This is The meeting of the committee on outreach communications and appointments It's Friday December 20th and seeing the presence of a quorum I'm calling the meeting to order at 11.03 a.m. We are expecting Councillor Brewer to show up late and Councillor Schwartz will be absent So you have in your packet a number of items you have an agenda that was revised a few days ago I'm also going to revise it again during this meeting Which I'll discuss but the first thing I want to do is we our last meeting on December 9th adopted our new process that we are going to be implementing to Recommend to the town council appointments to multiple member bodies appointed by the town council We adopted this on Monday December 9th, and then it was a Discussion item on the town council agenda on the 16th We had already received feedback from many councillors in advance Which we discussed at our last meeting, but there were some who either Forgot or For other reasons did not submit feedback that we had not heard from and so What I want to do for the first Five to ten minutes of this meeting is just talk about the feedback that we heard from the council and Then we've already adopted the process and that wasn't and we incorporated some feedback from some councillors But the question of course becomes based on any feedback that we heard Do we want to reconsider any aspect of the process? So it's adopted, but we can also of course amend the adopted process If we felt like we heard feedback that would warrant us to do so So I have my own thoughts on what was said during the meeting, but I want to sort of open up To the other committee members first to just say, you know, what were your thoughts of the discussion? What were your impressions? Well, you were at the meeting I mean, I have I have like handwritten notes from the meeting, but Okay, it was a lengthy meeting So the main the main comment centered around group interviews And we got conflicting feedback from the council so councillor Shane and councillor Pam Sort of express some reservations about these group interviews on the other hand councillor Steinberg and councillor DeAngelis expressed support for the group interviews And so we got some mixed feedback on on group interviews about how they might impact the the the debate We heard also some comments about whether or not we would actually Withdraw someone from the pool if they could not make the interview date. That was a concern of councillor Shane that was also a concern of councillor Schreiber Who was also someone who supported the group interviews but felt as though someone should be able to still be considered part of the pool even if they Missed the group interview date. We also heard some comments about Community activity forms certainly councillor Pam expressed an interest as she had in her her feedback Previously to make community activity forms public We heard from other councillors such as councillor ball millen and councillor hannackie support of maintaining the policy of keeping the CAF's as personnel records and I think that was the main those are my Main notes we heard from councillor DeAngelis that the process gave her That the two things that she wanted to see which was an ability to see who applied who and to see the CAF's and an ability to see the interviews and so she was quite happy with the Process I think those are all of the notes. I have the feedback Darcy Pat did also say that she agreed that the CAF's should be made public but Something about that we could do that in the future or something like that George Setting the CAF issue aside for a moment the other concerns are I think are concerns that we've all expressed and Talked about some length and I don't think we saw any Way to resolve them other than completely undoing the entire process So I think at least I share some of the concerns about People being knocked out of the process just because they can't meet this one date But I don't see any way to for us to solve that if we were to Allow for some kind of exception. We're back to the situation where now we have you know people being interviewed under two very different Processes and we felt that was really not fair So What was the other city one was people being knocked out and then the group and then the whole idea group interview Which we know nobody of us. I don't think any of us are happy with that I think well, I should speak for myself. I would much prefer individual interviews But that seems to be simply not possible So given that this seems to be the best of all worst options I Hear their concerns. I share at least two of them But I don't see any way that we can do anything to Resolve them. I think we're just gonna have to try this process and see how it goes It was encouraging to hear Andy Steinberg speak about how this has worked in the past That was encouraging to hear and if Alyssa were here, perhaps she would add some thoughts to that as well Hopefully in agreement and yeah, I don't know but I guess that's my feeling that I Hear those concerns, but I don't see what we can do to resolve them I don't know what Darcy thinks there's anything we could do to other than the CAFs, which I think it's a different issue We could just take take out the one sentence that says That Something about if a person isn't available that day they're excluded from the process Just to allow us some flexibility. I think that opens up the question What does that flexibility mean do we hold an interview for one person on a separate day? So everyone interviews is a group except One person I think I think this divided into two two groups or something like that I mean, it seems like we need to have flexibility You of some sort and that just might be the price we'd have to pay for you know just Being a little bit flexible You know, I think one of the things that I keep coming back to on on this cuz I and you know I share these concerns as well And I think to some extent we have to see what the practical application of this looks like because we've been talking a lot and Conceptually and one thing I will say is so I have begun the process now that the process now that our process has been adopted I've begun the process of reaching out to everyone who submitted a community activity form to confirm if they are still interested and As part of my Outreach to those people I have floated a potential interview date To them and so far every person who I've heard back from has confirmed that that date works for them But I also have several other dates in my back pocket that if that didn't work I could default to and so part of me feels at this time Let's just see if it works because if we're able it might be It might be a Barrier that we think exists that doesn't actually exist if it's impossible to find a date that works for all candidates And maybe maybe it is But I think we to some extent I'm sort of leaning towards Let's not open up the process and let's see if it actually works And if I come back to you all at the next meeting and say there is no date that works for everyone Then maybe that's the time to have a conversation of okay, so maybe that maybe that doesn't work What's the date the date I've been floating to people is January 22nd Whether or not that is the date requires a whole bunch of things that we will talk about later in the meeting But just to sort of put feelers out there on a date. That's the data. I've been using It's important to get make sure that the members of this committee are available on whatever date you're putting forward I think it's just important that we'd be fair and I Hear Darcy's point about flexibility, and I think in the best of all possible worlds. That's what we would we would do I think in many other contexts, but we're not in those kinds of contexts. We're in a very public and official context and We'll be scrutinized every which way to Sunday, and I think if we start getting into you know perfectly understandable desire for flexibility would become vulnerable to criticisms of favoritism and well so-and-so gets special treatment and Even though that's almost very likely never going to be the case its perception that matters it's not the reality and So I think whatever process we follow However painful it may be it has to be applicable to everybody and I think that's where we're at So my general takeaways were Thinking in terms of is there any reason to reconsider any aspect of the process? Or vote to amend any part of the process? I Went into the meeting thinking if I heard a Large or even just a majority of counselors take issue with any particular part of the process That would be reason to perhaps reconsider given that the Debate really focused around two things and there didn't seem to be any unanimous opinion on those things. I personally feel no desire or reason to Attempt to amend what we adopted at our last meeting or reconsider any aspect of that But I'd be willing to entertain Other ideas or in theory also emotions to do so Or do we want to just say we've heard the feedback let's move on let's move forward George That's my sentiment. I hear what people are saying. I sympathize with the good portion of it But I don't see any Reason or any way really we can amend the process to resolve these issues And I think we need to move forward I'm intrigued with the process of Committees getting input from other counselors because It's not clear how that works or What would trigger a change? You know, I'm going through the same thing with the goals committee that the goals committee is reaching out to counselors to get their opinions and You know Occasionally one counselor's opinion will change the you know It is just unclear to me like How it works how how getting input from the rest of the council can sway the group Just making a comment because it seems like in some contexts, you know one counselor's opinion can amend a document but in other Situations three counselors can make a comment, but it doesn't make a difference. So Why would that be? I don't know Just making a comment As someone who teaches feedback and revision quite a bit in this class I mean, I think the idea of soliciting feedback is for one is You want to sort of get broader input And then two sometimes you become so close to the subject matter You're working with that you don't see Issues or flaws and you need other people to point them out to you Then when feedback comes in of course, and I think what we did was we said well Let's look at it and you don't take all feedback you take some feedback and and really feedback is a discussion starter and so For for us some of the feedback was stuff that we had really spent hours and hours debating and thought you know What we have thoroughly dealt with that and so we're going to respectfully decline that feedback I Don't think that's true because Because I think the other the other thing if I can speak is You know what we did here from Andy was that he pointed out that we had mentioned videotaping know We're in the in the process right and that was a place where the feedback was really useful because it pointed out in omission and then we amended our process so I think it's it's just tonight. It's just about Influencing that discussion and making sure that we were getting you're catching all of those things But I mean I think it's by committee by committee and now had we heard from ten counselors That they hated one aspect of this we probably would change it that would right So I you know, I think that's just that's just the generally on feedback. So it sounds like we're moving forward And so I want I mean I wish the full committee was here at this moment But I do want to thank both of you and also Alyssa and Sarah because this was Again eight two-plus hour meetings of work that we put into getting us to where we are today Here she is I am thanking the committee now that we're moving on from our process for For you know all of the work that all of you put in because this was not necessarily something that was easy And it was something that was a big task before us But I think a lot of us knew we'd have to grapple with and it feels good to have completed it So thank you all of you for all of your help in putting this together And and we'll say any well We'll see we'll see how it works in January So looking at our agenda Item number four on our agenda the next item is discussion and vote on sufficiency of planning board applicant pool So as you all remember section three of our Of our process that we adopted Says that we have to declare the action the applicant pool By majority vote Oka shall declare the applicant pool sufficient to proceed to interviews And so this is a step we have to do in order to actually hold interviews. We need to declare that the pool sufficient Because I think there is a desire within this committee within the council and certainly within the community to get a member of the planning board appointed My hope was that we could have that discussion and potentially vote Today on the sufficiency of the applicant pool So that we could start moving forward with interviews that said I am going to table that discussion for now For for two reasons one is that I have reached out to every Person for whom I have a CAF to ask if they Are still interested I have not received a response from all of them And so I don't know truly what the applicant pool looks like I have heard back from some people who have confirmed they're still interested and I have heard from some people who have withdrawn their CAF and So given that I haven't heard back from everyone We don't really know what the pool is Beyond that. I am also waiting on technically Per our policy that we adopted we we collect the CAFs for the past two years I To the best of my knowledge only have CAFs from the past year And so I have put in a request to Angela to provide me With a list of all of the CAFs over the past two years, but I have not yet received that she is working on it We talked this morning But I don't have that yet And so because I haven't heard back from everyone who I've contacted and because I'm not sure I've contacted everyone who we Should be contacting I don't necessarily feel like we are ready to have a discussion and vote on the sufficiency of the applicant pool I also would want to bring you all some documents that we could look at and have a full discussion And because I was waiting on all of these things. I don't have those documents So I don't think that this is an appropriate time to do so so I am going to table that discussion until our Well, we haven't had the discussion about our January Committee meeting schedule that comes towards the end But I have tentatively put a meeting on January 6th, and that would be when we would have that discussion So there no George when you table something this is just rules of procedure. Is