All right, so. Welcome again. I'm john Edmstern on the applicant and reservist manager. Today we're going to talk about the community living campaign, which is the organization and nonprofit under which SF reserve operates. It's a program of the community living campaign. Today we're going to talk about, as I said, the community living campaign, our values. What is the reserve program, how we recruit applicants and how we partner with nonprofits and small businesses. How we have adapted and are continuing to adapt to this changing environment, and how we plan to continue to grow the program. The community living campaign was founded about 14 years ago small group of activists who really wanted to make San Francisco a better place for older adults and people with disabilities. Basically was to help people. These stay in their homes and develop more sense of community get to socialize with their neighbors get to know their neighbors. And that's where the origins of the community living campaign is. We have a lot of programs. We have the keep community connectors program in about nine different neighborhoods throughout San Francisco, we have computer skills classes on zoom, all kinds of them. We have advocacy work, and the reserve program is basically one that helps to bridge the gap and provides a certain amount of economic security for older adults and people with disabilities. You can see community empowerment advocacy I like the cornerstones of the community living campaign and SF reserve fits under senior disability employment. So many things we like to think we are helping with is achieving basic financial security that's number one, but also ending isolation and loneliness, especially during this past year and a half, or so when people suddenly found themselves isolating in place, and maybe alone, maybe with no other family members or friends. So we can contribute to people living in a home that enhances dignity, and really building communities that value fairness equity and justice. We do support the black lives matter movement in our board of directors. Very early on, last year, started developing programs, and really trying to see how community living campaign could contribute to the equity and social justice movement that we're all a part of. And the full statement can be found on our website. We are funded through DOS, the Department of Disability and Aging Services. Out of then somewhere around 880,000 residents in San Francisco, nearly a quarter of them are at risk of not meeting their basic needs. Not only in housing, but in food and health services and other supporting services so DOS helps bridge the gap between those services and what people need, and reserve is one of those bridges that helps to provide economic security to seniors and those with disabilities. The population of San Francisco fully 20% of the residents of San Francisco are over 60. That's quite a large number and that number continues to grow as a matter of fact the percentage is growing. Many want to work and contribute to their communities. We have had to do some real adaptation over these past year plus to adopt to a post COVID-19 world. And let me just say today is a very happy day I think for for many of us. For the first time we can go out and act somewhat normally not wear a mask. Out on the streets we can go to a restaurant we can visit with our friends and families, because everyone was so good about wearing a mask and social isolation and getting a vaccine so today is a real, a real terrific day to be doing this program because things are really looking up. So SF reserve is, it's an affiliate of the national reserve program that does pretty much the same thing matches older adults and adults with disabilities with organizations that need part time employees. So, we don't do it exactly like the national program which is all based on the East Coast. In San Francisco after all we do things a little differently. We may disassociate ourselves from the national program. And so that we may have a name change coming up sometime this year but that's, that's not for sure. Basically it's to help seniors, people who are 60 plus who have a lifetime of experience doing all kinds of jobs, and put those skills and experiences to benefit nonprofit organizations and small businesses. We work as part of the work matters coalition SF reserve leads the coalition. And there are four organizations that are part of the coalition, as you can see here. And they all have a slightly different constituency. Some are training programs and include training. Reserve is not a training program we work with folks who are basically job ready jobs now has just increased the income requirements, or decreased I should say so if you're making less than 300% of the federal poverty level, you're eligible for their services. So, also the positive resource center is our newest member of the coalition. They also provide training. So, reservists come from all walks of life. We have people who have done teaching social work we've got CEOs. We've got lawyers. We have a very diverse group of constituents speak many different languages, which is a good thing because San Francisco I think they're about 112 different languages spoken in San Francisco, and almost 50%, about 45% of people in San Francisco, speak a language other than English at home. So, we sort of meet you where you live. The newest addition to our team is the partnership development associate. She will be doing outreach to the nonprofits and helping create new jobs for us. We negotiate regional hourly rates for with our partners and the very minimum is $17 and five cents an hour that is the absolute minimum for nonprofits. But recently we placed someone in a position that's going to pay $30 an hour so there's quite a range. It's going to be 10 to 15 hours per week, and it's part time, and the hours are flexible in that you, if you are placed in a position and the your supervisor whoever that might be will decide what your hours are going to be what days you're going to work and all that sort of stuff so it's quite flexible. I've just added this slide. I always get questions about benefits. So if you're on SSI or SSDI. It is possible that earning too much income could impact those benefits. We really want to make sure that that doesn't happen. So, your income can be impacted if it's more than you estimated. If you have more resources, then you're allowed. For instance, if you get a job and start getting income that put you over the cap. I will say it's quite rare that it would happen. Based on the amount of money that you would be paid for 10 to 15 hours a week it is unlikely that that would impact your benefits, but we can't make any advice around that so you'll be getting this deck. And these links here are to some great sites by the government that can explain some of the issues around SSI and SSDI benefits and how working might impact them. I also have, I just got it was too late for me to include it in the in the deck, but there is a deck that is specifically addressing SSI and SSDI benefits when you're working with a number of different scenarios. And I've asked Lori and Angela to send that to all of you after the presentation is over so that should answer pretty much any questions you might have about that. So, the pandemic has certainly changed the way we live and work. In the pandemic, I would go to the office every day, I would meet applicants in the office in person and have interviews. We fill out paper forms. You would fill out paper forms. I would scan them and attach them to your profile. Now everything is pretty much done online. I interview via zoom and other media like that. And was that many people did not have obviously they did not have their own computers. They might not have internet access. They previously would have accessed the internet through places like the San Francisco Public Library and their bank of computers. They could get their email that can connect to their friends and family. And that all went away with pandemic for many people so we have been working on, not only providing laptops and tablets, but providing training and internet service for people who don't have them. If you are interested in something like that or you have friends who might be interested in something like that, you can contact me afterwards. My contact information will be up here later and see if we can get them hooked up with something like that if they qualify. So, yeah, this is just something about what I was talking about. We do have training. We're giving out computers and tablets pretty regularly now for several months and the program is starting to become very well. It's working very well and very smoothly. Excuse my dogs. It's quite simple. We have what we call a third party vendor of choice. They handle all our HR things like direct deposit, your paychecks, all that kind of thing. So, it makes it very simple for us and for the nonprofit and for you. We keep hiring simple. I'll talk a little bit about the process. These are some of the skills that are most in demand, but it's not an exhaustive list. These are just the things that are that usually rise to the top when we're actually looking for work. And excuse me. So the way it works is we get your resume and you fill out a couple of forms with your skills and experience that we put into our database. When we get a new job description, we also have them do it in a certain way so that we can do a search for people that have the skills that they're looking for and come up with folks who then would would match those skills and then send their resumes off to the hiring managers if they're interested. So we have a pretty good track record. Most 90% or more of SF reserve organizations and reservists are highly satisfied with their placements. I have actually in was a surprise didn't expect this a current reservist who has been working with reserve longer than I have her name is Carolyn gauge, and she has agreed to say a few words about her experience with reserve so Caroline if you would like to meet yourself and give a little bit of your experience with SF reserve. And I can continue to catch my breath. Okay. Can you hear me. Yes. Okay. Carolyn, your side has a lot of feedback. I don't know if other people are hearing the feedback or just me. You can hear. Yeah, a lot of feedback from your side. Maybe can john, can you continue your presentation maybe Caroline you can work on the audio on your computer, please. Yeah, okay. Sorry about that. These are some of our partners. You may be familiar with some of them. As I mentioned earlier, the Felton Institute is where the CSEP program is housed that's a senior community service employment program. Children's Council League of Women voters. We have reservists there. San Francisco Interfaith Council. Little brothers friends of the elderly so we have in senior disability action is another one of our long time. We have partners where a number of reservists work. So here's how it works. I'm going to focus on the job seekers side of this because I think that's most of the audience here today.  