I am sending the IV to Yohani, so hopefully she's fine and she could come any minute. But we could start. Okay. Thank you. Okay, sure. All right. And with that, I just want to let everyone know, again, that we are recording. So a couple of things, just first, if people, when you're not speaking to please mute your microphones. And also, if you're having any kind of video connection issues, feel free to turn your video off. We would love it if you could stick around and we could see you. But if for whatever reason, you have a bad connection, feel free to turn off at least the video so that that might help. When you introduce yourself this morning or this evening, I'm sorry. Please use your pronouns. So I am Stephanie Chickarello, the coordinator sustainability coordinator for the town of Amherst, and I go by she and her. I would like to start with, we actually have two acknowledgments this evening now. The first is a Native American land acknowledgement, and then we also have one that was drafted by Lauren Mills, one of our community leaders that is a statement of the contribution of African Americans, and I will read both. Let's begin with the statement of the indigenous heritage of the land. We humbly acknowledge that we stand on nanotuck land, acknowledging also our neighbor neighboring indigenous nations, the knit muck, and the Wampanoag to the east, the Mohegan and Pequot to the south, the Mohegan to the west, and the Abenaki to the north. And I would like to read our statement of contribution of African Americans by our community leader Lauren Mills. Amherst recognizes the generations of African Americans that have contributed to the development of agriculture and historical academic preservation from the past to the present. We also recognize the rich spiritual culture, artistic contribution, and pursuits of justice that have enriched the communities in which African Americans have lived, worked, persevered, and achieved. And with that, I will turn it over to Ghazi Kaya. Hey, I'm Ghazi Kaya. My pronouns are they, them theirs. And I think, Stephanie, I don't think you mentioned just that if for any reason our meeting is interrupted, that we ask for people to just immediately leave the meeting. And we'll get in touch by email about how to proceed from there if that were to happen. So I was just going to briefly go over the agreements that we've been using for our meetings thus far. And I first just wanted to mention that, you know, these are, these are hopes that we can keep these in mind. They really have to do with thinking about where our personal values are and how we want to use our time together, not just in this meeting, but hopefully this will give you the opportunity to think about how you interact in any meeting or any experience that you have in your life. And whether we are focusing on being, meeting our goals or being overly successful or connecting with the people around us and valuing those people. So the first one is to put people and relationships first to be free to take care of yourself at any point by taking a break or being with or checking in with children that need caring for anyone else who needs your attention, stepping away for yourself to get a drink or a snack or anything that you need. Just please do that whenever you need. The second one is to, oh, I'm going to pause there and let Rosanna do the translation. The other thing is that we have Rosanna here to interpret. And I'm realizing now, Yohani's not on yet. So we don't need to do that. Never mind. It would be kind of nice to have it for the recording since we have Rosanna so go ahead, Rosanna. So the first one is to put relationships first. If you could just unmute yourself. Okay. Okay. I'm Rosanna Salazar. Well, I am resident, Amherst resident and also a student and also working for the collaborative for educational services. I am working with Cailin in Healthy Hampshire. Working with community engagement close to the community. I'm very happy to do this. I'm very happy to be here also. Thanks, Rosanna. So I was wondering if you could just translate for the video so unmute yourself so someone watching this later can understand what we're talking about. So if you could translate for me that part that I said about how we want to have keep in mind that we're putting people and relationships first during this meeting. I'm going to say that nosotros estamos poniendo primero a las personas y las relaciones interpersonales. Primero. Awesome. And the second one is that we want to keep in mind that we're pausing for a translation and using jargon or technical terms. And that will ask you to raise your hand before speaking so that we can keep us low and thoughtful pace. Rosanna, can you translate that? Yeah. I'm distracted. And we're going to... Please, you have to pause so that you can do the translations. And... If you want to speak, raise your hand. Okay. The next one is that we ask that if you're a person who tends to talk a lot that you consider sharing less. And if you're a person who tends to be more quiet that we make room for those people by allowing for silences in between. Ya puedes traducirlo eso porque hay cosas que no te entendí. Ya, ya, ya. Si usted es una persona que habla mucho, vamos a pensar en que vamos a creer espacio para las personas que no hablan mucho y vamos a quedar en silencio si eso es una oportunidad para alguien a participar. And the last one is that we're going to do our... Second to last one is that we're going to do our best to remember that sometimes very personal things can come up. And we want to keep things as private as possible and not push people to give more information or to prove what they're talking about. So, por favor, recuerda que a veces las participantes van a compartir algo muy personal y no queremos guardar la privacidad. La privacidad, gracias de todos. And the last one is that we want to continually remind ourselves that our ideas about what are right and wrong are most likely just a reflection of your culture and may differ from others in the room. So, please be open to learning by asking questions of others rather than assuming that your perspective is what's good for everyone. So, nada es erróneo. Todas las personas van a hablar según su cultura y está perfecto hacerlo así. Gracias, Rosana. Thanks, Izikaya. Hey, everyone. My name is Lauren. I share her pronouns and you haven't heard from me much in these meetings so far because I've been taking notes and capturing all of the great ideas that have been shared throughout these meetings. Hola a todos, mi nombre es Lauren y yo estoy con hombres son ellas y pues estoy tomando notas y agradeceré que puedan hacer pausas. Gracias, Rosana. So, this time we decided to switch things up and Jim is kindly taking notes today, I'll be helping to facilitate along with Gazikaya. And I just wanted to say that I work with Jim and I currently live in Portland, Maine, but I lived for two years in Northampton and went to UMass and I'm very grateful to be working with this community and this group of people. So, we wanted to start off our conversation today with a reflection on the idea of climate resilience. So I'm going to share my screen just to have some visuals to support this section. Voy a compartir la pantalla para que puedan ver los audiovisuales. Alright, and everyone see thumbs up if yes. Hi, Marita. And just want to say hi to Marita who just arrived. So, as we've been talking about climate change with this group. What keeps coming up is that folks lives are very unstable right now in terms of things like housing, food, transportation and job security. In este momento, bueno, estamos... la vida es muy inestable y sobre todo hablando de transportación, clima y... Comunidad. Comunidad. Empleos. Y industrialidad también en los empleos. And that all of these things are affected by climate change. Y todo esto está siendo afectado por el cambio climático. So we've also been talking about quality of life, how difficult it is for some members of our community to live in Amherst and how wonderful it is for others. También estamos hablando de la calidad de vida y cuán difícil se puede ser vivir en este momento en Amherst. And how some of this is connected to our systems of governance. Y esto está conectado también con el sistema de gobierno. And we've been talking about the connections between the drivers of climate change like burning fossil fuels and quality of life, the connection between those two. Y podemos hablar sobre la conexión que hay entre... What do you say? Sorry. Things like burning fossil fuels, los combustibles fósiles. Los combustibles fósiles, los que manejan el gobierno? Sí, pero la conexión entre la contaminación climática y la calidad de vida. And so these ideas reflect these two priorities that we're holding. Estas ideas reflejando dos prioridades.  Climate medication, medicación? No, medication, mitigación. Mitigación, ya. Mitigación del clima. Y... Capacidad de recuperación? Ya, de resiliencia y la capacidad de recuperación. De este... de mi clima. Gracias. And so we wanted to start off by asking the group a question around how it's felt going between these two priorities of climate mitigation and climate resilience. What has come up for you as we've thought about these two priorities? Casi tú puedes hacer esto? Sí. So vamos a preguntar a todos a pensar en cómo se ha sentido entre estas dos prioridades y qué hace surgido de ellas. ¿Qué son las ideas para ustedes cuando están pensando en la realidad que tenemos la situación que tenemos que mejorar el cambio de clima? Pero también tenemos que mejorar nuestras vidas diariamente ahora. So I'm just going to give folks a minute to think on that question and then maybe ask a couple of folks to share their thoughts. Uno breve minutos para reflexionar y después podemos conversar acerca de esto. I'll stop sharing my screen for a moment. Bernard, I see your hand is up. Did you want to jump in? I'm going to jump in. I've got a slow connection so I'm going to try to not use video unless I need it. For me, the difference between mitigation and resilience in the actions I take doesn't exist. There is no difference by which I mean I can't mitigate the climate by myself. I can by myself try to be more resilient in my house and perhaps my immediate community. What I do is try to pick those actions. Great, sorry. I'm sorry. Bernard, I want to just stop you there so that we can do the interpretation. But please hold that thought. I know you're on a great train. Okay, para Bernard, no hay una diferencia de la mitigación ni de la resilience como era. Presidencia. Maybe I can say it this way. I try to do things that build resilience that if copied on a community or worldwide scale would also contribute to mitigation. Ashwin, would you mind giving a crack at that? I'm not sure how to say that. Sure thing. Thank you. What I can do is do things in my own life, my own personal life that if they were replicated on a global scale would be a great help for climate mitigation, climate change. Wonderful. Bernard, did you have more to add or just that summit up? That's the kernel. Good enough. Thank you. Great. Thanks so much. I want to ask maybe one more person to share their thoughts on this question. Don't be shy. I can say something very close to Ashwin that we as an individual, we can contribute to the resilience or mitigation of climate. Always we have something that we could do in this town, in this world to make a change. We could feel that is only a small change, but if everyone do this small change, that will be really very important change in the world. So it's to take consciousness about what to do and what important could be for us and for all the people around us.  