it something we can talk about or is this I'm perfectly willing to hear. Well, I'm just a question for the committee as a whole when when in fact is The time right it seems like it's never gonna be the right perfect time. There's always going to be Things still out there in the ozone that we're waiting to hear from x y and z blah blah blah blah It seems Do people have this problem or not that? Probably in some sense, we should be the ones who determine, you know, we want it. We want to go forward with interviews So we look at the pool and see what it's like And yes, there may still be people out there. We haven't heard from yes There may still be something that Angela is looking into but Should we let that drive the process or should we be driving it and we say, okay We're ready to do interviews. There's a first of all, there's a vacancy Times of the essence We don't want to delay too much so we just take the pool as it is and decide whether it's Suitable or not and I assume that also means that things can still come in later So that once again, this is just a question of process once we determine that the pool is sufficient That doesn't mean that there can't still be further applicants accepted Which also raises the question when is that process when we finally say no more applicants? So I guess I have some practical questions first of all that maybe have simple answers When actually is the applicant process declared? You know somebody comes in after x-date. It's just not going to be considered or is it open until we actually Have a disc I don't know. That's the first question second is Should we be driving this process or should it be driven by you know when people feel like they want to get back to us? All right I think I think the answer to the what was your first question But then you also listed as your second question about what do we decide? I think it is the committee's decision and I think but and I think they're always perhaps be unknown There will always be people who maybe we haven't heard back from and at some point we just have to say we're moving forward However, my opinion is at this moment We we don't have sufficient information on the pool to move forward and so while in the future it might be well We have X number of CAF's and we haven't heard Back from these two people should we just wait until we hear back the answer will probably be no But at this point I I personally don't have enough information to bring to you as a committee to feel as though We could have this discussion productively if on January 6th. We still haven't heard back from a couple people We may choose to go forward anyway But I think that will give me enough time to collect and put together and and synthesize the information that we need For us to have a good discussion. I don't think we could have a good discussion today with regard to your your second question The drop-dead date we've never discussed that I don't think but my my thought has always been That 48 hours before the interview But I'm willing to hear that if someone applies the week before the interviews and they can make that date I have no issue with including them in the interviews To me the posting of the interviews would be the drop-dead date But that is a personal opinion it has never been discussed by this committee, so I am willing to hear from others Darcy I see you're ready to go We would be getting a Spreadsheet similar to the one that we got from the town manager with the listing of the applicants Yes So we've never gotten a spreadsheet from the town manager with a listing of applicants for any of anything We've gotten I did for finance committee That wasn't from the town manager was it it was from Angela or somebody who was arranging Date, so that's a completely different thing. Yes, she works for the town manager But I just want to make it clear since it was misreported in a recent Blog posting that the town manager gives us certain information Confidentially that he doesn't actually give us I don't know why it was reported that way so Staff has provided us that spreadsheet in the past and should continue to because that was true under the old Form of government, so it in fact doesn't make sense to me that we don't have an ongoing spreadsheet that's updated But it makes sense that Angela is working on that now as the executive assistant to the town manager with the information from when she set up interviews for us last time when she made the decision the pool was sufficient and Now this time, you know anybody evans reached out to to find out more information about the So aside from just clarifying where that information comes from that should definitely be ours and should not be problematic to obtain from staff because it never was in the past is that We have to be very careful That we don't speak of numbers or of people associated with that so We can see a spreadsheet that we can call personnel record and that we can be told You know you see lines through or color codes or whatever it is that these people are no longer interested And these are people who didn't get back to us or you know, however that spreadsheets laid out But we can't sit here and say to people with you and six people are still interested Etc because of the fact that we've been protecting them as personnel records up until this point So we just need to be super cautious about that and it's something We've never really dealt with before Because when we just said oh you person you're assigned to go off and do interviews, right? They were the only person who really had the information at that point So we're just gonna have to be thoughtful about the way we discuss it once we do Information but you know reflecting back to what George originally said like Evan said We actually don't know what the pool is right now because for all we know none of those people are interested Except he said some still were so we can't just say let's just go with what we've got because we don't know what we've got and To speak just a briefly to something that Alyssa said that I forgot to mention as one of the other reasons I'm tabling this discussion for today is because I Think that there needs to be a little bit more thought about how to have a productive conversation about the sufficiency of the applicant pool While at the same time maintaining our policy of not releasing numbers or names We've never had to do that before because we pretty much let Angela decide that the pool was sufficient and start scheduling things now that we have Taken that responsibility on Given that we're bounded by the constraints of open meeting law It's a delicate walk to figure it to figure out how we have a discussion about the sufficiency of a pool without talking about numbers or Names and so I personally don't feel comfortable having that today because I haven't fully Wrapped my head around how we're gonna do that. So we're gonna move to agenda item. Yes, George But are we okay with the 48 hour? I mean that does make sense to me But I just want to have a sense of when is the drop dead date and that seems like a reasonable way to look at it That applicants can be considered on up until the point in which it's officially posted And otherwise we would have to come up with some other date or some other Process I can live with that. I think that means that seems cleared I don't know if we need to vote on it, but it's essentially gonna be part of our process. I guess that applicants up to 48 hours before are still possible Everybody okay with that Alyssa I think we should definitely add it to our process because so much of this is build off previous processes and in those Previous processes there was a drop dead deadline date to apply and then you knew who the pool of people were that you were Arranging a date and in fact we said we in fact told people when we announced the vacancy back in the olden days that They had to be at a meeting on such-and-such date in order to even apply And so we are in a different headspace right now with this at this point And it might vary a little bit in the future, but I totally agree Somebody you know contacts us like the day before 48 hours and says oh man I didn't realize that this was happening as long as whatever we've decided is necessary for writing samples slash Biography slash whatever the nice phrase was that used in our report Can be provided right so that they're not Separate from the other people and they can show up at the time that was already agreed upon by the other ten people That are coming then I don't have a problem with that So I don't want to have a protracted discussion of this or a wordsmithing discussion Is there consensus around the idea of adding a line to section three? sufficiency of the applicant pool of the process that basically says OCO will continue to consider applicants for an interview up to 48 hour up up to the posting of the interviews or something Alive wordsmithing I'd have to something along those lines To clarify that even though we've declared the pool sufficient That doesn't mean that people can't continue to apply and be considered up until the interviews are posted The only cautionary note I want to strike is and that I wasn't sure we quite grabbed covered in our previous word And so maybe you can add it in here is to make it clear that we don't screen people out Right, they screen themselves out because they they apply and then they read the handouts and they go Sounds boring or or it turns out they can't meet Wednesday nights or you know, whatever But we interview everyone so it isn't just that we're considering adding them It's that we will accept Or some word like that that makes it clear that we don't screen anybody out because we I believe have always agreed that We will literally interview every single person who applies That fills out the paper George you had something I Think that's it. I I just think I want to make sure that that whatever you put in there is such that It's clear that you have to have done everything that needs to be done It's not just a matter of saying I'm interested. I mean or is it I mean in other words Are there certain things that have to be done prior to that 48 hours? And if somebody does it the last minute and they don't have time to do the other things Then they're not considered so So I will I will if it's okay with the committee bring in a draft language and motion Just to amend this section Next time to add that Okay, so I want to move on then to what is the main item of discussion during today's meeting which is Discussion of discussion of town council liaisons. This is something that was referred to us by the town council at our retreat, which was I believe in September and Because we've had other things on our plate. We haven't yet gotten to it But liaisons are town council appointments They are not presidential appointments and because we recommend on town council appointments It is in our purview to recommend Make recommendations on liaisons The way that I think this was originally envisioned was that we would actually be recommending The names of people to serve on as liaisons to which committee however, given that we are entering In the near future potential shuffling around of committees and committee memberships and people may Change their mind The request from the president has been to hold off on actually recommending names But to essentially come forward with which committees of the which committees and or elected bodies We feel should have liaisons So then when the president polls for which Council standing committees people want to serve on she could also pull on which Bodies people want to serve as liaisons to and then this body having received that information That's more current can consider that So our task is not to talk about names of people to not talk about who should be on what a liaison to what committee Our task for today is simply to come to agreement on a recommendation to the council about which committee should have liaisons There are a number of things in your packet around this So I'm just want to run through them. The first thing is The packet from our first ever town council meeting And the reason that that's in there is it has that select board memo from Doug slaughter that includes the charges to every committee I couldn't find for some reason. I couldn't find just that document In PDF form of the memo with every single charge attached, but it wasn't a packet So I just put the entire packet up there the second document our discussion questions that I have written out To guide our discussion today The third document is the Excel spreadsheet that was put together by the rules committee that ranked Committees into essentially three different ranks about whether or not they should have Liaisons or with a priority so priority groups one two and three with regard to whether they thought they should have liaisons I have added two columns on to that document that we're not from rules committee one is When we were on our retreat we took we voted on which committees We thought should have liaisons and so it's the results of those votes and then also We put stickers on which ones we had actually attended because there was some thought that you really shouldn't be deciding that a committee Should have a liaison if you've never paid any attention to that committee or been to it Some of them are highlighted in green those are ones where we had a majority vote of the council that they should have a liaison And so if they had seven or more votes the ones in yellow had three to six votes and so Whether that's useful or not we can talk about later the next item in your packet is the draft language from GL on the role of a liaison and then the final item in the packet is the Per Darcy's request April 22nd report from rules of procedure That included talking about liaisons I think how I want to start this discussion even though I didn't Give her advance notice of this is given that we have the chair of the rules of procedure committee on Our committee and given that rules of procedure spent some time deciding deciding which Committees are how to rank these it seems appropriate to hear a little bit and we also have Darcy who's also on rules of procedure It seems appropriate to hear from rules of procedure sort of what discussions they had and how they came up with these priority rankings Before we have those discussions so that we're not just duplicative so Chair Brewer former chair Brewer Well not being fully prepared to speak to this I'm gonna have to go from memory and then Darcy can correct me the way she remembers it happening But what I largely remember is Working from my experience as a select board member for many years, right? So I was on the select board for nearly 12 years And so I had a good sense of what kinds of