Now you can send it to us through our website which you can see the link here, or you can send it to me directly as an attachment. If you have any other ways to get information to me you can give me a phone call, and we'll figure out how to do that. And once I have your resume I'll create a profile for you in our system, and then I'll schedule a call, probably on zoom if we can, so I can get to know you a little bit and you can get to know me. We talked about what you're looking for the kinds of things you want.  So I stay with you pretty much the whole time, even once you're placed, I'll be your contact with reserve. And I'm always available via email and texting. So, as I say, I, we get to know you, I meet you, we talk, and then I try to make the best placement for you and connect you with employers. Once you are hired, you make an offer, then I help you through the process of being on boarded with, as I mentioned earlier, our third party vendor who will handle payroll, and all the other HR functions. Sheri Sawyer, she's one of my colleagues, she works for the Community Living Campaign. She's a great resource. We are continuing to adapt the program all the time and it's not a static organization or a program. Time to changing very quickly. And we're going to be just today's matter of fact I learned of a job that is had been on hold for a long time. I think maybe I mentioned this earlier and now they're opening it up and some person will be able to get a job if they are willing to work on site and many people are actually dying to get out and work and see people again. This is my contact information. I'm John Sheila McElroy is our new partnership development associate. And Jamie Goddard is the director of the program. I'll leave this contact information up for now if anybody wants to write anything down, but you will be getting a copy of this deck, following the presentation. And I'm wondering now if Carolyn has addressed your sound. Yeah, it's still kind of. Oh, yeah. It wasn't like that earlier when you were first on but I don't know what's happened. I don't know either. Perhaps we can do it next time. Sorry, if you come back next time and we'll figure out what's going on. But now I'd like to open it up to questions that anyone has. And do I need to do anything to allow people on mute or somebody. I, we have some question in the chat I can read them out and then we can allow people to unmute themselves and ask questions directly. The question we got from conzi. He asked, does SF reserve work with other cities like Falejo and or Oakland. No, our funding comes from San Francisco so we can only work with residents of San Francisco we can refer to some similar types of organizations there's nothing exactly like us in the East Bay or the South Bay or Marin. But are the people who we connect with jobs have to be San Francisco residents. Got it. A question question from Jess. You have to be 60 if you are 58 is the only option to go through fountain and or size up. If you are living with a disability there isn't the age requirement is only 18 it can be an adult of any age. Otherwise, you need to be 60 but we do refer the between organizations. So, if you came to us and you're not living with this disability and you're not 60 we can refer you directly to CSEP, or some of the other programs jobs now. And there are some requirements that we, you know, you have to have an ID available a few little basic things like that but we can make referrals for you. Does that answer the question. Just does it answer your question. Oh, he actually has a follow up. Okay. He is 58 with no disability. So could he come through you. Yeah, you can contact me and then we'll see what the correct referral would be for you. Okay. Thank you. Another question. Can we find jobs with more than 15 hours weekly. In rare cases reserve does work with partners who want more hours, you know, 20 is usually the outer limit. But most of the time it's going to be 10 to 15 hours. Some of the now jobs now has people who are looking for maybe 30 hours or more. A lot of adults 60 and older don't really want to get a 30 or 40 hour a week job anymore. So, although it's possible that we can refer you to another agency if you're looking for more full time, or more work than 10 to 15 hours a week. Got it. Another question. Do you refer if I am temporarily disabled. What do you mean refer. I guess that will you accept her as a participant of the SF reserve program. Yes, yes. Yeah, many people have temporary disabilities due to injuries or illness or something like that so that's perfectly fine. And we also, we don't ask for any documentation around your disability we don't ask you to name your disability anything like that you tell us you're living with a disability. That's that's all we need. There is no proof requirements for or anything like that. Thank you. I don't see other question. Maybe if any participant would like to unmute themselves. And mute and ask question directly. Yes. Good afternoon. This is a wife. Hi. I have a question slash concern. If someone is selected for employment. I don't know what you mean by exempt the money that you earn through working with reserve is taxed. Then if you were working for a full time for product company, but the vendor when you get paid, all your FICA taxes and social security and all that is, is taken out. Well, what I meant by that is through the US Labor Department, or, for example, if one is living in a with a federal housing program. So you do not have to be reported as income. No, I think. I think income must be reported. I can look that up but I believe that income has to be reported, at least as far as SSI and SSDI now. Yes, I understand, you know, the federal withholdings. I'll just if you want to contact, I know you have my contact information and you want to contact me offline. Then I can, I can do some research for you. Alrighty, thank you. Sure thing. John, I see two more questions coming through chat. First question is, how do you differ from CSEP? CSEP is more of a training program. So they, if you're accepted into the program, then there are classes and trainings that you take. Once this pandemic is has ended a little more, they place you in positions with government agencies and other organizations so that you can develop your skills. Get better at the various things you're interested. A lot of administrative work that way with the end goal of getting you full time employment, following the training. You can stay with CSEP up to four years, and they try to give you a number of different placements so that you build your skills and there's lots of classes and training involved with that. So CSEP is a little different model because reserve tries to place you somewhere that you'll be happy to stay in for as long as you feel like working, whereas CSEP is more of a training program where you work for different organizations and hone your skills, improve your skills, and by the end of your training, you, and they help you get placement with a permanent position. Thank you, John. Next question. I think you probably answered this question. Where are the jobs located? Is it all in San Francisco? During the pandemic, because everything was remote, we had a few jobs outside of San Francisco, we had some in the East Bay, but you didn't have to commute to the East Bay. You could do the job, even though the organization was based there, you would be doing the work from home. And I believe those jobs will continue, but I think for the most part, the organizations we'll be working with will be headquartered here in San Francisco or we'll have an office or even at least just a mailing address in San Francisco. Thank you, John. Oh, Carolyn said that she apologized for sound difficulty. As a reserve, it's a great opportunity with a fantastic support team. The challenges have been good insecurities, teleology challenges, and environmental for seniors. There are tablets available for visual impaired. And she's not able to share, but her experience, you know, directly, but she put it in the chat share with us how great an opportunity as a reserve is. Thanks, Carolyn. And that's a good point. I didn't mention, we do have laptops or tablets that are designed for folks who have visual impairments. So that's a, that's a good thing for Carolyn to have brought up. Thank you. I don't see any other questions in chat. Again, if you want to ask your question directly, you can unmute yourself. All right. No further questions. So we can return 25 minutes to your day. Let me have set aside. Thank you everybody for being a part of the presentation. Lauren Angela will be sending you this deck so you'll have my contact information. Feel free to shoot me an email. The phone number that you see listed for community living campaign. It works, but it's a, it's a rather odd system where the phone doesn't actually ring it goes directly to voicemail. And then I get an email saying they've got a voicemail. You can believe that. So it takes a little longer. So the fastest way to get a hold of me is through email. Thank you, John. I see a sick question here from Lauren. She need help doing a resume. Do you have the opportunity in person for that? Not yet. But now that we are reopening. We're looking at how we can open up our offices again. We used to have a computer lab. We're going to have to reconfigure the office space. To meet the requirements. But I think if everyone is vaccinated. That would be a lot easier for us. And we, we do plan to reopen the office and then we, we did have in person help with, with resumes. At that time, so we'll, we'll look to be having that again, but also just a shout out for the public library they're having that resume writing and review service available. I think that even is tomorrow, isn't it, Lauren? Yes, tomorrow at 12 we have a resume writing workshop. And then if you have your resume already draft, you can also use our brain fuse job now service upload your resume, and someone will review your resume and give you feedback within 24 hours. Try both come to the workshop tomorrow and also try to bring fuse service. And we'll be making announcements about our offices reopening. Some folks have started coming back to the office. But right now we're in sort of a transition phase so I can't really say what, you know what dates will be opening to, to applicants, when we'll have those kinds of services in person. We don't have to have them but but we don't really have a date for that yet. Okay. Thank you, John, and thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. We really appreciate you taking the time to share with us as a reserve program and your experience as a reservist. And thank you everyone for joining the program I hope you find the presentation informative and helpful to you. We'll be sending our evaluation survey together with the slide deck and link to the recording for today. Give us your feedback so we can continue to improve. Again, thank you everybody and have a wonderful rest of the day. Okay, bye bye. Thanks so much.