So the important thing is to choose what I can do or what we can do together so that this change can be given. And at the level of the town, how we can contribute to this, so that it can be given. Thank you. I'm going to share my screen again and just continue on with this conversation for a moment. So one of the ideas that this plan is meant to address is climate resilience or bouncing back from stressors like floods, storms, power failures, and even pandemics. So one of the ideas of resilience and change is how do we do this bounce? Yes. How do we do this bounce and what can we do on the other side? From shocks and stressors like storms and pandemics. Yes, all the stressors that appear in our lives, like the pandemic, like the storms or all the natural effects that can also be given. But what we've heard over the course of our meetings is that bouncing back to the way things have been is really not enough. So we've been acknowledging as a group that bouncing back only makes sense if you start off from a stable place and much of our community is living without that stability. La mayoría de la comunidad está viviendo con esta tratando de vivir o de adquirir habilidades para poder vivir en estas circunstancias. So we've been recognizing that this also means that much of our community is not able to fully engage with climate action. So la mayoría de la comunidad no se está enrolando o no está en estas sesiones de acción climática en esos momentos. So instead of this idea of bouncing back to the way things have been, I wanted to offer a different definition of climate resilience as one of bouncing forward toward better conditions towards stability toward better outcomes. Esta no la sé explicar bien, Gasi, tú puedes explicar lo mejor. So instead of going back to a place where we currently are where people's lives aren't very stable, maybe we can try to move a little bit towards a better situation for more people. A lot of times in climate action, people talk about bouncing back to what they have at the beginning, but if we're not very stable to begin with, then we don't want to go back to that place. So we want to try to make things a little bit better than they were. Gasi, tú puedes hacerlo en el español. Yo puedo intentar. Básicamente lo que dices es que el concepto de resiliencia, muchas veces se refiere a rebotar pues hacia atrás, hacia un estado que anteriormente era pues estable. Pero el tema que en la realidad el pasado tampoco no era tan estable. Entonces mejor que pensamos en la resiliencia en cuanto al tema de rebotar hacia adelante y no rebotar hacia atrás, no? Porque no era tan estable y queremos avanzar, rebotar desde la disrupción, los destrozores, todo eso, hacia un futuro que realmente sea más estable, con condiciones mejores y con resultados más deseables. Thanks everyone. Gracias. So this can look like many different things, but it really requires that we are able to share the risks and opportunities associated with climate change more equitably. Ya pueden ser muchas cosas diferentes, pero hay cosas que pueden ser más. Yo me estoy olvidando de todo lo que me están diciendo. Osana, these are really like abstract concepts and it's difficult to understand in one language, let alone in two so you're doing incredible and it's the end of the day. Can you do this? Yeah, for sure. Gracias. Could you just quickly say that again more and I actually was. Yeah, sorry. I'm in it now. Just saying that the idea of bouncing forward really requires that we can share the risks and opportunities associated with climate change more equitably. Okay, para pensar en el tema de rebotar hacia adelante, eso requiere que compartimos los riesgos y los beneficios de todos los cambios que estamos contemplando para que sea más equitativo la distribución de los resultados. Thank you. So I wanted to give a couple of examples of what this could mean. So for instance, it could look like collaborating with landlords and property managers to create tree planting programs in the apartment complexes. Por ejemplo, podría referirse a la colaboración con los propietarios dueños de propiedades y administradores de propiedades para crear programas de plantación de árboles y en los complejos de los apartamentos. Or it could look like creating incentives for landlords and property managers who create community gardening opportunities for renters. No, también podría incluir crear incentivos para los propietarios y administradores de propiedades que desarrollan oportunidades de jardinería, jardinería comunitaria para los inquijinos. Incluso. I know this group has lots of other great ideas about what bouncing forward could look like and that's going to be part of our discussion tonight. Se sabe que todos los que los participantes tienen muchas ideas sobre qué significa o qué debería significar a rebotar hacia adelante y estamos emocionados para escuchar todos esas perspectivas esta noche. I'm going to pass it over to our co-chairs Ashwin and Steve to kick us off on a review of some of the key ideas and action items that we've talked about so far in this group so that we can build off of those and launch into our main conversation. Va a pasar la voz a los co-coordinadores del Task Force del comité, los cuales somos yo, Ashwin y Steve para guiarnos en un repaso, una revisita sobre los conceptos más claves, las sugerencias más centrales que han surgido o que ha salido de los antecedentes de esta región. I'll say that. Oh wait, I guess. Okay. Yeah. Steve, are you there? Yes. Okay. How do you want to do this? I can give it a crack or do you want to try to take it away? I'm open. Let me try to wing it here a bit. And just introduce, I think the background for these majors, these key ideas and major actions. Steve va a comenzar y yo voy a interpretar un poco lo que dice. The major ideas that we think we have heard in our previous meetings, and we want to go over them tonight and get feedback from the community on these ideas.  Queremos repasar, pasar por estos cuatro ideas para escuchar sus ideas. Aportes críticas y también sobre estos cuatro ideas, estas cuatro ideas y también sobre otras ideas que ustedes tienen que no aparecen entre entre entre los cuatro. So as we move forward, thinking how in the landscape category, land use category, these four ideas have come up. These four ideas have come up as ways that we can help both reduce our carbon emissions and improve our carbon emissions. So as we move forward, thinking how in the landscape category, land use category, these four ideas have come up as ways that we can help both reduce our carbon emissions and improve our carbon emissions. Our way of life in Amherst. En el proceso de pensar en el uso del suelo, estos cuatro ideas son los que han salido como ideas que podrían ayudar para atender al tema de cambio climático y también mejorar la calidad de vida de nosotros que vivimos en Amherst. So let me emphasize number one and number three, which deal with solar panels and are addressing how would we like to see solar panels used within the town of Amherst. Va a destacar inicialmente los puntos uno y tres los cuales atienden al tema de los paneles solares y como podemos mejorar las la ubicación y instalación de los paneles solares. So I suggest that we talk about those two issues and I'd love to hear from people what they think about where should we put solar panels panels and how should we incentivize developers are homeowners or other people to locate solar panels and what are the best places for those. Sugiere que enfocamos que enfoquemos en esos dos puntos uno y tres y pensar en cómo podríamos incentivizar a los stakeholders, los actores relevantes para mejor aprovechar de las oportunidades para plantear paneles solares de una manera adecuada. Do you guys want to jump in quickly because I think sort of the format that we had set up for this discussion was to first review the actions and then lead into a conversation so I think it would be helpful to go over all of the actions first if you don't mind. Lorena ha ofrecido un punto meta una nota que la idea sobre esta sección era primero revisar cuáles son los puntos que dicen las sugerencias y de allí volver a conversar sobre ellos. Okay, that's fine. The other two ideas one number two on the screen provide incentives for people to manage natural lands in ways that support carbon sequestration. Entre los dos que no hemos tocado todavía el punto dos es a proporcionar incentivos para las personas que manejen las tierras naturales de manera que faciliten el secuestro de carbón. So, what this is asking is for people who manage our natural lands these might be farmers, landowners, other people to work their land in a way that causes carbon to be taken out of the air and stored in the soil where it cannot contribute to global warming. Lo que quiere decir eso es buscar maneras de hacer de empujar de facilitar que los que utilizan la tierra sean agricultores sean propietarios para manejar sus suelos sus tierras de una manera que es de fomente la el secuestro la secuestración. Si eso quiere decir secuestración el proceso en que a través de fotos síntesis a través de manejar los suelos agrícolas que el carbono lo cual es un elemento que pues forma una gran parte de toda la materia orgánica a todos los suelos todos las plantas todo eso se mantiene y se enriquece que se enriquece. Okay, I said I said something in Spanish there that I wasn't quite said in English so I'll add that. Mantenga en el suelo. Mantenga en el suelo y que se enriquece so to store so basically so the idea is to find ways to facilitate landowners and property for whether they're farmers land users farmers property managers, etc. To carry out practices that sequester more carbon so carbon's an element that's really common in soils, it's abundant in plants and organic matter plants take it out of the air through photosynthesis and store it. But sometimes it gets lost in soil so the idea is to find practices to store more of that carbon on the land to enrich carbon stocks and land. Great, thank you, thank you for Ashwin for explaining that in more detail than I provided. Number four, we'll just go over that and then we can get into any of these in more detail number four is, as you can see to increase access of outdoor recreational spaces for low income rental and communities of color throughout the town. El cuarto tema, el cuarto punto es en respuesta a la crisis, a las crisis sanitarias and climate climatic as actual is aumentar el asset, el acceso a los espacios recreativos al aire libre para comunidades de bajos ingresos de alquiler y comunidades de color. Great. Thank you both so much for providing those explanations. You still look awesome. Can I just, can I add one one thing real quick to that. So I just want to clarify that these four Diaz to some degree came out of previous meetings. And I think Lauren, you mentioned that this is not in any particular order and one of the things we want to know is what's most important to you from this list and also what's missing potentially so. Otra vez estos cuatro puntos salieron creemos de los antecedentes de las reuniones anteriores pero no están en ningún orden o orden particular y en este sentido quisiéramos saber cuáles de estas cuatro son más importantes más prioritarias para ustedes y si es que hay algo que falta que esta lista pues falta todavía no. Okay, yeah. Awesome. That's a perfect setup. Thank you so much, Ashwin. I'm going to turn it over to the guy. So, we're going to each take three minutes to share on exactly what Ashwin just mentioned, which one seems the most important to you. Is there one that is missing or several that you think are missing and what surprises you about this list, or what makes sense to you about this list. Am I should I still translate or Rosana. Well, I don't know, I'm happy to continue if you prefer. And you do it very well. You do it better. I'm in an hour in which I forget the second word. That happens to me every time. What he said, what I'm going to say is that we're going to take three minutes to think individually about what it seems to us. Four points. Reflections tenemos sobre el lenguaje que está presentado en la pantalla y lo que acabamos de explicar de una manera verbal. Si es que algo te parece, bueno si es que te parece que algo falta de esta lista o que hay algo que agregar y de allí vamos a volver a compartir.  