function, which is that we do receive complaints from anyone whose rights are violated in Amherst and we help them find resolution. As you know, we have almost no authority, but we do have influence and we do have the human rights, which I think at some level we all respect and value. So we meet on the third Wednesday of every month at 6.30 and we invite everyone to attend. I realize the town council is necessarily a formal meeting. The human rights commission is very informal. If you are not a fluent English speaker, if you just aren't comfortable speaking out loud, there's no clock ticking. It's a very free, flexible and open space in which to speak and you can be seen or not seen whoever you are based on your preference. We will help with all these issues. And so I encourage everyone who wants to discuss anything related to human rights to come and speak with us. Finally, I would like to encourage people to go to the site, amherst.ma.gov.hrc to see how you can file a complaint if you have a desire to do so, to see our agenda, to join our meeting. And I do very much welcome everyone to be there. And finally, in order for us to be effective, we do need a full commission. We understand that's coming. I would urge the town council to approve whoever's nominated as fast as possible. And especially the case would also advocate for the same thing with the CSSJC since they really don't even have a forum, I understand. With that, I would like to end my remarks and ask Liz Hagan if she would like to add anything.  In case we have questions. But meantime, if you'd like to add anything, please feel free to do so. Well, I do have one comment. My name is Liz Hagan. Give her the mic. I'm the lone veteran on the Human Rights Commission, which is kind of by default that I accepted being co-chair with Ronnie. I think we are a powerful group for the town. I think we are a voice for those who don't think or don't know that they have certain rights in the town. I appreciate the fact that even though we have no authority to make policy or to make right what somebody's complaint is that we do have the authority to point them in the correct and the right direction so that they know that there's somebody there that can walk them through what they need to do in order to find resolution to whatever the issues are that they're facing. Don't go away. Because that was the opportunity for the council if they would like to ask questions. And I would like to start out by saying I've never been to so many different cultural events. And I wanna thank the committee for all your volunteer time in doing those as you did this year alone there had to be close to 20 and it was just magnificent. So it does honor the diversity of our town. I also want to encourage the audience and anybody else who's listening there are openings on the human rights commission at this point. So please get your path in. So with that Pat questions or comments. I have a comment. I wanna thank Liz and Ronnie for stepping forward and taking the chairs, becoming the chairs of the committee. We lost two amazing people, Phillip Avila and Ben Harrington. You've got big shoes to fill but knowing you a little bit and knowing Ronnie some you're already filling them. But I really all kidding aside I really wanna thank you for stepping forward both of you, we need you. You're welcome. Anna. I echo everything, right? I mean, I think that there's, I'll do ditto marks and thank you all so much for your work and your service. You had mentioned in your report that you're in the process of going through a review or rewriting your bylaws and procedures to be relevant. And I'm curious what your timeline is on that and I apologize if I missed that in the report but you had mentioned that you would want Town Council approval on suggested changes to those. And I'm just curious about what the process is looking like for that, how you're gathering input, if you're gathering input and your timeline. Shall I respond? Please Ronnie. We spent, when I joined the Human Rights Commission in the summer, that process had already started and we spent a lot of time finalizing it. It is now actually in the hands of, I believe the town's lawyers or the town manager, I'm not sure, but we would really like to have that set. There's a lot in the bylaws of our procedures of confidentiality and procedures associated with a complaint. So it's really important to us to get that done. We're hoping to have a full commission in the next month and hopefully late September, early October have a retreat. And if we have the bylaws, then it will really be helpful with our planning. Thank you. I should say, I realized I didn't mention the DEI and the Pamela Young and Jennifer Moisten really are the ones who have carried the weight of all these events. The events are amazing. I first came to Emerson just looking around my neighborhood, everything's pretty white. And I kept saying, where are the people of color? Where are the people of color? And you go to these events and everybody comes. Everybody comes, you see the full sort of richness of the town of Emerson. So I would really encourage you all to come to them. They're very, very powerful gatherings. Thank you. Shalini. I heard you say, hi. And I heard you say that you all don't make policies. But I think I speak on behalf of all counselors that if you do have suggestions for us, the council, that we welcome human rights commissions. Any suggestions on any of the issues? They're coming. Excellent. Thank you. And also I had a question about community events. So in terms of which events get organized or supported by human rights, it would be helpful maybe for the community to know is there a process for them to reach out to you that if they wanted to host an event or is there some process for that? I do believe they would first get a hold of Jennifer Moisten. The other thing is that during our retreat, which is going to be sometime late of September, early October, that we will look at our calendar and as a commission decide. So if anybody has any suggestions, they should either email our Human Rights Committee website or get a hold of Jennifer Moisten so that we can put it on our agenda for consideration at our retreat. And I just ask a clarification. Ronnie, which is the event that's on the 24th? It's Latinx Heritage Month. Latinx Heritage Month. OK. Thank you. Latino Heritage goes from September 15th through October 15th. And because we wanted to have, last year we had it on in Kendrick Park, there was a question about having it on the town common. And we know that there are already events there, including the ABC Fall foliage walk on the 14th of October. And the one thing that happens every Saturday. Oh, my God, why am I farmer's market? Yes. So we know that that is going to be tough. So we're trying to see if we can pull it off on a Sunday. And hopefully everybody can attend. I also want to mention that we're trying to have the schools confirm when they're going to do Puerto Rican Heritage Day, which is technically the 23rd, but that's a Saturday. So we don't know yet which day that's going to be on. Great. Jennifer, Tom. Yeah, I also want to echo what everyone has said. Those are the most fun events that I've attended since being on the town council have always been sponsored and organized by the Human Rights Commission. They're terrific. So I just had a question, really more out of curiosity. You said in the report that sometimes when an issue or complainant comes before is filed with the Human Rights Commission that you'll have a conciliatory conference, do the members of the commission actually participate in that? Or is it more staff or both? No. No. We've actually already discussed this a lot. This is one of the few things that we are able to do. And it's basically done by the DEI, not by members of the group. We're not trained in doing that kind of work. So we are not directly involved. But that is one of the few avenues we have, which in some cases, you can come to some kind of solution. But I don't think the experience has been, actually, Pamela Young should speak about this. I asked about this a lot. And I don't think the experience in terms of finding resolutions through that means has been as successful as I would like. I'd like to see it much done, much more in a much more well. Anyway, I'd like to see more of it done. I think what this raises, really, is how much the DEI is doing, just the two of them. It's really astounding the amount of work they do. This kind of conciliation is another thing that they do. Pamela, I think, doesn't directly. And just so you know, there are so many confidentialities involved, I think that's another issue that commission members are just residents. And I think there's a hesitancy to get us all poking our noses into all kinds of things that need to be held confidential. OK. Thank you. Are there any other Councilor questions or comments? Ronnie and Elizabeth, thank you for being here, Liz. Thank you for being here. Do either of you have any final comments you'd like to make? Liz? I do not. But thank you for hearing us out. And please take careful consideration to our report. Thank you as well. And remember, we're here. So there are so many issues that are potentially in our element. I hope that you will call on us for advice. I've been told our role is also advisory with regard to the Town Council. And there's a lot of expertise on our commission. Thank you. We look forward to getting your recommended changes as well. OK. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for all of us. All right. Thank you. The next item is the final report about Boatwood Garage. It actually comes in two parts. This was a report requested by the Council. And it was a report based on a rumor, which, by the way, is not a rumor. When Boatwood was built, it was built with the idea that it could have an additional story or two added to it. I happen to know that from my local historian. So we are not taking any action tonight. In fact, because this was placed on the agenda, we were not able to line up the actual consultants and are more than willing to do that. And if there are additional questions or comments, we will be very interested in them tonight. So with that, I think, Paul, we have you. We have Chris Brestrup. And we have Nate Malloy. Is that correct? Yes, we do. And we're not really going to do a presentation about the study, Chris, but you were going to do a quick summary. Yeah, I have some opening remarks, and then I was going to ask Nate Malloy to give a quick summary of the report, if that would be in order. Please. Okay, so good evening. I'm Chris Brestrup, Planning Director. And I have with me Senior Planner, Nate Malloy. And we are very pleased to present the Expansion Feasibility Study for the Boltwood parking garage. And it was prepared by Desmond Design Management. In the last few years, there have been conversations about whether Amherst needs a parking garage. And if so, where it might be located. And two town counselors put forth a proposal to rezone a property on North Prospect Street to allow a parking garage to be built there. And during conversations about that zoning amendment, many people began to look at other locations to build more parking. One possible location that kept coming up was the existing Boltwood garage near the Banks Center. And to look at whether it was technically and financially feasible to add another story or two to the Boltwood garage to gain parking in a location that was already devoted to parking. So we engaged Desmond Design Management to do this study for the town. Desmond is the original structural engineer for the existing garage. And we were fortunate that Nate found them since they had the drawings and calculations that were used to design the existing garage. So Nate will now present the Boltwood parking garage feasibility, expansion feasibility study. And we'll both be here to answer questions. And if we can't answer them, we can come back with answers. But as Lynn said, you may also wish to consider whether you would like to have a more formal presentation from Desmond Design Management at one of your upcoming meetings. So here is Nate to present the study. Thank you. Welcome Nate. Sorry everyone. It isn't an urban legend, but back in the day, there was additional money voted for the garage and it was always, everyone was curious whether or not it was built to that capacity. And so we hired Desmond because they are a leading industry expert in garage design and management. And so the study was really two parts. One was a visual inspection and one was a technical review of documents. The visual inspection was just that. It didn't go into depth. So you could, you know, core into concrete or do imaging and do a really kind of invasive review of whether or not the structure is there. They just, you know, they had an engineer walk around with staff and look at it. And what they found was that it's in really, it's in pretty good shape. You know, there is some issues being 20 years old, namely around the stairwell, the entries. So there's water damage. There's some cracks on the under surface of the ceiling in the lower level, which could indicate some drainage issues, whether that's, you know, it doesn't look like it's actually impacting the structure of the garage, whether there is water getting through, possibly there's a waterproof membrane. And so, you know, what they found was that it's in typically good condition and they recommended a maintenance plan of, you know, they said 100 to 125,000 to really fix the spalling concrete, fix the areas around the entries and the stairheads. And, you know, some of it is, there's a lot of ceiling and just waterproofing and, you know, sloping of walkways just to shed water correctly. And so I think, you know, so the visual inspection was that there is some, if you actually go, if you're coming in off Main Street and you hit the garage is actually a dip in the pavement. It's kind of right out between 30 boltwood and Johnny's. And there's a few areas around there where the pavement is, has slumped. And they actually don't think that's a structural issue. They think that above the garage, there's anywhere from a foot to 15 inches of gravel fill.  