We are recording. Thank you. It is April 2, 2024. This is a special meeting of the Community Resources Committee, and we are opening our meeting at 632 pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extend by chapter 22 and 107 of the Acts of 2022, and extend it again by chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone to listen. We have a very focused meeting today. We are very pleased to see folks who are interested in participating on the ZBA. We will start. We will do a little rundown. I think it would be fun to actually just go around and have everyone introduce themselves. I'm going to just call on people by their name on the screen in the order that I see them. Just introduce yourself to each other, and then we will get into the nuts and bolts of how we want to structure the meeting of Hilda. You're muted. Sorry. Is this how you're going to do the here and be heard? Yes. Okay. Okay. So you want to know I'm here. You're here in North Amherst. What else would you like to move? Just introduce yourself. Okay. Hilda Greenbaum, North Amherst. Thank you. In order of my screen, Pam Rooney, Cottage Street. John Varner. Hi, I'm John Varner. I live on Jeffrey Lane in South Amherst. Mr. Sloveter. I'm David Sloveter. I live on Lincoln Avenue in Amherst. Craig Meadows. Craig Meadows Cottage Street. David Alfeld. You're muted. Can you hear us? Yes. David Alfeld. I live on Blue Hills Road. Central Amherst. I'm just getting messages that my internet may be unstable.  And if you disappear, we can always pause until we see you again. Councilor Haneke. Yeah, I'm here. Mandy Jo Haneke. And I'm one of the members of the committee. Pat D'Angelo. Hey, I'm here and I represent District 2. I live on Ward Street here at Memphis Brook. Rizwana Khan. Yeah, hi. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Yes, we do. Okay, great. Okay, I'm Rizwana Khan. I live on Amherst Street in Amherst. Thank you. Councilor Ette. Hello. This is Craig Ette, Councilor Ette. And I represent District 1. Thank you. Jennifer Taub. Hi, I'm Jennifer Taub. I'm one of the CRC members and I represent District 4 with Pam. And Vincent O'Connor, who's here on the phone. Yeah, it's a good evening. Good. So we can hear everyone. Perfect, perfect. So how we were going to set it out is to just do the questions that were sent to you ahead of time. And at the end of the questions, we will take the time tonight to actually deliberate and hopefully, we can take forward to the town council to vote on at our, either our next meeting or the meeting after the recollection of that. The next council meeting is April 8. And I'm not sure if we're able to post that in time. But I think we may be able to make that agenda item. So, in any case, we're going to start by the Councillors will in order, in reverse alphabetical order, will read each of the questions. And then we will alternate the recipient, the applicant, again in reverse alphabetical order and and we'll just go through each time we ask a new question. It will be a it'll be a new member that starts the answering Jennifer. And I want to say thanks to Jennifer for all of the back and forth and scheduling that that took place to make this happen. Yeah. And thank you all for making the time to be here. So I'm going to ask the first question. And then this will be the order of the respondents. So the first would be John Varner and then David Sloveter, then Vince O'Connor, Craig Meadows, Rizwana Khan, Hilda Greenbound and David Offeld. So the first question is, what do you feel you bring to the ZBA that can make it successful? And please include any experience you have had, you've had appearing before the planning board or the ZBA or watching one of their meetings. And we'll start with John. Well, I feel like I have a wealth of experience from different job positions, including work I did for the National Park Service years as a self-employed carpenter here in the area. And as an operation specialist at a small startup biotech in Amherst. These positions gave me an appreciation for the importance of preserving the natural environment. What's realistic in terms of construction plans and techniques and some of the issues that are inherent in developing a low impact research facilities in Amherst. I have watched a few of the town zoning board meetings and I'm impressed with the rigidity and thoroughness of the way they are handled. Thank you. Thank you. That's the first question, sir. Yeah. And again, you have a couple of minutes to answer a question, but certainly you don't need to take the full two minutes. So moving on to David Sloveter. I bring to the committee a lot of years of running a small business. I've also been in other businesses, including real estate development, hotel operations in Colorado. But mostly I bring to this committee that I have been on this committee as an associate member for two years. And I have sat on quite a number of panels, partially because they're the full members of the committee are down one, because there was a resignation. So there's been a greater opportunity for the associate members to serve. And as a result, I've been on quite a number of committees over the last two years, panels. And they have been a very varying kinds of requests. So I've seen a lot and know how the committee works and understand the role of the committee. So I bring to the committee continuing participation and experience and knowledge on the committee. Thank you, David. Next, we'll move to Vince O'Connor. Yeah, thank you. So I did serve for six months last year on the committee. And prior to that, I had participated in three appeals, two, the zoning board of appeals, two of which were successful regarding violations of the zoning bylaw that were upheld by the zoning board. I've also initiated a large number of planned board articles, a number of which were adopted by the town meeting. And I've lived in town a long time, have a lot of experience in work with Habitat for Humanity on the six of their first seven houses, was on the town hall committee. So I'm very familiar with art scale plans. And I bring to the committee the ability to both look at the proposals and their impacts on the community and on the individuals, in case of residential things that proposals that that will be housed in whatever facility is proposed. So I have a broad experience and I think it is important to have members who have that breadth of experience. Hey, thank you very much, Vince. Craig Meadows, I think you're still muted. Try to stay muted when I can. We can hear you now. Okay. I've been on the committee for the last, the ZBA for the last four years. And I believe in addition to the four years of experience that I've had on the committee and the fact that I've acted as chair on a number of occasions when Steve a judge has not been available. I've also found that my work is in energy conservation is added to our deliberations on a number of occasions. Knowing the newest grants available for EV charging in the IRA, dollar availability allows me to provide some guidance on occasion for some of the requests that we've had in front of the ZBA. Thank you.  Are you done? I am done. Okay. Thank you. And Rizwana Khan? Yeah. Hi. Okay. I am presently involved in education and my background is also in community engagement and advocacy. I'm very much involved in the committees over here. And I also believe in the smart growth principles and comprehensive planning because of my background, I can analyze and problem solve issues and collaborate with people. And that is very important to me that this area stays open to affordable housing also. And I understand the connections between the grants, especially that should be coming over here because it's a very small town, Amherst. And all these community engagements are very important. The stakeholders, they play a very important part. So with that, I think I will be able to contribute with my practical experience in advocacy and community involvement. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll move next to Hilda Greenball. Not used to tuning my own horn. I don't know what to say. I've lived in this town a long time so I can add history to the board. Been through four building inspectors each having their own way of interpreting the bylaw and what needs a permit and what doesn't need a permit. I previously served eight years and with last year as an associate, I've served nine years and served on a lot of hearings at least last nine months. I've been a solicitor. I've been on the transportation committee. I've been town meeting number 44, 45 years. I know the bylaw pretty well. I don't know what else to say. If I'm a contribution to the committee, I'd like to be appointed again if I'm not, take somebody else. I guess what I got to say about this matter. Thank you, Hilda. And last but not least for the first question to David Offeld. Please. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so I would be brand new to this work. I retired five years ago from teaching civil engineering at UMass and I did that for 20 years and 10 years before that at UConn. My expertise is in water related issues, especially ground water. I've taught courses and done research in related issues, storm drain, storm water drainage, site development, septic issues. Many of the technical water related items that I think might come before the board. I've also had a fair amount of, I've worked as a house builder in over the years in the past and still do that intermittently. So I have some familiar already with how construction projects come together and what is needed for them. I'll just relate a quick story about, I watched the ZBA meeting regarding the Amity Street University Drive project down by the old rafters facility building. And the applicants, the applicant was seeking a special permit, I believe, and claiming, and I think rightly so, I personally supported the project, but claiming problems with a high water table and soils, difficult soils and other site conditions that made the construction more difficult and hence led to the request for a special permit. And I think my expertise would have been useful in that discussion. So that's just an example. Yeah, so I guess that's about it. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for those responses. I'll turn it back to you, Pam. Okay, I'm up for the second question and that is, tell us about an experience that you've had collaborating with a group, particularly where opinions conflicted or the decision was controversial. And we will start this round with David Slovater, please. Well, I've been in a number of situations where consensus needed to be built and the organization that I was a member of, whether at one point I was the board member and then president of my synagogue outside Philadelphia. And at another point, I was the president of the board of owners of a condominium hotel in Colorado. And in both cases, it involved finding consensus with a relatively large group of people who had differing agendas. And that is where I gathered a lot of the experience that I have that I believe I've also used on the ZBA. And after I got accustomed to how the ZBA operates, it's necessary to find a way to work through problems and listening to other people, making sure that everybody feels that they were heard. And reasoning in a cooperative manner without anger coming to the surface is something that I have dealt with a lot. And in those kinds of situations, I was pivotal in helping to reach consensus and good decisions in the end. So I have been in large groups where everybody thought they were the boss and everybody thought that their opinion was the only one that should work. And that can't work out. And I made sure when I was in a position of authority that in the end it worked. Thank you. We go next to Vince O'Connor and then Craig Meadows. Yeah. So I think serving in town meeting for as many years as I did helped me. I mean, I didn't wasn't discovered till I needed glasses until I was in the second grade. As a result, my first three years in school, I spent a lot of time learning by listening. And it really helps in group situations to be able to go beyond printed matter and actually hear not only what people are saying, but how they are saying it. And I think I did have one, I think rather successful opportunity during the six months I served to convince the other members of the zoning board that a problem with the emergency exits had to be solved. And in the end, focusing on that problem and enabling the other members to see how it could be solved, I think was important because it improved the safety of the project. And that's really