If you'd like to go where each going to go for three minutes and Lauren is going to be keeping the time and we'll give you a gentle reminder when you when your three minutes are up. Pense la mano por favor para hablar y la idea es que cada uno tiene va a tener tener tres minutos para compartir y Lauren va a hacer eso cuando tienes un minuto o cuando está a tiempo. Cuando está a tiempo. When three minutes is up but of course there's extra time for folks to finish their thoughts. Lauren te avisa cuando se acaba el tiempo y bueno con respeto obviamente. Rosana. Each of these points are very important and I think they are very connected to each other. Estos cuatro puntos son muy importantes y están conectados unos con otro. Me gustaría hablar sobre la última sobre la cuarta que es trabajando con las comunidades. Pues es una de sus preocupaciones que ellos tienen. I was in English and Spanish. En los dos pero si quieres puedes hablar en español y yo puedo decirlo a inglés. One of these are very important and I want to focus on the fourth because it is one of the worries of the community. Es uno de los puntos que a la comunidad le preocupa más es y es. How to increase these these recreative spaces outdoors and for these communities como como es que se puede incrementar esta es estos espacios recreativos al aire libre para las comunidades. I believe that Amherst doesn't have too many recreated spaces for people. We have there are some spaces but I don't know if there are other towns that have more or or not. Yo no sé si yo creo que Amherst no hay suficientes espacios recreativos no sé si en otros pueblos tienen más espacios recreativos Amherst pero. But it's very important to try to find a new spaces. So how to do that. So we need to study that we go to the third point that conduct a townwide study to determine the best location for solar. All four spaces recreated spaces yes. Y esto nos lleva al tercer punto de que es estudiar lugares no solamente para para ubicaciones para los los paneles solares pero también para ubicar espacios recreativos al aire libre para las comunidades. There are spaces that the community can use for community gardens for example they don't have those spaces and they want those spaces. Ya ellos muchas veces no tienen espacios para para los jardines comunitarios y ellos necesitan estos espacios y quieren estos espacios. Thank you so much. So it sounds Rosana like one that is missing from here that's also very important is to address the need for community gardens that are close to the communities that don't have access. Is that right. Yeah. Thanks so much. Caitlin. Thanks. I'm always happy to back up what Rosana says. And yeah I that's definitely on my mind too. And I know I've mentioned this before but I see one of the greatest challenges and Amherst being that a lot of low income folks and communities of color live in developments that are privately owned. I don't know who's translating but I'm for whoever is right now. Okay. Siempre dice que está siempre feliz a la respaldo a la respaldo a lo que dice Rosana y uno de los problemas principales que mucho de los comunidades de color and Amherst even in. Developments. Desarrollan los jardines comunitarios. Claro fatan jardines comunitarios pero también lo que dice Caitlin es que viven en. En propiedades privados con es de landlords con propietarios dueños que son privados y eso es una problema. So I'm just looking at that number one and I sort of feel like there should maybe be some overlap between number one and number four. I'm like thinking about providing incentives for developers to create those outdoor recreational spaces. Viviendo un poco entre el punto uno y punto cuatro que debería haber incentivos para que los propietarios creen a espacios comunales no y eso sería como un vínculo entre los dos. And I would even go so far as to say mandates, but I know that might not be a popular opinion. Y también este hasta más allá decir que es obligatorio que está es un mandato que tienen que hacerlo. Just to say in English, I thank you for that comment I think that's great. In this in this committee in the past we've run into another discussions we've run into questions of whether or not it's okay and possible to mandate those kinds of things. I'm finding I think we've come up with is that indeed it is, but it takes political well so I appreciate that. Lo que digo acá decir es que en este mismo comité hemos en muchos momentos encontrado la cuestión si es que posible hacer reglamentos ordenanzas de esa manera que requieren que los propietarios que los desarrollistas con citos así y la respuesta que sale. La mayoría de las veces que si pero requiere voluntad política. That's great. Just a three minutes. I mean I agree with what everyone has been saying so far. I'm like also backing up Rosanna. Like what I've seen, there also was a, the area that I live in that has a lot of people of color they turned one area into a dog park rather than a regular park for kids. And I think that that just says a lot. And I think that also as an add on the glove you have already said like for number four also to do community gardens, which is also writing a nice space, which could potentially write nice space for recreation, as well as play for children. And you can make it, you can combine all those things into one area. And there are a lot of areas I've seen that where that could happen. There are a lot of people that would provide access to food, it would even teach children how to grow their own food. And the last time I talked about, you know, helping out with that in our communities. Yeah, I think that brain recreation outdoor situation for kids and even adults and also people with disabilities in those areas who are trapped inside their houses, because what I've seen to is that a lot of people who have a lot of color for low income, they don't, they don't have the knowledge for the access to get help for the people in their families who are in their houses who have disabilities. So I've seen apartment complexes and families that I know where they also won't disability that's just literally inside the house the one time. So no way to get out, like nothing to do, and everyone just kind of like out there with sense I think like providing like situations where people with disabilities can also come outside and enjoy, you know, that type of situation and learn something about outdoors and gardening and like that would be very beneficial. All right, that was a lot I'm going to try to translate that. Okay, what I just said is that, well, where Marita lives, this is a park for dogs, but not for the people, for the children, and that reveals a lot about the priorities they have. And the other thing is that a lot of times the people, the color communities in Amherst, not only lack direct access to their communities, to gardens and also to open spaces and free of air and free, but they don't have knowledge either, and access as a cultural, let's say, I don't think that said that, but something like that to access the spaces that exist. And also you have to focus on people with disabilities who don't have the same skills, because there is a great lack, I'm resuming, I'm sorry, but there is a great lack of access to these spaces for people with disabilities with disabilities and that has to be a priority. I summarized a little bit there, I apologize, but I hope I caught most of the main points. And to include, if you can, Ashwin, that concept of that there can be multiple uses for the space so that you could combine a garden with an area for children and make it accessible so that people who are, you know, stuck inside apartments all day can enjoy and be a part of the learning. Okay, he also mentioned that it's not just a matter of having a garden here and other things here, but you can have areas with multiple uses. And in that way, people with disabilities or people for any reason cannot easily leave their homes. They can enjoy the gardens, have access to local food, activities, outside, and if we prioritize areas with multiple uses, we could serve and support these needs. Is that okay? Okay. Thank you so much. And, Marita, I'm also thinking that I'm hearing in what you're sharing an aspect of like giving people more information about what they can access and how to access it, what is available and how to enjoy it. And I think that that's very important because I know that even for me, like when I first moved back here, I didn't realize a lot of the things that were around me to access.  So I feel like it's good if, I know we like have like, like in our neighborhoods in South Amherst, we have all the information on access to food and stuff like that, but I think it's also good for people to know like, oh, about transportation. And I know a lot of people are already doing that, but it's just to make it more accessible. And to make it more that we're actually like doing more outreach in that type of area. Especially now that people are like, yeah. Sorry, I'm cooking right now. Thanks, Ashwin. I see that Bernard has his hand raised, and then we'll go to Rami next. Bernard, went on you. I'll try and be concise. I'm a farmer, so you won't be surprised to hear that number two would have a huge impact. If I could make twice as much money growing potatoes the right way, that would have a huge impact on a lot of land. I'll pause. I'm a farmer, so the number two would have a huge impact on me. And if I could make twice as much money growing potatoes the right way, that would have a huge impact on me. That would be sort of a model just like solar panel incentives. Point number four is something I could participate in as a large landowner. I imagine English landscape style trails, and that would be facilitated by the incentives of money, signage, and liability coverage. And point number four could also participate as a landowner on a large scale, with a lot of land and a lot of property. And that would be encouraged by roads, roads, let's say, extensive for information and good signals, and coverage of legal liability. Regarding solar panels, I want to stress that they not only solar electric photovoltaic panels, but that can also include, I'm sorry, yeah, sort of photo thermos or the heating water panels, and battery storage, because that what will help shape the peaks. Okay, in cuanto al sector solar, quiere destacar que debería no solamente incluir los paneles solares photovoltaicos, sino también a energía solar concentrado thermal, que sería mucho mejor para manejar los picos del peso al gris deléctrico. I try to find it occurs to me that the first three points would be much easier to implement if we could find an appropriate third party certifying agency. So analogous to the organic standard, if we could