No, I do not think so, we believe that you know our numbers have you know if you look at the past few years trend of what our forecast has been and what we finally end up in a way quite close to what we forecast right last year for it is a beginning of last year we said 10 percent and we ended the year with a 10 percent kind of a number. So we are quite confident that we will be able to you know the industry will grow at 13 percent. The overall message is that you know 2018 will be year which will be growth oriented and we will see much better times compared to what we have had you know the challenging times we have had in 2017. We have seen you know higher growth rates in the past like for instance you go back 3 years we had like a 14 percent kind of a growth rate we are not saying that we will hit that those numbers like you know this year itself. But the you know underlying if you look at the you know underlying you know consumption trends a lot of categories for instance if you look at FMCG if you look at the other you know pointers to the fact that there is a lot of economic activity in rural areas like for instance if you look at track say commercial vehicles and tractor sales growth say in OND October December quarter if you look at a lot of those numbers what all of this points to you know positive consumption trend in the rural market which has been a challenge and I think those underlying consumption factors is what will you know lead clients to spend more money and then that is what will lead to you know these kind of growth rates. If you look at within you know digital we believe basically video digital video is what will you know lead to we believe it will grow at about you know 54-55 percent compared to you know display and search while this is in a way the smallest segment compared to display and search within digital this is obviously the growing the fastest and may become the largest segment you know in the next couple of years or so. So underlying trends again you know that is leading to this growth firstly I think if you look at go back a few years spend on digital used to be purely on performance but I think now a lot more clients are spending to build brands and for activation and a lot of other things I think some of those kind of you know change in mind shift as to what you know digital can do to advertising and brand I think that's what is leading to this change this kind of a growth rate I would say you know the fact that you know one of the things is I think a lot of people are very pessimistic about print I'm one of those who is not I think we India the market that behaves very differently compared to many of the markets in the world world over for instance you know in most markets print is de-growing but I believe that we still have a few years of growth left in print in India I think it will certainly do while it's not growing in double digits I think the fact that we still have you know a large literate population we have a very thriving you know language Hindi and you know other language you know newspapers and newspaper business in the country I'm sure that they those will lead to growth and I think one of the things you know I want to point out is that it's one of the markets where I think print will continue to grow it's already the fifth largest in the world in terms of absolute in a way print spent and I think we may become you know this year we may become the fourth largest


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ble you think about wow it's not that affordable Andy I guess I'm going to respond on a couple of things that have come up in this discussion and one is about finance committee and looking at it finance committee can and should do as much as we can to inform the discussion in the end I think we will come to a conclusion that there is going to be costs and benefits and the benefit that we get from going forward is the creation of affordable housing that doesn't exist in the community and that needs to be valued the other side is the fact that we're trying to do a lot with our budget right now particularly our capital budget and probably as a matter of due diligence the finance committee probably shouldn't take a look before we vote into what would be the reasonable value that we might have if we sold that piece of property on the open market assuming that was a decision to be made and council can at least weigh those two very significant pieces that I just mentioned the other thing is that going back to my former life as a member of the select board we did a lot of work with the help of assistant town manager Zomac in developing a surplus real property disposition policy and this is really part of that policy it might be good for the education of the council to consider whether the council is interested in obtaining a copy of the policy and having Mr. Zomac if that were possible come before the council and explain how it was developed what the thought process was and how this works this piece of property fits within that policy just so that bring you back to speed where a couple of us who are on the select board are a little bit more aware of that history. And did you want to speak on the JCPC question? There was a question raised earlier as to whether or not JCPC should review this or not. It wasn't a question it was just a statement that JCPC the planning department has put into the ten year plan a zoning of $70,000 place holder for two years from now for planning and zoning of that village center. I see. It was an informational thing. And specifically however you also raised the issue of a review by GOL and that would be for what purpose? Not GOL. I was actually thinking of the potential committee we might be creating tonight that would in general review that. It's just not created yet so I didn't mention it. Community resources. Okay, thank you. I just want to clarify what you were referring to. Yes.  This question actually goes to Mr. Hornick. When I was reading the information you gave us and thank you for so much of it. You had a memo to the council and you had an FAQ for the council and they appeared to conflict in one to me very important issue and so I'd like you to address it and I'm going to read the two sections that I thought conflicted in the FAQ under how many units will be developed the statement was the RFP specifies a minimum of Alissa says there is no sound so it might be back at the minute show that she might be back we'll see. We're pausing for a moment to see if she's back. She's back. Alissa you're there. She says it's back. To go back the FAQ on to that request of how many units said the RFP specifies a minimum of 15 affordable units and I won't read the rest of that but it said 15 affordable. The memo that you wrote to us said at some point what the RFP included was quote a minimum of 15 rental units with 24 bedrooms for individuals and families with at least 50% affordable at 60% AMI with a mix of bedroom sizes and a minimum of 10% affordable to households earning 30% AMI what I read that to mean was that they had to propose at least 15 units but only 8 of them had to be affordable and so I'd like you to address what I read as a in some sense a complete conflict of is it 15 affordable at a minimum or is it 15 units at a minimum with only half of them affordable? Easy to address. The RFP says a minimum of 15 affordable units. The frequently asked questions are ones that I would ask myself frequently in the middle of the night and so we may have been a little sloppy in writing that section by my apologies. That's good. Thank you for your time. Further questions at this time? All right. I'd like to step back before we go to audience comment and just say I do want the council to think about what additional information or additional actions you at least want to consider before we do any approval of this. We're not going to do that tonight unless you'd like to at least refer to the finance committee or something like that. That's a much more simple action but I want to make sure that if we come forward for this in two weeks with a vote that we have done whatever else we feel that we need to do in order to get to that vote. Just consider that. I'd like to move to public comment. Mandy, I want to address your question about the vote that would be taken so I just want to say that you're right, the town meeting vote is a legitimate vote that happened in 2018 and so the council would amend that vote and as Paul said you could put any language in and so what John was asking the council to do to authorize the disposition of the property authorize the town manager to enter into legal agreements all that can be done in one vote. It could be separated out but we'd have some language that would be very clear what you're doing but it can all be done in one vote so it would say something like to amend the previous vote and to authorize these few things so it would be clear what's happening it wouldn't be confusing. I think the 2018 town meeting vote was confusing usually the town council wouldn't look at the pro forma of a developer a developer wouldn't respond to something knowing that they're not going to get psych control until they've already spent many dollars into a process so I think the vote was a little quirky and so the next vote would try to be cleaner and hopefully more understandable. That was one of the reasons why I was just suggesting that we carefully consider what we need to get to to vote on what because none of us want to be caught in a situation where we didn't cleanly do our business. Yes. I was just curious how long have you been working on this affordable housing project? Well it depends on when you date it I believe that this idea was suggested back four or five years possibly by Connie Krueger possibly by others the housing trust has been digging into this probably for about two years. Okay. Other questions from the council at this time? We just lost Alyssa again. We lost her again? No. Other questions from the council at this time? You'll have other opportunity but may I just see a show of hands of the people who would like to make public comment? All right Alyssa why don't you come forward? Elyssa. Thank you. I'm Alyssa Campbell. I am representing the League of Women Voters of Amherst tonight. The League is a nonpartisan political organization that seeks to help inform voters about elections voting and issues. As you know we do not support political parties or candidates but we do sponsor candidate forums and I put that in because my recollection when I attended them was that everybody running for council said they thought this was a great place to have affordable housing which made me very happy. At the state level the League has a position adopted in 2008 that in summary states the League supports programs, policies and regulations to address the housing needs of low and moderate income families and individuals. Everyone should have access to decent affordable housing in a suitable living environment. So that's the goal. We all know we're not meeting it and this project is a step in the direction of beginning to meet it for at least some people. The timeline that John provided in which he referred to already illustrates that if this gets a positive vote from the council at the beginning of April of 2019 we might actually have construction start in two years and as he said some actual real people might be able to move into a real unit in three years. So we urge you to do your due diligence but move this project along. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other public comment at this time? Any other thoughts or questions or requests for additional information from the council? So I'm hearing that prior two weeks from now you do not want this considered by some committee. You do not want additional information. I would love to see the surplus real property disposition policy that my fellow counselor mentioned. And I would like us counselors to seriously consider this at least at a minimum considering this. Would you like to make that as a motion? If we can make motions tonight I will make that motion. You can make a motion to refer. I will make a motion to refer this matter to the finance committee. Is there a second for the purposes of discussion I'm going to second it. Further conversation? Yes. I would just like to amend that with a motion. I still plan to take a vote on when we're planning on taking a vote so it's not that we'll just let it languish in finance. Whatever it is we're thinking we're supposed to be doing as a member of finance. Between now and the next meeting of the council there are two finance committee meetings. There's no reason we can't meet that but if we're going to be considering it it's not to delay the issues. And Mandy Joe is there specific things you want the finance committee to consider? Yeah, I would like them to consider the sort of cost benefit of disposing of this property for affordable housing versus what other uses it could have in the costs or the benefit the town the financial system might have from selling it to a for profit entity for some other use. I would just also say I think it's important as we move forward as a council that we recognize that not everything needs done immediately and is outside of our typical process that we as a council we are now into our fourth month of operation almost finishing our fourth month of operation and we should be stopping saying well this one's an exception and this one's an exception because pretty soon if everything's an exception then that becomes the rule and if we're going to have a finance committee that's supposed to look at the financial implications of actions we should start referring things to the finance committee to look at the financial implications of actions if we're going to create a planning and policy surrounding planning and village centers then we shouldn't be afraid to say maybe we should wait for two weeks till they can look at that and come back with pros and cons we can't I don't think we should keep saying this is an exception that's an exception I haven't heard any immediate deadlines presented tonight that require us to act by April 1st because we would lose certain funding. We don't necessarily think an extra two weeks or an extra four weeks two more meetings would delay a project another year for an RFP and I think we need to start considering that as we move forward because that's what we should be doing. So the motion on the floor that's been made in second is to refer this to the finance committee and the sense of the discussion is that this has financial implications for the town and that you would like the finance committee to at least weigh the costs and benefits. Steve. I think one of the really difficult things about doing a full on say real estate analysis like you're describing is that virtually every use is a special permit for this particular zone as far as I understand. I'm sorry you'll have to speak into the mic. Pretty much every use is a special permit for this particular zone except for schools churches or houses of worship so but everything else is special permit because special permit is discretionary then we really have no idea if that particular use would ever be permitted or not. So I think it's a challenge to do that kind of analysis that councilor Hannake was looking for. On the other hand there must be an appraisal of this property. There must be what? An appraisal. I'm sorry. As you mentioned there is a town appraisal but that appraisal includes as the back lock which the town assessor may not have been aware is entirely wetlands so without digging into it my sense is it's probably an overestimate of the value. It would be awfully difficult in two weeks or frankly even in four weeks to assess the cost benefits of putting this sort of affordable housing versus some unknown other use. It's like do you want to put affordable housing on the site or not I think and if you do then my recommendation is that you move forward. Yes Kathy. Well Sheldon he hasn't spoken yet yet. I was going to say I want to support what Kathy said that let the finance committee deliver it on this but let it be done within the time because I do feel other committees and town meeting and a lot of due diligence has been done in the past and they already forwarded it and I know there is a shortage of affordable housing and I also know how hard it is to get developers to commit to affordable housing and we need to set the ball rolling the more we can support and push this agenda the more in the future we can attract more affordable housing developers and development. Okay. Andy did you have a comment? Since you're chair of the finance committee. I think that it depends upon the staff that's available to provide assistance to us in the timeline that we are looking to and hopefully the appropriate staff will be available and we can at least do some work. My vice chair has a question. I was saying if we can move quickly but given what was just described I've been on tons of cost benefits and Steve was saying you just can't do it. It's a value statement that if we want to use the land in this way we're putting a value on that so I can put a very high price tag on the value of affordable housing until you makes a lot of sense. I don't think the review of that's the question it's not worth going to finance. The best we could do is get a land value with some caveats and change the decision do we want to locate the development here? These are the times when I take my scant economic background and say and mathematical background which is much stronger and say I think we mean a soft cost benefit analysis not a complete cost benefit analysis. George. I think the question really is do we want affordable housing in Amherst no matter what number it comes back no matter how big it is no matter how small it is the real issue that we need to think about either tonight or perhaps at the next meeting how important is it to us that we provide housing. It's a critical need. There are not that many sites. This is a committee that's worked very hard to find a site it's been prompted to have a site town meeting and I think the issue really comes down to the question of affordable housing and people made to make up their minds. Any other comments? So the motion on the floor is to refer this to the finance committee to review it as fast as possible sometime between now and two weeks from now. That motion has been made and seconded not with all those little additional caveats. Is there any further discussion? Then I'm going to call the question and say roll call vote. Councillor Brewer. No. Councillor D'Angelo. No. Councillor Dumont. No. Councillor Grismar. Yes. Councillor Pan. No. Councillor Ryan. No. Councillor Shane. No. Councillor Schreiber. No. Councillor Steinberg. No. Councillor Swartz. No. We have 11 to 1 . The motion fails. I do think, however, there is a desire to see this surplus real property disposition policy and the study that went along with that. Okay. Is there any other conversation or question at this time or other desired pieces of information? Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time tonight. Thank you. I'm sorry. Yes. The timeline that was created indicated that back in, I think it was 2015 or 2016, there was some study, an East Street school use study on the site and building with development constraints. Does that study exist? It was like the second line. And this wasn't clear what it actually was. Whatever it is, if there is a report of that, can we get that too? Thank you. Are there any other requests for information? Yes. If I can figure out the right button to push. Thank you. In regards to the motion that we know town council will have to draft for us for next time, we saw the last one was rather complicated. Yes. I have the feeling the town attorney will be working with us on that one. You couldn't see it, but Mr. Bachman shook his head. Any further questions or requests? Then thank you for your presentation and for the hard work you've put to come forward to us. Thank you for your attention and support. We're going to move on to action item 6B. Yes. Would you mind doing the proclamation for the league? No, not at all. Thank you for calling my attention to that. We're going to actually move on to 9A. 9A is a citation in celebration of the 80th year of the League of Women voters in Amherst. Thank you. I'm Janice Ratner, a member of the steering committee and chair of the committee of the League of Women voters of Amherst. The league first met on March 21st, 1939, 80 years ago this week. Since then the league has had many candidates nights, published many election guides and other publications such as your Amherst government and they represent you, held many informational and educational meetings and forums, studied local government and many local issues and developed positions for women and registered many voters. We hope to continue doing these things for many years to come. We thank you for considering a citation in honor of the 80th anniversary of the League of Women voters of Amherst. Thank you. Thank you. And the citation is in your packet. Are there any questions? Comments? Then I call the question. I'm sorry, the motion. Thank you. I have to find my motion sheet in all of this. Don't worry. I have it. I move to adopt the citation and celebration of the 80th year of the League of Women voters in Amherst as presented. Pat DeAngeles made the second. Is there any further conversation? Question? All those in favor? Oh, we have to roll call. Councillor DeAngeles? Yes. Councillor Dumont? Yes. Councillor Grismer? Yes. Councillor Haneke? Yes. Councillor Pan? Yes. Councillor Ryan? Yes. Councillor Shane? Yes. Councillor Schreiber? Yes. Councillor Steinberg? Yes. Councillor Swartz? Yes. Councillor Ballemount? Yes. Councillor Brewer? Yes. We have 12 with one absent. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. And congratulations. All right. Our next, we are now, in fact, going to go to 6B on the agenda. It's the Dissolution of the Energy and Climate Action ad hoc committee. Let me just note that this comes because they have filed their final report and also more importantly their final set of minutes. Is there any discussion at this time? Okay. Then I'd like to place a motion to dissolve the Energy and Climate Action Committee ad hoc committee. That's a motion. Is there a second? Second. Is the second? Any further discussion? All those in favor? Oops. Road call. Councillor Dumont? Councillor Grismer? Yes. Councillor Haneke? Yes. Councillor Pan? Yes. Councillor Ryan? Yes. Councillor Shane? Yes. Councillor Schreiber? Yes. Councillor Steinberg? Yes. Councillor Schwartz? Yes. Councillor Bonn-Milm? Yes. Councillor Brewer? Yes. Councillor D'Angeloz? Yes. We have 12 with one absent. Okay. We're moving on to 6C, which is the charge for the community resources committee. I will note at this time we are not approving or I am not appointing people to this committee, but rather we are moving to the charge. Is there a motion to, well, council discussion first. The charge is in your packet. Okay. I'm sorry. Yes. I just want to state that I'm obviously with one absent, I think, right, Steve? To declare the charge clear, consistent and actionable. Okay. All right. Then I'd like to, I'd like to make the following motion to approve the charge of the community resource committee as presented. Is there a second? Dorothy? I seconded. Any further conversation? Then roll call vote. Councillor Grismer? Yes. Councillor Hanakie? Yes. Councillor Pan? Yes. Councillor Ryan? Yes. Councillor Shane? Yes. Councillor Schreiber? Yes. Councillor Steinberg? Yes. Councillor Schwartz? Yes. Councillor Ballemilm? Yes. Councillor Brewer? Yes. Councillor D'Angelo? Yes. Councillor Dumas? Yes. We have 12. Okay. We're going on to 6D, which is the approval of the charge for the audit committee. This was referred also to GOL. And Mandy Jo, do you have a comment? I just want to again mention that the GOL committee voted unanimously with one absent to declare this charge as presented clear, consistent and actionable. Any further questions or discussion? Then the motion is to approve the charge of the audit committee as presented. Is there a second? Second. Andy Steinberg is the second. Roll call vote. Councillor Hanakie? Yes. Councillor Pan? Yes. Councillor Ryan? Yes. Councillor Shane? Yes. Councillor Schreiber? Yes. Councillor Steinberg? Yes. Councillor Schwartz? Yes. Councillor Ballemilm? Yes. Councillor Brewer? Yes. Councillor D'Angeloz? Yes. Councillor Dumont? Yes. Councillor Grissimer? Yes. We have 12. Okay. 6E was added to the agenda at the last minute and the reason it is on the agenda is because the approval is something that if we are going to approve it has to be noted by March 29th and we do not meet again. The motion for this and I'm going to just ask that Darcy speak to it. I wrote this out because it's a little complicated and I want to make sure you understand it. The Sierra Club Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and their partners are encouraging municipal entities across Massachusetts to register to vote this year to strengthen the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code which is the base energy code for new buildings and is adopted by Massachusetts and across the country. So what we would be voting for would be our actual building code. So regardless of whether Amherst registers to vote this will affect code regulations in Amherst as the IECC standard is adopted as I said as the base energy code for math. Few municipalities exercise their votes so it would be good to make sure that Amherst registers as an entity and gets to vote. We need someone to provide our municipal government to register the city as a member as Lynn said by March 29 to be able to cast up to four votes per registered entity and the town council would be an entity. Then the deadline to provide our roster is by September and voting is in November. It's a long online voting process which I heard can take up to three hours to complete and there are videos and so on that can give guidance as to how to do it. So for those who might have concerns about providing more hoops for developers and losing business to neighboring towns etc. This would actually be a way to ensure that doesn't happen because we would be voting on the state energy code and so whatever we were voting on would be done across the board and wouldn't affect Amherst as opposed to neighboring communities. So I move the town of Amherst participate in voting on the application code. Is there a second? Mandy Joe. Questions? Yes. I read it over and it seemed very vague and it seemed to commit us to things that we didn't know what and it made me very worried and concerned about how it might impact all of our capital projects that we are trying to do. Mandy Joe. I guess this question might be to Councillor Schreiber to Steve because he's more of a planning board knowledge than I have. The code that would be being voted on in November is it a model code that then needs to be adopted by Massachusetts? Is it automatically adopted by Massachusetts? How does that process work? So let me take a stab at that and you Councillor Dumont might know more than I do about the looking. There's something called the BBRS which is a building I know one of the B stands for building and I think the R stands for regulation and standards but that's basically the group that makes recommendations for building code changes. What happens is that Massachusetts indeed has agreed that they will adopt the model code and that they can do it as I understand it with modifications so I think it's a good idea to try to influence the model code. I knew at this so to me this is an unusual way to be doing it because I understand more at the state level rather than on the town level so I had no idea that towns or cities would be able to vote on this so simply because this is the first time I'm getting this information. So Steve that raises a question that I have and that is I'm used to building codes like this being done at the state level and then pass down through the proper channels and so my question really is would the vote of this group be binding or would it be a recommendation? My understanding is that it's binding. It's an opportunity to vote on this international code which is adopted by Massachusetts and so whatever is voted on well it's adopted internationally but Massachusetts has decided to use it as its base energy code so historically not that many municipalities have weighed in on it and I think one staff person in Amherst weighed in the last time and this year because of this big push to get more people more municipal participation Northampton has now signed up for 20 votes. They have the mayor's office, the planning department, the health department, the fire department, building department all are separate municipal entities that can sign up and vote so they have because of this push that's been requested by Sierra Club and so on a lot more municipalities are signing up in Massachusetts and then Massachusetts can have a lot more influence on this whole international code. I know it sounds strange but this is actually the way it works. So George so am I correct in understanding that the current state code whatever it is has resulted from this already that has happened so we are simply participating or you are encouraging us to participate in a process that already is taking place in which we have no voice but if we were to participate we'd at least have a voice in it. Yes, that is what I'm saying. Additional. Yes, Mandy Jo. I guess my next question is if we pass this the council it sounds like would get four votes but how do we determine what those votes are? If it's a three hour process and the council gets four votes and you have to designate four counselors does each counselor get to decide how they're voting or is this going to be a full council decision that then says these this is how you need to vote on each session how is that if we say we're going to use our four votes how are we going to use our four votes and decide how we vote on the presumably separate parts of the code and separate changes and all. Dorothy. Dorothy, I'm sorry. Right now all we need to do is decide that we will register and then we can whoever is designated as the person who will register us could just pull the group or through the president possibly just ask who would like to do this. And we can get up to four for the town council. Steve. Yeah, so you know again I'm new at this but it seems like is this a legislative issue or is it an executive issue so let's say that we did that we all agree that this was the right process is this the right body to be the voters so to me it would seem like the building department the planning department would be the can you hear me or no? Yeah, okay. So and it's also not clear what we're voting on so just like us they the bodies required to have public hearings on any proposed changes you know to its model code and so they're I mean so they have evidence both ways you know etc etc so it's not just like it's not that we're voting to increase the R value it's a very complicated process very and so I'm not positive we would be the right body to be participating this way it may be a good idea for Amherst to be participating but I'm not certainly not to me doesn't seem like a legislative action. Shalini. Has the town manager's office signed up for this or the planning board or the other I don't know. Mr. Backelman. We have not you in order to participate they require you to pay a fee to vote and that just didn't seem right to me. I have to go back to reading this and just say when somebody says governmental member to me that's a membership organization which then has the right to poll its members and in polling its members get a sense of what that membership would like them to do and that usually means that that body is also a registered lobbying agency it itself cannot bind the commonwealth or anybody else without the actions of the legislative body so I mean I can be a member of any number of organizations either personally or as a council we could be members of organizations we could vote to influence the way that organization would set its policies and that policy would then be something that their lobbyists would move forward to governmental bodies with and the governmental bodies would have to in this case adopt the code so I want to just be clear this is not a binding vote it can't be the only people that can bind the commonwealth of Massachusetts in a legislative way is the great and general court of Massachusetts so there's nobody else that can set building code for the commonwealth of Massachusetts so unless I didn't learn my government 101 properly Steve? Yes, and you know more about this than I do but the general court can't adopt by reference other absolutely but it can't be the they can't adopt it in whole in other words the people of Massachusetts have to say in their own laws well and if they're going to adopt a regulation that changes the code then they usually put it out and they have hearings on it and there's hearings become public record and then it's only after that that they actually then vote but they're the only ones that can bind the commonwealth and then we're the only ones that can bind the town of Amherst so I just want to be clear what I believe this is versus and it doesn't mean that it's not there to influence an international code that's absolutely what it's there for but when we would vote as members of this body it is to vote on the policies that this body would then take forward in its attempt to continue to influence legislative bodies that can in fact bind you just it's the same way like the teachers union can have a position but they can't bind us That's not my understanding that's I am quite sure that that this IECC does is adopted by Massachusetts as our base energy code If it's adopted by Massachusetts as our base energy code then they're somewhere in the laws of Massachusetts that say they have adopted this code as our base energy code that means in fact they have the great general court has bound us with that Yes, Steve I'm going to read this