And so they actually think that it's, you know, some of the gravel in the fill has moved, but when you're down in the basement, there's no indication that any of the structure has shifted. So, you know, even if the sidewalk is cracking above or it's uneven, it's not a structural issue. It's actually just a, you know, concrete or sidewalk issue. And so overall, they thought, you know, the visuals looked good. The second piece of it was this technical review. And if you read the report, they, you know, they showed a lot of screenshots of calculations. And so what they found was that it's a conventional port and place garage, you know, doesn't use any modular construction. So essentially they came up with a design to have this grid of columns and a, you know, perimeter foundation and then port it in place. So they, you know, made the forms and poured the concrete, reinforced it. And they built it so that it can support additional levels. And so, you know, there's a lot of considerations there. They, in their concepts, they use the existing grid of columns and the foundation and said, okay, we could go up over the original garage or we could tweak it a little bit because the garage itself goes pretty much to the property boundary. And as the report noted, you know, a lot of buildings, their front entry and the plazas, you know, would actually be really close to this, you know, these new levels. And, you know, there's considerations now for building code, HVAC, mechanical plumbing and a number of things that the report didn't investigate but it did say that, you know, if you were to build up, you'd more than likely need a fire resistant wall on all sides, which is either a solid wall of concrete or some other fire rated material. And then as an enclosed space, you would need ventilation in every level, kind of like the basement level is now. And so they did say that there are options to go up.  And if you actually go on Google Street View from like 2017 or 19, there's like two 18-wheelers in Google Street View unloading on the deck. And so we often, the weight limit is exceeded.  And so when they're looking at adding these additional levels, the consideration is, well, if you keep it at a standard garage height, all truck traffic cannot then enter the garage. And so the deliveries would have to be made elsewhere from Main Street or Kellogg Ave or North Pleasant and they'd have to walk through alleyways. And so in one or two of the concepts, they said you could keep the first level if you added one extra level. So just one deck that's not covered. You could have it high enough that delivery trucks would still go underneath it. So you could have one additional level that's up really high, you know, 13 feet, you could get trucks underneath. And depending on how big that is, you know, it could be a net of like, it was something like 80 to 130 spaces. If you wanted to go up to two levels, depending on your configuration, you cannot have truck traffic at all on the garage. It has to only be passenger vehicles. And so although it was designed to have these additional levels, you know, you have to be really careful with, not just what the load is on one level, it's basically the load on all levels going down to the foundation and the columns. So if you were to add a second level, that means all the ground level that's there now plus the two additional levels could only be vehicle, you know, passenger vehicles. It couldn't be anything heavier. You know, the cost of all this, as they said, was two to three times higher than new construction because of the complexities of building on an existing foundation or peers. And then you have to, you can't actually get a concrete truck there. So you have to pump it. There's, you know, extending elevators, changing ramp locations. And so, you know, they used a third party estimator they often work with. And they came up with a, it was a wide range. You know, it was like 70 to 130,000 per space, but it was two to three times higher than what a new construction would be. And so, you know, Greenfield finished a garage a few years ago and it's modular construction. So it came in these 60 foot pieces segments and it was about say 300 spaces. And the cost ended up being a little over 12 million. They value engineered it down to about 10 million, but that's still, you know, that was before all the pandemic and price increases. And so, you know, even with taking off what would be considered a nice facade and making things look nice, they're at, you know, over 30,000 a space for new construction. And so, you know, staff, when we looked at this, we did actually go back to them and ask if they could discuss a little bit more in an email about the cost. And they said that it is variable, but we just wanted to make sure that what they said in the report was accurate. And they, Desmond said it was.  It can look like a utilitarian garage or you could have screening and things on it. You, maybe you have two elevators instead of one. Maybe it's the stairwells, how much ventilation you need, the drainage, the, you know, everything might need all new mechanical equipment. And so if it's an enclosed garage to be fire rated, that means every level has to have a sprinkler system. It has to have additional egress and emergency egress. And so it's different than if it was an open air garage where it's open on all sides. And so the report kind of concluded with, right, there's a number of considerations and they kind of phrase it as a go or no go situation. You know, would the town want to study this option further, which would mean actually right now they're just concepts. They might look, you know, the hard line drawings in the report and they might look really good, but really they're just concepts for cost estimating and functional use. Can we actually get a car up the ramp and drive it around and is there enough space? And the next level would be, okay, if we really like this location, we do more exploratory work on the foundation and the condition of the concrete and maybe, you know, the foundation. We do more work on what are the code requirements to go up? What does it mean for the businesses? And they'd get, you know, more into schematic. So a little further along, or, you know, they said you could also look at other sites to determine, you know, where else could you have a garage? I mean, what we haven't determined is what is the spaces we need, right? So they didn't do any of that. They didn't look at a parking demand study. Well, you know, what are the peak loads in terms of parking? What's the capacity of our parking system? They just said, okay, this garage was built to accommodate extra load, you know, extra capacity in terms of vehicles. And it could be one or two levels. It can't be more than that. And, you know, the net gain at most is 230 spaces. And that would be, you know, taking over all the parking you see on Boltwood now, the parking in front of Johnny's and the bank center, all the parking, the surface parking behind Blano all the way to the funeral home parking lot. So right now the area, the north half of the parking behind say Matt's Barbershop, that's not part of the garage right now. That's just surface parking. And so their biggest option was to basically put two levels over everything. And that would give you 235 spaces. Okay. Since one of the questions that seems to have come up tonight was when did we have the study? So Paul, can you tell us our Christine, when was the study actually finalized? Sure. So when we commissioned a study like this, the consultants put together a study, it comes to the town staff. The town staff pours through it and comes through all the information. And then they respond back and we've, this is what was going on over the last few months. Some of the things that were brought up were that town staff brought up was like, there were no estimates for funding. We think they should put an estimate in there. We know the council's gonna ask the question about, what does it cost to do something? So that's what Nate was talking about, asking for additional research into what construction costs would be. They go through spelling and any kind of edits if they get things wrong, things like that. We sort of make sure that they're calling the right things the right things. There was a piece missing from the report initially. So there's a back and forth process. It came to the town manager's office on July 21st. And then this was the meeting that we felt was appropriate for it to come to the council for you to decide what you want to do with this information. So that's the timing of it. And I'm not sure if Chris or Nate want to add anything to that. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we didn't see this as a, I mean, I think it's good to have this information, but this isn't an actionable item for us. It's really, it's information to start conversation and thinking. And so, the consultant didn't update the date on the report. So even with a visual inspection, they came out twice and then the report is dated earlier than the final, just they didn't revise the date. So if you see, there's a May date, I think on one of the reports, but we were having email conversation like Paul said later than that and they just didn't provide any revised date. They just kept it whatever they had on the cover page or the front page. I think the fact that they didn't update the date has caused a lot of confusion. So, counselor questions. I have several others, but I want to make sure others that have questions. Dorothy. Well, I think that it's been very useful clarification that a report comes in and it's not like, this is done, it has to be looked at and studied by the town. So that makes a lot of sense. Questions for Nate. When you mentioned the Greenfield garage, I remember some meeting and this is a while ago that was being discussed and it was being discussed that there were homeless people living in the garage, which suggested that it wasn't that full. Do you know how much usage is made of the Greenfield garage? Yeah, the rates are really cheap actually. When we go up there, I'm always surprised how vacant it is. And so what the study didn't say was how do you fund it and operate it? And so typically if there's a cost to build it, you would say, well, are you okay with a 20 or 30 year payback? What is that payback? And so Greenfield was able to apply for grants. It took them, I think like five years to secure a MassWorks grant and they had other maybe earmark funding or state and federal funding. And so they were able to have enough subsidy that they can probably have, say reduced use of the garage because of some public subsidies. Typically someone would say, if you're building a garage at so much your space, you'd want however many hundreds of dollars a month per space at 90% of the spaces to have your payback. And so yeah, I've heard that Greenfield isn't that full as well. And some of it could be that there's reserved spaces. So people are willing even in Amherst to say, spend a thousand or $2,000 a year to have a reserved space in Boatwood or other parking areas, whether or not they use it, but they just want that security knowing they have a reserved space. And so it could be that, I know in the Greenfield garage, one level is all reserved spaces. And whenever I'm there, I actually don't see many cars but people are paying for them just to have it. You know, the homeless piece, right? There was articles in the paper a few summers ago about how do you manage, and that's more of the management, right?  How do you manage people sitting around the garage at a place to hang out, even kids would use it. So that's, to me, that Desmond wasn't looking at any of that. That's the consideration down the road. If there is something, another structure, how do you manage all of that? Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. Jennifer. Yeah, I have a question. I thought I had read, I guess in the report that if to add on to Boatwood would be more costly per space, but it would still be cost more to build a whole new structure. So is that correct? Yeah, so I think if we were to look at this more, that's something we could explore. So I typically, you wouldn't build a new parking garage with only 200 net new spaces. Well, maybe you would, but I think, you know, typically they might say you'd want to get up to 300 or 400, Desmond is saying that the economies of scale happen when you get to a four or 500 space garage, which I don't, I think that's a really big garage. So typically anything less they said gets more expensive depending on facade treatment. And so I think they're looking at, you know, typically there's acquisition costs and then there's right, the construction of a new garage. So I'm assuming that they're saying if you build a new garage at 235 spaces, the total development cost would be more than the expansion of the Boatwood at 235 parking spaces. Probably considering that there's land acquisition and a number of other things that have to happen that drives up the cost of new construction, you know, of a garage. It's not clear if it's, you know, that if it's equal given the number of spaces based on what they're saying though, the cost estimate wouldn't be, right? So I think what they were saying is that typically a community would go and build a 300, 400 space garage and that would cost more than an expanded Boatwood garage at 200 spaces. Because if you look at the cost per space, the cost to expand Boatwood is two or three times more per space than to build new. And so I think what the report was really saying is someone is gonna build a 400 space garage at 20 million or whatever it is, 17, 50 million, which is gonna cost more than expanding Boatwood at 200 spaces and it's gonna cost, you know, whatever it is, 10 million or something. Jennifer, was that? I had a couple more questions. Please go. So one was, and this might be for another conversation, but did, was there any discussion with Desmond when we, well, too, when we look at this garage, are we, do we have a sense of how many spaces would be for monthly or, you know, long-term parkers versus in and out? Because I've always wondered whether we would get more in and out spaces than we have now in the north. That would be a decision by the town on how you want it to allocate spaces and what the market would bear. And the last question is with the overlay district, there was discussion of a developer build, you know, we would give away the land and the developer would build the structure. So could a developer, when you're talking about Boatwood, is it seen that the town would incur the cost or I mean, there's, or could a developer also? That wasn't really part of the discussion, right? It was really just focused on the structural feasibility of expanding it. And so all these questions about, you know, construction costs or operations and management of something, that would be, you know, the next step, if we wanted to move forward, right, would be, okay, what are the different models for building a garage? Is it public-private partnership? What type, what does that mean? Is it all private? Is it all public? And so there's probably a number of models that could be used and we haven't really explored that. I mean, I was a little surprised to see pricing in this report because I thought we had just asked for whether it was feasible and possible to build the multiple. So we have gotten in, and I think when we get into pricing, which is in this, you know, that opens up. Giving up costs. Right, the cost, right, then it's hard to, so this is, so the, so this is cost and whether it's structurally possible. That's correct, that's what it answers. Pam Rooney. Thank you, yeah, those are really good questions. And I appreciate the staff having done this work because it's just been a question out there hanging and it's finally starting to get answered. So I really appreciate that. Nate said that there were two questions that were sort of asked or that the consultants asked them and that is, you know, what are our needs and what is our capacity in town? And I think I would be very, very happy to encourage staff to actually update those numbers that the 2019 study had a pretty good handle on the needs in town. And clearly we have additional people living in the downtown now. We also have, you know, post COVID we were trying to see what the results of that are. But I would love to get a better sense of what is our capacity in town in the form of kind of an overall review of our municipal parking district. Because I think there are a lot of opportunities throughout the district. Pat. Like Pam, I would like to see an updated report. The thing that when I was reading through the summary I got to where they were talking about the building two levels at Boltwood and I immediately started thinking of the impact on the businesses that now exist around it. And so I wrote a question. And then as I read further, I found Desmond's recommendation which is the town consider a site study that would evaluate the prospect of constructing a new parking facility on alternative sites because the vertical expansion would impact every business that is around the Boltwood area and make it, we lose that sense of being able to see I think they call it front doors of businesses. So I'm very interested in getting the study that Pam is requesting updated and also more information about what other areas. I know there's a lot behind CVS. Some people have talked about the lot near the Amherst Cinema but I think that would have real negative impact. What are the needs and what are the other sites and what then would some of the costs be even tentatively? Because I think just reading Desmond's report they don't really think it's a good idea. We need to do some repair but it is not the best idea. Michelle. Thank you. I want to acknowledge that I have not followed this particular matter as closely as some other matters and I recognize that there are practical and political concerns involved but just looking at it now a little more closely my question is why are we pursuing a site study or even this report when we haven't pursued a demand or a needs assessment? To me that seems like we're putting the cart before the horse and without having a real understanding of what we need in terms of parking and what impacts those needs and looking out five years what will impact those needs? I feel like we're wasting time and money and when I look at the cost of these options I mean I was just floored the millions and millions of dollars to build a parking facility when we haven't even just really figured out whether we need more parking. And I'll also say that just a quick look at the town owned properties online I noticed that there are opportunities where surface parking I think could be creatively enhanced and utilized and I would say adding signage to enhance that as well. So my feeling here is that we should pause on this and we should do a thorough site or excuse me a thorough needs and demand study before we spin our wheels any further on this. Thank you. Lynn? So just to remind, it was the council that requested this study and the council funded the study and the air capital project. So we were just responding to what the council needs and I understand what you're saying in terms of do we even need a garage is the question I think people are asking and I think but the question that preceded that was is the boltwood garage even an option? And what this tells us is it could be and this is sort of gives you a framework. It doesn't say we're doing this or we're not doing it. It just gives you information as you start to develop whether there's a need for a garage or not and then is the boltwood garage an option or not? So I wanna build on that for a moment. We also have a fairly recent parking study that was completed by the town and before we spend any money updating that I think we need to determine whether it really needs to be updated and whether we have done everything in that parking study that was recommended to maximize the availability of existing parking. I'm personally not ready to jump into building a new parking garage. I'll just be right out there upfront. I'd rather see us use as much of our surface parking as we can. I wanna add two pieces of history here. When this parking garage first came to town counts to town meeting, it was recommended to be a three-story parking garage and it was town meeting that voted it down. In addition to that, it is town meeting that voted the parking overlay that people are now having problems with. So if we want to undo the parking overlay it has to come back to this council. And at the time that parking overlay was voted by town meeting and I'm not blaming town meeting they did what they thought was right at the time but the parking overlay was voted by town meeting and now we see a lot more people living downtown and bringing cars. And so it may be something that we or a future council need to look at as to whether or not the parking overlay is in fact reasonable anymore. But these are two legacy issues that this council inherited and I just cannot let go without saying that. I do have a question about the safety of the lower level and I don't mean in this case the water safety but I mean the physical safety because of anybody who might be down there. I know I spent many years driving to Boston and parking and coming out late at night and I would only use surface parking lots where there was lots of light. I would not use deep dark garages because I didn't feel safe. And so I question and would want to make sure that the lower level of the parking barrage is in fact safe. What's in that? Kathy. Excellent. For those who weren't part of the earlier discussion that happened in the first council rather than some others we did receive extensive parking studies as Lynn just mentioned. So I'm gonna make a couple of suggestions and observations. I think it is worth coming back to this and trying to schedule it as a discussion, special meeting kind of, not a decision-making issue, Lynn. So I know our agendas are packed but bringing that back and bringing it a bit up to date because the last council also voted to remove the North Commons parking lot and we're about to see that happen which is a loss of a substantial number of heavily used spaces. So we never did like what does the picture world look like? So I'm not saying that changes dramatically but it's a fairly substantial loss. So just trying to revisit in that context then secondly to talk about what options do we have as you just mentioned Lynn, we inherited the overlay. There were a few members of town meeting who said, oh, but when we voted that we voted a fee if you didn't provide parking you paid into a fund. And I said, I don't think so. I think if that was ever discussed it didn't go in and it turns out it didn't go in. That is an approach some other towns have taken. So in lieu of providing parking you pay into a fee and then the fee can be used for, one could list a variety of things and you could give it any name you want. It's an impact fee. It could be toward eventually building a garage. It could be for shuttles. So it may be worth looking at not just let's undo it but let's make it work better. So I'm just suggesting some things that could be part of this discussion and there are examples of this in other towns. Then the last observation is parking garages are expensive whether they're new or not. I found this study quite interesting including the very end of section six, page two that said you don't hit any economies of scale till you hit 500. When you're building small garages you might want to think twice about doing that. There was the same warning in our parking study that small garages are really expensive and you better think about them heavily. And they need easy ends, easy outs. So if we ever come back to that I think we ought to do it in line. So I do thank the town for doing this study because the question of boltwood kept coming up and we didn't have answers to it. So now we have an answer to it whether we like the cost or not. They pointed out by building buildings in the parking lot it's made it much harder to expand the garage. It's they're very near but they said we could overcome that. So I just want to say we can come back to it. Please wrap up, thank you. I'm gonna go Dorothy, I'm gonna skip and give counselors that have not had a chance to speak a chance to speak first, Anna. Thank you. So in reading this I was struck by some really interesting statistics and one of the first ones that came up was that the average American driver was 17 hours a year looking for parking, right? But that stats from 2017 and our parking study is also several years old now. We also have data coming out about the trends in parking post pandemic and the trends in ridership on public transportation post pandemic. And so my question and Chris and Nate I'm gonna send this to you maybe and if you don't have a way to tell me the answer that's fine