what my concern is. I believe in the focus of article one that the bylaw is there to promote the health safety and welfare of the inhabitants of the town. And that's how I approach my participation. Thank you. Craig Meadows is next. Well, in addition to the occasional situation with the ZBA where decisions may be somewhat controversial, I also served as the chair of the Hampshire Community United Way Fund Distribution Committee for a number of years where diverse opinions on how and to whom and where funds were to be distributed was often controversial and needed to be worked through. Also chairing the Cherry Hill Golf Course Committee for a few years was probably the most controversial situation that I found myself in, but did manage to get through that as a survivor. I don't want to go into that. No. Thank you. We'll go to... Pardon? I said you wouldn't have Cherry Hill if it weren't for my being an assessor at the time, the first class letter. Okay, let's move to Rizwana's part. Yeah, okay. Pam, I have to excuse myself. I am not going to contest for my candidacy, so I'm going to leave this panel. Is it okay? Pam? Can you say that again, please, Rizwana? I do not want to be on the panel anymore because I think they are, you know, I might not be able to do what others are able to do because I see more able people here. Is it okay if I leave? Just a minute before you do that. Pat has her hand up and then Jennifer. Yeah, I don't know what Jennifer is going to say, but one of the things that I appreciated about your statement of interest was the listening and advocacy and community engagement. I think that the possibility of becoming an associate member is a way to learn and to take time. And from, so I feel like there are people here with many other experiences that are valuable, but the freshness of your eyes, the freshness of your focus on equity and things like that might be really important things for the ZBA to look at. So I know how it can feel to think that you're not knowledgeable enough, but I think that there is a real path of learning. You know, I don't know whether Craig and other people have started on the committee say that, but we picked last year, last time around someone who had minimal experience and they're doing a really good job. Okay, thank you so much. Yeah, okay, I'll stay then. Okay, good. Thank you. All right, thank you. Yeah, because I was feeling as if I am very new at it because I do have the passion. Okay, you can go ahead with the next question that you'd like to answer that of an example of collaborating with the group, especially where the opinions conflicted. It sounds like you may have a lot of... Yeah, basically the conflicting environment, I am right now working in that environment also and that is the education and right now this world, I am just taking this in crisis and there are a lot of conflicts that are not being addressed because of lack of bridges and lack of understandings and right now because of the affordable... And personally, I have seen, especially in housing and appeals, especially ZBAs all involved in appeals and it has as Pat also, I'm very... Thank you Pat for reminding me that advocacy is very important because over here the people of color, especially I am one of them and I know these immigrants that we as immigrant, we come over here and there are some kind of challenges that are more related to racial and so they told me, I have a friend and she says their son was having problem with the housing that they are renting out because that is the only industry in Amherst. So I actually create an environment where it is very positive and I try to, whenever I talk about where I take ownership of the place because it's very important for the community. So that feeling should be always there for everyone and we are working towards that as I attended the last meeting also that Pam organized with Jennifer and that was an amazing meeting where they talked about affordable housing and right now that is a very important issue and the conflict is still there because of the fact, the funding is only going to come if we have this acceptance of brown people and other races that are right now over here. So the conflict is always there because it's a very dynamic issue and basically that's all I can say. Thank you. I will go to, hold up please. Well, back before this regime when we had three members on the board, we had lots of landlords converting their people, owners converting their houses and we had several notorious cases on Lincoln and Sunset neighborhoods where I was chair and there would be a room full of your neighbors, you Lincoln Sunset people and there would be at least 50 and it was quite difficult handling the job of giving everybody a chance to speak when there are that many that want to speak and we managed to work it out somehow or other. I have another case I can mention when we were three women on the board and the then building inspector had a request for a building permit from a contractor in South Hadley to redo deciding on Village Park and there weren't people from the audience to complain but what happened is the contractor had already bought more than $200,000 worth of tan vinyl siding to go on Village Park and then discovered he needed to get a permit. Well, the third person on the board wasn't about to agree with Barbara and me that we should allow him to go ahead with it but even though his original special permit said any changes to the exterior had to come back to the board. So Barbara and I looked at each other in the eye and we just had to convince the third person that it had to be the color or the nicest thing to do was to let the Village Park be the light tan and we caved and let her have some of her brown dark brown contrasting trim and that's how we worked at a cost Village Park more money than they wanted to pay but that's how we had to work it out to get three people to agree which was required in those days with the old charter. So I guess you just work as hard as you can for compromise and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Thank you and our last last question goes to David Alfield. I think I'll tell the story about a time I was on the board of health. I served on the board for the board of health that is for seven years and I was chair for three years and I believe yeah I was chair during this event. We were approached by an advocacy group to strengthen our smoking regulations, tobacco smoking regulations and we were looking at regulations relating to outdoor smoking in say outdoor cafe settings or other public settings and we were considering and there were some members of the board and advocates who were going for a broader ban. It was proposed to it was considered to and proposed to ban smoking on the common on the town common and we had different opinions about this. We had a public hearing of course about these topics and this was back as did I mention this was a dozen years or so ago so long before Zoom was so popular and also back when the extravaganja event was a big deal in town and we were quite stunned to have about a hundred representatives from the extravaganja group come and tell us that they didn't think banning smoking on the town common was a good idea. So we added that to our input and eventually settled on a compromise position that that I think was protective of public health but also reasonable in the sense of what would work for enforcement what would work for restaurant owners and others that were involved other stakeholders. And I almost forgot that I need to circle back to John Varner to finish off this. Yeah I I would like to focus on a very specific concrete example immediately after the COVID lockdown. I was faced with making policy decisions at a ceramic studio that I managed after several Zoom meetings. It was apparent that several of our members were anxious to get back to work in the studio but others were very unwilling or reluctant to risk exposure. So I instituted procedures for reporting infections to the group protocols for masking and surface disinfection and a Google sign-up calendar in order to allow people to limit the number of people in the studio at any one time. I also consulted with our co-directors and we agreed that we could initiate a fee schedule that allowed members to retain their rental spaces for a minimal fee until they were comfortable with returning to the studio. So we succeeded in striking a balance that resulted in a very few members relinquishing their spaces and no COVID infections in the studio related to exposure there. And as an aside I would suggest that you could talk to Steve Judge who was a member of the studio at that time and I do recall that he was rather impressed with the way the situation was handled. So that's sort of a microcosm of my attempts to handle a authority situation. Thank you. I'm going to hand off the question to Mandy Johanagi for question three. Thank you. This question is please explain the difference between the role of the ZBA and the role of the planning board and we will start with Vince O'Connor. Well first the zoning board really is confined to enforcing and hearing permits and so forth. They are not involved in initiating new zoning although usually every six months to a year they find anomalies and problems in the zoning bylaw and they refer it to the planning board. So the zoning board and the zoning board really deals with primarily with projects that are that require that aren't by right in a district. They need special permits and so you have to be somewhat knowledgeable about the areas of town where projects are proposed. You have to be sensitive to neighborhood concerns because that involves some of the findings under section 12.38 that you have to make to approve a special permit. So the level of findings and the specific findings that are required for zoning board decisions and permits are much more detailed than some of the approvals of the planning board and the activities of the planning board in proposing new bylaws and then interacting with town staff and advocates to alter the zoning bylaw. So those are to my mind the primary differences. Thank you. We will move to Craig Meadows. Essentially the difference, essentially the planning board guides the overall physical growth and development of the town through the adoption and implementation of a master plan with consideration for zoning bylaw changes and land use development projects whereas the the ZBA permits granting authority for requests of special permits and variants from the requirements of the of the zoning bylaws. Different aspects similar but very different charges for each of them. Thank you. Rishwana Khan. Yeah, zoning board is very technical I think because of the fact it has appeals in there and variances and one has to be very sensitive and that's where the collaboration comes in and see the situation because every property is different. So there might be some multi multiple family homes in one area that is being built so the heights might be different and so there's so many variances to it and then there appeals also involved in it. So it is a very taxing I guess a very taxing position for the people who are trying to figure this out in that board and the planning board is basically planning for the future the zoning bylaws and and then the reviews and feedbacks are all for the planning board and it has to be also there is a legislative body that is connected to that and then their amendments and so on. So it is the planning board is basically looking at the future of the area of the town. Thank you. Hilda Greenbaum. Well traditionally zoning from chapter 40 was for 48 was first written it was pretty clear that planning boards plan and thought about what the vision for the town would be and subsequently many years later we have master plans but about 20 years ago the Commonwealth decided that we aren't building enough housing and it's it's become critical that we aren't building enough housing to keep the workforce here they can't afford to live here so they're taking jobs other places and the money is now set aside to try to fix this problem basically being the planners they were the ones that made the bylaws and zoning board of appeals was instituted in order to enforce the bylaws so that there was a clear separation of powers but as I said more recently the housing has become a crisis again and to make permitting much easier um planning board was allowed to do site plan review on lots of projects that otherwise would have gone to planning board first to give an opinion to the zoning board to decide and and that was a very timely process and so