have a carbon sequestration standard a rooftop orientation standard a location kind of standard that we could just incentivize an existing scientifically based system, we wouldn't have to reinvent it ourselves. It occurs to me that the first three points would benefit a lot from a certification, a certification system in an analog way to what we have for organic food. Por ejemplo, certificar paneles solares citados en los sitios adecuados, según estos standards y certificaciones para la secuestración de carbono, también. Thank you. Thanks Bernard. So we're going to go to Romy next and then I see Andrew has a standard which is great. Hi, so forgive me I'm going to read off piece of paper because I had to organize my thoughts. So I agree with most people I think number four is the most important to me. But I also agree that, you know, using the, the language of just outdoor recreational space is not I think enough, also having, you know, usable spaces. So that, you know, general generational wealth and the ability to like own land doesn't, it isn't a barrier to people being able to actually connect with the land. Then I would go to number one, but I don't like a lot. I don't like a lot of the language. Oh my gosh I have to stop I'm sorry translation my apologies. You can actually continue I'm just taking notes on what you say and I'll just do it all at the end so this time I'll have it more precisely. Sorry. So incentives is a, it's a pretty like mushy piece of a language that doesn't really mean a lot and it provides a lot of different wins without any real consequences which I understand that you guys are talking about with, you know, using political power and only having so But if these are, if this is kind of a goal we want to reach by 2030-2035 like having real clear goals, I think is going to be really important. So I'd like to hear a clear goal and one that is not reliant on individuals. So I think personally, I think that the town should be doing work more work to play for grants to provide these kinds of resources not just to developers but to many townhomes, you know, if you want to talk about providing resiliency not worrying about the tree falling through streets down in the middle of a winter storm. That's a really great way to go. I would then go to number three but again with what I don't like about it is that doesn't have a real position and gold so like there's, there's like a generally understood goal after you conduct the Sunday study that you would then do something with the study. But I mean the thought I had was that very much like the way Amherst is kind of stiltedly trying to respond to racial justice like I think we're pretty done with conversations and investigations and I think action is kind of where things need to go in Amherst. And then I would put number two last. And my big problem is with it is again it puts a lot of the work on individuals and we're meeting this and individuals issue not a community, you know, town issue and I mean, especially number two. The focus move not from individuals to town but individuals to maybe businesses is the way that one would go or to higher income brackets because you know if you most of the town's homes I see and Amherst are, you know, you've got your garden in the back you got some wood lining it like that's all doing really good background work sequestering carbon, you know, I that's not adding a bunch of stuff, whereas the golf courses, the big huge greens across the boulders, you know, that get maintained with fertilizer and big mowers those are actively adding carbon, you know, I would rather us a deal with those contributors who have been, you know, adding to the problem and not suffering a lot of consequences for as opposed to people who are suffering a lot of consequences for it and then we're asking you to do more. That's it. Okay, cool. Thank you. I'm going to say, you know, that the point for the point four is the most important thing. But no, they're going to focus only on spaces recreative. And because we also have to think about the method which is to ensure that the status of being the owner of land, owner of a house, it wouldn't be a barrier for anything to use the land and focus on equity equity is quite key for that. La palabra incentivos es una palabra es un lenguaje medio suelto medio flojo que no tiene mucho sentido no no significa mucho porque es de crea o fomenta o plantea que hay mucho que ganar sin nada de consecuencias mucha victoria sin ninguna consecuencia porque evita hablar del uso de poder como poder colectivo creo yo y tener metas claras super claras es muy importante si es que queremos lograrlos y si los goals si los si las metas si las metas no depend y que las metas no dependan en los individuos solamente en los individuos que tan que en vez de depender en los individuos individuales el pueblo de la municipalidad debería estar aplicando para pues apoyo para grants para apoyo y brindar y brinda es debería estar brindando estos recursos no solamente a los negocios a los propietarios y a individuales ricos sino también pensando en negocios y otros otros grupos el punto tres no tiene una meta final es implícito en el sentido de que si si bueno vas a hacer un estudio pues bueno suposo se supondría que lo vas a utilizar de alguna manera después pero parece muy muy parecido a la manera en que emerson está pues de una manera torpe tratando una manera pues si pues medio torpe tratando de a atender responder a las cuestiones de justicia racial estamos ya basta ya terminado a de estudiar y conversar y la acción es donde toca ir el punto dos es como último a debería ser como último pero lo que también hace es poner mucho peso en los individuales y no en la comunidad o el pueblo en la municipalidad debería ser como una un asunto de la municipalidad el enfoque no debería ser solamente en los individuales o la relación entre los individuales y la municipalidad sino por ejemplo individuales y los negocios o a gente que viene de los grupos de mayor ingreso y la mayoría de las casas en emerson tienen este monte tiene bosque en su en su terreno al fondo tienen otras ecosistemas o otros sitios que están al fondo haciendo bastante trabajo de secuestración secuestrando carbono que ayuda mientras al mismo tiempo hay concursos de golf a otros sitios así que están activamente empeorando el tema causando daño con su maquinaría con sus actividades y entonces deberíamos estar enfocándonos en los que están activamente causando daño y no en los que están pues de cierta manera ayudando o por lo menos no están causando daño ok I think I got most of that. That was beautiful. Thank you Eshwin and Romy I was just wondering was there something that wasn't on the list that you would like to see on the list. La pregunta es que si hay algo que no estaba en la lista que debería estar en la lista. I think that these are kind of good general ideas for some for some of the more focus bullet points that we talked about in the in the previous meeting. I'm sorry if there's something you're thinking of that I'm not remembering correctly. No ok entonces parece que pues pues no no que no hay nada no hay un punto ningún punto grande que toca agregar. And I want to just go to Andrew now who has patiently been waiting. Thank you. I'm unmuting right now. So one of the things I want to so I'll follow what Romy did and I'll I guess I'll speak and then I'll wait for Ash Ash one to do the translation. Does that seem like a good plan. Thumbs up. I'll take notes on everything you say and just translate it again. So go ahead. Thank you. So it might be worth considering that items one and three a lot of the actions that take place on the local land use scale are going to be influenced by what happens with the smart program. The presence or absence of various incentives that are going to drive land use decisions. And so what there's with increased multipliers going towards resilient power systems for battery storage with increased multipliers going towards canopy and rooftop. I think what you're going to see is the the regulatory market for solar in Massachusetts kind of pushing people farther away from forested and and natural pasture lands more so than local local land use regulations might be able to. So that's one thing that's worth considering something that might be worth considering to in relationship to item number two is the question of like equity that I think Romy very adequately expressed was when you're when you're talking about incentives and you're talking about the question of ownership and who who traditionally owns large lands that would be eligible for incentives. The one question that has been going around is what are the impacts of financially rewarding people who contain who happen to have large tracts of land right whether it's a working land or just a golf course or something you know so there might be some way of kind of splitting that splitting that pie a little bit more thoroughly and nothing to consider is that when you look at land management around the globe. Oddly enough the places that are managed in community forest as a community forest or it managed according to indigenous practices. Those are the places where we are still seeing biodiversity all the things we're trying to accomplish and the question is is it is it the nature of the community landscape management model that provides that and is that compatible with like a large scale individual landowner so that might be something that's worth considering. It could be as simple as no till farming it could be as simple as having your local school system only acquire from a local no till farmer right that would be a cool thing to do but then but then I think the other point that someone raised in relationship to providing access to those those spots that are going to be managed differently that might be an important way of bridging the equity gap that otherwise would be created by kind of continuing to finance large ownership right and nothing to is like when one of the things that I think about when Amherst that is a really powerful mechanism that is unique in the state is your soil preservation by law and I think that's an interesting model that exists and so you already have a tool that's used to manage like a precious resource such as agricultural fertile soils. And so it's interesting to think of like if there's an overlay on top of that that would help manage land according to like no till farming practices or something like that. And I'm not a farmer so and I don't live here so I'm not trying to get too involved. Sorry, we are going to have to move on so I'm going to just stop you there but thank you so much. Those are really amazing ideas and I hope that you will share more of those with Stephanie and with the rest of us as we move forward. Thanks. Thank you. So here's the translation of that. Multiplicators are meant to us by mass. Asia el Almas in the lapaterias. I eat a lot. Canopia. So they lost it. It. El Mercado Regulatorio Parallel. Massachusets. I think you meant state incentives there. I think you meant state incentives there. But this. It's the. I think it would be worth it if the question of. That mentioned to me in a good way when it comes to incentives and the question of who is the owner and who is traditionally the owner of the biggest buildings and. That would be eligible for these programs a question that is circulating is what are the impact. a, pues, arreglar, de una manera financiera, la gente que tienen estos predios grandes. Ah, y si eso quiere, eso se refiere a trabajar la tierra o a un concurso de golf o otra cosa, podría ser