and it gets to earlier questions but I'd love your thoughts on it is what is best practice in terms of how often to repeat these studies, right? So I know that the council requested this and I am grateful for staff for following through on that ask. I agree, we're putting the cart before the horse. In terms of if we think this is a project that's moving forward at this point. So I'm curious how long parking studies last and how often our habits change, right? You don't necessarily need to answer that second part. But when we consider things like parking needs now and every single day this gets more true this gets truer, more true. We also know we need things like charging infrastructure. We know that that's going to be a need in parking garages looking forward. Sorry, these are a couple of scattered thoughts I had them in separate paragraphs. So feasibility includes costs, right? And to be clear when I'm looking at this I see those multi-million dollar numbers. And then I look at our roads and our sidewalks and our DPW and our fire station and it's just a no, right? It's not possible for me to justify prioritizing this as a town project in any way, shape or form unless we got a grant to cover the holding thing magically. So that's where I'm at on this. But I would love an answer on my question which I will reiterate because I buried it in there which is how long do parking studies last in the professional world of planning? Yeah, I'll just, I'll have an answer. I don't know. Yeah, we had a study done in 2008 and then one done 10 years later. And although some things had changed they found that overall, right? The kind of capacity of the system the ability to handle peak demand was the same depending on system-wide. And so I think what you brought up were some good points that in the last few years though there's been a lot of changes in terms of even our development downtown trends in terms of what people are willing to do in terms of shopping, public transit. And so I think that someone could say every five years at a minimum but 10 years but maybe now enough things have happened that even after five years it's worthwhile to look at it again. I think what has been brought up are what else can we look at? So we do have different zoning and regulations that could be looked at. The report recommended strategies to undertake. We've done some of those and there's a few that could still be fully implemented. And so some of it would be that I know the town has been actually different departments have been doing some kind of point of count and some other utilization studies. Nothing like Nelson-Nigard but you're just kind of keeping track of things. And so a full study could be if to move this conversation forward okay, what really is the demand? I think this could be a good time next year or two to do that just because there's been a number of changes since that study was done. I would say typically though you could wait eight to 10 years because if there isn't much new development downtown and there aren't new trends in transportation then I think that's a good number but I feel like in the last few years there's been a lot of changes. Thanks. Can I ask a follow-up question? Sure. What would you qualify as significant development downtown in terms of number of stores added or apartments added for example when we look at the past 10 years that has changed and so I'm curious what's the tipping point roughly? I mean I think there's residential units being added there's a lot of restaurants and so they both have different they put different demands on parking so restaurants what the studies found is that there's two peaks actually lunchtime at one and then evening hour for dinner and then depending on when cars are used for residential units that might just be after hours at night they need overnight parking they might not be there during the day but system-wide parking all of a sudden there could be a lot more users downtown so if we have so many more units we have so many more restaurants at certain times then there's a pinch on the system now I'm not saying like one location but the municipal parking system off-street, on-street everything and so that's where I think it could be worthwhile to say okay if we allow more development we love more infill with businesses what do we need to support a really vibrant downtown and so is that you know scattered parking is it better strategies between you know different lots is it a centralized parking facility Thank you Thanks Andy Yeah I have three things and I'm going to try and be prompt so if the clock were running I'd be making three minutes one is that when the parking study was done we had a recommendation that we try and find a better way to use a lot of surface slots that are not used during the evening because they are connected to businesses but they're owned by businesses which would require negotiation for use of space that's privately owned during evening hours for a public use and I don't know if any of that has ever taken place any of that discussion but that was a key recommendation second thing that I wanted to point out is that some of this discussion came about because of the discussion of Prospect Street parking garage and the search for alternatives rather than building on Prospect and the whole idea of can we do the addition to Boltwood came from that discussion and so I appreciate the study because I think that it has answered a question that's been lurking out there and I think is part of the equation that we have and the third thing that I just as a matter of course I have been arguing for a while that we need to make sure that we are adequately using the current parking facilities and I am not convinced we have as we heard during public comment I have never had an experience of not being able to find a space under any circumstance in the current Prospect Street lot which some people call the CVS lot too and my suggestion for some time and I have talked to Guilford years ago about this is that the problem with that lot is largely that people don't know it exists and can't find it unless they are really familiar with downtown Amherst because there is that narrow alleyway next to CVS and there is coming around Halleck Street which is in a different direction that most of the people who are using that would use that lot are probably people who are coming to the cinema coming to the library and now coming to the Drake and that it would make sense to provide access from the Amity Street side and signage from the Amity Street side and so as Guilford said you could either reverse the one ways or you could make the section to the garage entrance that would be or the parking lot entrance excuse me, two way and not have parking Thank you I want to thank Athena for the new color coded clock it can't be missed we have not heard from Anika yet before I go back to other people who have spoken I'm sorry, Shalini you're next I also wanted to provide some of the context of the discussions we had in the last council and specifically with respect to the need whether we have a need for more parking so I just want to point to the two charrettes or community engagement gatherings that happened in 2014 and there were hundreds of people who showed up for those meetings and it was a redesigning or reimagining what our downtown looks like and the two most important things that most people spoke about was a need for parking and a music venue so yay we have a music venue and parking is still and since 2014 we have more housing and all of that that's taken place more and then Kathy already mentioned some of the parking in the comments with the idea that we want to keep these critical pieces that are downtown for community gathering for green spaces and push have centralized parking that's in the backside somewhere hidden away and so the idea is to centralize the parking and incident that's the newer trends instead of each development providing a lot of housing parking that you find a way therefore having that public private partnership that was my question is that still on the table because that was a presentation made to us in the last council as well about I forget what it was called revitalizing downtown or something and one of the presentation items was that there was an option for a public private partnership with parking let's see we may have hopefully we will have a new library and we will also bring more traffic the other thing I wanted to mention was that when we say there is a lot of empty space right now that means we don't need parking but what we heard from Amherst cinema owners and some of the local businesses was that they're hearing from clients that they don't come because there is a perception that there is no parking and that's a big reason for people not to come so the last point is about the signage and that was a question that have we got the signage up based on the last report oh one more question not question but there was a 1996 study done comparing CVS, Boltwood and Amherst cinema and is that still relevant like if you do another study are we going to learn something new because that study looked at the feasibility of the three locations so if everyone doesn't have I can send a copy of that because that was done by down meaning paid a lot of money to do that feasibility or whatever study thank you, Anika thank you, so thanks again to Chris, Nate and Paul for following through with the report that was requested by the council I'm not going to reiterate I have I really have the comments made from Lynn, Michelle and Kathy and Anna have resonated with me and those really were some of my questions and suggestions coming to date and I especially those questions that clarified why exactly this was on the agenda this evening I hope that that will be helpful to many many within the public who may have received information that there might be action taken on this item either this evening or in the future without abundant input and involvement from the public and also that input in having ample notice for such so I hope that this was clarifying for those on the council and also again for those in the public that may have received urgent call that they might not be involved in the process going forward or there would be action taken this evening thank you three councillors I believe all of you have spoken once so I'm going to start back is that correct Michelle you've already spoken once okay thank you I just want to make sure Dorothy we're going to start back with you I think that Andy made a lot of good points you know why is this issue before us you said that this was started by the town meeting which I was not very active with however I have in front of me the parking garage overlay district I guess it's an amendment October 15th 2021 which is not that long ago which talks about an overlay district which could be used for parking right next to a local historic district and so that we've talked about this I've been on the council for five years so this has been on the issue we've talked about it a number of times we've asked the question again and again have we followed through on any of the suggestions made from the parking study and the answer is almost none there are many of them that talked about better signage making the spots smaller all kinds of things to maximize the parking that we do have the reason that this is really we've been asking for a boltwood was the rumor that it could be expanded and that needed to be clarified before anybody broke any ground to build a parking garage cheek by jowl with a historic district and I think that we have to stop talking in circles we have a parking overlay which says you can build residential apartments downtown without providing any parking the reason given for that was that there have been very few offers to build downtown and this was done as a way to encourage development I think development has been encouraged I think it is happening and I think it is time for us to stop that idea it was based on a premise that turns out to be false which they couldn't have foreseen it was assumed that students would not bring cars and many people really really believe this however COVID made it clear to most kids I want a car I want to be able to get home to my family if things get bad and I don't think that's going to change so I think that the thinking that students and young people are going away with cars has been changed one other question is is there a list of people in line at boltwood garage begging for parking spots I personally have never gone in there I'm like Lynn I don't go into parking garages if I can help it I personally don't feel safe in them okay but I also don't want a parking garage open or closed parking garage open or close right next to a wonderful historic district ruining some of the historic downtown so we have to kind of put some of these pieces together and think about what is our aim so you know it's not that we've been asking for this in a vacuum the conversation has been going on for a long time and it keeps getting brought up I am very pleased to hear