therefore zoning board got the permits that were not allowed by right that were for reasons of health and welfare of the town went for the site went for special permits for the zoning board of appeals so that so originally there was a split authority now now it isn't any longer whether this process really works to bring more housing I don't know but the the Commonwealth is working on it thank you um David off help yeah I'm not sure what I can add to what the are the other panelists have said about this but I guess the way I would summarize it is the the planning board handles policy through setting zoning and uses within zones and so on and the zba handles specific sites specific cases which may involve um exceptions or or variances or special permits to the general rules set down by the planning board um I'll come back to the the site on that I was just talking about on university drive and amity my understanding is the planning board is working on a I believe it's an overlay of the zoning overlay for the whole for all of university drive which would change zoning uh change or make it somewhat easier to develop properties in in certain ways and then the zba dealt with a specific property so general general versus specific is the way I look at it thank you uh john farmer I think uh David is right uh most succinctly I think uh planning board sets the regulations and zoning rules and zba discerns uh went to grant exceptions uh exemptions to those rules thank you um all right and was was that all and last is David Slavittor well I don't think I can explain it any better than Craig Meadows explained it so I won't try I would only add that at the beginning of each of our zba uh panels our our chair Steve judge always mentions that the zba is a quasi judicial body we are charged with enforcing the existing laws we don't make policy we don't plan we we listen to applications for exceptions to the rules and then we we rule on that but we are there to interpret existing laws thank you I will now pass this over to councillor etay for the next question thank you Mandy question four is when interpreting a provision of the zoning bylaw should the zba consider the intent of that provision its common sense meaning and or some other factor I'll take that again um when interpreting a provision of the zoning bylaw should the zba consider the intent of that provision its common sense meaning and or some other factor and I'll start by asking Mr. Meadows actually all all of those factors need to be considered in every case since the board is not ruled by precedents there has to be a consideration of every factor for each request that's to be considered on its own merits thank you mrs. Kan yes I also agree with the fact that there's always common sense is involved but there are other factors also because it's not a cookie cutter situation in real estate and you know zoning so we have to be very careful as to have the intent of the provision also and understand the purpose and objectives especially when there's some kind of appeal and so on so zba can also consider the you know common sense meaning of the provision also so and then there's a contextual factors and and there has to be consistent basically I think it should be very consistent it should not be biased so that's where the equity comes in and also we are looking at public interest and policy goals so it's there are lots of variables there and and we have to be very consistent with them and I I think we should always reform those values thank you thank you mrs. cream bomb I guess I would say that every case has to be judged on its own merits and there are lots of flaws on the bylaw sometimes it's a little bit difficult to fit a particular situation into what the bylaw says and if it's a good project we try to find a way to do it whatever happens I went back in the town records annual reports to 1927 and the first bylaw trying to find out year by year looking at the bylaw bylaw amendments that were passed and defeated to try to figure out what a complementary use was and I looked online to find complementary use I looked and in Mark Vobrowski's zoning bylaw book and see if I could find any cases in there that were related to complementary use and it didn't exist essentially and so that's going to be something that the zoning board is going to have to study this year because you can't always find from any of these methods something that exactly that's what you're trying to do thank you the next will be all felt yes thank you so I looked at this question and thought about okay how would we handle a particular required finding for a hypothetical case and so I looked at um finding 10.382 the proposal would not constitute a nuisance due to air and water pollution flood noise odor dust vibration lights or visually offensive structures or site features so what's a nuisance comes to the question what constitutes a nuisance I mean I have a sense of what a nuisance might be hearing from the neighbors of the proposed facility or project might clarify and might give a broader definition of what a nuisance is there might be some guidance from the planning board or or perhaps a historical review like Ms. Greenbaum has just described they would give more insight so I'm not sure how to how to wrestle with it I guess I guess looking at all those pieces is would be the way to approach that thank you Mr. Varner yeah well recognizing that the ZDA's role is to consider specific issues and grant or reject proposed variances to those regulations there's difficulty in addressing hypothetical situations and in part this is due to the fact that there's there are contradictory regulations in the zoning bylaws for example one bylaw prevents the zoning board of appeals from making judgments based on aesthetics but another bylaw stipulates that in permitted construction details should blend in with the surrounding architectural elements of neighboring structures and that quote visibly offensive structures are not permitted so there's there's a lot of room for interpretation there referring to section 10.3 and the subsections of that in the zoning bylaws David has already made allusions to the proposal not constituting a nuisance in terms of air water water quality noise odor dust again visibly offensive structures or site features 10.83 the proposal would not be a substantial inconvenience or hazard to a butters vehicles or pedestrians 0.384 adequate and appropriate facilities would be provided for proper operation of the proposed use and 10.385 the proposal reasonably project protects the adjoining premises against detrimental or offensive uses on the site including air and water pollution flood noise odor dust vibration lights or visually offensive structures or site features so you know I think that the 10.3 section of the zoning bylaws is kind of the core of the zoning board of appeals considerations those are the real essential elements to considering any project and giving it a thumbs up or down. Thank you. Mr. Slavida. I think the obviously common sense should be part of everything we do and we should consider any factor that comes before the board but it's more than interpreting the intent of something we have to deal with the rules and the facts and if somebody is applying for an exception to one of the rules we have to enforce the rule or make a decision to make an exception if in my opinion there's a compelling argument to do that. We recently dealt with an application that wanted to reduce the minimum amount of commercial space in a building from 30 percent to 10 percent and it's not up to the planning board it's not up to the zoning board I'm sorry to decide on what an appropriate amount is we might individually think that 50 percent would make more sense but the rule is 30 percent so we can't expand a rule we can only make an exception to the rule so we're not interpreting intent we're enforcing and we are we are committed to be guided by what the rules are that are in place so I think if we are presented with a compelling argument of hardship or or perhaps an argument that is that the exception is of no great significance then we can vote for an exception but common sense always but facts above all. Thank you. Lastly, Mr O'Connor. Thank you. Well first I agree with Mr Barner I think that there are multiple opportunities in almost every consideration by the zoning board to find conflicts in the bylaw itself and I think it's sometimes not difficult other times it's a real struggle to resolve those conflicts. I think the best you can do is just try to talk it out give yourself enough time really decide where you can find a good place between the conflicting provisions. With regard to intent I go back to the various town moderators who warned us continuously that no matter what we intended what is going to be the basis for the decisions of both the planning board because the planning board does a deal with projects and a site plan review and the zoning board of appeals is what the words say and is sometimes unfortunate that what people intended did not end up in the wording either effectively or precisely and third I think that there is all right dealt with this in one one of the situations that I dealt with on the zoning board is that there are regulations which govern the minimum that is required of various projects the minimum but I think for example yes we have the the various requirements for what is the fifth you know the hundred year storm event but we know those some of those are just ancient and do not fit the modern circumstance and I think the zoning board could and could and should require the most up-to-date documentation not something from 50 years ago and or you know other things like the number of women's bathrooms the regulations are clearly inadequate and in fact one of my concerns has been that in every tragic circumstance involving fire the one of the first things that is said is the requirements that the regulations be changed part of our job is to perceive when the regulations are inadequate where in a specific circumstances the regulations need to be improved on through the zoning board's perception of the reality of the project before us and so that's part of why we're there otherwise everything would be decided by the building and commissioner based on the regulations thank you I'm going to pass it on to councilor the angeles thank you castler at day I have question five and it reads in considering those with an interest in a special permit should the interest of one party be given greater significance than another party and I'm going to be starting with Rizwana Khan yeah okay thank you yeah the interest of one party cannot cannot be just given more significance than another party if we do not address equal consideration in the fact that equal weight has to be given an importance to all of their all of the stakeholders involved in special permit application so for example might be neighboring property owners or the broader community they all have a stake in the outcome and their concerns should be heard and considered respectfully and I'm proud to say that the fact that in in Amherst this transparency is there you know and accountability is there so because that is the most important thing that if they are able to clearly articulate the reasons and the decisions especially the ZBA is able to articulate it it will you know it will help build trust in the integrity of the decision-making process so that is in this situation more important than in the previous question also the way it was answered were the legal requirements and legal requirements are important because they for the special permits because these criterias typically are consistent with the town's comprehensive plan so that is also has to be considered when this one party is obviously asking for special permits so these in the end I guess transparency and accountability I will focus on more because then we do not have any break in the trust between the town and the residents thank you thank you I'm going to move through Hilda Greenbaum I would say that the Zamenbord of Appeals is a quasi judicial court we are there to sit and listen to two sides of a case and decide which one has merit and that not only does we do we have to decide which one has merit but we have to do findings why it has merit and those findings have to be such that if we are if that decision that we make is appeal to a court that we can legally defend it so that's my answer you have to listen to both sides and be able to support with the findings of 10.38 what what is going to happen in a given situation and and and make sure it's appealable thank you Hilda