que hay otra manera de compartir el pie, no, compartir la torta, de cortar la torta, y cuando se ve la gestión de tierra a nivel mundial, de una manera sorprendiente los sitios que son manejados como bosques comunitarios o de una manera consistente con prácticas indígenas o en cuanto a prácticas indígenas, esos son los mismos sitios donde todavía vemos bastante biodiversidad. Y entre todas las cosas que queremos hacer, queremos lograr, es una pregunta, es si es realmente posible, si es consistente con la naturaleza de la, de la naturale de tener gestión comunitaria de los paisajes que empuja estos resultados. Y eso realmente es compatible con los propietarios y los predios individuales a gran escala. Si se puede lograr los beneficios que se ve con manejo comunal o indígena en una sistema que tiene muchos predios grandes con dueños privados y individuales. Puede ser tan simple de hacer este agricultura sin labranza, sin, pues, sin mucho girar el suelo o tener o hacer que tu escuela adquiere la alimentación de un agricultor que utiliza estas técnicas de agricultura sin labranza. Pues en cuanto a la equidad y acceso, podría hacer una manera de hacer un puente entre los dos puntos, uno y cuatro, haciendo o creando vías de acceso de algunas maneras para gente que no son los dueños de los predios. Una cosa que hace Alex, que es bastante único y poderoso es la ley de preservación de los suelos. Es una ley interesante que ya existente y en este sentido ya existe una herramienta poderosa que se utiliza para manejar un recurso bastante precioso que podría también utilizar para manejar, que bueno, que se utiliza para manejar los suelos. Y allí pues terminó. Thanks, Ashwin. I think we're ready to move on to the next part of this discussion. Did you wanna kick it off? I'll stop sharing my screen. Okay, so the next piece that we are going to give each person an opportunity to share on is reflecting on the three meetings that we've had so far. And how we've, we have heard from many participants that this has been a pretty different experience from other town planning processes. And so we wanted to give you the opportunity to share. If you felt it was worthwhile. If you felt there was something that was really positive about it or something that didn't work and what could make it better for you. So we're gonna do the three minutes again for each person and the main thoughts that we're interested in hearing from you is just what are your reflections on the experience of being a part of this task group and what were the positives and what were the negatives for you and what are some things that could make it better. In this part, what we're going to do is ask for your reflections on the same process we're in. We've heard that this process for many of you has been different than other town planning processes. So then, according to the same process of taking three minutes each of reflection, we want to hear about if the process was worthwhile for you or not. And then any other critical reflection that you have. Feel free to raise your hand whenever folks are ready. Yeah, Romy. Oh, sorry. Um, I was just working for you where we do a longer talk and then you change at the end. Okay. Um, so I have three main thoughts, two good just one piece of negative feedback. I think that having all of the various translations in these videos is it is not the way that these typically these names typically have been, but I think that it is actually taking steps to be more to to reflect the community that we actually have not the community that just normally shows up. Like town meetings and can, you know, applies for these positions, which I think was something that I've lived in Amherst on and off for 16 years and that's, that's a huge complaint we've had and seeing actual work going into changing that is great. I mean, this is not at these meetings specifically, but when we all receive payment that it was in cash. That was as someone who's involved in state programs, not having to deal with that kind of stuff I know it seems really. It's not something that most people think about but not having to worry about filing various stuff with various state programs was incredibly helpful and was a very thoughtful piece that happened in running these meetings. And the only thing I would say that I wish it would different is that no meeting time, like when they were ended was not very often shared. So it's a strange thing you go in a meeting and I'm quite sure when it's going to be done. Just a very small thing that would be helpful for planning. And that's all. So, well, I have three main thoughts, two, well, and one, a piece of a negative contribution to share. One, having all the various interpretations in these videos, in these meetings, it has not been how it has been done usually, but it seems that it represents taking steps to reflect the community that we really have. And not only who assists, who appears, who appears at these meetings and who applies, who applies for these positions, etc. I've lived in Amherst for 16 years, more or less, and it's a complaint that we receive many times. And seeing real work to attend to this matter is incredible. It's very good. When we received payments, it was effective. And as someone, as a person who is involved in state programs, not having to touch anything of that, not having to worry about how to do the work, how to do all the formulas with state programs, it was super useful and helped a lot. Three, when, many times, it was not shared the time when the meetings were going to end, and it's a bit weird to enter a meeting and not be very sure when it's going to end. So it's a small thing, but it would help with planning. Thanks, Rami. That's really valuable. And just to say we will be wrapping up at 8.30 tonight. Hope that's helpful. Thank you. Marita, yes. So, yeah, so I guess, you know, also similar to Rami, I've been living in Amherst, on again off again for the past 36 years. And, you know, it is one of the parts of things I have to say is that it is very nice to see that there is something like this going on. Obviously, I wish that we could have met in person. Because maybe like I feel like, but I know, you know, a couple people here and there, but I feel like it would have been nice to connect in person to kind of like build things in our own communities and like if people needed help with something to kind of make that connection. And I know maybe we can continue that after all this happens as well. But yeah, I mean, overall, I feel like it was a very positive experience and I'm glad that this was put together and that we could talk about these things and also it gives me more confidence to talk to people in my neighborhood about these things. And that gives me more insight and more, how do I say it, just more ideas of what to do in my own community. Yeah, so yeah. I've been living in Amherst for more than 30 years, 36 years I think. It's good to know that there is something like this that is going on, that is going on. Obviously, I wish that we could have met face to face in person. And well, I know some people here, but it would have been very good to meet in person to build a base to build things in our own communities so that if someone needed help with something in their community, it would have been a very positive experience and I'm glad that it was organized. It also gives me more confidence to talk to people in my neighborhood about these things and it gives me more ideas and more impressions about what it can be done in my own community. And I think that's when we'd like to go next. This was a very enriched process. It has been a very enriched process. We have these four general main points. We have these four general points. It would be interesting to know about the specific activities, how to address these points. So ahora va a ser interesante conocer las actividades específicas a realizar para direccionar estos puntos. I think this is a great start. This is un gran comienzo y espero que muchas personas más puedan estar en vueltas en el futuro. And I hope more people could be involved in this process also in the future. Thank you. Yes, we hope so too. We will definitely be continuing the process of dialogue about these ideas and developing them into strategies and actions that really work for the community. Thank you. Esperemos y vamos a estar siguiendo con el trabajo y convertiéndolos en ideas que se puede implementar. I forgot what you said there, but ideas that you can implement. Okay, I guess I find myself with somewhat conflicting ideas about these meetings. On the one hand, I think it's marvelous the multifaceted ways you've tried to advance inclusion. And hearing from everyone. On the other hand, I'm impatient. And I have the feeling that these meetings move slowly and I'm more used to dynamic give and take and higher productivity given the amount of time. So I'm feeling like I wish we didn't have to. Perhaps sacrifice productivity for inclusion. And could have both and that's, and I don't pretend to know how to do that. But it's feeling like there is some kind of trade off right now. And it'd be nice to find a way to, you know, get all the benefits and less of the costs. So it's, I'm impatient. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. I find myself with somewhat conflicting ideas about these meetings. On the one hand, it's marvelous that the multifaceted ways you've tried to increase inclusion through these meetings. On the other hand, I'm impatient. I'm much more used to more dynamic meetings where there is a change. And with a higher level of productivity than we've had in these meetings. I hope we didn't have to sacrifice productivity for inclusion and that we could have both. And it would be super good if we could have both. I didn't pretend to know how to do it. But it would be good to have the benefit of inclusion without having a cost of productivity. Um, can I go? Yeah, okay. Um, yeah, I, I think everyone has brought up really great points. I definitely appreciate the eye toward inclusion that's been brought to these meetings. And I understand the frustration of going slowly. And at the same time, I've actually really appreciated that these meetings don't feel too over ambitious, like we're trying to pack too much in. Um, I think, you know, the fact that everything we discussed was sort of processed and boiled down to these four goals and then, you know, we were offered the opportunity to give feedback on the goals. Um, we could have done a lot more. I'm not sure how much, how necessary it was to do a lot more. And so I just kind of appreciate, you know, keeping it simple and straightforward. Um, yeah, because he kind of did you want to add something? Yeah, I just wanted to offer that we also consider that the products of these meetings are very multifaceted and perhaps not consistent with what kind of products have come out of typical meetings in Amherst in the past. But there is a extremely complex and challenging layer that has been a part of these meetings, which has been one of the main goals of this work was to bring this product. And you have to look at it that way, you know, of acknowledging that there are many different types of people in our community with many different perspectives, and that to value those perspectives, we need to provide access in different ways, and we need to be willing to structure those perspectives in different ways and, and take a look at our values. And, and I, yeah, I just want to offer that we widen our perspective of productivity and allow richness and complexity, which was not simple or even