committees ended up coming to town meeting for actions And which means they'd now be coming to the town council for actions And what kinds of committees just kind of worked independently and what kinds of committees? We kind of real wished hadn't worked in silos and only told us at the last minute what they were doing and Ones that people had successfully been liaisons to and not successfully. So I had Substantial thoughts about how that should work and was pretty strong about those thoughts One thing that I think came up in those conversations That then led to an exercise we did at the retreat is that it it seemed to me based on the conversation We were having at rules that many people were very unfamiliar with what those committees actually did on a day-to-day basis And so the sound of them made them think that they may be needed Over the ason but they didn't actually necessarily read the charge or have been to any other meetings or read any other minutes And really have a sense of what they would do And so I was pretty strong armed. I was pretty strong about I think it's these and there were some questions and Some discussions about whether or not these were the right ones and then when we got to the retreat if you'll recall I pushed that we have Have you ever been to one of these committee meetings? Do you have any sense of what they're doing and that I think helped us help people kind of rethink it in their minds like? Okay, I know that sounds important. What do they actually do where have I actually been? What have I actually heard about and that's all those charts that you then put together for us So I think this has been an evolving discussion over time if we had Decided to do it right then in the spring right after rules had happened I think I would have pushed and potentially been successful at saying it should be at these X committees But I think now that people have actually had more time to think about it and looked at it at the retreat And then we revised the rules about what liaisons were right which is has continued to evolve I think people have somewhat different perceptions now a year in as to what needed a liaison and what a liaison is And what value given all the meetings we all already go to it would be Understanding that largely liaisons can be a way of Just passing information back and forth without necessarily having to attend the meeting so Yeah, so that's how I've seen that evolving over time associated with that And one of the other things to bear in mind is as GLL has probably discovered with two of you being on GLL Charges for committees unless they're based on mass general law or a by-law, which not all of them are Sometimes don't seem to necessarily have a lot to do with what they do on a day-to-day basis And so unfortunately the charge document doesn't really tell you if that's the thing And so again, I was going largely on experience of who tended to show up at town meaning needing something And therefore we as the select board could have been useful to them as they were Facilitating that and it's entirely possible town council could continue to play that role as we outlined in the rules Serving is that source of information. Oh, maybe they didn't know that this other committee is working on a similar thing Darcy as a member Do you want to provide any additional insight into the process behind this? Yeah, I Have a little memo here that the committee Wrote to itself before this is final report and it basically pretty much outlines the number one committees as Being committees that are likely to bring policies to the council But leaving it flexible so that we can come up with ideas for other committees other than the ones they listed as number ones The duties we listed in in the actual rule and we've been discussing that and As far as the selection process for selecting who of us should be liaisons They suggested that during a public meeting Present the list and ask for volunteers right in an open meeting and then where several volunteers There are several volunteers for one committee refer to OCA for final recommendations based on discussions with the volunteers And then an alternative was to draw straws during a council meeting which Is interesting So, yeah, and I think the report itself got into a whole lot more detail about what we had discussed But we you know discussed it pretty extensively and as you can see from the list Also, I have to leave in five minutes of why I okay Okay, so If I'm looking at the discussion questions for liaisons, which you know, so I have to open but essentially I came up with Five discussion questions that I think we should we should try and answer In our time here today one is what criteria should determine which town committees or elected bodies should have a liaison Which I think is is what is really what rules dealt with in a lot of ways in which we just heard Second is which committees meet that criteria? So I think we should start by it's exactly what elicit did which ones why would we or would we not think a committee should have Liaison and then which meet those criterias I think a question that I put out there even though I think we probably all agree on the answer is it important That every committee that meets the criteria has a liaison So if you know there are 13 counselors if we find 16 Committees and we say they all meet the criteria. Do we have 16 liaisons which would require a lot? Is it important that every counselor also serve as a liaison and should counselors be allowed to serve as liaisons to multiple committees? I think that questions one and two are really the priority questions that we absolutely need to answer for today This is already on the January 6th agenda And so we do want to bring something to the council. I think questions three through five are less important But we do still need to consider them so Alyssa so would you consider a sixth question? I I am open. Yeah, that can also be in the lower priority. I Think it's especially given some recent discussions it's worth considering the question even if we decide not to answer it as to whether or not the President and vice president should be allowed to serve as liaisons and that reflects back to not only recent discussions about the role President the vice president but also around the idea that one of the things we always tried so hard to do was to make it sure that the Select Board was not going in and telling another committee what to do and When you're the president or the vice president of the council and you show up at somebody else's committee meeting it It has a weight Okay, and so it should we should make a conscious decision seems like So I want to start with question one which is which criteria should determine which town committees are elected bodies should have a liaison What I heard from Alyssa was sort of what what was pushed in rules was If it is likely that that body will be bringing something before the town council Then it makes sense for them to have a liaison. So some of these bodies sort of act very much in a silo. They don't ever You know, I'm thinking in my head of why don't make judgments by any committees ahead of time But there are some committees that are allowed to promulgate regulations on which the council never has any influence say or vote And there are other committees that will have to bring their stuff to the council That seems to me a very logical criteria for whether or not one needs a Liaison is there any do people agree with that? And is there any additional criteria that we feel should be considered? No, is that the only criteria? No. Oh, sorry George. I didn't see your finger My finger is kind of hidden. I Had thought about this a little bit and it felt to me that Even if it's they're not going to bring a policy Even if the they can go off and do whatever they want to do by whatever Master and rule or whatever it is that allows them to do that It seemed to me it would be valuable for the council to to know what they're up to Now maybe the argument is well just read their minutes or pay attention and that's not a bad argument And it might be the right response But I thought anybody that is regulatory in nature Should have a liaison that was just my you know naive sort of initial thought And anybody that distributes money that hands out taxpayer dollars Should have a liaison I guess my thinking was not so much that That we might actually have to act on something they would bring to us Which I agree is absolutely essential that would definitely be a criterion and maybe the only one that we decide on But I thought that it would also be helpful for the council to have at least one individual who's You know a liaison to these other kinds of bodies So that a if there was something that needed to be brought before the council just for FYI They could do that and be Fellow counselors would have a list and they would know that say Ryan is the contact or liaison for board of health And if you just want to know what board of health is up to and you don't want to plow through their minutes and blah blah blah You could just reach out to councillor Ryan or whoever and say you know what what's going on there So I guess I felt there might be some role for just keeping the council apprised of the work of other Important bodies not that all these committees aren't important, but some obviously right. I'm more important than others So I thought anything that was regulatory in nature anything that distributed taxpayer dollars In addition to any and obviously anybody that would potentially bring a policy for us to actually have to act on So I'm gonna I'm only gonna cut you off because I know Darcy has to leave and I want to allow her an opportunity to weigh in here Yeah, I just I just you know thought crossed my mind that you know, we've been operating for one year without liaisons and I guess I would just suggest we think about You know what what have we missed? By not having liaisons in the last year. What has anybody noticed that? Is there a problem? You know kind of makes me wonder whether we need liaisons at all because we didn't have them for the last year, but But no, I I see the merit in liaisons, but I think we should think about that like What could we have done better had we had liaisons in the last year? Yeah I Yeah, I think actually so originally George originally came in here thinking if they're not gonna actually bring a policy before the town council They shouldn't have a liaison But I do think your point is well taken that some of these regulatory bodies that make impactful decisions We want to make sure so obviously Board of Health right now is considering a lot of tobacco regulations But a lot of people in the business community are concerned about That I'm not sure that all 13 counselors are aware of what's happening with that and certainly They might be interested in that Board of License Commissioners, I know they just did the common Vic license over I'm looking to Alyssa because I feel like she probably know there's more than me and they did the BYOB regulations Which maybe some counselors were aware of some weren't but all these things impact our local business community Which I think most counselors have an interest in so My original thought coming in was well Board of Health Board of License Commissioners shouldn't have liaisons because Nothing they do ever comes before the council well based on what you said I think they were actually maybe some merit in that I'd be curious to hear Alyssa's perspective I mean, I think a lot of it is that we we can have the conversation about what makes the most sense And then we can talk about what's practical Yeah, and I think Darcy's point to that was is also well applies to that as well is that No matter what GL proposal changes around our committee structure And the council adopts that we are still all going to be in multiple meetings a week as it is And so I would never for example want somebody to say oh, no this Council committee can't get together at such-and-such date because I have to go to an ag com meeting It's like no you don't like you have to go to the council thing And so partly it's maybe not being able to write some of that into the rules But it's this Feeling toward it, and that's why I was referring to like obtaining the minutes And in fact that would encourage some of these bodies at which I am not picking on any specific ones yet to like get their minutes done but to To so that we do know that it's happening right and so in theory it could like if you were the if George was the Liaison to the Board of Health and maybe he went to a hearing they had or maybe he didn't but he just read the minutes And he was like wow, this is a really interesting conversation I'm just gonna have this added to the next town council packet so that everybody knows and then if they decide they want to start Following it more carefully than they can but at least then it's one of those Let's not get surprised at the grocery store thing where we say we have no idea what you're talking about And like you say these all do have economic impacts to be fair art spending also has economic impacts, but I will Offend my artist friends when I say the cultural council gets State money, which is all of our money, right? It's not come from some magical source It's all of our money, but it makes no difference to the town council whether or not The cultural council decides to fund a particular program or a particular sculpture unless of course it's gonna be in a public way And then we have another conversation So if for example, they were working on something that was going to be in the public way Then we would want to know about it But just because they get money from the state lottery that they get to do that they get to distribute I don't think means that one of us feels some obligation to keep track of what they're doing Conversely Board of Health, which technically isn't spending our money except you know taxpayer money To do all the inspections etc that the board has relationship to the staff for That one is one that tobacco regulations if they're a future marijuana Licensing where they interact with board of licensed commissioners etc. That is going to be very interesting And so we're trying to avoid this whole siloed approach, but yet can't be going to meetings every five minutes So I'm not it's really hard to figure out where to draw those lines That you can say these obviously fall here and these obviously fall there And we may just have to pick them out based on We can use those criteria to help us decide But we may find that some square pegs round poles all that doesn't really fit like you can't just have somebody say Oh, I took the criteria. I made the chart now. We know There may need to be some flexibility there and again the acknowledgment