David Althel so I I I'd like to turn this question around just a little bit just to say that it's the ZBA represents the interests of the town the way I'm seeing it we're we're charged as I understand ZBA is charged I'm going to read this it operates under the authority of chapter 48 of the laws of commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health safety convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst so that's the interest we're looking out for and yes there are in at least some cases there are two parties I mean I guess some cases are easy right there somebody wants to do something it seems reasonable you approve it but in many cases there are two parties and and and that and we have to judge as Ms. Green mama said we have to judge between the two but it's the interests of the town that we're looking out for thank you David um and now I'm going to move to John Barnard well again I think the devils into details and hypothetical hypothetical uh matchups between interest parties are kind of difficult to address you know there are some considerations around safety and you know public health and preserving our natural resources and they should be a paramount in considerations but after you get past that health and safety considerations and you get off into other areas about well other areas you know I think it makes it really difficult to state which party should have the upper hand in a given situation you have to you have to take it case by case thank you John um David Slaveter well I think that that David Alfeld brought up a point that I agree with strongly and I think he expressed it well the interested party that is at the table at all of our meetings are the people of the town of Amherst and they that they are who we represent and who we are there to protect I haven't seen an an application where there was more than one person applying there there have been public opposition but anybody who appears before the ZBA should be treated like anybody else whether you're an individual homeowner or a developer or anybody we deal with facts and rules and I think that the our primary responsibility is to the people of the town and the well-being of the people of the town that's who appoints us to the board so I don't think that there is a conflict we need to just interpret the facts and if there is a compelling case then we award it and if there is not we don't thank you David Vince O'Connor yeah I go back to what David Alfeld initiated which is the you know we're the reading of article one that's that's our purpose we're and it doesn't make any difference whether the a proposal comes that would serve the interest of this group or that group or this organization or that organization whether the whether they're located in Amherst or located outside of Amherst the long it is the long-term interest of the inhabitants of the town that we should be concerned about and in in all of the cases you know there's really so there really is a third party everywhere there is the applicant there are perhaps the butters and other interested parties and then there are the people who are not a butters but but have a but have a larger interest in what the community looks like feels like how it can serve all the people especially I think the folks who may be forgotten at times people who live here 12 months a year this is this is not just a the purpose is not just to serve certain groups but the entire community if we lose track of that then I think we end up making bad decisions thank you Vince um Mr Meadows well the simple answer is no I think both of the Davies and that's the what the what the situation is very well and except for the fact that sometimes we have to interpret what the best interests of the town are which occasionally is difficult but that's what the committees must do in every occasion and on the merits of individual petitions thank you very much and I'm going to pass this on to Jennifer or back to Jennifer thank you Pat okay so we were more than halfway through this is the sixth question and I'll read it twice because it's a little cumbersome what's your opinion of waivers exceptions dimensional special permits in the zoning law and when should they and when should they not be used so again your opinion of waivers exceptions and dimensional special permits in the zoning bylaw and when they should and should not be used and I will start with Hilda Greenbaum I I want to say that since covid or maybe even before that the zoning board really hasn't had any really contentious cases to deal with we had quite a few of them years ago especially with house conversions from owner occupy and I have been to court so one of the things I you know we don't appear but the judge appears and you have to be prepared to defend what you do and I tend to be a stickler I I like to apply the law where I can and waivers the only ones that I've dealt with go with chapter 40 b they ask for waivers from certain parts of the bylaw because they can that's the reason for 40 b is to make it easy to get the affordable housing through and can ask they are entitled bylaw to ask for waivers for various provisions and I think they ran a close to 90 for the 40 ball lane but I'm not remembering exactly um what the other ones were variances are also supposed to be very hard to get your house or property really has to be between a rock and a hard place which was why I thought I'd be the only one that thought that the the proposal for the Atkins corner was something that really was not between a rock and a hard place because it could be developed the way it was but they didn't the owners of the property didn't want to develop it that way and and so zoning board decided also that that was not worthy of being granted a variance chapter 40 b makes variances very hard and they have to be substantiated and then if anybody wants to but it in order he really have to be able to prove in court either be a butter or the applicant that they have a hardship and the and the and the law defines what a hardship is and um what was I supposed to say I don't remember what the question was anymore so I probably said I'm off I can repeat it but okay um thank you Hilda uh Mr. Offeld yes um so I will um have to have to plead that I'm a bit of a novice here uh so I'm not actually sure on all this terminology I know of course that the that the zba handles special permits variances appeals of actions of the building commissioner and comprehensive permits that's what we do um so what is a waiver what is an exception what are dimensional special permits I'm not sure I've spent a little time this afternoon reading the bylaws and trying to bone up on this and I find that for example in the parking regulations uh right certain regulations can be waived for compelling reasons of safety aesthetics or site design so that sounds to me like it falls under the same category of a request is made you make a judgment as to whether it's a reasonable request and meets meets some of these compelling reasons for a waiver on the dimensional special permits now I think you know and again I'm not sure I'm completely up to speed on the terminology here but it is true that for the project that that I mentioned before amity drive and amity you know amity street and university drive there was a height restriction that was lifted that was part of the special permit that was provided so and there were compelling reasons for for that and the and the proposer made that clear and again they had to do a construction difficulty and so on and and financial feasibility of the project so um yeah that's I probably said more than I should given my novice position here yeah no it was an engineer I it was clear you you understand uh thank you um okay and the next uh I will move on to um mr varner uh again this is sort of in the realm of hypotheticals and that makes it a little difficult to address anything specifically and I realize also that with the rise in ad use or accessory dwelling units and other mechanisms for trying to increase housing and amers that the whole issue of setbacks and exemptions to spatial permitting are going to be a really hot issue going forward in town but the bylaws article four and several sections of article five deal with dimensional requirements and prescribed uses and article six is entitled dimensional regulations and spans 10 pages of zoning bylaws um it's it's noted that the zoning ZBA can't itself write zoning bylaws but only grant or deny exemptions and in any proposed exemption I think it's necessary to study the particulars carefully weigh and analyze them and exemptions or special permits against existing regulations are judged based again on issues of public safety and resource conservation as being preeminent in importance and then after that you get into considerations where the interests of developers landlords and butters should be evaluated on on a case-by-case basis and uh they should reference the bylaw sections that we've already cited 10.38 as a guide for granting or denying exemptions thank you for that um mr sloverter well I think these are all useful and are all reasonable for an applicant to apply request in an application that that it would apply to their case I think they should be judged on whether there is compelling evidence that they should be granted I can't give you examples I've been exposed to all of these in my two years on the board but I can't give you specific examples of when I would vote to or not to approve them but as long as a a compelling argument is presented that is not in conflict with the well-being of the interests of the people of the town of Amherst then it's reasonable to grant these and if the argument is not sound then they shouldn't be granted but they're all credible tools in determining of zoning decisions okay thank you um of Vince O'Connor there will be next right yeah it is asking um to have a general opinion about specific waiver issues um so forth yeah a little difficult that that given that what we do is we focus on the specific application in front of us um so uh I I would say with regard to each of these if there are conflicting factual presentations then I think we have to do our best to decide which factual because at some point there there are factual presentations and the applicant and those who don't agree with the applicant present us with a choice um and we have to that's where we have to make the choice of which factual presentation which set of facts is best uh is in the best interest of the town and is really the one that should prevail in the circumstance and be prepared so to say to defend it in court um and the other concern I have is that um in a lot of situations we have a section of the bylaw that has many specifics and then um invites us to uh to waive the specifics and so forth and that that does create a problem uh for for interpretation but also just for um trying to resolve things um and I wish there were fewer of those in the bylaw there that's not our job they they give us the bylaw and then we're we have to deal with it okay thank you um and oh I'm sorry I do as I was thank you Mr O'Connor we will move next to Mr Meadows well again I as it been said there's no way to generalize on this question it's every situation has to be taken on its own merits and that there is no precedence that's guiding us so we deal with the issue with the individual request and not the general request thank you um and um was Wanakhan yeah okay actually to be honest this is the most important question uh that I will answer and this is I really feel that this is the most important and uh question in ZBA because um because of the fact um you know lot of housing schemes I've seen being made on those bases and so on uh and and I will have to go with Hilda because she and I really salute her for keeping the character of this place the way it is by not wavering from the you know objectives and the goals of the municipality's comprehensive plan because that is made by the planning board and she stuck with that that's very good that they didn't do that but we do I do acknowledge the fact there has to be flexibility in zoning regulations uh you know they have to be has to be considerations for accommodating unique circumstances that is given and as everybody's also acknowledged that and then also promoting development is also good uh because there's economic growth and you know then you want to revitalize the certain areas or gentrify them and then there's something called adaptability also so those three issues are there but but overall we should just be very uh consistent with the plan that has been given to us about how