that we could expand boltwood that it could be structurally secure that is very important and I think Jennifer's point about it's cheaper to build new which they say about everything by the way it's cheaper to build new Dorothy please but we didn't build a new library did we because we had some interest in historic preservation so I think that building new is not always the right solution so that's what I'll say for now but this is a very very central central discussion for many people Dorothy first their home thank you Jennifer yes I just you know initially I raised my hand to respond to Michelle that the reason the request came is one of the very last things the last council did was vote to make the parking lot it's called the north cross north Pleasant street lot so it's mostly on it looks like it's on north prospector residential street in historic district the last the last things the last council did was vote to make that a parking overlay district I think I'm leaving a word out there so that town would be giving prime downtown real estate to a private developer to build a garage and many of us I guess to put this charrette also into context many of us have been going to planning board meetings since 2013 as they were permitting Kendrick park in one east pleasant and saying please you're putting make building hundreds of units excuse me you please um require the developer to provide parking spaces for the tenants and that was never done so it wasn't that it wasn't anticipated for whatever reason we were ignored and I think there might have always been a plan that the town would provide you know land to a developer to build a garage which will mostly be used I think for the tenants of the downtown buildings and the concern was which we also asked about is because the overlay district would be allow giving the land to a developer to a private partner I shouldn't say developer to build a parking structure on the site of a surface lot which is extremely underutilized and as some of the residents said in public comment that they have been tracking even during the busiest weekends of the year there were two graduations there was shows I think more than one night at the Drake and there still remained many parking spaces open on North Prospect what they call the North Pleasant Street lot and I think that when they do close the North Commons the 70 spots there plus spots will be able to absorb those and you know many of us have been saying for you know I agree that there should be a sign letting people know that there are 70 spots under surface lot and I guess I would also like to add you know as I agree with Pat there's a there's always you know there's a downside to any municipal parking garage it's not a neighbor that anybody wants and I've always been concerned is that what we want in the middle of the main street in our downtown which is what the North Pleasant Street lot is right next to CVS you know I realize that we don't want a huge structure in boltwood perhaps that's you know going to be marring all the shops there but I don't know that you know in a small downtown we want a parking structure looming over the middle of our main street I'm sure we have some other options Michelle Thank you I appreciate understanding a little bit more about what initiated the various actions to the credit for making me think about possible mode shifts in transportation and just how that sort of incorporates into this as well as the shift to more electrical vehicles which I think there may be some state requirements that will that will make whoever is developing these parking lots they will need to put in a certain amount of electrical vehicle charging stations so in some ways it feels like the studies can't really keep up with the times and everything is like so slow moving and so I just have some concern about I flag that thank you I believe that Paul yes I do need to respond I think one of the councillors said the town had done nothing on parking on the recommendations which is flat out wrong and Sean I think he can comment he was leading the parking leadership team working on these issues and I think we want to clarify the record on that thanks Paul yeah I just wanted to we have been doing a lot the last few years on parking so I just wanted to run through the list and I agree it's not everything but we did go through that report and identify as many of the recommendations that we could start working on and we have so obviously the study the parking garage is part of it we did form a leadership group prior to last few years we didn't really have a formal leadership structure we had some sort of leadership component so we have formed a committee with DPW and planning finance and public safety and the town manager's office that we meet by monthly to talk about all sorts of parking issues and how we're going to make improvements going forward the signage is obviously going up right now some of the signs have been put in place that was a key component of the study and when that's all up and done that's going to look really nice and it will direct people to parking but we did do a lot of communication we updated the website I want to say we put an insert in the tax bill if we didn't I know we were meaning to but I think we might have but we did do a lot of communication on the website we have had some preliminary public private partnership conversations around different spots in town I think that's come to fruition but we have been exploring that I know somebody raised that question and that is something I know Nate has looked into quite a bit about the parking permit system which you all obviously had a huge role in which will bring more money into the parking system and allow us to do more in the future we recently converted our parking enforcement officers to parking ambassadors that the last two positions that were filled were parking ambassadors and they have a much more customer service friendly facing attitude to them when they're out there they're still doing the enforcement component we asked them to be sort of a resource and a guide to people that might be looking for directions and things like that we've identified several locations for additional permit parking that will be brought to the council in the near future we've got a number of spots that we can add away from downtown that maybe we'll keep some cars out of downtown if we can add permit parking elsewhere that will be coming to you soon and as Nate mentioned earlier we have been doing parking utilization studies at a capacity limit where we do need to start talking about the garage again and we're seeing it come back but it's not to where it was pre-pandemic so all that's just to say as we have been doing a lot I know there's more work to do Thank you Sean That's very useful Jennifer you have your hand up I just wanted to say that in my referring to my experiences in 2013 and 2014 I know that was way before any of you were here so thank you for this discussion I take away from this discussion that before we start talking about any additional parking structures we need to determine if it's time to update our parking study based on the trends and the changes and that is because we need to determine need before we decide anything else so unless I hear from a counselor that they would like to have the people who did this study actually come back and talk about the actual structure I personally don't see that that's the next step because we're not ready to build a new parking garage seeing no hands I'm sorry? Just a question Lynn can you not see my hand? Oh should I make it a different color? Okay got you the question though was oh I forgot the main question wait wait it's coming back I still have three minutes hold on So Chris Breastrip offered the possibility of having the consultant who did the study come and actually make an additional presentation since at this point we are not ready to commit to a new garage anywhere and if anything we need to determine maybe update our need I am suggesting that that's the next step and that's where we should focus any energy Shalini? Okay so my question is that we do studies and then these things take so long so then the council changes and then we again do another study and like we spend a lot of money on studies and so I don't know if I'm in favor of another study to assess the needs like we've been talking about this for a very long time and but yes we do need we do need to understand what is the best location and I think obviously we don't have the money to spend on it so I am interested in finding out if the public-private partnership is still an option Kathy is saying no I guess but I'm just going to be straightforward nobody has convinced anybody that we actually have additional need and if we need to update the existing study because we think changes have happened that have made things seriously different then let's do that first before we spend any time on the council or SAF determining if we need a parking garage where we're going to put it and how much and how we're going to pay for it and just it's we're spinning our wheels on a question that's premature is my opinion Pam in response to the very specific question do we want the consultant to come back and give us more information I think I'm hearing the answer is no if that helps answer that question and I do agree that updating studies can be quick and dirty but we should be moving forward to identify how to best support the downtown how to best encourage people to come in and out of town and I think some in this room are in agreement that we really are not looking for a parking garage per se if we decide that we need the capacity of a parking garage we need to do a complete study on multiple locations and options Mandy Joe I'm here I was just slow in response to the potential of updating the parking garage we need to do a complete study that was done in 2019 or 2018 I would say it's premature to do so at this time because the north common redevelopment is not done we should not be doing a study in the middle of that the library expansion product is not finished we should not be doing a study until 2019 it sounds like our town staff has been monitoring the situation and has not seen while they've seen an uptick in usage they have not seen something to the point where the study that we have now is not useful and needs redone so I would say at this point we let our staff continue working on implementing the suggestions in that study that are minimally it looks a little more necessary to potentially update that and make decisions at that time which could be three or four years from now Kathy I'll be really short Lynn try anyway I agree don't bring the consultant back I agree not do a full-fledged study right now it's the wrong timing but I do think trying to schedule something about parking is not believing us but the leadership coming in because I heard in one meeting and I would just like to know this for as an example that Amherst College has said their alumni after five o'clock could be used for parking so if we have started to identify some potential private lots that at a certain time at night could be used it would be good for the public to know that so I don't know what the timing of that and as the signage goes up the more we can inform people that this exists not for debate or discussion but that would be it's a perfect place to be able to park if we really can park there so that was just said at one meeting so I just want to say that's an opportunity that we have of empty lots at a time when people might want to come into town if we can use them and I want to thank Sean for jumping in to give us a preview of what that report might look like that tells us everything that's been done I also want to mention because you have to go out the side door there's a parking sign right there brand new parking sign pointing to the back of the building just look at it Dorothy final comment we're going to go on I just want to thank Sean for always coming in and being so intelligent with good information and we are definitely all going to miss him and I really just want to make sure that I say it while he can hear it so thank you Sean he's staying for the next item so and we'll plan on a few more comments at that point what I'd like to do now is take a I'll break until 8.25 and come back at that point we will move on to the discussion about council compensation 8.25 please mute your mics and also take yourself off the photo in any of their lots in general if it's charged after five you'll upset a lot of the Amherst college staff and faculty permanent holders that park there and take them out if they have to then pay because right now there's books I'm sitting in a conference with an Amherst college I start an alumni all the time here and so we'll have to figure out a way to help them not like to just explain the staff and the staff ladies and gentlemen we need to resume come here as soon as you return please turn your camera on so I know you're back waiting for Pam or any Anika are you back I am yes Alisha are you back yes I am