that I think we did put in the rules Even with the revised rules is that this doesn't obligate the town counselor to go there right George what if the obligation were simply to read the minutes Maybe reach out to a chair if you had questions And that was the obligation and the other piece the obligation was that on somewhat of a regular basis I don't know occasionally at least you would contribute a short, you know one paragraph or just a very brief Description of what's been happening on X and that would be placed in the console packet And say a folder, you know or something that just says, you know liaison reports for this, you know most recently is a report and Whether you go to a meeting or not is is strictly up to you and your energy and time And obviously this is points well taken that it never takes precedence over your Other council duties you can't say well I can't make a GOL or OCO or to whatever because I have to go to You know cultural council me is that I mean, I obviously I'm right now. I'm leaning toward a more Generous view of where liaison should be put but I can see the argument for a much much stricter one and Basically saying to me someone like me Well, you know the minutes are there and you can read them and you know, that's up to you to find out What's going on? I guess I'd like to see liaisons play a role in helping us Be a little bit more aware of what? town committees and boards are doing And if we could make that a somewhat somewhat more formal policy or procedure There'd be no excuse for us as Alyssa said having one of those Supermarket moments because it was it was there for us to read and see we just didn't bother to look at it And so it's on us So I guess there's the two very different views I'm just kind of pushing a little bit for the more broader interpretation But with the thought that what we're really asking people to do is simply you know on a regular basis read the minutes of this committee if you have questions or problems reach out to the chair and then at some point on a Regular basis just file something with so it gets in the packet So that counselors who are interested in are trying to keep up to date with going on and ag-com or a board of health or You know Conservation Commission or whatever Have a brief sort of description Does that seem like maybe that is too much? I don't know it certainly means a lot more liaisons than I think some of us would like Our liaison rules keep it pretty broad right and I think that every counselors Going to treat liaisons Differently so if I am a liaison to a committee, which I surely hope to avoid I I Don't have the capacity to go to any more meetings than I I don't have the capacity to go to the meetings that I currently have to Go to right so if I if I am chosen to be a liaison I am going to be doing what you described which is I will read the minutes when I have time I Will reach out to the chair maybe on occasion just be like what should I know that you're doing? And when I feel like something important is happening, I will Make sure the council is aware of it. I Am certain that there are some counselors who will see the liaison role as they are at every single Meeting and probably talking during every single one right and to some extent. I think we just allow for that Flexibility but your question is because those two things require very different time commitments They might influence how many liaison assignments we give I'm trying to follow what you're saying Which that my interpretation was depending on how we interpret the role of liaison might influence how many Liaisons we decide there are because if it's an easy easy or a job Then we feel flexible to have more but if we actually expect them to go to meetings Maybe we want fewer fewer. Is that what you're saying? I Guess I was saying that if we're really only keeping it to those who will bring Policies to the council that the council has to act on I'm guessing that would keep the number fairly small and that would perhaps eliminate some of the ones that have already been Highlighted in green again. I may be wrong Maybe all the greens would correlate with bringing policy to the council the council actually has to act on So my thought was if we stick to that strict Sort of criterion and that's it and we don't consider any other criteria that may just by a very fact of the matter reduced to very relatively small number and Again, as you said people will do what they're going to do some will go to all the meetings Some will go to hardly any meetings, but we would expect at a minimum They would read the minutes and that they would contact if necessary the chair and that occasionally at least they would let us know What's going on? They would give us a heads up in an every way was appropriate and So I guess my thought was that's one way of looking at it if you have the view that I have which is Also, I guess it is the idea that I think it's important that counselors have a get out of their own silos I mean, we all are in this sort of you know, we we have a lot to do. There's no question But you know, there's so much going on and you just be nice If you knew that somebody on the body of 13 is keeping an eye on X So if you have a question about board of health or whatever you could go to them now the response to that could be well Just go you could reach out to the chair yourself. You can read the minutes So maybe what I'm concerned about is just a matter of people, you know But given all the pressures on us and given all the demands on our time if we we have 13 people here or maybe 12 or maybe 11 if we take out the president vice president. So say we have 11 people Is it asking too much if we agree on a set of bodies? That we'd like to sort of be not only because they could bring policies to us But also because what they're doing is something that we feel that counselors in general should be somewhat aware of The other thought I had just as we're talking is well Maybe we should simply say you can't attend any meetings that all you can do is liaison and all we're asking All we're asking you to do but all you can do is Do the minutes and reach out to the chair, but you are actually not to attend meetings period Alyssa good luck with that I Don't disagree with you in theory. I'm just not sure the council is willing to be controlled to that level so Because you know, I can never just follow exactly the linear order. I do have to jump around I am Personally thinking toward 11 right now Taking out the president and vice president Although I would argue that they could be the liaisons to the other elected bodies like the school committee or the Library trustees or the housing authority and I'm not sorry. I'm not going to count the Oliver Smith will elect her It's just not relevant to our work, but then it's more like I'm elected you're elected kind of thing and also the president should be in close contact with those bodies because of the Capital requests associated with the library and school committee anyway. And so that gives them a liaison assignment without giving them a liaison assignment So to speak But if we want to call it their official assignment, that's fine with me, too But so that leaves 11 bodies that aren't elected bodies They're appointed bodies that we think need that we would feel meet the criteria and I just want to I Want to try and change our language a little bit. It's not about bringing us policies It's about bringing us likely actions and and we could come up with a different word than action, but Most committees are never going to bring us a policy They're they're going to bring us a by-law change or they're going to bring us a funding request and So maybe it's an in action Not in action, but that that may require action by the town council and so You know that would that would argue Effectively for like tack being a yes, but kind of gisaki sister city committee being a no and so If we could come up with 11, I guess would be my idea then because I know I'm mixing the questions together, but We could start with trying to see if there are 11 that seem enough the same or does it fall out that after five The rest are like that kind of all the same so maybe 11 because I would like to see people have no more than one and That that's hard and fast like you absolutely can't be assigned more than one how much you interpret You're gonna go to it versus something a first verse is up to you But then the other thing the select board did in order to feel like we were Maximizing our compliance with open meeting law is I know you all remember what our agenda's like at the select board on the reverse side Of the agenda, which was only ever one page by the way The reverse side of the agenda and it included an upcoming calendar on the reverse side It had a list of all our liaison assignments And so it had the chart that had the names of the committees and with our names next to it so that people would know that in theory and we posted that as part of our meeting posting and so Then people would know in theory Doug might be wanting to talk about the particular committee he was at or not And so what you're saying about having a play having a way of reporting out that's That's written right rather than we all know that by the time we get to counsel reports It's like And we're going yeah, we're that's Seen at that point so you know turning it into a paragraph You know every two months or something seems like a totally reasonable thing to do But if we go ahead since we already have such long agendas and we've been uploading them as part of our posting is We could include that list there too So again, the public would not be like why are you talking about conservation commission? But you still wouldn't say oh Let's just talk about master-in-law and reconstitute conservation like you wouldn't do that because that wasn't a topic Yeah, on the agenda, but you could certainly report out about it But that would also just be a handy place one of the frustrations I keep running into with any of these discussions is that we don't maintain Anywhere in Excel that all of us has that isn't about who got a priority committee assignment or not It's just who's on everything right to like remind ourselves and we did that with rules at one point We made it except one of the tabs in the spreadsheet in our report said this is who's doing what? Already because when we come to that I believe I call it thumb wrestling part where two people are like, but I want to do that one Yeah, it's like yeah, but you're already on three other Chill out right because I would argue that if somebody has extra capacity They should not be taking on additional liaison assignments They should be taking on additional town council responsibilities in town council meetings And and I will say that spreadsheet was in our packet for today But then I took it out because we're not talking about people But I have it in my oka folder to go back in the packet when we do although at that point that It might be completely I think I am going to put us on break for three minutes But then when we come back what I actually wants to I think we've had enough theoretical discussion I want us to actually look at this and and go through this and actually try to nail down some of the committee so Okay, we're back so you two can share a computer I could try and project although it's not usually very useful Okay, so if we're looking at this document, there's some interesting things here, so There are eight There are eight bodies that rules had listed as Priority one group of those when we had our retreat Five of those were voted on by a majority of the town council as they should have a liaison so I Want to talk about them, but my sort of knee-jerk reaction is if rules decided that they were the Priority group number one and if a majority of the council voted that they should have a Liaison those might be the easiest to decide whether or not they should have a liaison and so Those are highlighted in green and rose two through eight. So why don't we just quickly? Talk about them and like I said, I think these might be the easy one so affordable housing trust To me make sense of something liaison because they have already brought Two things to us in the past year Okay, the next one that's in private group one that a majority of the council selected was the Community Preservation Act Committee Is there a particular reason? They are going to be bringing us recommendations, but I mean they have a very public process It's in it's in a relatively short period of time each year I'm less wedded to that one, but I agree that I It should make the top 11. Let's say if I'm still working for my 11. Yes, you should make top 11 So I'm not sure my top three but it's my two. It's definitely in my top 11 Okay, and I know this is one where people have been sort of Counselors have been attending these meetings in in a assumed liaison The next one which was in priority working group priority group number one and had a majority vote of the council But some of the best of my understanding no longer exists is downtown parking working group so So the way you manage that because yeah when I wrote this they should have already we should have already just Banded them two years before then but you know that was then and this is now and so they have actually been officially dissolved now but what the point of this remains is that Perhaps other counselors will not share my feelings about this But I feel incredibly strongly that past town managers who created a purely advisory to the town manager not subject to open meeting law parking commission. I Found extremely offensive and so it and it included similar Representation to what we put on downtown parking working group, you know some business owners the chamber now the bid But or maybe at the end part of parking commission But I found it very frustrating that I knew business owners had concerns and Customers had concerns and residents had concerns about parking and they were all being vetted in this internal process That then came to the select board as well. We all decided this and it's like Based on what public input right because it's like that was the thing with downtown parking working group is that Although they had many struggles over the years and including maintaining a membership that was consistent Which was frustrating for the members as well is that they had public meetings And they asked people to come in and talk to them about specific things And it was all a public process as opposed to sitting in a room with staff and a couple of business owners and so my point in airing that old grievance is that Whatever we still need some kind of focus on parking downtown and I think that you know It's all well and good to say we're gonna have with those three priorities