we see this town um to be like and also the problem comes when um it's inappropriately used by you know for example um should not be those waivers should not be granted to uh alleviate self-created hardships you know like for example property owners will get their own sob stories so we have and financial considerations might be you know there are so many cases these high buildings they come in and they bring their own stories but that is not hardship so we have to know that and we also have to override public concerns that is the instance of inappropriate use we should not um have a conflict with a comprehensive plan so that's where the strength comes in of us being in the committee and then there is also precedent of setting that they there should be we should avoid setting unfavorable precedence if we give permission or waiver to one person so you know one stakeholder the others will follow on so uh i but in this case that we are handling right now as Hilda said because she's been here for so long these things uh they did not do so that's very good so this question was uh right at for me personally thank you thank you um and i'm sorry my mute button keeps going off uh and for the uh final response to this question uh we'll move to mr offelt i think he already uh this is number six i already i already responded he already he already spoke i'm sorry i have you written twice on my page i'm sorry you don't you don't have to answer again um and i will pass the baton back to you pam thank you so we are now at question seven and we'll start the cycle with david offelt the question is what is your approach to incorporating public input into your decision making right so i i mentioned the story about the board of health and the smoking regulations and that's i think a good example of um developing some regulations uh with some sort of options as as the regulations are growing um and then listening to the public listening as i mentioned the stakeholders the restaurant owners the other citizens of the town about what's reasonable for enforcement what's reasonable for um public health protection and you just have to listen to the public uh to get that information so public input is very important um with respect to the zba i thought of an example i mean it is it is hard to answer this in it in uh you know hypotheticals because every case is different but again one of the um uh required findings 10.383 i think mr varner referred to this one previously the proposal would not be a substantial inconvenience or hazard to a butters vehicles or prides pedestrians so what is a substantial inconvenience and i may have a sense of that from a site visit other board members that might have a sense of that but people that live there might have also have a sense of that and that would help inform how substantial might the inconvenience be and what what's what tips the scales so i think public input is is essential to uh these decisions thank you we'll go to uh john varner please uh well i think that uh after reviewing the 130 pages or so of zoning bylaws that the planning board has put an incredible amount of uh effort into foreseeing exigent exigencies and codifying responses to them uh zoning regulations are designed to protect the rights and investments of individuals and businesses in town and thereby allow for a degree of long-term stability in town development uh that said real life demands adaptability and i think that uh times uh the adaptability necessitates exemptions to the rules and those are granted by the zba now the general public should be informed well in advance and afforded the opportunity to comment on proposed zoning exemptions i also think that a butters comments and opinions should be given special weight since they stand to bear the brunt financial or otherwise of any proposed changes to uh zoning regulations but uh they should not have sole uh say on a zoning issue and uh it shouldn't uh their opinions shouldn't constitute the final say of the zoning board of uh appeals thank you uh david slovener please i think we should listen to everybody and i think the public is obviously a very interested party in all of this and that we should consider all viewpoints and then act on what makes the most sense so i incorporate when i'm sitting on a panel i listen to everything that the people who sign on uh to speak to us have to say and uh consider what what they say as much as what anyone else says so the public comment must be considered we should be open to everything thank you uh we're talking to vince o'connor um yeah on this i think there's um a pretty clear approach my approach is that um for example if um the applicant brings in a stormwater um uh description of and why they're doing this then for example you um and and and the butters have employed an expert using um not just the standard data but more up-to-date information and come in said look the this stormwater calculation is just it is um it's out of date and this is what will really happen and this is why we ask you to impose these protections for budding properties so my my approach is to encourage the butters not because opinions are not facts there some of them some opinions are based on facts but um i um i i remember rezoning a zoning decision of the town meeting that they're relied on factual testimony of a butters that both photographs and and maps developed by from photographs and personal observations that really determined the zoning of a particular parcel well that that's really our our job is on these is to the public input is to encourage public input that is um factually founded and if you if you've seen all sorts of if you know bring us wildlife observations um bring us um traffic and crash data um encourage people to try to as much as possible present factual information so that we we're not choosing between the good guys and the bad guys you know whoever you define those those parties as in a situation but we're reviewing factual data and deciding which set of factual information is more persuasive more consistent with the reality of the situation that we're having to decide on thank you we'll go to craig metals well i i think it's a it's very important to have input from any citizen in all of this town that wants to make their opinion known and there there are certainly occasions we had an occasion a couple of years ago where we had a butter that um adamantly was opposed to a petitioner and what we as the zba asked them to do they had not been talking we asked them to talk with each other and come to an accommodation and they came back a few weeks later and had come to a uh to a mutual understanding and it it was a very dramatic and a fulfilling way for the zba to arrange to meet both the criteria of the bylaw and also the spirit of communication and accommodation that worked out well for everybody so there while we have to maintain that the bylaws are critical and our our guiding principles we often can make suggestions both to the petitioners and the um and the public for a further accommodation that's um it is a little bit beyond what the bylaws say so it's necessary to hear everyone's opinions thank you we're going to yeah i think yeah early engagement in the process is very important especially when we are dealing with key milestones like the proposals and reviewing stages and then also there has to be a continuous updating also you know in this way you are continuously evaluating and improving the public engagement process so based on feedback feedback is important and then the other important thing is that we have to learn from that those lessons that you learn from the engagement effort are important also so that helps in the future decision because this is a legacy that we are creating and the residents also you know they they rely on that that's the trust that they have with the committees and with the town so that whole loop has to be taken account for so that's how we build accountability thank you thank you uh held a green bomb please hold a green bomb would say that we don't have a choice to include the public massachusetts general law chapter 40 a requires a public hearing public hearing means that a panel has to hear what they have to say and i would like to say that it would be really nice if the public could be sure that the board was really listening sometimes we wonder if the board hears us so that's my answer to the question and um we haven't had very many really contentious hearings since covid i think that inhibits the public in participating in some ways is we i know right now who's sitting here on the panel and who is listening on zoom but if i were on this panel or listening to this meeting and i wasn't on the panel i would not know who's out there in the audience listening to what i have to say and that's but that's troublesome because that's not hearing that that that to me is a little bit inhibiting the democratic process if i don't know who's out there listening to what i have to say so as i'll just say finally that covid has inhibited the population from coming to our meetings when we used to be for covid staff the room when there was something going on in the neighborhood people were there and it was a very public performance in that it would get picked up by the newspaper and generally published and that's one reason that i started covering zoning meetings after covid because the public had no idea what was going on with the zoning board and i think one of the big reforms you should make in the study of the zoning board are the people who are sitting in the audience know who's there and i'm you know who else is there that they can't see am i making that clear and there are several people there in the audience right now who are studying the charter and i hope they hear me that the zoom should be open to people to know who are in the audience to know who else is there thank you that wraps up question seven and i'm going to pass it on to mendi johannaki we have three three three left thank you um i think this is the last sort of longish one um but we'll see um this question is what else would you like us to know about you that makes you a strong candidate for the zba and we will start with john varner uh well i'm really committed to helping amherst navigate the issues that it faces with regard to housing and development and uh i think i've demonstrated this in the past by reaching out a few years ago to uh people in charge of zoning in other college towns to get advice on how they were dealing with the problem of student rental conversions and then i passed that information on to town council um i really appreciate uh becoming part of the zoning board of appeals in order to have a more direct input on the direction of the town going forward and uh to continue my work in trying to you know i had a discussion with somebody the other day and and they were saying oh you you must really not like me because we share different views and i said no i i think we're on the same team we just have different ideas about how to move amherst forward and i think that uh moving it forward involves a lot of discussion a lot of back and forth and in the end we reach an agreement about uh what to do and how to uh how to advance the town's interest i think that's really important and thank you sorry thank you i forgot i was the one that's moving people on um um next up is david sliverer well mostly i bring the experience of two years on the zba i believe in that period of time and on quite a number of panels i've demonstrated that i am diligent and competent and committed to this process i've hardly ever missed the site visit i believe that i have earned the confidence of the chair of the committee and i believe that i have functioned well so i have a very good understanding of how the committee works what we're looking for i participate fully in everything and what i mostly bring is that i'm already on the committee in a certain in the capacity as an associate and know how it works and i'm glad to be able to make this contribution thank you um vid snow connor you know there there are two things i mean aside from all the general participation and town committees and so forth i think what the the the council committee should know is first that um as a zoning board member i was and am am a very strong supporter of in-person zoning board meetings partly to answer to improve the possibility of of uh butters and um and applicants uh reaching uh you know compromises you can't do that in on zoom meetings it is very difficult to do it also uh it improves the sense of community that we should have and for a zone for a zoning board that makes these kind