slowly accomplished in these meetings. That was actually very challenging and, and layered and took incredible courage for many of the people who participated in these meetings to be able to bring to this. So I want to really honor all of that and make sure that that we don't. Yeah, that we don't take away from how much courage and complexity and depth that we've experienced in these meetings together. I'm going to translate it and then I would like to share if I can. I want to offer that we consider that the products of these meetings have been multiple. And maybe they are not consistent with the types of products that we are used to in meetings and similar processes. Well, there has been a big challenge in making it a product, recognizing that there are so many different types, so many different types of people in our community with so many different perspectives. And to value these perspectives, we have to give access in different ways and structure the meetings in different ways. And again examine, look at our values. And we should also amplify our perspective on the concept of productivity and value the process in many ways. In this way it was not simply or achieved slowly. In fact, it was quite challenging and with many layers and layers. And it really took courage, this incredible value for so many people. And I really want to honor and recognize all of that and make sure that we don't take away from the courage and complexity and depth that all of this would require. Can I share as well? Is that all right? So I just want to echo a lot of what has been said and I specifically want to thank you all for your contributions today. I actually feel like a lot, I get it, I see, I get that it feels slow, but I actually think that, and I trust the Linnaean folks to incorporate this stuff. I think what came out even today was like super important. There were comments about elevating access to public spaces for all people as part of our mitigation plan. I think that's critical because that's how we build a constituency to make these policies a reality. We don't get the town to pass bold transformative structural changes by having kind of technocratic meetings. We do it with people power. The plan that Linnaean is mostly going to put together isn't going to do that on its own. So I just can't stress enough how important this process is for building that kind of like people power in a way. So that's the first thing I'll say. Second of all, just thank you all for your time and also thank you guys at Kaya for all your work and making this part of the work successful and making it possible. It really, we couldn't have done this without you. So I just want to, you know, lift you up there and thank you for everything you've done on this really. And finally, I just want to also point out that I too have been in a lot of fast paced technical meetings, including ones that fed into climate action plans even for municipalities. And while the meetings kind of feel more productive because you're covering a lot more technical ground, the product ain't that much better. It ain't better at all. In fact, so I think that what seems like product productivity and meetings, if you actually look at the results, at least gives me pause to kind of reconsider that. So that that's just another thing that I wanted to put on the table is that, you know, my entire career and upbringing taught me to think that a certain type of conversation is productive. And when I sort of step back to examine political progress, I find that those kinds of meetings abundant as they are don't always lead to real change. So I think it's great that we're trying something else. Well, first of all, I wanted to thank you all for the contributions of today. I think they are super substantial and useful, especially to remember that having access and raising the priority of providing access to green spaces, open gardens, etc. It's very important because what the plan is doing, it's not going to make the change itself. We also have to build the power of the people and involve more people in the coalition for change, because it's so deep and so structural that we have to have more people who can access these processes and be part of the governance in a real way. Second, I wanted to thank Gassit Kaya for his work so deep, so hard, to make sure that this focus of inclusion really was possible. We wouldn't have been able to do anything of that without your help, without your commitment. And then, really, thank you very much. And finally, I wanted to say that in my own experience, working in meetings, even those who are linked to climate change plans, although more technical meetings happen at a higher speed, many times the product that comes out of these processes are not really much more detailed. And when you see what comes out of all this, well, I was also raised or created to think about productivity in a certain way. But when I take a step back and see the results and the rate, the rate of change that we have seen in the world, it has not served. So I think it is already recorded that we are trying something different and taking another theory of change. So thank you very much. Thank you. And, yeah, just really appreciate also want to thank everybody, as Ashwin said, I know that we all came here with a lot of different perspectives, different needs and different pieces of ourselves that we were able to bring or not able to bring because of the way that the meetings were structured. And I just, I want to appreciate everybody for finishing with us. But it's not really the end because, like Ashwin said, these things won't really happen unless the community believes in them and wants them. And we barely scratched the surface in these three meetings and with the people who are present in these meetings on finding out what the community actually needs. So this is really just the beginning. And I really, my, you know, one of my personal hopes and I think the hope of Linnean and Stephanie is that we will continue to hold them as a committee accountable to representing what we've begun to talk about in these meetings and accountable to what the community actually needs and wants in an authentic way. I appreciate what Marita said about how this has given some of us tools to be able to talk with our neighbors and friends. And I think that is a piece that will be very valuable as we continue because as we know about what's going on in the town, the more we'll feel able to ask for what we need and what we want and to actually hold our government accountable. So there will be a variety of ways that you can stay in touch. There will be opportunities in the next year to continue being a part of this. And Lauren is going to very quickly just give an overview of those after Ashwin translates what I said. Thank you so much. Yeah, for sure. Thank you very much. Lauren's going to go over those. Okay, Lauren. Thank you. And thank you everyone. Just to reiterate, it's been an honor to spend time with this group and in this space together and thank you for giving your time to this process because it's made it so much richer. So as we were saying earlier, after this process of task group meetings wrap up, we're going to be developing these ideas into lists of actions and strategies, and we want to make sure that the ways that those get reflected. Those get put together really reflect the values and the priorities that we've discussed here. So we're going to be wanting to circle back with you all and talk about those ideas and make sure that they are aligned with the discussions that we've been having throughout this process. So we want to connect connect back with all the community leaders, your friends and families that hopefully you've been talking to about how we can make those strategies work the best for the community. And then, so the hope is that this dialogue is really going to be ongoing even though we won't be in this shared virtual space. And that everyone will continue to be engaged with the plan will be drafting those strategies over the next few months, and the draft plan will be presented to the town in the spring. And that will be another opportunity for the community to come together and provide feedback on the draft plan, and, and, and tell the committee in the town, how they feel about that. So, so keep an eye out for more communications from us. And yeah, just thank you so much for your participation and don't hesitate to reach out if you have more thoughts more ideas, things that you didn't feel comfortable sharing in the meetings, but want to make sure get recorded anything at all that comes up please know that we are here and we want to hear from you. Before you go I just wanted to I'm sorry I've been quite but sorry Stephanie we're just going to do the translation first. It's been an honor to spend time with this group and have enriched so much of the process. We're just saying that after this group meeting we're going to be developing these ideas in a list of actions and strategies. And to make sure that what we're writing reflects the values and ideas that we've talked about here, we're going to return them to you so that you can make sure that, well, to make sure that we're connecting with the community leaders, with their friends and families on how we can make sure that these strategies work best for the community. The dialogue will continue, although we won't be here in this virtual space shared, we will be working on strategies in the next months. Thank you very much Stephanie and I saw Rosana's hand as well, I think, Stephanie. I just wanted to also thank everybody for trusting this process, and again, acknowledge that I, you know, understanding that it was hard for people at times and, you know, echoing a lot of what I just said, and my personal hope is that this opportunity to get to know some of this material, and as Marita stated, having some more confidence about it will encourage you to get more involved as well. And in some of these committees and opportunities that happen within town to hopefully be able to engage at that level as well. And also just to say that I, you know, I'm always accessible in the town and I'm always open and willing and eager to listen and hear from folks. And even after this whole process is over after the plan is developed, hopefully, I'll still be here and welcome anyone to reach out to me at any time. Thank you very much to everybody for trusting this process, I wanted to acknowledge that it was hard for some people at times, and I also wanted to repeat a lot of what Tijon said. And thank you very much to all of you for following the process, and my personal hope is that this opportunity to get to know this material better, and to have more confidence about it, and to motivate them to get involved even more. Some of these committees and opportunities that happen within town to hopefully be able to engage at that level as well. I'm always accessible and always eager and willing to listen to people, so even after this whole process is over, hopefully, I'll still be here and anyone else is more than welcome to give me the chance to talk at any time. Thank you very much for this session. This is not only about building community, it's not only about inclusion, it's also about shifting power, it's also community participation, giving voices to the community. This is a great session because you could do this only with the professional or the technicians, but at the end something is missing. Something could be missing and you are aware about that, and this giving space to more participants, to people that have other needs, different cultural approaches, which is that many different point of view for needs is very important to be here, and thank you very much for this. This is not only about building community, inclusion, it's also about shifting power, community participation. This session could be done only with professionals or technicians, but at the end there will always be something missing. And this has been very important that they open this space for the community, so that the community can also talk about their needs and about their different cultural ways that each one has, and that they can raise their voice and say what their needs are. It's very important that this has been done. Thank you very much for that. Thank you everyone. We'll let you go. I know we've run a bit over and take good care, each of you, and you'll probably hear from us with some sort of a completing email. Thank you each and many thanks to Ashwin. Thank you everyone. Thank you.