Right that came out of the downtown parking working groups recommendations to say we're gonna have a staff member That's the the parkings are yet. That's fine But and that person needs to be Associated as staff with any future parking committee, but there needs to be I believe a committee that is focused on this I'm entirely willing to have that committee be a subcommittee of CRC for example as opposed to being a separate thing In fact, I really don't think it should be a separate thing I think it should be a town council animal of some kind whether we call it a parking Town council's parking commission or we call it CRC subcommittee or CRC's ad hoc or whatever Well come back Let's not let's not completely So what I'm trying to say is that is so important to me And I believe to some other people that although we can no longer say we're gonna have a liaison to it I believe it needs to have council membership on it as I said back then for possible member Whatever it is, okay, whatever the parking thing is in the future So that just needs to be taken into account in terms of numbers of assignments Um, so the next one and I do have sort of a question that might be for you Alyssa on this That has party group one I had a majority vote is planning board parentheses zoning subcommittee thereof so There's a planning board and then there's the zoning subcommittee the planning board which meet back to back usually but They are two separate meetings my read My reading of that wording is that this is intended to be the Liaison to the zoning subcommittee of the planning board. However, there's no other line for Planning board and so is it can you? because Everybody's initial glance is planning board. In fact some town counselors told us later They didn't even know there was a zoning subcommittee at the planning board that was different than the zoning board of appeals so you know people learn but Based on past experiences where a select board that I Fought my way on to had been sending individuals to planning board meetings to Try and convince them to vote one way or another on a particular application But really inappropriate to me as a liaison. So that's where my liaison Attitude is coming from on some of these things So but zoning subcommittee made sense from the standpoint of the select board I served on most recently that Because they were talking about changes right potentially to things It was nice for this at that time select board to have a clue because we always had to have a position even though We didn't have an executive authority on planning We always had a position to recommend to town meeting because they figured we were covering We were like paying more attention over the course of the year than town meeting members necessarily always were so The zoning subcommittee is like that relationship to CRC is what I see given that we have CRC if we didn't have a CRC then But that may be Where that relationship is better covered if there's a CR If it's somebody perhaps even a CRC member that is doing whatever zoning stuff is The person that's related to that But the whole point was to avoid the appearance that a town councilor was trying to come in and serve as the And now eighth member of the planning board when they were making legal planning board decisions Versus making by law recommend change recommendations or new overlay districts, you know that kind of thing right so my my my thought on this is Yeah, the zoning subcommittees actually going to be recommending zoning bylaws before the council So they a hundred percent meet our criteria the planning board Does nothing they do comes Except for the zoning stuff comes to the council They are regulatory, but not in the same way that like board of health is regulated. They're implementing regulations They're not promulgating regulations, right and they're not spending taxpayer So I think by our criteria the sort of body of the planning board absent the zoning subcommittee doesn't necessarily meet I'm trying to think about how I'm wording this in the report Right Zoning subcommittee obviously has to have planning board vote on what they decided before it comes to town council But in terms and then in terms of how the hearings are going to be managed and all that jazz for you know That's kind of all work in progress till we sort that out But yes, I would agree that just like the zoning board of appeals Doesn't belong on this list and isn't on this list The planning board itself doesn't belong on here, but the zoning subcommittee of the planning board does and again Not forcing people to go to their meetings and certainly not really encouraging town counselors to go and have input to the by-laws before beforehand necessarily But to have that awareness that something's happening I think is valuable because then as a town council then we can tell people oh the zoning subcommittees working on this We just heard about that from Darcy We know that she told that they're working on something associated with that right now go to their meetings Okay, George This this is interesting to me because it really puts to the test my you know original vision of wanting counselors to Sort of be aware what's going on and so That's why I had regulatory in my list not share a list as concern of You know counselors trying to you know Influence or even give you the appearance of influence on those bodies. That's totally inappropriate But and maybe this is just for me to think about you know, I don't usually have time to And maybe I just have to make time, but I usually don't have time to Review what's the planning board is up to what the zoning board is up to? Even though it's obviously there in the public record. It's not that hard to find out And so my original sort of idea was that if you have a liaison, you know, what they do is that kind of but I Don't know is maybe this idea is a bad idea At least when I think about these two bodies Maybe the answer simply is, you know, if you really Care about it and you're doing your job. You need to just take time and look into it Especially given the nature of what they do It may not be appropriate to To have we've already said ZBA is not on this list and I think for good reason In spite of what I had thought originally and planning board as well Really should not be on this list, but though the subcommittee does make sense for the reasons you stated It just causes me to rethink my sort of idea. Well, it's important that we have Counselors who are sort of like the contact person for X Y and Z but for these two bodies Planning board in CPA Hmm Maybe that's well, I know but it may be just say look at as a counselor They're going to be certain bodies like these that you're just going to have to Do a little homework on your own I think there are still some bodies where I think it would be valuable to us to have little reports I'm just envisioning a little report in a liaison packet on ZBA or planning board Just that that kind of makes me a little nervous. So maybe so think think then if we can think about these reports think of it this way so Zoning subcommittee of planning board the little report would be they've decided they're taking up inclusionary zoning again They've decided they're not going to look at design guidelines yet. I'm hoping this is wrong but That would be valuable for us to know that they've made that decision rather than just the absence of us getting it Doesn't mean that they aren't working on it in three months. It means they've tabled it for six months However planning board ZBA Decisions they're making on site plan review or permits Yes, it's all part of our economic impact, right? And but some of it is just whether or not somebody can build on a flag lot for a house and while yes These things are definitely all connected. Does it rise to the level of? And all those decisions are on Are on the website and you can watch and see we've had complaints for example many years ago About the way applicants were treated at those meetings by ZBA and planning board members in terms of the attitude You bring to the table, right? Is it yes and or is it no way? You know that you're trying to say to people But you can't get that across on a report anyway, and so While we appoint them right which makes us think we want to know more about what they're doing I'm not sure what a report would look like other than wow there So they had another meeting that lasted five hours. They got two things done and they had to extend two other things three more weeks Is that helping us? I don't know So the first the first thing I do I just clarify for you is zone when we say zoning Board of Appeals is not on the list It's not in the priority one list. It is in this document It is in number three priority and only two counselors voted For having it so it's not that it wasn't ever put out there It's in these in these green ones, right? Um, you know, so I do want to move on I think I think my general thought on this is we will likely recommend to me the zoning subcommittee You absolutely should have a liaison It should probably also be a liaison from whatever who's also a member of whatever committee deals with zoning But we can talk about that later Planning board, you know my thought on this is do I need a report that says so planning board approved this out East Street project. Yeah, probably not it's you it's interesting to me especially, you know, but the other the other thing is the zoning subcommittee to the is not videotaped and I'm sure there are minutes, but I've never been able to find them They by legally they must have minutes I have never once been able to find and because they're doing things that I'm really interested in but planning board has minutes And it's videotaped and so every time I'm curious about what there's there's access points So I think this is okay. I do want to move on so Transportation Advisory Committee had the most number of votes Which was 11 11 of 13 counselors So that one to me seems like an easy yes, because even if we say no, we have 11 of 13 counselors who are telling us we're wrong Okay Um Adcon oh actually so let's do this so those were all the priority ranking ones that had a majority vote So actually what I want to do before I go into the other ones I had a majority vote and two is there were three bodies That did not get a majority vote even though they had been ranked as priority one And I want to talk about them before we go into it too So they're Amherst redevelopment authority Amherst school committee and Jones library trustees No one not a single counselor wanted to see a liaison to the library trustees Only one wanted to see one to the Amherst redevelopment authority Three wanted to see one to the school committee. These are all Elected bodies So before we look at any others. I want to just deal with these They there are priority ranking number one from rules But they have very few counselors who actually wanted to see it So do we want to do we think there should be a liaison to any or all of these? Again, I'm not going to pretend I remember every word of the conversation, but the Since I recollect from the fact that we included these as priority one is because some members of rules Either themselves believed or believed that other town counselors would be very interested in the work of those committees And so rather than saying they're not a priority and then having people fight about it. They were left on the list. I Agree that communication absolutely needs to occur between those bodies and and that's why my See the pants idea today was that potentially that's a role for our officers to continue because I Certainly hope they already are doing that and if they aren't then that needs to be something we encourage whether we call the liaison assignment or or not Again, I'm open to whether or not we call the liaison assignment and say it's for the officers because again We're all elected officials and that puts it on a more level playing field And then so it's okay if the town council president calls the Jones library trustees It doesn't seem like the town council president's trying to make them do something Because they're on a more level playing field But if we don't want to call it liaison and we just want to say officers talk to officers. That's great I I don't care, but I think that's why they ended up on the list And I think as we had more conversations about what a liaison does and people realize that they couldn't really like influence It would be much less interesting and that we they weren't gonna like say well the town council talked about X Y Z Associated with the schools project like that we weren't going to be going and reporting like that out to these things that typically that I think that's why it became of less interest But I don't want to lose sight of them all together because I'm worried about the communication between them That's absolutely an ongoing challenge, but I See it as an officer's role, so it's either officers as liaisons to only those or Don't column liaisons and just assume that officers will do and encourage officers strongly to do that George I Don't think we've been any trouble in communications with the school committee. What are the others again? We have school library George library trustees and then the Amherst redevelopment authority redevelopment authority We just right seems to be Not I mean it only gets involved when there's actually something for it to do and lately There hasn't been anything for it to do is my understanding, so I That's also a choice on their part I mean there's a leadership role to be taken there and they are in a reactive mode at this point And that's true like everybody they cycle through things and the only reason we're having such good communication with schools right now It's because of the capital projects. I can guarantee you that if we weren't have but of course We're gonna have those for the next several years. So communications build in but I mean I Would hope that you know the president would say hey I met with the school committee chair and it turns out this is the direction or They have appointed the building committee like that doesn't necessarily have to be the town manager reporting that that could be an officer Reporting that but I don't see just sending a regular counselor to those things And my thought is for at least for the school committee in the trustees. I mean Between budget coordinating group and JCPC. There's already some collaboration on things. So Okay, so it sounds like no to those three. Okay, so then we can move on to priority group two of which The first one that pops out is agricultural commission as being in the second priority group But did have a majority of counselors supporting a liaison. I Will admit to this group that I have very limited knowledge about