of very consequential decisions not to meet in public or not to at least have a majority of its members present at a public meeting um that hopefully is also uh held in the town hall and available by zoom i think is a mistake and it is it diminishes the um the sense of community and and community participation that i think is necessary for this community to be a vital place the second issue has to do with the um practice of staff members providing the zoning board especially in multiple hearing uh situations where the there are more than one hearing on an issue providing zoning board with pre-packaged answers to questions uh to section the question the sections of section 10.38 i i'm opposed to that i think we we should be providing our own answers to those questions um and we should not be receiving pre-packaged answers um for us to essentially rubber stamp and i hope that if i'm pointed to the zoning board i will do all i can to put an end to that practice thank you um craig meadows other than the fact that i disagree entirely with vince four years of experience on the board at this point i think is the primary thing that i could bring it's very difficult to get an understanding of what and how to read the zba laws in the first year as was pointed out early on gaining experience which as a as a member for a year it takes at least that long to get an understanding of it and for whatever it it's worth i've been on for four years and i think i've got a relatively relatively decent understanding of the bylaws and i still have a lot to learn thank you riswana khan yeah i would like i have a you know i'm committed to serving this community and as craig said i really appreciate what everybody's doing over here and i want to continue this legacy of protecting protecting the swampland marshlands and so and the forest and the trees and all that and also i want to ensure responsible and sustainable development also because that is very important also especially affordable housing and so that it can enhance the quality and equity of all the residents and also i again will go with craig i do want to learn and improve my you know self also as to how it works because i really feel that because of the the market the way housing is it's really difficult especially zba has a lot of challenge enforcing because there are lots of outside players who are coming in with big money so i appreciate what they have done and i would like to eagerly engage in some kind of a professional you know in some kind of a encounter with them or some kind of a connection about how to go about in preserving the character of this place thank you thank you tell the green bomb i can bring nine years of experience on the board as a member of a panel sometimes as chair sometimes writing decisions i have a 65 year history of zoning in this town having lived here and been on both sides of the board as an appellant for various historical projects we want to want to do and as deciding on other people's projects i know the geography of the town having lived here and i actually came in 1954 as a freshman so i know the geography of the town being an assessor for six years i know most of the houses that were built more from 30 years ago than from more recently after covid i know the bylaw with all its foibles and believe me it has lots of foibles so there's lots of guessing to be done about what does this actually mean and i've gone and done my research online that's through the old town reports from years ago and yes i believe there was a huge redaction of the bylaw around 1964 and that's when complementary use came in um i read everything in the packet if i don't understand something i get online and i try to figure out what it is the areas that i don't understand are areas i disagree with i want to make sure that i'm correct in disagreeing when i say that you cannot have two principal uses on one puzzle only if they're complementary and that was the trick whether two duplexes are complementary uses or whether they're the same use and that's still to be adjudicated but i understand that it is being enforced right now there are no more two uses on one parcel and um if i really get stuck and i don't understand i go find mark rubrovsky's definitive book on zoning and i look it up and i still find no complementary use in mark mark rubrovsky's book and so if you want me i'd be very happy to serve again um if you don't want me you got plenty of other people here who can just do justice for the job thank you david offeld well i'm not so sure held it decades of experiences is irreplaceable or takes decades to achieve um let's see i mentioned i think i've mentioned most everything i wanted to i just to recap i have an engineering background civil engineering site development storm water drainage hazardous waste management many topics of that sort that might be relevant to particular cases before the board also construction experience i've lived in town for about 35 years so have a pretty good sense i think of the character of the town and the needs of the town and what's what perhaps is good for the town and um and i have the time to commit to something like this so um i offer my my skills to the town for this purpose thank you i'm going to pass it on to councillor atay thank you manager we're coming to the pretty hard questions and this one is please confirm that you have the time to commit to meetings hearings and site visits and if you currently serve on any town boards or committees do you see any conflicts with serving on multiple boards and can you manage the time commitment for all first person would be mr slobber i confirm that i have the time and i'm not on any other boards thank you the next would be mr corner uh yes i i i do i do not serve on any other boards um and um and i i actually thank thanks to question for um i i am able to uh stay as late as possible which i i was unable to do the six months i was uh on the zoning board previously but now again thanks to question for i'm uh i'm relatively free in the evening thank you mr meadows uh by and large yes i do have the time and no i am not on any other boards thank you this is con yes i am actually fully prepared to commit the time but uh i am on one another board and but i can manage my potential conflicts and time commitments associated with this role thank you this is green ball well i have the time and i'm willing to serve i'm not going anywhere because i won't get on an airplane scared the death of not coming home alive but um i'd be happy to serve and if i don't i will continue to cover this board for the amazon d.org and you may not like that as well as putting me on the board you decide thank you mr alfields yes i have the time um and i'm not on any other boards or committees at this point thank you and finally mr vana yeah i'm uh semi-retired uh self-employed my schedule is flexible and i don't have any other commitments on any other town boards thank you i pass this on to consulate the angeles thank you um this is a really hard one it's going to take forever are you interested in being a full member an associate member or either and i'm going to start with vince um i'll be happy to accept an appointment to whatever thing the members of the committee think thank you vince uh mr meadows craig no full member and uh miss con i'm open to either and hold up i would like to say associate number oh okay thank you that's important to know david yes the i've got a steep learning curve i think associate is appropriate thank you and john uh i would be happy being either an associate or a full member and mr slaviter i'd like to be a full member please can i ask for a clarification would you accept if you were an associate again i'm sorry i meant i didn't mean to be ambiguous no i i am you weren't ambiguous i just wondered i'm only interested in being a full member thank you all right thank you i'll hand it back to the new chair pan rooney perfect and i learned something every time i go through this um i actually do see a hand that's been raised in the audience for some time and because this is a special meeting not a regular meeting of the community resources committee um we are not planning to take any public comment that said if there's something about the process or the um or whatever um we have one hand raised and i would like a show of hands or some form of interest from the board if you want to entertain um hearing from somebody in the audience uh council atte from the board or from the committee oh you from the committee from from the crc okay yes then in that case i think without the precedent being set it would be good to have a question down first i agree and i think i understood that to to bring people in um council henneke um i have concerns that we do not have public comment on our agenda and so taking any comments from non interviewees during the interview portion um or essentially opening up public comment is not appropriate at this time um because it's not on the agenda and it's something that easily could have been anticipated to be on an agenda 48 hours in advance uh i think i will i think i will weigh in um in the direction of being more careful and i we will pass on having public comment tonight so i do appreciate the people that have raised your hand in the in the audience you can always email us or or write to us directly if you have some comments you'd like to share and i apologize for that um at this point we have we have worked our way through the many questions that we pose to the applicants and totally um thank you for your time and energy putting into this process um it is really reassuring to me that we have really terrific people here in town that are willing to step forward and share your experiences and your backgrounds to make this a great place to live um i'm going to turn this over to council hannoky i guess at this point we are going to spend some time discussing and making a decision on a motion that we will then forward to town council and again i need to clarify when we can get this and our recommendation on the on the council agenda um but at this point we would we would invite you all to join the audience as we um deliberate so i will begin moving people into the attendee section it will take me a little bit since there's a number of thank you very much everybody thank you thank you thank you drop off one by one council urte you have your hand up yes during this brief period would it be possible to request for a five minute recess is it Christmas yes great yeah thank you so we still have been so conner on the following yeah so my only options are to put on hold or remove i do not have an option there was a point at which i couldn't hear you or i couldn't speak um i don't know if that's available but when i first called in i could i could only hear but i had to unblock i had to unmute myself by doing star six and um so um so i'm i'm gonna start with the put on hold um pam okay and and and vince i do not know what that will do um everyone else had a place in the attendee section and and you don't have that option so i'm gonna start with put on hold and and we'll see what that does i do not know what it will do it knocks me off i'll just call back and then i'll be muted and then i can mute you but we're trying to get you out of the panelists side so so let me try i have i have you put on hold and remove me pam what would you like me to try try try yeah if vince just quick quickly is it possible for you to call back if you have to i yeah i can call back i have i have the number but i think i think if you put me on mute that accomplishes the exact same thing even though i'm categorized in the thing because i can't vote and i won't be able to speak which of the three options would you like me to choose pam i was going to just say let's try mute so that keeps him in the panelists section then can you speak he may be able to unmute himself i'm not sure if he does we may be able to put me up again or something just asking to shall i try put on hold i don't know what it'll do i think remove will will will remove him from the meeting completely i put on hold i've never i've never used that capability oh okay that moved him to a waiting room so then he can't see anything at all so that's that's not see he just he just disappeared from the waiting room i think he's going to try and call back so we'll see what happens when it goes because he was in a waiting room and i could remove him from the waiting room but a waiting room is not able to see the meeting i think after three years of the zoom we would all be fluent with us it appears he has called back and is now in the attendee side oh there