off the mess thank goodness for Google I'm going to read this off of the Massachusetts website energy efficient provisions of the state billing code 780 CMR Commonwealth of Massachusetts regulations in accordance with the Green Communities Act of 2008 Massachusetts is required to update its billing code every three years to be consistent with the most I actually am in accordance with the Green Communities Act of 2008 Massachusetts is required to update its billing code every three years to be consistent with the most recent version of the International Energy Conservation Code So this is to then influence that code which unless Massachusetts changes its mind it would adopt but it's a fine line Darcy but all they can do is influence the code Commonwealth of Massachusetts could decide to no longer endorse that code they could reverse their law just the way we could reverse our position on something so the request is do we as a council want to vote to have the opportunity to have four delegates vote on this law or this position which can at least in the past continues to influence the Massachusetts building code correct is that helpful okay so the motion has been made and seconded are there further discussion are there further points George it's late I know but it just I like the idea of us being participating in the conversation which I think is what Darcy is proposing it seems like a good idea the state clearly does take it seriously what Steve has read makes that point but I just wonder whether any one of us or four of us really has the relevant expertise to really contribute to this in an appropriate way it seems that this would be more appropriate for people who have an expertise in specific areas of code I can't imagine any one of us having the time to come up to speed now maybe the ECAC would take this on but they have a lot to do too so that's my reservation I like the idea of being a participant in the conversation it's clear that this does have some impact whatever it may be but I question what relevance what expertise we bring to this how we could really be a contributor and Joe Alyssa would like to comment thank you I would I will when we come to a vote I will vote no on this but I'm wondering if there's a possibility of referring it to the town manager for additional information I realize that won't meet the deadline but I know and I know he already gave an answer but I think we would all be better informed by the building commissioner for example reporting back in you know two or three sentences why we haven't done this in the past or why he thinks it would be a really great idea for us to do it in the future other other comments then hearing none we'll have a real call vote Councillor Pam no I'm sorry hold on what are we voting on we are voting on the motion for the town of Amherst to participate in voting on the international energy conservation code Councillor Pam no Councillor Ryan no Councillor Shane no Councillor Schreiber no Councillor Steinberg no Councillor Schwartz no Councillor Bourne no Councillor D'Angelo no Councillor Dumont yes and I'm amazed I'm totally amazed Councillor Grissner no Councillor Hanneke no we have 11 to 1 I'm sorry 1 to 11 okay thank you we are moving on to 8 which is the committee reports I believe if I'm correct the finance committee and the governance organization legislation committee have submitted written reports the other committees may wish to make brief oral reports so Andy we'll start with finance I'll be very brief right now and then questions we can rather handle it that way I think the report speaks for itself the major part of the report I'll speak to first which is that we spent and are continuing to spend considerable time looking at the major capital projects with the questions of whether the town can create a path to go forward with the major with all of the major projects or what compromises would need to be made either in what is proposed or in the timeline in order to achieve that result it makes reference in there that we expected to soon receive a beta test version that the committee can work with to start looking at the variables ourselves and go beyond the introductory piece that was presented that has been received today Mr. Mangano provided that to the committee but we haven't had a chance I haven't had a chance to look at it yet there's too much else going on today so that's in the part that's in there regarding the school options because of the vote coming up on April 1st we picked out that particular section and presented that information to you to help inform your discussion I think that what is the obvious conclusion is that the most affordable plans are to move forward with the two school option regardless of there were several three school options that were done the three school options are assuming that for all of them that we want to get and move forward and get something done to replace the buildings as quickly as possible and so where do we stand financially and moving forward with three buildings or two buildings the other thing that I just wanted to mention was the regional school budget process and it speaks to itself there so I don't need to go into it much we encourage the finance committee that all of the council attend the April 4th budget hearing when the superintendent will present the budget it is not a forum it is a hearing therefore there are no time constraints as there were at the forum and the council counselors who are able to attend will have full opportunity without time constraints to ask whatever questions that they may have that kind of education both the council and the finance committee move forward and might enable us to have the council then vote on the budget on the earlier date we originally talked about and not have to require the additional meeting so I'll leave it at that and I don't know if my vice chair has anything to add no any questions yes pat the report talks about options that there are illustrative purposes but the model as it's developed assumes substantial tightening with annual capital outlays for other needs at half the current levels the modeling assumes that other capital expenses will be budgeted at 2.5 million annually this would restrict what is available for people to use and is this realistic that's one question I mean I think you're asking exactly the right question because the way this will and we're going to be testing it if you say not realistic and say we should continue at least 80% or 90% what you'll see is we have fewer dollars to finance a bond issue and we're going to do a analysis to do a reality check on what the flow of it and it's exactly that kind of question pat yes thank you you're talking here about the debt exclusion override is there any place in the model when that's removed I mean that's certainly okay because it doesn't say that it's the same thing that if you take that off and you're trying to finance it internally you go whoops we're down to one project so it lets you see choose which if any do a debt service override and then look at what happens to our ability to pay for it thank you Dorothy I just want to draw your attention to on page 3 where the maximum annual tax for debt exclusion the second bottom line is the average annual tax and I just wanted to comment that I don't think that's how people would see it they would see what it was when it first came on when it's high the fact that it gets lower over time I think that we have to look at the top number that's what the impact will be on residents when they get that tax bill but there was a question I had a sentence in here that I don't remember hearing about this is on page 2 right after the section that Pat referred to which talks about belt tightening and less money to fix things is the paragraph says of course to the extent expanded state funds become available to support and pay for infrastructure roads and help finance renovations or green climate investment including solar panels that scenarios would change and I would love to hear more about those possibilities of expanded state funds let me just say that first of all there's been a lot of talk about additional transportation infrastructure funds both at the federal believe it or not and state level and at the state level there's also been an introduction of a 10 year long bill that would start looking at financing some of the kinds of things we've been talking here so there were the hope would be and that's just scratching the surface the hope would be that the realization that we have crumbling infrastructure and at the same time a need to be much more environmentally sound has risen at least to the state of Commonwealth of Massachusetts all you may have more to say about that it's something that actually as Paul and I have had the opportunity to meet with Representative Mindy Dom we have asked that we keep track on all of that kind of stuff particularly the climate stuff as far as the debt exclusion override question is concerned I guess that I look at whether for those of us who lived in Massachusetts in 1981 Proposition 2 was that year was passed and the good things and the bad things that have happened with Proposition 2 it was in the end a democratic process that was created and because of the tax limits that are in there it makes it as was previously noted limited as to what a community can afford to build in the way of infrastructure projects without going over the regular Proposition 2.5 limits the purpose of a debt exclusion override is in part to go back to the voters and let the voters make a decision as to how much they value the project the decision as noted elsewhere in the report is to whether to place something into a debt exclusion override is ultimately a decision of this council and so whether to place it on and for which projects will be a discussion that we would have at a future date if we move forward in that direction but there is for all of the reasons explained no way that we could move forward and meet the backlog of infrastructure needs that have been identified for a long time in this community without at least giving the voters the opportunity to make that decision after we educate ourselves when the voters become educated on the costs and benefits that would be there the other thing I just like to emphasize and that is the beta version of this has been made available to the finance committee we will be testing it out over the next couple weeks asking for any changes that we need to be we think need to be made available and then it will be made available to the full council and eventually be online for the public and it's an opportunity for people to then play out various scenarios and that is building on the presentation that Sean Mcano has given to us once in this meeting and several times now for finance okay and I want to just thank Andy for the time spent on this report I know was extraordinary and very very demanding anything else Alyssa or do you want your vice chair to report on the rules of procedure ad hoc committee that would be fine Kathy okay we do not have a report but we have a very ambitious timeline where we started drafting sections we did have an initial discussion on the issue that was referred to us that you asked to refer back on the whole question of liaisons council liaisons and Alyssa was not able to be at that meeting so we want to have one more meeting which is tomorrow on a first coming up with