what the ag-con does and so I will defer to Those of you who are much more familiar with them And I wish we had our Yeah We had Sarah here too. Yeah, it's too bad that she couldn't join us today the um is It you know like anything else it ebbs and flows right and so it might at some point in the future be bringing us something Associated with say water rates. There have been complex discussions about the way water and sewer works for farming operations for example There have been difficult commerce and again I'm kind of low to bring up things that we think we've resolved But there have been conversations in the past associated with the farmers market that the agricultural commission has been involved in in terms of Access to the farmers market by Amherst farmers Etc that could rise to the level of becoming a town council issue because we approve of their use of that parking lot at no charge As we always have because we consider it a wonderful bonus for the town So they would be in my you know second or third cut You know, they're not necessarily in my first cut because I'm seeing board of health and you know Kind of on a board of health theme here and board of licensed commissioners, of course is brand new and so I Mean I I would I would tweet them with conservation commission and wherever we put ag-com and conservation commission to me is Fine, but if if they're likes numbers tent going on my 11th thing if their numbers 10 and 11 I'm fine with that round and saying their numbers four and five Okay And I think and I think actually the other it It makes sense maybe because the other one in party group two that has a majority of the council is conservation commission That it does make sense to maybe have these together and George This is where I guess my argument does to me make a little bit of sense that if there were something in our packet every Time we had a meeting that was for liaison reports And I just open it up and take a look and I see something from ag-com or I see something from the conservation commission I would open that up and read it because I normally don't see anything. I don't know anything B I don't have the time to pay attention shamefully Whereas with planning board and zoning I can see a strong case for should at least be paying attention to that so I think there's a place for this kind of liaison role where You know when appropriate the liaison would put something in our packet And also if you ever did have a question about conservation commission ag-com You would know there's a colleague who'd go to and say, you know, well, what's going on and hopefully they would tell you So I agree with the list of that. I wouldn't like to see this Go completely off the list But it would be obviously lower down than some of the ones so I'd like to keep it but lower down And Korea's gonna say so for both ag-com and con-com Okay. All right, so I'm gonna put them as tentative. Yeses. Yes, question mark and I do and I will I was gonna say that I will say that the first time I thought about this liaison thing which was in September I said I was not one of those seven votes for con-com because I thought of them in the same vein this planning board in that Projects come they why do I don't I don't need to know that so-and-so got approval for a pesticide to apply pesticide somewhere And it but then my opinion to change a little bit in by law review committee when we learned that they're going to be making revisions to the wetlands by law and I thought oh well if they're actually Going to be in the near future putting forth by law revisions that will come to the council Maybe maybe we say a liaison for now, but maybe they don't always need one. So Also, you were you had a reaction Historical thank you. I was wondering where historical commission was on this list and how in terms of how many votes it got Right, because I know it's not green, but historical commission is in priority group number three and it got one vote So interesting to me because I would equate them at least with ag-com and conservation commission and potentially higher They are the ones who got who left us with port up That's not entirely fair because they obviously aren't the ones who own the building or the people who are running the shoddy business in it But by protecting the old virtue cheese as though it was something I think that that actually does have a big impact on our I would I would put them at least with those two rather than leaving them off George. You seem like you agree Yes, okay, so That gets us through all of the ones that got Majority votes of the council so ag-com and con-com were to the last two both of which I thought were interesting Up majority votes of the council, but each of them only one member of the council reported having ever actually been to them But anyways, so what I want to do now is look at some of the yellow ones in priority group number two And I want to do it in in the order in which they got votes So board of licensed commissioners had six votes, so it was not a majority of the council, but it was close My understanding is from the way George has interpreted Regulatory and the way we talk about it that they might be one that should have Their agreement and this is a straight. Yes, not a yes question mark like we put on con-com Okay, so I would I also agree there. So that was easy So then let's look at Board of Health which got four votes. No one has ever attended Board of Health apparently Yeah, okay Okay Or do you not want to say I don't want to say I Will give you that when we finish going through these and then we will figure out which ones we're going to take out Um Well, I think Alyssa gets the liaison to any of the committees that she has attended Any of the ones where she is the one person who has ever attended it. That's her committee through 10 So then there's a few that have three so let's just go through them disability access advisory committee I Pretty sure I voted for them. I you know I generally would dependent on how many stickers I had Because I have felt that they've been quite siloed not you know by anyone's Aggregious intent, but it took a very long time for this select board to convince staff that every time we had a Request associated with changing a sidewalk or changing The way we put out the parking machines, etc That we check in with disability access advisory committee first a lot of what they do day to day has Zero to do with us in terms of like they have to all that construction over Amherst College They had to do certain variances so to speak as to what they were allowed to do And it's like I don't think we need a report that says they were able to do a ramp because the AAC said they could but I Feel like they're not Included enough in all the conversations we have so when we talk about which sidewalks are the priority to work on You know where around the around the senior center for example Where are the key out? How can people pull up to those little parking kiosks, you know All those kinds of things in terms of the day-to-day decisions that we make I can understand that you know at some point push comes to shove but I actually Consider them, you know something that we need to integrate more into our decision-making But that can be accomplished By simply continuing to pressure to town manager to pressure staff to ensure that we're getting reports from them But if we feel like we can't get it that way we could have a liaison who then was bringing us the reports If we felt like we couldn't get it from from staff and I mean everybody's busy. Nobody's intentionally not telling us stuff It's just that it doesn't always get included although we have gotten a lot better about remembering to ask them George do you have an opinion on this? Yeah, maybe third tier the other reason I find them important is I think they could be potentially playing a larger role as Various capital projects get considered right for example We have run into the path problem in the past that even though we have Designed what we believe to be an accessible playground Members of DAC with their real-life experiences have not always found you know because there's there's always judgment Even if you meet the letter of the law is this really the best way to do it And so they would they offered very helpful input associated with things like that and so It's also about aging in place right we keep having those conversations about being senior-friendly So I think they could be taking on an even larger role, but again if their tears necessary That's cool, so I'm gonna put them as a yes for right now But when we come back and we'll see the next one that I got three votes in tier two is human rights commission. I Personally don't think this needs a liaison Okay Well, then there we go Next one is Pioneer Valley Transit Authority. I saw that And that was written before we went around in circles a million times a couple months ago about How the planning board was getting appointed to PBTA and who had voting rights? It was the alternate blah blah blah so much inside I don't even really remember and so That was for Pioneer Valley Planning Commission actually in that particular case and then PBTA Because the thing was we used to have the select board used to have a seat on PBTA, which like made a difference I mean we never got a lot president, but it made it John actually got a relative president when he was our town manager And we we delegated it to him. So it given the importance of PBTA in our community But again the question is since the role is no longer an elected officials role It used to be the select board who then delegated or or had Doug go in the last couple of years Since we no longer have that option of sending a town counselor unless the town manager decided to delegate it to a town counselor Which would be weird. I think it's just that we need to be having the town manager communicate to us What's happening with PBTA? the next one is Does that both then both PBTA and PVPC? Actually, yeah We're leaving out to the town manager to be the contact Okay, you guys zero votes. Yeah interesting voting patterns here Okay, so that is all of the ones that got more than two votes and priority group rating To there are three committees in priority group Three they got more than three votes. I want to go through them now The first one is the Amherst housing authority which got three votes from counselors It doesn't make my cut. It's another elected body. I would agree and it fits in with the other elected bodies The fine was set in a That was like a fuck it's Friday Okay, then the next one is the community development block grant advisory committee I feel much in the same way of cultural council is this is not town money and so even though they're spending taxpayer money It's not It's our money, but it's not our local dollars But maybe so I fight for this one over a bunch of others But I'd also be willing to let it go so it depends on what else ends up on our final list So I'd put it on a maybe list because I don't think it should be siloed away from the council Even though it has zero to do with the council under the current charter It used to be that The town manager used to tell the select board. I'm gonna do this The block grant advisory committee is saying I should do this I agree with them or I the town manager agree with them or I disagree with them So I'm gonna do this what do you select board thing because I get to make the final decision But you can tell me if you think something and that way an elected body had a say Okay, and and that way all the people who were unhappy with the decision that would be made by block grant advisory or The town manager's interpretation of their decision had a place to go to elected officials for accountability It is a lot of money and the vast majority of it goes to capital projects Many of which are town-based capital projects like sidewalk on East Hadley Road Okay, so You know, like it's a third group maybe for me and I think that it's a substantive It's enough of a hot-button issue in town George it would be the kind of pack I guess right now my test is if I saw this in a Council packet, but I open it and the answer is yes So I definitely think that it's be useful and if we can get someone to do it, that would be great. Okay, I Will concede um And then the last one they got more they got three or more votes was the public art commission Which no one has ever been to but four people thought I should have a liaison George you seems like you're saying no, Alyssa Yeah, we're on tape So public art commission has been really complicated since Well, I mean it's always been siloed right and again They can get money from the cultural council in theory and they can access other kinds of grants too and so They sometimes have been very siloed like in terms of making decisions about If any of you remember the delightful portion of the parking garage that has little screens in it that used to have poetry on them We've had other installations that again, we're like it, you know, well, you're the art people right so you decide but To some extent it's also sometimes public way where it's gotten really complicated was percent for art right percent for art has been kicking around for I don't know what five years now and and part of the reason that It went so badly at the beginning of the process which it did is because there wasn't enough communication In terms of what a liaison could have been helpful to make that happen And so I don't know if some people are I don't know why it got as many votes as it did if I had voted for it I don't think I did but heck. I don't remember is Is because of that complication because we don't want to be at loggerheads with each other We want to try and take their expertise and turn it into a thing that'll work well for us But aside from the weirdness of the current percent for our situation I'm not really convinced that you know other than if they I mean if they decide they'd want to do a project down to on something that we actually have some control over then great But if if it's just something the town manager controls, which is you know almost all the things It doesn't really matter for example the electrical boxes that have been painted the first set The select board had final say The second set just happened So because there's no longer an elected body who has a say over that All right, so that is that is all of the Committees that got three or more votes However, because we noted his we have put historical commission as a probable yes, and it only got one votes I don't want to just not look at these so as much as this is going to be weird I want to as quickly as we can do a quick Yes, no of the remaining ones and of course we have discussions about them, but I'm hoping that some of them will be quick