thank you Pam will be joining us in a moment so yeah no the funding options for paying for the increase for council compensation is the next agenda item and Sean has joined us for this conversation along with Paul and so with that I'm going to first of all ask Michelle you removed this from the consent agenda where it the vote would be to refer it to finance committee and so as is the custom you get to speak to your reasons for removing it thank you Lynn and I'm happy to you know I'm interested in listening to the discussion but I asked for it to be removed and it was the option to vote against it being referred to the finance committee and my reasons for that are I'm trying to sort of piece together the motion that we passed which is I wasn't there that night for the vote but I am I'm looking at the motion and it's a little bit confusing there were some amendments to it but it's my understanding that we passed a motion that increased the compensation and asks for the town manager to consider options for a supplemental appropriation to reach the number that we need to reach and so I do not at this time at least support any delay which is one of the options in the memo that was presented by the town manager and I'm concerned about whether if it was decided by this body to do that whether we would be in breach of the section of the Charter that requires that the I'm not really understanding how to read this in terms of the first 18 months of the town councilor's term so that it's adopted by a majority vote so if we were to delay it we would be in breach of the section 2.4 of the Charter regarding compensation for councilors so I'll stop just to yeah thank you and thanks clarifying your reason for removing it from the consent agenda regarding the councilor has already voted to do the increase they voted before July I think it had to be the second and so this does will be an increase all this does is address the question of how to fund it so that your second question was by sending this as a referral does this negate it and the answer is no it does not okay but if we were to decide to delay are you saying that we're not in violation of section 2.4 of the Charter Athena the question is about delay of the implementation yeah I don't believe so but we could double check that before the council makes any final decision. Athena said she's going to double check that I don't think that would be in violation to delay but thank you Michelle for raising that question Dorothy well when I read the material maybe I read it wrong but I did not say oh this is just to let the finance committee decide how to pay for it I read it the finance committee could decide to reduce the amount the finance committee could decide when it began and I just thought that it was taking the vote away from what we had done in council and putting too much power in the finance committee but so if in fact you are correct that all the finance committee would do is figure out how to pay for it then that would be fine how I interpreted what I read I want to be very clear all council committees are recommending bodies to the town council the finance committee would not make a decision that would come to the council with a recommendation so it would be how to fund it Andy yeah I may be getting to the same area as me Andy because she's our charter expert but the charter council 2.4 actually has two clauses one is that the council prior council within the first 18 months vote to increase or to decrease and the second is that it is subject to appropriation and it doesn't automatically happen without there being an appropriation and I think that's what Paul and Sean are going to speak to Andy Joe Is it time for comments on the memo or should we be waiting for Paul and Sean? So I'm going to place the motion on the table have the presentation and then we'll go to council comments okay to refer the options to fund increase in town council compensation to the finance committee with a recommendation and report to the town council by October 2nd 2023 is there a second? I'll second okay Sean and Paul yeah so I'll frame it and then Sean will go into the details so the council approved an increase in town council according to the charter the question to the staff was okay now we need to do the funding for it come back to us by October 1st with options and so Sean put together analysis of several options we want to give you the options that are available to you and you can choose which one of the two options really there's a third if you said we're going to take it out of our existing budget but that's a non realistic option we'll be able to do anything else or it could advertise or anything like that so and I think Sean can sort of talk about the strength the pluses and minuses of each of the options and you could vote those you'd refer them to finance committee for further discussion or however you want to handle it so Sean right Sean yeah I mean there's not a lot to say so as Paul mentioned there's three options but one is not super feasible so you could consider it when we do our free cash certification and that comes to you all and we move funds to our general stabilization to the reparation stabilization fund that's generally when we consider any supplemental appropriations so one option would be to consider appropriating the funds at that time that would increase the the town's operating budget and we would carry that into next year as sort of the new base for the operating budget but it would pull the fund from reserve so we would have to incorporate new revenues the following year because we wouldn't continue to use free cash as a funding source the second option is to wait until the FY25 budget and to fund it as part of the town manager's proposal for FY25 it wouldn't kick in until halfway throughout the year but one of the considerations there was when this was that finance committee there was a lot of discussion about the Jones Library trustees and the school committee and their stipend levels and then there was sort of how this conversation is sort of happening off cycle with other budget guidelines and budget priorities of the town so the advantage of that option would be you'd get to consider this as part of other budget priorities and potentially have this go into effect at the same time as increases to the school committee stipend the creation of a trustees stipend Questions? Comments? Mandy? Questions that are possibly almost somewhat comments too. Last year when we passed a budget we passed a budget that proposed a state-aid amount that was the governor's budget state-aid amount and during the time we were passing our budgets we realized that the state-aid amount might be much higher than the original governor's budget that year presented a supplemental budget that is distributed when the state finally passed a budget all of that money amongst the three entities or four in accordance with our budget guidelines what is your plan this year regarding that too given that I believe the state-aid numbers that were actually signed by the governor are I don't think they're as significantly higher as they were last year but they are higher than last year and how much money would that be if you're planning on proposing a supplemental budget to allocate the state-aid numbers amongst the three or four branches the question to Sean and you all the first option about appropriating funds from pre-cash to increase the town council stipends we generally in our budget guidelines say that all of our percentage increases should be the same amongst all of the different branches wouldn't be as much as we would but the first option one in some sense violate the budget guidelines in that sense by giving the general government a higher percentage than any other government so Sean see I'm going to defer to him since it's his last meeting thanks I really appreciate that so at finance committee tomorrow we will one of the agenda items will be a state 8 update so we'll get more into that tomorrow was about double what we were expecting in unrestricted general government aid. This year, it's higher, but it's relatively a small increase compared to our overall budget. So at this time, we weren't planning any across the board of supplemental increase like we did last year. We do have some action we want to consider. We've talked about the four firefighters and getting them into the operating budget. So that might be something that comes up, but that wouldn't be from state aid. That would be from a different source. So we weren't planning on doing that. But again, the amount it's higher this year sort of within the margin of error in terms of other revenues coming in lower or higher. So that wasn't the plan. So another question, I think that covered most. Oh, in terms of the, yeah, our general practices, we do like to increase all the operating budgets by the same amount. It's produced a lot of budget harmony in the past with all of the four major areas dealing like they're all going up the same amount. When we did increase one operating budget higher than the others when we created Cress, there was a after effect of that that we had to work through with the school committees and through the budget coordinating group. So it's not that you can't do it. If there's a new thing that's really important and the council wants to do it, it's your purview. But it is something that we definitely have to communicate and talk through with the school committees. Michelle, manager, did that answer your questions? Okay, Michelle. Okay, I wanna first just make sure I'm understanding this. So if option to delay implementation until the FY 25 budget was the option that we selected, does that mean that the councilor's compensation starting next term would be prorated accordingly? So it would not be $10,000, it would be prorated based on half of the, okay. So I think that that's really concerning and misleading and maybe that's a strong word. And so I'm sorry, rescue me for finding another word, but I think that if we have made a decision and we knew what the impact of that decision was going to be when we made it as a body and we are in the midst of campaign season here and folks are running for a seat on council thinking that the council has increased the compensation to $10,000, how do we express? How do we get it out? How do we make sure that people understand that this could change that for them and maybe they depend on that amount of money that when they've decided to run for council. So I have a lot of concern about that. If it were just to say, okay, we're gonna put it in at the time of the budget season but still everyone's gonna get that compensation, that would be one thing but I have a very serious concern about that. I also think we knew what the impact of this was when we made the decision and I just, I guess I'm a little bit confused about some of the quotes that were taken from the budget guidelines and used in the memo. I certainly appreciate having the school committee and library trustees and having those looked at but to have quotes like we strongly advise that we avoid taking on any new initiatives until we have confidence that we can maintain our commitments and assess recent new initiatives. That's what we decided when we voted on it. And so we fully knew the impact of this when we voted it and I just, this doesn't feel right to me having that option does not feel right to me for those reasons. Thank you. Berthi? Okay. So we have all these rules about when the council can raise the compensation and we followed them. Do those are the same set of rules for changing the compensation for library trustees or for school committee? I don't think so. Now, of course, I don't know the charter the way many of you do but I thought that raising the compensation for the council was kind of tricky, time-driven. And I think that Michelle certainly brings up a good point that somebody who decides to run for the council particularly after an increase in pay has been voted expects that and puts that into their calculations as to how they can do it. The council takes a tremendous amount of time. You have to give up days of your life just preparing for a meeting and then you give up another day to be at the meeting. So it, and you have all the other duties that you have, it is a very, very big job. The compensation that we recommended we voted on is not high. It is still very, very symbolic but it might be relevant to somebody's decision as to whether they could run and be on that without hurting their family because that's what we don't wanna do. We don't want somebody to serve the town but to hurt their family and to do things they shouldn't do. So I think that I'm just having the feeling that we made a decision, we had a big discussion. You felt like we had done something and I feel like it's now being taken away. And so that is why I'm feeling great concern. Thank you. Dorothy, just to answer your question about other elected officials, that is addressed in the Charter article four, section 4.1D. Compensation for elected officials, if any, shall be set. This is