it is good okay so that's good thank you you're welcome so for the audience again we are on we are on a very short break between interviews and deliberation so we'll be back very shortly not chocolate not fair you're not sharing have a bite can't hear you thank you we're we're resuming the meeting it is now 835 great round of questions and and responses i wanted to review essentially two important pieces of information one the the vacancies that are open that's redundant we have one full three-year position that is an impending vacancy when craig meadows term ends at the end of june we have one partial full membership uh when the personal resigned and an appointment to that role would be the remainder of this fiscal year and would would end in uh july of 2025 so it's essentially a year and a third something like that that is a full term never full member there are there is one current vacancy of an associate but next year starting july one there will be the four normal associate slots we have uh an opportunity perhaps to start someone early before july one to fill the current associate vacancy and if not we would start in july jennifer but we are filling we all four even if three will start in july i don't understand your question so will we be do we have to i just was i thought we were interviewing for four associates yes so we are we do not have to do this again before july okay right right so one starts now and three start july first decide that if that works great that would it when somebody starts um probably is immaterial right or tonight i mean or we can pick for tonight and then secondly i wanted to just quickly review the criteria for healthy and effective multi-member body that comes from our from our our notes and the criteria are we will consider factors such as a strong base of seasoned members who have completed or nearly completed at least one term as a member they bring an understanding of process knowledge and can mentor new members to new members who have newer members who have served less than one term these members bring new energy outlooks and ideas to the body and ensure the body will continue to have a strong base of seasoned members in the future and number three members who reflect the diversity of the town's residents e.g. in age gender race income home ownership rental status location of residents etc and are broadly representative of the town the input from the body's chair um is collegial willing to listen not only to the views of the applicants and public but also be sensitive to the opinions and expertise of other members geographic distribution length of residency diversity economic age employment renter homeowner diversity background and housing architecture construction lighting landscape design or law and understanding of the quasi judicial nature of the zba applying the bylaw and exercising judgment and discretion previous service on town boards being willing and able to attend site visits study and prepare for hearings and devote times on weekends for our meeting weeknight excuse me for our meeting um so that's just a refresher in what was being asked for we all received a message from the current zba chair steve judge asking for some consideration um i open the floor to discussion i'm looking at pat damn i hate going for always have a good perspective of sort of process i it's a very interesting pool of people um and um i'm i'm dismayed by the lack of diversity actually in terms of geographic relationship to the town um it was a concern before but it feels more intense this evening um and so i really don't know where i am right now i guess the other thing i'm having a problem with and i understand mr sloviters position about wanting to be a full member or else but at the same time i kind of feel a little trapped by that um and i really don't know who i'm choosing yet so it's you know i want him and everyone else to know that i'm not i wasn't not going to choose him but i i don't like that feeling um i can understand more directly why uh craig meadows and maybe this is unfair of me but i understand more directly why craig meadows uh wants to remain a full associate um and he certainly has the experience and should be a full member um i like the thing others i think i don't know each of these people's situation but it seems like there's only one renter in the mix um but i don't know everyone's situation um and there's only one person of color two women um and yet so these are my little concerns i also think it's a strong pull of people um so um there was yeah i mean i feel i feel like everybody kind of said the same thing almost my other concern is um is in terms of how do we hear of butters and how do we hear the town um and i go back to 132 northampton road where the direct of butters were totally opposed to the project yet the town welcomed the project um and that was a very interesting conflict and um luckily we have east gables and there are 28 people living there and i have a feeling because this has happened in every other valley cdc project in northampton and other places uh the butters don't see problems that they truly thought were going to happen um and then there's a reconciliation and people are welcomed into the neighborhood and um i'm very i'm i'm going to you gave me permission to talk be careful i'm very interested in david's experience um as an engineer around water and things like that i really feel strongly he should be one of the associates um you know i i i look at you know uh hilda's experience and vince's experience and i go oh my goodness you know um and and also you know looking at john and seeing a sort of sense of a commitment and and a willingness to serve um and with riz wana while she brings diversity i also i end the sense of advocacy and engagement i'm i i got stuck with and um the idea that uh the character of the town is more important than anything and there was a holding to some of the issues that i think are blocking development in our community so i don't know i don't know thank you um and i'm sorry to put you on the spot that's fine it's only a partial response but other things will come out we'll work it through here uh counselor hanake thank you um i actually want to echo a lot of what councillor de angeles said particularly around geographic location um the continuing members of the board thinking about about july one um because many of the appointments were potentially recommending tonight will be for july one of next year for at least a year um even those except for one possible one that might start immediately and only go for three months but um but everything else continues into next year the three continuing members two of them live in downtown one of them lives in south amherst um five of the seven applicants live in downtown um that and and given our selection criteria um both within the council selection criteria and um the chair's advisory criteria um there seems to be a desire um and great selection criteria to diversify the geographic location of members um and so that would lead me to weigh more heavily those that don't live in downtown for at least one of the um full positions um since the full members have in some sense you can think of it as a first right of refusal to serve on they're like the default for serving on every every hearing application um and so um i don't know what to do with that though um because they're just that that eliminates for one of the positions and whichever one it is five of the seven um and that's it it really actually more brings home the more about us saying the pool was sufficient without potentially considering what our geographic diversity was before we got here more than and then puts us in a tough spot here um looking at the other selection criteria previous service um on town boards of committees would favor um vincel connor david offeld hilda greenbaum craig meadows david slaviter and riswana con um non-g broad representation of the town um has a little bit of favoring beyond the geographic diversity that that would favor hilda greenbaum and vincel connor um would favor riswana con and hilda greenbaum and probably also vincel connor in terms of some of the other criteria for diversity that were mentioned but um background in housing and architecture given what we heard today in the statements favors as i start looking at these things david offeld and john varner for david offeld civil engineering experience and john varner and construction experience and john varner's construction experience so i you know and then i look at the selection criteria for a good base of seasoned members and newer members um two of our three continuing members have been on the board one year and that's it and and the third one arch uh the chair has been on for five years and so that to me thinks we need to be looking at at least one of the full positions to be a seasoned member um which would favor craig meadows and hilda greenbaum um and the other open full position um could actually slightly weigh towards those that have a little bit experience instead of no experience on the zba um because we're we're kind of light on some experience for full membership but but i think i'm i'm sort of all of that is to say i don't know what to weigh more on all of this and so i i really don't know in some sense where i am jennifer yeah i'm sorry in terms of geographic diversity um and living downtown um i know it might seem like we live downtown but there aren't two members that live downtown i know you're talking about craig meadows and david sloveder they live in very different neighborhoods they i don't they don't live near each other they don't live downtown um i the um chair of the zoning board of appeals wrote to all of us and said that he really valued um mr meadows because he's he would it's kind of customary to serve as we do on the um planning board and i believe the resident members of the finance committee if they're members in good standing the we usually do you know if they want to serve a second term they serve two consecutive terms and so that would be mr meadows would be if he were selected as a full-time member going forward for the next term that would be his second term and the um the chair said that he has been relying on mr meadows to fill in as chair when the chair um can't be at a meeting and then he also um said that he would you know like to see mr sloveder who's served two years as an associate move up to a full-time member because that's also the associates and as mr meadows said it takes really a year to get the hang of it at least a year so the associates on the zoning board of appeals has kind of been a stepping stone to a full-time member so david sloveder has been a you know strong member for as an associate for two years and i think the chair of the zba was even saying he's you know kind of paid his dues and it would be appropriate for him to move up to a full-time member and then that leaves four associate spots and um hill de greenbounds said she would only i mean two of the interviewees said they only wanted to be considered for associates so we i guess that leaves us with five applicants if we if we were going to give mr meadows the courtesy of a second term and then you know which makes sense and as the chair of the zba you know has suggested and i guess encouraged us to move mr sloveder who's been an associate for two years up to a full-time member and then we have i guess there's five applicants to consider for four associate members and i think those five are all strong so i don't know how we choose that and i did want to add i think there are two renters i think um rizwan akhan and vince o'connor councilor etay again we're just pondering what are the what are the options what are the considerations i think ponder is a good word to use we've spoken about some of the criteria i've been thinking a bit about the answers and i i don't know if it is the questions or if it is the experience that everyone brings it is hard to distinguish the candidates this evening based on the answers that they gave and so i pondered i'm i'm happy to also weigh in um the the understanding of the chair and i think we've we've been through this enough times to recognize that um the crc does its job but we we've certainly left the chair hanging in terms of um his ability to distribute people to panels and that's in a timely manner if he's if he's short staffed and i i have watched a number of zba meetings um they are run very efficiently they are very very fact-based um and i i think i would also support um the the renewal of craig meadows for the position that he currently holds as a full member there's there's