so Amherst media board of directors personnel board rank choice voting commission This is a weird one because their proposal will come to the council at some point, but I Okay appointed them Yeah, we did that with them too It makes sense that they're one assumes they're kind of talking to us anyway Like this isn't gonna be a big secret that they're gonna work on for six years and then tell us at the end, right? They're gonna have intermediate reports and stuff. So I don't feel like we need okay Amherst inter recreation working group. I Would put this in as another plug for town manager needs to be responsible to report back out to us Just like with planning about planning commission and PBTA and he could maybe just add a new section like almost like a liaison section to His report board of assessors People's properties council on aging I would say yes So at least this would be a packet that if it showed up and if it showed up as a liaison in a liaison packet I would open it and see okay. What's going on? Given again, this is apparently my data air our old dirty laundry, but given the reaction that the council on aging had to the health center being built Coming as a complete surprise to some people that It's and given that they do have desires on a long-term capital project and given that we do have an aging population And we have the new Amherst neighbors Group working together and of course the senior center is separate from the council on aging although mostly you can't tell by looking at it It seems worth keeping a hand in if somebody would report. Yeah, so is this a Hard yes or a yes in the same way that some of these were like Okay soft yes Uh cultural council design review board, okay Darker task force At DPW fire station advisory Doesn't it doesn't exist right now? EDIC Hampshire Regional Emergency Planning Committee Local Historic District Commission. That's you and me George, right? LSE Commission tell me why Maybe I should tell you why first That's a that is a fair question I mean, it's it I guess my thought is that it's something that impacts the community at large It's the kind of thing that you know, many of our residents Make use of the programs their kids etc. And so, you know, it may turn out that Based on a list of experience over the years, it's really you know, not something you'd need to be keeping a rise of every month or every other month I guess I just I say yes because I consider it's something that that's a major Actor in the community involves a lot of our community members and so I mean, I still know what's what they're up to I'm having put it as a soft. Yes. So yes, we will put it as a soft. Yes Months Memorial Building Trustees Public Shade Tree Committee That was another problematic thing at one point, but I don't think that we need to assume that that will remain George No, okay Recycling Refuse Management Committee. I don't think it exists anymore There's been some confusion about that I think that's an add to the town manager report thing because whatever work They would or would not be doing and there's that solid waste plan just hanging out there Right. There's some confusion about whether we need to be apprised as to like what is going to happen in the future But until there's a functioning committee again, I'm not sure we register our voters Conagasaki sister city La Paz Centro sister city Water Supply Protection Committee Way finding internal working group if if there was one I would want I'd be fine with it being the president I would want some counselor to know what was going on with it because it's those big signs all around downtown Are you the one vote that voted for this right? And so I'd put I just put it under the town manager reporting stuff for now And zoning board of appeals it sounds like we already came to a decision And then the others I think we can ignore so at this point if you include our definite yeses and our Yeses We're at 13 of those six are definite yeses So our definite yeses are the affordable housing trust the Community Preservation Act Committee The zoning board I'm sorry the zoning subcommittee of the planning board Transportation Advisory Committee Board of Health and Board of License Commissioners. Those are our six definite yeses So we are running out of time, but I do want to have a recommendation for the council by the sixth because it is on the agenda And I don't want to spend too much time on the six talking about this. So I'm going to so that means there are seven Mabies one two three four five six Okay, so let's try to have Hopefully a quick discussion of this. I'm about I'm gonna tell you agricultural Commission concom Disability Access Advisory Committee Community Development Block Grant Committee the Council on Aging the Historical Commission and the LSSE Commission I don't Yeah, I don't personally care how many we have But I do think that 13 is a lot 13's a lot and do we feel like because I'm not planning to have anybody up more than one So then the question is are we then we'd be forcing the president vice president So I think I'm not personally opposed to the president and vice president I'm Serving as a liaison if it's especially if they just treat it in the sense of we collect minutes and report out I'm sorry. I interrupt you Evan But it just seemed like the president's duties are so onerous that adding this to their duties just seems crazy So what I was saying was I I am not in principle opposed to the president because she is the president Having the ability to be a liaison However, I don't necessarily know that the president wants to be a liaison So so let's just I mean do we want to just take a very quick survey of these again and make sure we still Agree we have adcom concom disability access Community Development Block Grant Council on Aging Historical Commission and LSSE Commission are there any of those that we feel like rise above the others George I'll take a stab at it Council of aging council on aging given some of our just the situation the community's in that seems to be higher up Obviously, I feel LSSE would also be there, but that's I Would think community block grant could be could be set aside Because that's something one can get information on I think On one's own Kind of like ZBA and planning board. It's it's you know, it's it's not that hard and But I guess siloing is something I'm concerned about I heard that with Alyssa with disability This it might be worth putting disability on there because of the silo concern Council on aging maybe ag com maybe from the point of view of of trying to there are certain bodies that have tended to be sort of left off outside of the main Drag and we could put them on or put them at a higher level for that reason Block grant may be given the fact that you know, you can find that out. It's not not that difficult Is there another one? They could fall in that Anybody by the argument of siloing that that one criteria would be Concerned about certain entities that are just They're often lost in the shuffle and we'd like to see if that's not happen So I think that I understand the rationale behind that My personal opinion is probably there are other ways to accomplish that and so my immediate thought is we're about to adopt Town manager goals and you could even write I mean he wants specific measurable goals and you could write into them We want updates on disability We we feel like these are committees that are siloed and we don't get information from them So we're not just instead of saying a blanketed like better communication about what town committees are doing We can literally say is one of your his goals. We want consistent updates, especially from these committees Or we can we can give feedback to him that we don't see these popping up in the town manager report with the frequency We like and we want I just wonder if it's if siloing alone is a reason to give a liaison as opposed to exploring some of these alternative approaches from that standpoint, I Mean, there are a couple I could I mean I could argue back on and off all of these I'm just not entirely convinced that block grant doesn't stick out as a sort I think amongst this group. I could let that go Even though it's a substantial amount of money, even though it's often town projects I think the fact that it is it is so closely tied to the town manager that He we should just ask him to report out to us what's happening with it He can tell us there about they've already done a call for requests on social service Now they're having the deadline for this he can just report that to us He can be our liaison for that group I think in a way that's different because they're not going to come to us to change a by-law or ask for money and So going back to that sort of action aspect of things. I'm more partial because of my old experiences I'm kind of keeping DAC and council on aging part of that whole age-friendly community Accessibility thing I'm kind of keeping them on the same level at that point. And so then I'm worried about And in fact, there wasn't a lot of talk about a senior center at least 10 years from now. Yes She said at least 10 years from now Then perhaps I wouldn't even include them on this list But given that they are concerned that we're overlooking senior concerns, okay? I would tend to if I had to drop off this list. I dropped block grant I Well my so I might have a slightly different interpretation of these because I think you all are trying to say How do we get this list down to 11? So each counselor has one whereas I said at the very beginning this meeting I don't want any so my my mindset might be slightly different on on these and honestly, I would I would Personally if this was a hundred if I was an authoritarian chair of this committee somebody accused me of I've been accused of it. I would keep Agcom and concom and drop the rest Personally because I think all of the rest are things that I would I don't I think it'd be great if we had more information on but I Personally don't think rise to the level of needing an assigned council liaison. I'm willing to cede that position But you know if you're asking my opinion, I'm I'm on the opposite end Why drop historical Yes, I I will I would love to do that So, you know where it comes from is I Don't have a full understanding of what historical does enough to be able to say that they need a liaison and while I have disagreed with many of their decisions I Don't envision in the same way that I might disagree with the ZBA decision. I don't necessarily Do we get stuff from them? I mean like I said like concom I probably would take off the list if not for the fact that I know they're about to revise wetland regulations and Agcom does send stuff to us on it, you know, so I'm willing to cede this because I I'm speaking from No one watches these I'm speaking from a place of ignorance on a lot of these as I really I've never been to a historical Commission, I only read about them in the paper when they make a decision that people Don't like so I don't so I'm willing to you know I'm in a lot of ways. I'm deferring to your experience That is why So under those conditions I would actually probably drop historical Commission concom and egg com all three and Say that they're enough more like the ZBA or like a day-to-day functioning of the planning board that Since we're aware that concom's talking about by-law It would be very foolish of them to not invite some of us to be part of their conversations before they get too far down the road but I Would tend to drop all three of those before I dropped anything else And I would be I mean again if we were all making our own brackets So I would drop those three and many people will not feel the same way I do about DAC and Council on aging because I tend to I'm lumping them together and then leisure services in some ways I'm kind of lumping with them as well because it's again, you know Serving various portions of our community that are not always fully interacting with each other George so my I'm seeing here is maybe just disabilities COA and LSE and everyone else gets gets jettisoned Can you repeat those George? That the only three from this list that would be yeses that we would Expect liaisons to be appointed would be the disabilities Council on aging and LSE and So that would drop historical commission that would drop community development black grant and that would drop Adcom and concom. That's correct, and that leaves us with nine right Now that makes Evan happy And It can make me relatively happy if I can be convinced as I think I can be That like ZBA and planning at least with a common concom We don't have to worry about siloing Or we don't have to worry that much about siloing and we don't have to worry too much about being kept in the loop My concern again my argument has been that Trying to keep counselors in the loop keeping aware of what's going on in outside of our own little counselor world If we get little reports occasionally that is very useful at least to me I think So is the sense that with adcom and concom at least We would get We wouldn't be out of the loop and that's what I'm hearing from Alyssa And So I can live with this lease three What I was going to say is I think that we can I Be nice to get those reports the question is just do we ask a counselor to provide those reports to the town manager? And to me they don't rise to a level of that requiring a counselor to give reports But we couldn't express the town manager we want more regular reports I also do want to say because you said that we'll make Evan happy We're only three people here and you two outnumber me So you don't have to make me happy if you disagree with me you can just outvote me one always likes to make the chair It's just a just wise strategy So anyway looks like those three would be what's left and their reasonable arguments for eliminating the others And the strongest case here is that we are truly trying to keep this to a maximum of one Liaison appointment for any given counselor, and if we're short a few that's quite okay It is and I think that you know when we when you so helpfully write this report on our behalf We can make it clear that we very much are looking for more information from the town manager on a regular basis on These various appointed bodies that he makes because now he makes all of them right so luck board used to do some of these but he does all of them now and So that could be once a month once every two months once a quarter. I don't care I mean like I'm not particularly beholden to a particular thing But I think it is entirely reasonable that he or a staff member he assigned could write a little report There's two sentences about what each of those committees is doing and then as Things Evan flow right like we talked about a little bit like associate with public art When percent for it when when they weren't doing percent for like whatever man just keep doing your stuff. That's awesome But percent for art became a big thing where we had to work with them Other committees may find that in the future like concom if they do if they do wetlands Like we'll have to work more closely with them But these are groups that I feel like I can argue the three that we kept that we're hearing from in isolation And that we know serve Significant segments of our population and that we are trying to better integrate into our decision-making and into our thought process And that's why given that we don't have unlimited time to keep track of all these people That we that those would be ideal to keep track of Okay, so we are eight minutes over time. So I do want to start to bring this to a close so at this point there are nine Committees that we are nine multiple member bodies that we are recommending the town council Appoints liaisons to there the affordable housing trust the community preservation act committee the zoning subcommittee of the planning board the Transportation advisory committee the board of health the board of licensed commissioners the disability access advisory committee the council on aging and the LSSE commission It's ever is that however it remembers this conversation Okay, so then I would entertain a motion to recommend that the council appoint liaisons To these nine committees that I just named I would make that motion Do I have to repeat it? No, I'll write it out Okay, George has moved that we recommend to the town council that these nine bodies Be given liaisons. I will second that Any further discussion? We just like our report to reflect to that our emphasis again on the aspect of rules that said you don't have to go Yes Okay, so with that all those in favor raise your hands a I Okay, that is three to zero with two absence There is one other item on our agenda, but we are already ten minutes Over time and it was under there's no public comment because there's no public present to say that for the sense of the video Which is the January meeting schedule?  