for other elected officials besides council. Shall be set in the annual town budget. Once compensation is set for elected offices, no increase or reduction of compensation shall be effective unless it is adopted by a majority vote of the full-time council. So in other words, we cannot raise school committee and Jones library until the July of 2024. Sean? Yeah, I was just gonna say what you were gonna say. Okay. So it is different and it is a different process. Kathy? I just have a question and actually I cross check so I have a partial answer. You have a couple of sentences toward the end of could we reallocate something that's already in the budget for the council? And the one that caught my eye is MMA. And I'm not sure what the allowance is for MMA where we get those of us who go get both our registration fee paid but hotel rooms paid. So I think the entire memo is about $32,500. So that's the first half of the coming year. So it's a question of where to find that money. And I just, that's a question and I understand that's an uncomfortable question that it would be, do we need all of it? Could we share rooms with each other hotel wise and how many people go? I don't know what the actual budgeted amount because you said there is an inauguration. So that's one and then Paul, I don't know to what extent in your own managers budget there is a flexibility somewhere for up to another five. It's a question of can we piece together 32,500 where not all that has to come from free cash? So those were questions I was gonna ask in finance. So I'm just asking it now on it, trying to figure out it's the first half, it's the first half of the calendar year that's the issue not the full fiscal year which would be decided with the next budget. So it's that first half. So those are my questions on something other than just free cash and a mix, a mix. So I'm not saying can all come from the other. Paul. So the council voted to have this go into effect on January 2nd, that was your action. You also took an act and said town manager please provide us with options. So we had to dig in and come up with the three options that we think could come back. So, I think please don't say, look at this and say you're making us do something. You've asked for options, we're giving you options that council can act on these things. In terms of using your expense account, we will certainly have a certain number of new counselors who by all rights should be given the opportunity that you had when you went to conferences or went to the different opportunities to educate themselves about what it means to be a new counselor. In addition, when the council has certain expenses, when you want to take on a new bylaw, those funds have to come out of your expense budget. Those are under the council's budget. We would have to hold the counselors and see who wanted to go to the MMA meeting. That's the biggest expense that we have. And then in counselors, if they want to room with somebody or whatever it is that you want to do, it's a certain amount of money. I just don't think there's going to be enough there. At some point you're going to have to appropriate new funds to cover the expense of this initiative. And we should, you know, this is recognized. This is a new initiative by the town to take on it where you have to build that into our budget within the framework of whatever you decide to provide to us in December when you give us financial guidelines. This is going to be the first thing that comes into play as we start having requests for new initiatives. Sean, do you want to clarify that or anything? That's right. Anna? Thanks. So really quickly, I'm exceptionally uncomfortable with cutting what's essentially professional development for counselors. Removing it from the town paying for it leads to opportunity being afforded to counselors who might be able to afford it on their own, right? Who may be able to afford hotels on their own, who can pay for the conference. It introduces a level of inequity that I'm extremely uncomfortable with. So I wanted to say that. I am confused about, first off, thank you. I know Paul and John that we constantly are tasking you with, hey, find money. And while you manage to do it quite often, I think we may be stumped to you with this one. So my question though, I'm also uncomfortable with this, but and I echo a lot of what Michelle was saying. I think I don't understand how procedurally we could go for option two without rescinding our vote. And can someone explain to me like if we, yeah, can you just walk me through kind of, if we voted for an implementation date, would we then need to have a second vote to delay that implementation or would we need to rescind our prior vote?  And I'm on finance, so I'm faulting myself here in terms of looking more closely at our budget guidelines and really kind of marrying these, I still would vote for this proposal. I believe this is important. I believe we need to do this. And I'm sorry that we put you in a really tough spot, which I guess kind of negates the apology a little bit, but I do stand by that. Paula or Athena, do you want to speak to the issue? Would we have to re-send our vote and take a different one? Like I said, I don't believe you would need to re-send a vote or re-vote. As Andy pointed out, it's subject to appropriation. So if there's not an appropriation for it, then it can't happen until there is. Okay. Mandy Jo. Oh, I'm sorry. Shalini, thank you Mandy Jo for pointing that out. Okay, okay. I actually just want to echo what Michelle and Anna said. And I think it's uncomfortable and we have to find the money and that's hard, but I think it's an important thing to do. And it sends a message that we stand by, we want to encourage diversity. I know you've all, I wasn't there for the discussions. I just want to say that, even though it's such a small amount that it's not really going to pay people who would want to work and can't do it because of the money, but to many people, that extra difference is going to make a big difference. So I think us standing by that and being uncomfortable and figuring out however we do it, I think we need to stand by that first option. Okay, Mandy Jo. So I have a follow-up question, my first one, which is about the option number one and the free cash because I am very uncomfortable increasing the general government operating budget more than 3%, or was it three, three and a half this year, more than a percentage that regional school, elementary school and library were also increased. We even had a request from the elementary school this year to increase their budget above the budget guidelines and we refuse to do so. Yet if we appropriate this free cash, we would be essentially doing that for ourselves when refusing to do it for the schools. So my question for Sean, for finance that I'm not on is if the council favors a free cash option for the first six months of the year, what is the free cash numbers to increase all budget line items, general government, elementary school, regional school and library by the equivalent percentage? I don't know what the 32,000 would that be 3.1, 3.01, whatever that percentage is, I would like to know what that would look like in free cash appropriations for the other three bottom line budgets too. I just want to clarify the question Mandy Jo, you mean if we added that to the total town budget, not just the percentage increase in the council line? Right, to the general, it's essentially a $32,000 increase to the general government budget. And I would want to know in order to keep the percentages of increase for FY24 the same across the board as our budget guidelines say, what additional free cash amounts would we need to allocate towards the other three governmental units too? Okay, Sean, I'm sorry, I just want to clarify. Yeah, we can certainly get that number at the top of my head in terms of dollar amount, we're probably in the $100,000 or more range. It's roughly the town budget, I think a little less than a third or a little more than a third of the overall operating budget, so if we were gonna go up proportionally for all of them, I think it's gonna be in that $100,000 or a little bit more range, but I can get the exact number and what that would look like in terms of if they all have the same exact percentage. Thank you. Alicia, you've not spoken, I'm gonna jump to you for the moment. Thank you, Lynn. So I share a lot of the concerns that have already been voiced, so I won't repeat those, but I did just want to add, and while I do appreciate the work that Sean and Paul put into this, in my opinion, we weren't given any, we were given one option because the other two options don't allow us to meet what our motion was. So essentially the other two options don't even accomplish what we're trying to accomplish, and so I only see this as giving us one option, which is the reason why, if Michelle hadn't already done so, I would have asked it to be removed because I don't see any need for it to be referred to finance with one viable option because the other options would negate the motion that was passed. Okay, Anna, I'm gonna come back to you now. Thanks, so I just, I wanna put this in really blunt terms. Basically you're just saying, what you are saying to us is that we don't have this money, right? Like we don't have this unless we are doing something inequitably to our other departments, that's against our budget guidelines that we set for ourselves. Is that, that's kind of, it's sort of it, right? Like you're saying that what, and I don't think you're wrong, that you're saying that we're increasing above 2.5% for general government by doing this and that we said no to other areas doing that this year. And I do think that that's heavy and we need to sit with that. But that was kind of a side thought, my first thought was if we go with that option to just to confirm, it would be roughly, and as you, everyone knows, I'm not great at the exact math, but the average math would be, it'd mean the next counselors would receive about $7,500 in their first year and 10,000 in their second year, is that, that's correct? Okay, so I mean, I think that I don't like it because as Michelle says, as Michelle said, we had voted this and yes, it was subject to appropriation and I get that and I agree and people may have possibly made their decision based on this. And I also do see this as almost a phased approach and while that was not what we voted for and I believe we even discussed a phased approach and but still voted against that in finance, I do, I appreciate that you're getting us to that point relatively quickly. I mean, I think we put you in a really hard spot and I just want to keep echoing that. Michelle? Two things. The first is I just, I'd like to respectfully push back on the assertion that we would not have to rescind the previous motion. The motion is very clear that we would, that we voted to make this effective January 2nd. That's what the motion says. So I don't see how we could, this would not be effective January 2nd if we went with option two. So I think we would need to re-vote this which in my mind would be very, very unfortunate. I also am wanting to ask Andy about where the language in the charter I'm looking at it and just trying to determine the language about this being subject to appropriation within. So I'm looking at section 2.4 and I just can't find that language in section. Andy, you may answer this, but that language was part of the motion. It was not from the charter. Oh, okay. I totally misunderstood that. So I again, I'm looking at the motion. It's also, it's in the, I'm sorry, it is in the charter. Athena? Could you help me? Yeah, cause I can't find that. Michelle, charter section 2.4 under compensation. Members of the town council shall subject to appropriation receive compensation for their services as set by the town council. Right. So it's in the charter, but was it also in the motion? Oh, I think I might understand what you're saying then. So, I mean, because the way that I read that is that's just a basic statement about how members of the town council receive compensation. But what I heard Andy saying is that it was like this additional step that was, it felt like being used to justify why doing this was appropriate. And so I think I might be misunderstanding that. Athena, I think you want to say something. Your question about the vote in the vote included a request for the town manager to bring options for funding the increase is that, what's your question? No, no, what I'm saying is the motion is very clear that we are making this effective January 2nd whether we've asked the town manager to provide options or not. We've asked him to provide options, but that does not impact that the motion clearly states that we are making this new compensation effective January 2nd. So the charter rules in this scenario, the charter says that increases in your compensation are subject to appropriation. So a council vote to, the council could vote tonight to decrease your compensation and it would be in conflict with the charter, so it couldn't