Well, we have up to the last fireside chat, and thank you all for hanging out. If you've spent more than 10 minutes with me, you've heard me talk about this, our next guest. I am a big fan of the work that Home Depot is doing, particularly the work that Home Depot is doing with the orange method. And so I got real excited when I was able to convince Anthony to come join me on stage and talk a little bit about orange method. Anthony is the technology director of software engineering and enablement for Home Depot. But most importantly, he's the one that runs the orange method program at Home Depot. And so instead of me advertising it and selling it like it's mine, which I usually do, I thought I'd bring the person that actually run it on stage to talk a lot about it and educate you on the program. So Anthony, come join us on stage. Anthony actually does it, not me, even though I like to pretend that it's my job. We love that you sell it. Thank you for that. There's a lot of people out there that are really convinced that it's actually my job, because I talk about it all the time. We love it. But I'd like to educate everybody here on the work that orange method is doing, but maybe we start with explaining what it is. What it is, yeah. So orange method, plain and simple, is Home Depot's technology boot camp. So three years ago, Home Depot found itself well down the path of digital adaptation. We had fundamentally changed how we were building products. We were adopting new technologies and tools at a rate that the company had never seen before, and the obvious challenge then showed up. How do we ensure the success of our associates through training, and how do we ensure that they can continue to grow as the company's technology is growing? We had tried traditional means. We had brought in academia. We had brought in vendors. We offered self-paced online learning solutions. But ultimately, nothing stuck. And at the same time, we were recruiting from boot camps. We were finding unbelievably skilled talent from the boot camps. And the aha moment happened. Let's create our own. Let's invest in this. So orange method would be a bi-associate for-associate technology boot camp. We launched our first cohort of 15 associates January of 2017. Since then, we've graduated 91 associates through the transformational cohort program. But we've also grown substantially. So we're now two campuses, one in Atlanta and one in Austin, 30 full-time instructors. So our instructor's jobs are full-time to build and offer curriculum, which is kind of unheard of when you try to build a program like this. So we've been excited in that. And then a year into it, we had to adapt again. And Home Depot, like many of my peers today, has been on a massive hiring initiative. And through traditional means, you're not going to hit the numbers we were trying to hit. So we looked internal. Where can we find orange-blooded associates that understand our business who have a genuine desire to change their skills? And we looked to the field. So we went to the stores. And we found your frontline associates working at the cash register, working in our distribution centers, and we gave them the opportunity. And out of those 91 I mentioned earlier, 30 of them have come straight from field roles. So we took someone making potentially minimum wage. And now they're a full-time salary to associate doing full-stack web development. Yes. So unbelievably rewarding program. It's been a cool journey for me to be on over these two years. We've got a phenomenal team. And it just speaks to the investment that Home Depot continues to make in its associates. It is. Now you can all see why I'm so excited about this program all the time. In fact, when I often get asked what is a successful transformation look like, and I talk about Home Depot, which a lot of analysts are especially like, really, Home Depot? Is that just where you're going with that? And I'm like, absolutely. And I talk about the orange method, because one of my soap boxes that I care around is about rescaling and upskilling workforce. And I think orange method is really emblematic of what that program could look like. But you started in 2017. And you've started kind of growing it slowly. And a lot of people will ask. One of the stats you actually mentioned earlier this week was the failure rate. And a lot of people ask, OK, well, I'm sure you have a high failure rate or people drop out. But actually, I was really shocked by the number. It's four. So four associates have not been successful through the program. And actually, two of those four self-opted out. So they realized early on into the 16-week immersive program that technology just wasn't the career path they wanted to go down anymore. So we evaluate on a weekly basis both soft skills as well as technical skills to help the associate make that determination. But when you look at boot camps, numbers like that just don't happen. So it speaks to the work the team's done from both an assessment standpoint, but also nurturing and mentoring the associates that come through this. Technology is changing faster today than it ever has before. And as an enterprise, if we didn't offer something like this, we would not be able to continue to grow. In fact, you've actually expanded the program beyond just the boot camp. And you've actually expanded the training program too. How many people now are going through it? Yeah, so the offering beyond just the transformational cohort now includes workshops. We've had 800 associates go through workshops. So that's a shorter course, a shorter duration curriculum. Everything from the beginning courses of JavaScript, Go, Python, to things as advanced as TensorFlow. So very exciting to see that happen.  So when you hire 1,000 new associates in one calendar year into technology, you have to worry a little bit about what that's going to do to your overall culture. So Orange Method saw that as a challenge. We started a two week curriculum. Every new associate comes through Orange Method, and they learn about how Home Depot builds products. The second week of that for our software engineers is solely focused on CF and how to actually work within and deploy. So within their first week, they actually deployed a production. So we insured two. Wait, one more time. Their first week, they're deploying to production. They're deploying to production. So we've ensured that we're bringing individuals in. They learn our culture. They learn what it means to be an apron at Home Depot. But then on top of that, they have the technical skills to be valuable week three.  We've been able to do that all under the Orange Method brand. Which is such a phenomenal way. And by the way, that 1,000 number you just casually mentioned, you actually did that last calendar year, right? Correct. 1,000 new technology associates in one calendar year. Orange Method was a big component of that. Our internship program was another large component of it. And then just drastically changing how we view talent acquisition. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because actually, that's something I'm also quite passionate about. It's I think we have a very narrow aperture, the way we think about the talent we're going to hire as part of our transformation process. And you've really kind of expanded that. Can you walk us through a little bit about how you think about that? Yeah. First and foremost, we let our culture kind of speak for itself and sell itself. When you get to talk about programs like Orange Method and you get to show the investment that Home Depot's continuing to make in its associates, that sells itself. But beyond that, the technology is the easy part. And I think you said that day one, evaluating technical skills is something that we're all doing, right? We have to do it day in, day out as we're bringing talent in. It was understanding the softer skills, the collaboration, the empathy that a potential candidate could bring to the table. So we changed our interview process. Interviews weren't one-on-one interactions anymore. Candidates would come together in a group and we'd throw them into logic problems together. They weren't being evaluated on if they could be successful in those logic problems and solve it, but rather did one individual kind of take over the conversation and speak over the rest of the group? Were they listening to each other? Were they working together? Were they listening to each other's ideas? And success there meant then the one-on-one interaction with a potential hiring manager. So the assessment itself had to change. The sourcing had to drastically change. I mentioned boot camps earlier. The boot camp community and what they've been able to establish is something truly remarkable. They teach the technical skills, but you oftentimes have an individual coming from a completely different skill set and a completely different background wanting to invest in themselves over a very short period of time to be successful for the long term. And the diversity that we've been able to find from the boot camp community is unparalleled. So big, big supporters of my friends over at General Assembly, Tech Talent South. They've been phenomenal in partnership with us. That's amazing. And the diversity number. Home Depot at large does a really great job of building an inclusive and diverse culture. But I believe the, do you have the stats off the top of your head? I don't. I would say our cohorts are surprisingly diverse compared to the rest of the technology population. And I think that's largely from the sourcing that we've done throughout the stores. But every time I go to your offices in Atlanta, it's always palpable, the culture that you've built there and the values you've built there. And I get really, really excited every time I go there and I tell my team, oh my god, we have to talk about Home Depot for like a week. Because I get really excited around the way that you have values and you espouse them and you're very clear on them and they're everywhere. But you can also tell that everyone there lives those values. And that always really shines through. So I want to thank you for coming. But most importantly, this is something that I'm super excited about. And I know that this is only two years in. But when anyone asks me, what does this look like going forward? What are programs going to look like? And how are we going to build the technologies of the future? I really, this is the first thing that always comes to mind. It's what you're doing at Orange Method. We appreciate that. So any advice that I could give to my peers here? I would say, strategy-wise and strategically, I would adopt a methodology around continuous learning. It's easy to say that this is how we build our teams and this is how we nurture and grow. But the reality is you have to do it. You have to get out of the idea of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's part of your culture. It's part of how you grow and mentor. And then tactically, it's building an organization or at least a team. Orange Method was a two-person team when we started me and one instructor. And we've now grown to something much larger. But when you make that commitment, you'll see everything else grow around it. Wise words, wise words. Well, everyone, Anthony is going to be around here all the rest of the day. So if you want to come up to him and ask him about the program. But Anthony, thank you so much for coming out and sharing this with us. Thank you. Thank you.