a list of things that are vital to have it and what the process would be but we work through a series of pretty succinct how we might handle that and we should be able to bring that back and the rest of it is we will deliver a report but we are on a very tight timeline to get it back to you and as my recommendation back to you and my request has been that in May that is the second meeting I can't come up with the exact date we would be looking at the proposed rules and that we would be prepared to adopt them on June 3rd and the only reason we can go to June 3rd is because June 2nd which is the deadline is actually a Sunday so that nice one of the issues that we will discuss in our meetings tomorrow is there some things that are just going to be straightforward like we already have an agenda this is our agenda but there are some things that might be new ideas and do we want to do them here that will be worth focusing more rather than less attention on it assuming it is written loosely okay Sarah are there any questions Sarah yep so Oka did not give you a written report for tonight but I absolutely definitely will and I just am going to do this really fast because you don't have a bunch of supporting documents in front of you today at our meeting we did take a vote on a decision tree as a practice to start to be able to have Oka interview people for multi-member bodies and bring them forward we did hear from the attorney general today on a phone call that I am sorry from Lauren today that the attorney general has not gotten back to us on absolutely is that legal but we did say we found one we really like so for us that was a step forward we I have asked verbally to Lynn who was at our meeting today to Paul if we could maybe just send an SOS out to Lauren and say please if you possibly could do you think we could try to get the attorney general to weigh in by April 2nd and the reason why we would like that is because if we are going to do interviews and bring people back to you then we would have to try to get that ruling by April 2nd and then start interviews quickly thereafter so that we can bring names back to OKA by May 6th and then we can bring them to you town council for ratification on May 20th but it would give people a few weeks in there to say I hate this please go back and look at other names so when we have more information on that then we're going to I'm going to write out that report and give you all that information we also just made a great jump that one of us would be designated to do interviews if our process is adopted after we hear back from the attorney general and that would be the chair now again that's if that gets lawful OK small print and a large headache so I think the only other exciting things that we did was that we did decide to meet eight times between 325 to 520 to make sure that we get all of our work done and we had our first subcommittee meeting of outreach and communications and we had Paul with us to talk about how the role of outreach with the resident advisory committee we also had two of our three community participation officers there and we all very much talked about what we thought each committee's outreach purview should be so that we're not stepping on toes but we're also supporting each other and I want to say that community participation officers have been working incredibly hard and I think in your packet you had a lot of the materials that they've already put forward to us like how to plan for a subcommittee or ad hoc meeting plan for district meeting or office hours they've already done an incredible amount to try to help process their feeling from what I understood today was that OCA would basically be helping with counselor to counselor communications and also that we would be helping to support district meetings larger meetings and we also discussed what our role would be in making sure that we were bringing constituents in for some of the larger meetings, the hearings, the budget forums so that's kind of where we're at. Thank you. Any questions? Okay. Governance, organization, legislation. So it's all pretty much in the report so I just want to bring up two things. One is a recommendation that we are making that will come up at a future council meeting on to the council about committees and themselves reviewing their charges because it's not up for a vote tonight I don't believe we need to discuss it tonight but I want to say that was put forth from and referred up to the town council and I'll work with our president to figure out when it is best to have that as a discussion and action item on an agenda and then I just wanted to highlight the public ways discussion that the GOL had had and is continuing to have further referral from the council and we've made it through and a couple of items and I put in the report where our preliminary decisions have been made we will continue those next week and discussions next week if anyone has questions at this time they can contact me and I'll take it to the committee or you could bring it you could come to a committee meeting and make a comment but I thought I'd put out the preliminary decision so people could see where we were headed on that. Yes. I have one comment on the parking a place one when you say 31 or more days don't you need to include some words like consecutive or in total or time period? We will be the decision was that they would be cumulative that was a preliminary decision made so that that would end up when we get a full report back we'll make sure that language is in there but we had discussed whether it would be consecutive or cumulative and at this point we're looking at cumulative reservations. Okay. Yes Dorsey. And I just had a question the the public way issue that's going to come back as an action item? Yes when we're ready. And I also wondered about the language at the beginning of your memo about clarity about how the GOL committee is going to be the ultimate arbiter of whether a measure is clear just wondering if any committee can be the ultimate arbiter of anything. So what we would report back out would be whether we declared it clear or not as we reported back out with the two committee charges tonight that the council the committee declared something clear consistent and actionable if for some reason we declare it not we would report out we we did we voted whatever to declare or not declare it clear whichever potential one it would be and then we would report where our issues where our goal is to always work with sponsors if we've got concerns like that to see if we can work with them to come up with language that would satisfy our guidelines for clear consistent and actionable that would also be supported by sponsors. But it would be reported out for the town council to make a final decision on it even if it goes against the committee's declaration. Just wondered about that language for the questions pat. I don't have a question I have correction on the guidelines for review of bylaws that was attached under actionable in the last part of the sentence which not in conflict with mass general law the Amherst home rule charter comma or any other law comma bylaw but there's an R in there after that's a Mandy thank you. Any other comments? Yes Sarah. Just a question for when goal is going through charges of committees is perhaps if pieces are perhaps taken out of the charge like as you discuss things you think it might be placed somewhere else will that that'll be part of your report would that be something that the entire council would vote on or would it be that you've done the work and that that it should stand that way. So I think the wage you all has been operating if we refer to say our CRC charge that we adopted tonight we would report out with a tracked change version that shows everything that was changed and then that's the motion that would go in and then the town council could decide to add anything back in or change anything or anything like that but I think our goal is to always report out clearly what changes we have made after it came to us. Thank you. Any questions? Is there any comment regarding bylaw review committee? Pat I believe you're the only council person here. I was not present at the last meeting. Then I think we'll just skip off and skip over that one unless Alyssa you had a comment. We're doing fine. Great. Thank you Alyssa. The council goals and values statement committee. We've met once. We have two more scheduled meetings. We actually are not looking at the values. We're looking at the goals. The town council goals. We have two more meetings scheduled and we hope that to be able to bring to the council a set of recommended goals including activities, timelines and responsibilities for the next meeting. Okay? If anybody wants to join us, we're meeting on Fridays at four o'clock. It's the only time we could find. Any further comments on that? Okay. We've already done citations. We're moving on to minutes. Can I ask a question? Can we do all the minutes in one vote? Excellent. I'm going to ask the following. Any changes to the minutes of February 25th? Okay. Are there any changes to the minutes of March 2nd? The four towns meeting. Any changes to the minutes of March 4th? Any change to the minutes of March 7th? The budget form. Do I hear a motion to approve? I actually have a point of order. Yes. I'm sorry. The presences were different for all of these meetings. Right. Normally the normal practices to abstain. Actually, the other day when we were with Lauren, she said that is not necessary to abstain. Okay. It was very interesting that you bring that up. Okay. I'm hearing no changes in these and so I'm going to make a motion that we approve of February 25th, March 2nd, March 4th and March 7th, 2019. Do I hear a second? Okay. Shane. Kathy Shane gets the second this time. Any further conversation? We must take a roll call vote. Councillor Ryan. Yes. Councillor Shane. Yes. Councillor Schreiber. Yes. Councillor Steinberg. Yes. Councillor Schwartz. Yes. Councillor Balmille. Yes. Councillor Brewer. Abstain. Councillor D'Angelois. Yes. Councillor Dumont. Abstain. Councillor Grisimer. Yes. Councillor Hanneke. Yes. And Councillor Pan. Yes. And I do want to say for the record I read through every one of them and I'm not going to read it. That's 10-2. Thank you. Okay. We're moving on to the town manager's report. Thank you. You have my written reports. I'm not going to reiterate that. I do want to note a few things. One is the Hampshire college. We're continuing to monitor the situation at Hampshire. The town is feeling the impact of the announcements that are being made in essence they have reduced their they've eliminated their security into a smaller security system which means that our police department may be required to respond that they otherwise wouldn't be but we have not experienced that yet. Also we've made a disclosure to our bondholders that one of our major employers may be reducing their footprint in terms of security and that in case that they deem that to be material. So there are real things that are happening to the town and so we have been working with our state representative and contacted our neighbors and Hadley and are continuing to work through this and will keep you updated as that moves forward. Community participation officers attending district meetings and OCA and their subcommittee and I just one thing I want to add is that what was very clear