happen. So in this scenario, it would, a delay due to a lack of appropriation would be in accordance with the charter and it would also be in accordance with the council's vote. So Michelle, the charter is the place where it says subject to appropriation. So whether our motion said it or not, it did not. The charter trumps the motion. Okay, I understand that, I do understand that, but then what, you know, I guess we can move on to other folks here. I just, I don't understand what the effective date in the motion that we passed, what was the point of having an effective date if that's the case. So anyway, we can move on, I'll pass my time. So my question was just, should the charter be changed to say that if, like now it says you, the council has to vote within a certain amount of time before the new council is seated, but it should maybe be before the fiscal year of the new council, because won't we always be in this situation? That's a conversation that can take place in the next charter review committee. Pat, a naive question. We had the effective date as of January 2nd. It seems to me that if we voted whichever option we voted on, whether it was one, two or three, it would go into effect January 2nd. So if we voted for option two, if finance recommended option two, then our vote would be effective January 2nd and counselors would receive an increase and then that increase would be larger at the FY25. So I don't, and if we just have it all given on January 2nd, both of those things are putting the motion in effect. So I'm not sure that we're not supporting the vote by choosing an option that might delay part of that increase. Can somebody clarify that for me? The way the conversation seems to be going is to confirm what you just said. If no matter which way we would go, we would still be putting this into effect, but the question is whether or not by doing the first option, as of January 2nd, 2024, all counselors would begin to receive the equivalent of 10,000 a year. If we delayed it to the budget year, they would only receive 2,500 for the first six months and 5,000 for the, no, they would only receive 2,500 during the first six months, but the second six months, they would receive 5,000. So as I believe Anna pointed out, it basically would be $75,000 in the first year, 7,500 in the first year. And yeah, thank you. 7,500 in the first year and 10,000 in the second year. Yep, Sean. And the other difference too is just the council wouldn't be voting that appropriation until June when it votes the FY25 budget. So you'd be putting it in your budget guidelines, but it would actually be the June vote that votes the FY25 budget that would be established in the appropriation. Right. Dorothy. You know, this is a town council of regular people. And we made a vote and it was clear what we thought we were doing. And the fact that you can take what we did and compare it to different documents and say, well, it doesn't have to be that. It could be this, it could be that. The fact that you can do it doesn't mean that you should do it. It certainly makes being on the town council not something that many people would want to do. It was clear what we meant. It was clear what we said. If it wasn't clear, we should have been told at the time that we needed to rethink our motion. You know, I just find so much of this discussion extremely distasteful because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it when you know that that is not what we meant what we intended. And we have people who have taken out papers to run for town council. They've done it with a certain understanding and now you're letting them see, oh, hey, they can take it away anytime they want. I just think that's not right and it's not fair. So we want good people to run for town council. It's a very big job. It's a difficult job. And I think that we shouldn't play around showing all the things we could do. We could do a million things, but should we? I don't think so. That's it. Angie Joe. Another question for finance committee to consider if this gets referred to them. We voted a stipend of annual compensation of $10,000 and $12,000 for the president. We didn't say monthly compensation of whatever that would be, like 860 something. So I know we get it monthly right now and we've divided it evenly monthly, but wouldn't it be possible to for one year in the budget guidelines to avoid the free cash, pay the stipend unevenly over the course of the year so that it's still $10,000 over the course of the year, but the first six months are the 2,500 that is budgeted right now. And the last six months of the calendar year are equal to 7,500 instead of a typical normal 5,000, 5,000 split that we would think of. So I would like the finance to, and then it would be funky for one operating budget year, but it might solve or be possible and solve this concern. Anna. We want good people to run for council. We also want good people to work with the council. And I'm really concerned that the way this conversation is going is making people not wanna work with the council, meaning our town staff who worked incredibly hard on this. I wanna just be really clear that we asked for choices. This is not a malicious document that Paul and Sean gave us. They're trying, and I'm not doubting that for a moment. We asked for the coulds. They found some for us. It seems pretty clear to me in this discussion that this needs to go to finance to discuss that referral is becoming really very clear even though from the outset, I appreciated Michelle's withdrawal of this from consent for the reasons that she provided. My question is, I've got another procedural question. Hopefully it's an easy answer. We kind of raised it on the side, but I'm curious how the council, how the next council could vote the appropriation in the next year if it impacts their own salary, if that's when the appropriation would happen in the next budget. Thanks, Athena. Paul or Sean would probably be better at answering this, but if the appropriation were in the budget, then the council votes the budget. But is that impacting their salary for the coming, like if we're saying that the appropriation has changed because we're saying, wouldn't that be impacting their own salary and isn't that going against the rule that says they can't vote to raise their own salary? I don't think so. If the vote is to raise the salary and it comes to us, therefore in the proposed budget from the town manager, all the town manager is doing is following the vote we've already taken. And so we are not violating that rule. If I can add, so the charter has the power of state law. So in the charter, it says, here's how you can adjust your compensation. As long as you follow the rules of the charter, you can adjust your compensation however you'd like. So I think that's, you're talking about a state ethics concern, but a lot of counselors do that every time when you vote the tax rate, you're impacting your taxes. There's lots of actions you take that are more global. This one is very explicit and it requires a public process that everyone can witness. And the reason the charter has it happening before June 30th is because they want that to be in advance of whatever the election is. So whoever's voting at the election has full knowledge that you adjusted your compensation however you did and they can make a judgment on your performance at that moment in time. Is it all the question? Can I, oh, can I follow up on that really quickly? I'm sorry. I'm calling the question. The question's been called the way. Is there a second? Is there a second? Second Rooney. Second Rooney, okay. The question's been called the vote on the actual motion. Just, we need to vote on the preview, on whether or not we, okay. We're voting first of all on whether or not we're going to cease to debate. Okay. This is whether or not we're ceasing debate. And there's no comment at this point because once a question's been called you move immediately to the second and then you move to the vote. So the question's been called on a Devon got here. Aye. Lynn Griezmer is an aye. Mandy Johanicki. Aye. Annika Lopes. Aye. Michelle Miller. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alisha Walker. Yes. Shelly Balmille. No. Panthic Patiangeles. We move now immediately to the question that's in the motion that's before you and it's to refer the options to fund increase in town council compensation to the finance committee with a recommendation and report to the town council by October 2nd, 2023. We'll begin the vote with. Alisha has a hand up. Alisha. I'm not sure if I can ask this question right now but I'm wondering what a no vote means. Like it doesn't refer to the finance but then does it just mean nothing happens? It would probably mean that somebody is going to come forward with a different motion. Okay. But the motion on the table that we have to vote on is yes to refer or not to refer. Okay. Does that help, Alisha? Yes, thank you, Anne. Andy, do you have your hand up? Yes. I would think and Athena can answer this question that since the issue that was on the posted agenda was referral that the no vote prevails that it wouldn't then come automatically. It would have to be brought. I can't wouldn't be automatic but then you would have to bring it to a future council meeting where there's been notice that that is the agenda item for the meeting. The item listed on the agenda is funding options for increase to council or compensation. It's not specifically a referral. So the discussion can go outside the bounds of merely a referral. Okay. All right. But in fact, the motion we're voting on is to refer the options to fund increased in town council compensation to the finance committee with a recommendation report to the town council by October 2nd, 2023. We begin with Lynn Griezmer. I'm an I. Mandy Johannike. I. Annika Lopes. I. Michelle Miller. No. Dorothy Pam. No. Pam Rooney. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Alicia Walker. No. Shalini Balmillan. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Donna Devlin-Gothier. Aye. The motion passes 10 in favor, three opposed. Now is the time. I'm sorry. Jennifer. A quick question. I should have asked this before. So we referred it to finance. Can they consider options other than the three like Mandy's suggestion? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for asking that question. So always welcome. Now is the time. Sean, you can't leave. Where are you? Did he already leave? I'm in the back of the room. There he is. He's sitting there. All right. I want you to put Sean up front. Big on the screen. That is the last thing I find. This is our time. Sounds like maybe for Sean's last meeting we shouldn't do this to him. So Sean, we're not happy. We're happy for you. It's all, I just heard the conversation and I was not the intent of that. That meant I also have to apologize. We really did just want to give you the option. So sorry that that was the last topic. You'll remember me tonight, but... So Sean, I'm sure different councils like to say something. I'm going to start off by saying one of the things that I appreciate most about Sean is he understands government. He understands program and he understands how to translate that into budget. And that is a skill not often found in a financial person. So Sean, thank you. Thank you. Others, happy. Just building on what Lynn said, Sean, you already know how I feel about you leaving which is devastated, but wishing you the best. The other thing that Sean has done that I think is miraculous is when he's faced with what seems like an impossible set of moving forward, he finds creative solutions and brings them back to us that are often thinking out of the box. You go, well, where did that come from? And he does it so efficiently and in such a friendly way rather than saying, oh, yeah, yeah, what you've asked me to do. So thank you so much, Sean. It's been fabulous working with you. Thank you. Anna. Sean, I'll compile all my thoughts into an email and send it to you in a timely way which means probably the day before you actually are leaving us. But I, because I feel like that might maybe be your preferred method of hearing this. But I just, I thank you. You work magic. I don't know how you do it. And I'm just incredibly grateful to have learned even just the tiniest bit from you. So thank you so much. Thank you. Dorothy. Well, I just want to compliment Sean on what I call his cheerful equanimity. He is also both objective and fair. And I usually feel like I'm understanding what he's talking about which is really quite an accomplishment. So thank you, Sean. Jennifer. Yes, I wanted to echoing Dorothy as a non-finance person, I really appreciate how you can explain things in lay person's terms that I can actually usually follow the presentation which I have not often do when it's a finance discussion. And I just so admire your cool under pressure. I don't know how you do that either. It will serve you well in every place you go and your new employers gain is certainly Amherst loss but we wish you all the best in your new endeavors. S