One of the worst things about modern times is ingratitude is cultivated in people. They're ungrateful for the police, they're ungrateful for government, they're ungrateful for their educations, they're ungrateful for everything. People just complain all the time. And Allah SWT has declared, if you're grateful, I will increase you in blessings to be grateful for.  I will give you more reasons to be ungrateful. This is a metaphysical equation. Gratitude equals increase in blessings. Ingratitude equals decrease in blessings. This is a qaida, it's a law. It's a metaphysical law that's as true as the Newtonian physics that you learned in high school. If you're ungrateful, then Allah will give you more to be ungrateful about, more to whine about. You think it's bad now? You have no idea how bad it can get. Read history to know how bad it can get. You think Syria is bad? Read about the Mongol invasion. They didn't have any place to flee to. You think the Muslims are having tribulation in America? Read about Nazi Germany and what happened to the Jews. We have to be grateful because if we're ungrateful and always complaining, Allah is going to give you more to complain about. I was in one of the Gulf states and somebody was complaining about the price of gasoline, the taxi driver, 25 cents at the time. Now it's a lot higher. Why? Because they keep complaining.  Because if you love to complain, Allah will give you plenty to complain about. But if you want to show gratitude, Allah will give you plenty to show gratitude about. They did a study at Davis. It's called the gratitude study for depressed people. They had them write down every day, every morning, 10 things they were grateful for. Over a period of a month, people's depression started being lifted. If you start counting the blessings of Allah, you'll never come to an end. And you can count blessings like just eyelashes. People don't have eyelashes. They fall out. Eyelashes are a wonderful blessing. Or some people have dry eyes. So if you have moisture in your eyes, what a blessing. If you have teeth, what a blessing. If you don't have teeth, if you have dentures, what a blessing. There are people that don't have dentures. If you lose one arm, what a blessing. You didn't lose both arms. If you lose both arms, what a blessing. Now they have prosthetic devices that enable you to do things. Even Abbas said in every tribulation in dunya, there are three blessings hidden that you have to recognize. The first is that it could have been worse. The second is that it's in your dunya and not in your deen. And the third, in your world, the affairs are not in your religious effort. And the third, it's in this world and not in the next. And you should be grateful for that. People now are complaining. He's going to try you to see who of you are the best in actions. We're going to try you. You will be tried in your wealth and in your lives.  Allah said that. What does He say? How's our response? What's our response? We intasbiru. And if you show patience, what tataqu and show piety, restraint, control yourselves. This is our deen. Allah swt said.  Allah strikes a similitude for you to reflect. A township, a city, a hamlet that was peaceful. It was tranquil. It had provision in abundance coming from every place. Like we have today, we eat berries from Chile and we drink tea from China. And we have rice from India, basmati rice in your homes from India. You get all this blessing from all over the world. So what did they do? Instead of saying, Alhamdulillah wa shukrillah. They were ungrateful. This is the meaning of kufr. Kufr is ingratitude.  This ingratitude, that's the essence of kufr. The essence of Islam is gratitude, shukr, a feeling of blessing that Allah has given. The biggest blessing is that we exist. The ijad and the imdad, the blessing of giving us our existence and then sustaining our existence. He could take away that sustenance at any time. So Allah says that He enveloped that city in hunger, look at the blessing of food, in hunger and terror. Hunger and terror. Why? Because of their ungratefulness. And this is what we've lost an understanding of our religion. We look at all these events and we don't see the real source of these events, ingratitude. If we want to change the world, we have to change our state and our attitude about all these blessings that we've been given. Government is a blessing. Even the worst form of government is better than anarchy. Even a tyranny is better. This malik ibn Anna said this.  These were genius people because he lived through civil wars. He saw what happens when things break down. The people of Damascus six years ago were eating beautiful food. They had good clothes. It was one of the few countries on the planet that was actually self-sustained. And now all of this tribulation, and if you say, you know, why is it happening to them and not us? Maybe because Allah loves them more. Because we know Ahlus Sham have a maqam. So Allah will put all of the the the torment of the Akhirah. He'll put it in the dunya for a short period and then they go back to Allah completely free of any tribulation or punishment. Maybe it's the places that aren't being afflicted that deserve to be afflicted that should be worried. This is the way Muslims traditionally looked at things. When the maqaw came down, when the mongols came down, they didn't say these evil mongols. They said, had the adab, b'athu allah, adena li dhunubina. This is a punishment God has sent to us because of our wrong actions. That's how they looked at. Muslims don't look at that anymore. Evil America, evil Israel, evil. Okay, good. Allah put them in power. He says, He gives power to them ever. He pleases. Muslim had it.  Allah knows what He's doing. Allah knows who He gives power to. Yes, they abuse their power, but to what degree? Who would be worse? People want the destruction of America? Well, let's see what happens when China gets the world power. See if there's going to be an Abu Ghraib that you hear about. See if there's going to be any way, recourse to redressing any wrongs. Allah ta'ala alam, I don't know. But sometimes the worst things are answered prayers. We don't know. There's a different way of looking at the world. People don't want to look at it that way, but I read the Qur'an and the Qur'an, it comes back to me. Where did this calamity come from? Allah says it's from your own selves. It didn't say, oh, it's from those evil Quraish. Those evil Quraish. No, Allah wanted the Quraish to become Muslim. Ahun kareem, Ibn al-akhun kareem.  You're free today. I forgive you. He said what, Yusuf said to his brothers who threw him in a well and left him to die. Because that's the state of believers. When they get angry, yes, we get angry. But they realize, what am I really getting angry at? At a test that God sent me? Whom am I really angry at? See, you can be humanly angry, but who are you really angry at? If everything is a test from Allah, then who are you really angry at? That's a question. This is, these are days of shukr. You have two joys. He has a joy when he completes, he breaks his fast because he's completed the ibadah. And then the light of the food, most of the big ulama said it's it's mom, it's completing that. That's the farha, it's not the food. It's actually finishing the ibadah. As imam know it, high maqam. Allah SWT says, right? The Prophet was shakor, but he told us to be shakr. One of the Arafin said, Haad al-Tamiru that's, Ha'ula ibadu that's, huna ka ibadu al-asma? So that's a high maqam. It's where you're always grateful. This is what all the ulama taught and Muhammad al-Musawi said is the meaning of shukr, real shukr. Shukr is to utilize what God has given you, to utilize what he's given you out of gratitude. He gave you an eye to see, not to look at pornography. He gave you a tongue to speak the truth, not to lie, not to cheat, not to backbite. He gave you a hand to work and not to steal or to embezzle or to take things that aren't yours. He gave you feet to walk in righteousness. The servants of the merciful who walk, tread lightly on the earth. You know they talk about carbon footprints now, carbon footprints. Ibadu al-Rahman don't have a carbon footprint. They tread lightly on the earth. We reveal this book on Laylat Al-Qadir and what will convey to you what Laylat Al-Qadir is? Laylat Al-Qadir, it's better than 83 months of worship. The Prophet was, because he was so covetous about solicitous for his ummah, he was concerned that his ummah would not have a lot of rewards when he knew that the ancients had much longer lifespans. So this is min khasaisi rahmati wa min khasaisi ummati. This is a specific gift to this ummah, that they have a night that is worth months of ibadah. And so in a lifetime, you can literally get years added on to your ibadah. This is a great gift from Allah. And this is why Allah SWT said, من قام رمضان إيمان و احتساباً وغفر لهم تقدم من ذنبه. Whoever stands doing extra acts, تهجد and ترويح stands doing extra acts, he has his sins forgiven of what passed. ومن صام رمضان إيمان و احتساباً وغفر لهم ما تقدم من ذنبه. And whoever fasts the month of Ramadan, believing in Allah and believing that the reward is from Allah. Fasting is my own and I reward it myself. That's what Allah SWT says. ومن قام ليلة القدري إيمان و احتساباً غفر الله لهم ما تقدم من ذنبه و ما تأخر. Or as Allah SWT says, whoever stands on the night of the Qadr in belief and expecting a reward from Allah, he will have his sins forgiven. The Prophet SAW said in the hadith الصلوات والجمعة إلى الجمعة ورمضان و إلى رمضان مكفرات that your prayers each day you pray as long as he avoids major wrong actions. The prayer, the five prayers that you do and then from Juma to Juma Friday prayer to Friday prayer and then Ramadhan to Ramadhan. These will remove your sins. They will remove your sins. As long as you avoid major wrong actions that needs a specific type of tawba. صغائر get removed from wudu, from prayer, from fasting, from Juma, all these things. But the major wrong actions and the Udumah differ on them, but the major ones are well known معلومين الدين طرورة drinking, stealing, cheating, lying, fornication, adultery, all those things that Allah has declared foul. So this Ramadhan is a great gift of this Udumah. It's a time of special gratitude. One of the hallmarks of gratitude is that you share your blessings with others. You share your blessings with others. كان رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم أجود الناس و أجود ما يكون في شهر Ramadhan كان أجود من ريح مرسلة The Prophet ﷺ was the most generous of men, always. But he was even more generous in Ramadhan. Why? زيادة الشكر The sense of blessing. The gift is a great gift. أقول القوري هذا أستغفر الله ليورك مرسائل المسلم