is that the counselors are the front lines in terms of making connections with people. You're out in the field you're talking to people your neighbors your friends and in terms of engaging people in terms of wanting to participate in lots of different ways not just serving on committees but in lots of different ways and so we hope to continue to do that. We have our Kanagasaki visitors coming this week they'll be here Wednesday at four o'clock with a very brief sort of welcome ceremony here and then they go off and go to their home stays. Public safety very proud of our police department for receiving accreditation and as we complete as the students come back from their spring break at UMass we anticipate the students to be busy weekends in terms of activity and we will be staffing up to make sure that the town is protected and we handle all the situations. The tree department will be doing some tree on a tree on the town common next to the merry maple they will be removing a tree people will probably be alarmed by that but they shouldn't be well maybe it's not the merry maple they will be evaluating since they have the equipment there they will be evaluating the merry maple maybe doing some trimming of the merry maple but the tree that they're taking down is one that needs to come down but we anticipate having some calls on that. The station road bridge we have received some feedback from the state we still are waiting from three agents three different divisions in Boston with the comments we have been working on redoing the design our initial goal which was ambitious to get the bridge up operational by the end of April is clearly not going to be met I hesitate to put a new date on it because we are at the mercy of the state to get all of their feedback so that's a little frustrating on our end we continue to work with the we're hoping that we can continue to get a design that does not require us to go through our environmental permitting again and to that end we are seeking continuing with procurement activities to secure a bridge that might meet all the requirements that the state is putting on us so and just we've been remiss in not updating our website and we will do that in the next day or two and get this information plus any other information we have up on the website because I think we've fallen down on that and we owe that to the neighbors and everybody who's concerned about the bridge one other thing was the kudos to the LSSE they have been awarded the agency award for the department's recreational program outreach they have done really exceptional and innovative work around recreational programs a year ago we really encouraged them to start doing programming in areas where people are living instead of waiting for people to come to our parks and they've done that and had a very high success rate when they do programming where children are living basically and during the summer and that's been a really good thing for the department and for the people of Amherst and just kudos to them for taking that on and oh one David Burgess came in today and announced that he's going our principal assessor he'll be retiring coming in July so we will be working with him for a succession plan and where we will be going with that and so he might still be available to us after his retirement on a part-time basis which would be very beneficial to the town but David is a genius and I don't use that word lightly he really knows assessing and it's a complicated world and he nails it with great confidence on a regular basis and is able to handle complex analysis of the assessment methods especially as we get more commercial properties and more complex properties that he has to evaluate but he's a real leader in his field so we'll have more time with him but that's a big hole for us to fill but I'm pretty confident and he is confident that we'll be able to manage through this process so that's a summary of my report okay yes question station road bridge and I know way back when there was talk of potentially putting out a RFP request for bids while the state stuff was ongoing has I don't know what the outcome of that was is there an RFP out now I'm guessing what I meant or are we going to be waiting for all the state stuff to come back until we put that out so we've determined that an RFP is not going to come back and buy this as a structure and so we can if it's under $50,000 for the actual structure uninstalled it's no more it's no different than buying a tractor trailer or something like that so we're looking at it in that way and seeing if we can in our procurement officials think that that's an appropriate way to do it as long as it's under $50,000 and we're hopeful so that gives us the opportunity to engage in what we're looking for and see what's really important is the profile of the bridge how high off away from the water it is that's the critical piece at this moment in time so we have two quotes and I think we're trying to get a third and fourth quote later this week okay additional questions shall I question about the community participation just generally when we're thinking of reaching out to underrepresented communities underrepresented underrepresented communities who's under whose purview is that work is it the district councilors the OCA or the community part of I'm tired CPOs who's doing that part of reaching out to those communities I don't think there's any exclusivity to that work I think that's work that everybody should be embodying the CPOs in particular I know are really concentrating in that area on multiple levels and part of it is I think in terms of committee appointments but they have a much broader concept and that includes are you willing to be a coach of a basketball team are you able to host a block party in your neighborhood there's lots of different ways will you come to a neighborhood cleanup event for us so they think they look at it much more broadly because there's lots of different ways to engage people in the community it's not just by serving on a committee and a lot of people that's the last thing they want to do so I think that they have a much broader view of that can I just add a follow up thing to that so one of the roles they could be playing like I just heard the LSSC for example they're reaching out and creating those things so if the district councilors in that area know about these activities then if he can coordinate and find ways to be there so I tried to be really brief so I didn't get into all of this but yeah that's definitely I asked today when I mean they had fabulous ideas and I said we please get the list of all these fabulous things that you're thinking of doing so we are all going to be on the front lines so community participation officers will give us some information we'll make sure that all of the councilors get the information we also talked a little bit about things like showing people what the community activity forms look like and then when we're having like office hours or district meetings perhaps bringing our laptops with us because not everyone has a computer so that we could help people if they wanted to fill one out that we could help them do that or we could help them like it get to the library and figure out if you want to use the computer all the time could you do that so I wanted to make my report really brief but I'll make sure that when it's written it's more detailed and then we'll get much more information out to you. Any other questions? Okay. Then we're moving on to the council comments. Let me just share two sets of comments. As president first of all I will be polling you as I did before to determine people's interest in the resource committee the audit committee and the ECAC however let me split part resource committee and audit one is five people the other one's three those I will be polling and reporting back to you in a comprehensive spreadsheet so that you get a sense of the spread of councilors across committees and with that will come a memo to you appointing people to those two committees since they are committees of the council for the ECAC all I'm doing is polling so that I can forward to the town manager the people who are interested in ECAC from the town council there will be no priority on that or no opinion of the council okay questions on that my goal is to do all of that and come back on April 1st with those appointments the second thing is you do have a letter from Senator Cumberford and again complimenting Amherst on our striving to grow and develop our net zero energy code and including the fact that she refers to a bill that she's signed on to as the Amherst bill great let's move on to future agenda items I've already mentioned what will be on the April 1st agenda and are there other ones that people would like to make sure that we include as future agenda items I believe we mentioned marijuana last time and I've had two constituents ask that we look at the state of recycling in Amherst because of the international and national friends that are unfortunately happening with recycling yes Bindi Joe Alyssa's got a comment I believe just in terms of a future agenda item yes the Cran the citizens for racial amity now who worked with town meeting and the select board in the past for the second Sunday in June to be recognized as race amity day would like to come to our meeting on April 22nd on April 22nd to present that resolution for the second Sunday in June and they'll send us the resolution in advance yes but they were thinking yes definitely and a flyer as well associated with the events in June but it worked out better for them to do it on April 22nd then at one of our meetings there is also going to be a resolution from the Amherst education foundation on the event of their 25th anniversary are there other questions or comments at this time all right counselor comments yes just in reference to the comment for letter where the bill is called the Amherst bill I think that we should all acknowledge the big role that Darcy has played in bringing Amherst to the forefront of an energy conscious town great thank you actually we have other counselors here that participated in that zero energy effort Lynn and Andy I think that's it right yep and also the members of a group that you work very closely with mothers out from anything else counselor comments topics not reasonably anticipated no executive session do I hear a motion to adjourn second Pat moved it and Mandy Joe seconded this is a roll call vote counselor Shane yes counselor Schreiber counselor Steinberg counselor sports yes counselor D'Angelo yes counselor Grismar yes counselor Pan yes that's 12 thank you thank you very much


This paper discusses the use of unmanned aircraft systems, yes, for remote sensing applications specifically focusing on multispectral imagery. The authors describe the challenges and solutions associated with efficiently processing multispectral imagery to obtain orthorectified, radiometrically calibrated image mosaics for the purpose of rangeland vegetation classification. They also compare the results of their ground truth classification against both ground truth and world u2 satellite data. The authors found that the US derived data correlates well with both ground truth and satellite data, demonstrating the potential for upscaling the data to larger areas. This article was authored by Albert Rango, Catriana M. Steele, Marca Goforth, and others.