So the January meeting schedule. I Didn't get around to actually putting it up until Yesterday, so you haven't really had a time to look at it. We can discuss it more Later on but I have our next meeting scheduled for January 6th. I know we're not at a full committee But is that okay with people? Next meeting January 6th Is that work for people? Well, I put this up last night possibly no one's looked at this I've been taught I've mentioned before January 6th, but I want to make okay. It's already I want to make sure people Okay, and so if for the January 6th meeting you can just take a look at this proposed Okay schedule I only put January in February in because I didn't want to spend what could be considerable effort doing a year-long Schedule if there is some reshuffling of committees or committee membership. So I only planned through through February So if you could look at those for the next meeting, but we're in agreement that January 6th Will be our next meeting at nine at our normal time 930 the last item on the agenda Which we can choose not to discuss is as we are aware GOL is recommending GOL is moving forward with consideration of a committee restructuring Every the other finance and CRC and GOL have had an opportunity to discuss The implications of that restructure and for that committee this committee has not yet had an opportunity to and that might be Important for this committee because the restructuring would involve the dissolution of this committee However, while I do Won't think it's useful for us to talk about it I'm not sure that doing so without the full committee president is present is useful Because George and I serve on GOL and so basically the conversation would be so so Alyssa as the one member Who's not on GOL on and so This is something that I would like us to discuss on January 6th before the council discussion on January 6th Because I think okay should have a response to that but it doesn't make sense to for going to try to put that together with two members absent So I will hold that until January 6th. So I Agree that we need to have the conversation as a full but in terms of me understanding What were you thinking is my question because I don't I totally get why I don't agree with the CRC proposal either But I get the idea of a lot of things ending up under GOL like that happen with rules and by-law and stuff I don't so are we saying are you envisioning then that for example under our current process that OCA would be Not I mean it would be gone. So therefore just the people who are on GOL would be the interview committee and I'm not sure I'm groovy with that and I think part of it is because we haven't gotten to the point and we Never get to the point because of ad hoc and working groups and blah blah blah of having a council committee that then has sort of an arm or a subcommittee that does a thing and I'm not in I don't know and so just like what were your thought you're just like fine It's fine that GOL does all GOL things and also does interviews because we're at is The thinking that because we're at the point where we are in the process that we've established enough of a process We can slide any of us in or what's the yeah? I mean so I think I think the basis of this came from there's an inequitable distribution of workload across committees because CRC's charge is so expansive and they're under water and Probably are covering too much and so a lot of this came from is there a way to split up CRC and shift some of some of their responsibilities to another committee where it would logically fit and and one of the things that came out of that was that Oka perhaps has some capacity But it didn't necessarily make sense to just take some stuff from CRC and sprinkle them to Oka and be like this is Oka plus Public Ways or something like that Where my thought process came down was the reason that Oka exists as it exists was actually Actually something I said in the gym in the December 10th debate Which was originally outreach and appointments were in separate committees in the original proposal from the president And I said well if part of outreach is recruiting people for committees Shouldn't these be paired and so we ended up with Oka Looking back on our past year our outreach has never done anything with recruitment and recently at the last outreach subcommittee Which meets sporadically We said so what does it mean to be the outreach subcommittee? What is the outreach that Oka does and we specifically have the discussion of do we see recruitment for committees including the ones at the town council points as part of our Charge and every member of the subcommittee said no CPOs are focused on recruitment. We can debate You know how they do it or whatnot, but we don't want to duplicate their efforts And so we're going to focus on different types of outreach like participation of the council So when I was looking at how to Redistribute some responsibilities to help spread out CRC's job I looked at Oka and I said if the only reason we ever paired appointments and outreach Was because part of outreach might be recruitment, but this committee has decided the outreach is not equal recruitment Then there's no real logical reason to pair outreach communications and appointments and if that Disintegrate if that connection disintegrates appointments Seems like it logically fits with the court an organization a Committee that deals with organization and governance right because I think a lot of the stuff the conversation we're having like well Should counselors be allowed to have more than one liaison rule Roles should the president vice president be allowed to serve as liaisons actually sound like conversations that probably should be happening in GOL Then it actually made sense that GOL became the place for appointments and then that freed up a lot of room and Then it just leaves outreach and that was a that's how I cobbled together this new committee The the question then became GOL already has a full responsibility is adding appointments on to that Too much and my thought was most of what this committee has done for the past Actual year has been figuring out process and how we evaluate Appointments both ours and also I mean we spent lots of meetings just talking about so we get these memos from the town manager What are we looking for and I think we're finding it? where we figured that out and so Appointments can start going a lot smoother and so I don't personally and I could be proven dramatically wrong I don't think appointments is as big or as big of a time suck going forward because this committee Has worked out some of the assuming it works. We haven't tested this one yet, but assuming this process works and Assuming that we have we should probably write it down like this is how we evaluate take some of the stuff from our reports Actually, this is how we look at if all it is is implementing all of this stuff that we've spent a year building on Then then we can just pass that on to a different committee. So You might disagree with it, but that was my thought process Because then as we're all thinking about this and all our spare time is one that Like I said, I didn't like the proposed CRC split. I would almost argue the Zoning section of it actually belongs in GOL Then rather than in some completely separate thing and again, obviously GOL has a big workload But in terms of rethinking how some things might work because then having zoning and the appointments to zoning Kind of might make some more sense to have together Because if there's going to be something focused on zoning then You know no longer would it be OCA's job to have written the zoning and planning board and finance committee profiles, right? It would be the zoning group. So it just but anyway, so something to think about the other part of it is I'm worried about the timing of this Because I can appreciate that, you know, like every year, right? We're supposed to look at this and it's true that some of our original Committees didn't in fact all of our original committees did not come out of any town council discussion They came out of the back of a napkin and we kind of said sure I guess so You know so we got so I can appreciate that we are totally at a point of need to reevaluate that What one thing I am leery have of course is that we just set up this process We haven't actually used it this way yet And if this change is in January and there's a different group of five they don't get to change it So I brought that up in in GL and essentially the president and she announced this last meeting has continued current committee membership And definitely even though they're one year She's continuing them and I and I actually brought this up I said because I was sort of the person that I've been in a very weird position of being the person who in GL is Advocating for the dissolution of the committee. I chair which has been incredibly awkward and anxiety inducing but But I brought that up and I said it we're mid-process and so The conversation that occurred with within GL and I've also mentioned it to the president was if we do move forward with this committee restructuring We can vote on it whenever but it has to have an effective date that is after we do planning board and every and there was within GL and with the president there was universal agreement that We would not just a scheduled planning board interviews for like first week in February than the last week in January be like That committee doesn't exist anymore because also I think the other thing is we have okra if we do move forward with this Okra has written to the rules I mean there's a lot of things that have to be done that are going to take a little bit of time So even if we vote to do this restructuring the effective date would probably be sometime later George if we were able to Finally agree on a process that we were satisfied with as imperfect as it may be Well, we hope we have done It seems like the appointments could not they don't necessarily have to be in a single body Right is that what I'm hearing you suggesting that that one Council committee could do appointments for one body and one could do it for another Depending on whether it fell under their purview. So if you were to put, you know under GL has legislation by-laws including zoning GL would do the appointment for the ZBA Whereas the one of the body, I guess it would be CRC at least under this what we're imagining anyway under their purview Is planning and you know master plan and so forth Is that something that you're thinking in other words they would do the appointment for the planning board? Or is that gonna do that? Yeah, no, I'm sorry What my mixed up saying was about was in regards to the incredibly brief read I gave of the part about the CRC and splitting off maybe into some separate zoning stuff Which made me uncomfortable in the first place because the whole point of this is even though It's all kitchen sink and then but it's all related to each other and yada yada yada who does what first is If they're going to have if there's going to be a separate zoning group If that's either part of CRC or is its own entity then It's either a child of or its own entity Then it seems like it might not be working well with GL in terms of the process that we've used so far in terms of us providing for example the planning document the ZDA document But given that then I was saying ooh because I'm literally randomly stringing this together That maybe it makes sense that geo if there's going to need to be this separate body about zoning Is it its own separate body? Is it a subset of CRC or is it in fact a subset of gel because gel is going to do the appointments to those bodies? I don't know. I mean, I think there are options here that are you know some are Fairly terrible, maybe and some are pretty good and we don't know what the best route is But I was mainly concerned about that transition period and that this isn't going to be subject to Suddenly like oh, yeah, I know you guys put a year into that. Yeah Those conversations have happened because I was concerned because it's not I mean even like I've had now communications with the applicants So it's not even like you be able to you could just give the process to someone else It's like well, so anyways So I'm gonna again because two members of our committee were absent I'm gonna put this on the agenda for the six I think by that time and now I think we will by that time actually have the recommended committee Charges for the revised committees that I can also put in our packet so we can actually have something in in front of us Okay, so with that I am going to adjourn us at 1 23 p.m