it would be it would be silly to think that someone would go from a full number to an associate member so we just cross that off um it it doesn't matter to me that david slobiter was was specific i'm i appreciate when people are are open um that he was specific in saying that he would be interested in a full-time position he has served he served one year as an associate and then was not promoted in that second top in that second round i um actually appreciated the fact that he was still willing to serve and i think he's done an outstanding job i would i would very much support uh his being promoted to a full member then as jennifer just mentioned we have we have five really strong candidates with with a really rich and varied background i love the idea of having somebody with hydrology and civil engineering as as an expertise it's always very helpful especially when you're dealing with you know the kind of the kind of project that was discussed at atkins corner where you you truly understand uh what topography and geology and water table means to a project and you bring somebody like that um to those kinds of projects i think that's um um really valuable um i'm thinking about hold the green bombs experience with 40 b 40 b is the quote-unquote fast track for um for getting approvals for our affordable housing development and we're going to be looking at i hope we're going to be looking at belcher town road and the east school coming up so that experience is extremely valuable um for for having on a panel the in my mind the person that brings as as she actually stated the least amount of experience in the technical world of zoning and um and bylaw interpretation um in my mind is is perhaps the the person who could be brought on also as an associate member to learn the ropes with a stated interest in um you know bringing essentially more outreach is the way i interpret some of that um and and i greatly appreciate the um the construction experience actually david sloveter and john barner um both mentioned that and i'm i'm forgetting who the third person is oh david alfield uh with some construction experience it's just very very helpful when you're when you're um interpreting the plans and understanding the impacts in a in a physical structure on the ground um so that's that's kind of where i'm meaning i'm i guess i'm less i'm less concerned well in terms of geographical diversity we would have um we have two candidates in north amherst one candidate in south amherst um and then the rest of between and i i am i am frankly less concerned about if if all if all criteria are not equal i think to me that's really the least um the least valuable criteria for um a functioning and effective zoning board of appeal mandy um we don't have any candidates in south amherst john barner lives in south amherst no he lives on jeffrey lane that south which is not south amherst to me i mean maybe we just disagree on what south amherst is that's above the that's that's that's by the common school to me that's not south amherst um you know and and so i guess we're just going to disagree on where you sit yeah south amherst is that's not south amherst to me um it's closer to me to downtown than it is to the south amherst common and so it's not south amherst um but um but beyond that i'm wondering if we could potentially i'm i'm trying to debate whether i want to make one motion now to see if we're we're in a spot where we can deal with at least one of these openings so i i think i might make a motion um to recommend that the council so i'm going to move to recommend that the council appoint craig meadows as a full member of the zba for a term to begin july 1 2024 and end june 30 20 27 second any discussion um can for those that are watching we have a whole uh can i just explain you know you've explained it once but but we have a whole lot of different terms with different things um and and this is this motion deals with um makes a wreck would make a recommendation for the one full term that is a full three-year term because it's not filling a current vacancy it's the one the one full member term that is expiring at the end of june this year um and it's the only one the council needs to fill is a three-year position for the year um and it is in fact um mr meadows term that is expiring on june 30 that is creating this this vacancy come july 1 no and just maybe explain for people that the other full-time position would be available immediately but just run for one additional year to fill the space of someone who's resigning who already did so someone resigned half of the halfway through their term and it has remained vacant as as has an associate spot remained vacant so the the zba um has been working on low fuel for about a good half a year let's take a vote um to the motion was to recommend the town council that we appoint craig meadows as a full member for a term starting july 2024 and ending june 30th 2027 let's go around the room um pat the angeles hi council atte hi council had a hannagy hi bennford tau yes cameroonian is also a yes so that was a unanimous i think given um david slobota's two years of expiry oh mandy you want to put your name up i mean sorry you have your hand up do you want to speak um so yeah i would like to speak um so so with that motion sort of recommended what we're now looking at regarding recommendations is a three months associate term that ends june 30 um and starts whenever the council can act and then four associate terms that begin july 1 and end june 30 of 2025 and one full term that would begin immediately and end june 30 2025 the same time that the associate member terms are uh would end um which means we would be looking at basically appointments for five people that all end at the same time and it's a matter of whether they're technically a full or an associate and so i guess i we had a lot of discussion last year regarding full versus associate um but those were three year terms versus one year term right now we're looking at basically the same length of service and so i guess i'm i don't quite understand um why someone would take only a full member rather than an associate um when the term length of term is basically the same um i i understand more i guess why someone might take associate and not want to be considered for full um given some time constraints because associates don't aren't aren't you know you might not want a time constraint that every meeting requires that a full does but i guess i'd i'd like to explore for that difference a little more as we talk about essentially five positions that are open for the same length of appointment or basically the same length of appointment general um so i think a full time i mean there is a difference between a full-time member and associate member because a full-time member serves you know each time the board meets they're they're on the board they're part of the panel unless for some reason they can't make it and in this case mr you know david sloverter said you know he has been available for all the meetings that he has been called to and would be available to serve as a full-time member um and that would so it would start immediately i guess it would be what 15 months um and it just seems he's he's been an excellent you know associate in good standing the chair of the zba has in you know has said he would like to see that candidate who has been an associate and is the only associate currently applying to be a full-time member to have this candidate move to that position and it seems why would we not do that i mean it seems disrespectful frankly to decide we're not going to do that especially it's four it's to fill continue filling out a term that goes for one full year and what is it the two or three months between now and july 1st i don't understand why we wouldn't do that and it seems i guess disrespectful to me to mr sloverter and to the uh chair of the zba i just don't know why we we wouldn't do that and i don't think the other applicants two of whom said they specifically only want to be considered for associates i mean i think it's understandable that somebody who's been serving in an associate for two years and you know he's willing to move into that one-year position he was not specifying he wants a full three-year term i don't know why we wouldn't do that nandy the full member position that mr slover slover says is the only position he will consider now has been open since november of 2023 and in november of 2023 when he was approached to apply for this full member vacancy he responded to that approaching from the chair of the crc um saying that he would not go through the quote charade again that it's cruel to even suggest that he is eligible and should consider doing it um and that he confirmed at that time he would not apply to fill the full member vacancy because it would be a waste of time and effort and i hate bringing this up because people can change their mind but i'd have serious concerns when mr slover in an interview tonight says he prides himself on reasoning in a cooperative manner without anger coming to the service in those situations was pivotal in helping to reach consensus yet applies to replies to an email with what can only be considered anger and so i have concerns about his dedication to the zba given his complete turnaround for the exact position that we would be considering him for um i trust that mr judge has um been been accurate in how mr slover has served as an associate member on the zba but mr o'connor has also been an associate member on the zba um for slightly less time than mr sloveter and mr o'connor brings diversity and frankly that lack of concern in my mind regarding mr sloveter's ability to remain neutral um that mr sloveter doesn't bring and so i have concerns about um mr sloveter as a full member um yet i don't have those concerns with him about an associate member and continuing the associate member although i do have some of them but i would be willing to um appoint him or recommend appointing him to an associate member but given the anger he expressed in response to a chair of a committee following procedure i have concerns about his ability to remain neutral without anger despite what he says in his interviews and it's hard to say this in public but the email he wrote is a public document i'm going to reply to that and i think that um you're you're comparing two people to o'connor and did sloveter and did yes serve as an associate for about three months so it's a very different time frame um and mr sloveter has served nearly two years um if i were to recall history there was a very interesting i'll call it turn of events where in fact the we don't have to hold by normal tradition or normal way to work that somehow if you're an associate you automatically get promoted to a full-time member but if my recollection was that we continued three members who were associates who had a year of experience under their belt and we continued them as associate members rather than giving them the recognition of their hard work and promoting at least two of them to full-time positions full member positions and i think i would be i'd be pretty annoyed i'd be pretty um hurt by that kind of treatment especially having done a good job um i think i it feels to me in this case and i'm i'm i'm just gonna say it it feels that this is sort of an emotional reaction to the situation rather than basing it on um the facts that that the chair laid out for us i i cannot presume to better understand candidates than someone who has had to work with them for the last year or two i am i am going to strongly support that david sloveter get a full-time position as recognition of the time he has spent as an associate our second associate member current associate member has stated that she is just feeling okay being an associate member she's she plays in a very important role and um we'll do you know probably an equal amount of work but i think i think we have to recognize that we we may have been uh we last time ended up recommending people with zero experience as full-time members and that was completely contrary to what the chair at at the time had asked so um i am i'm that's that's my position jennifer and then pat um yeah i i also think you know it may be particularly for the uh you know benefit for counselor ete who the four of us were were on we're here the last time we interviewed for zba but what happened is there were two alternates two associates that and david mr sloveter was one of them two associates were applying for the full-time position and you supported the other candidate moving to the full-time term position even though there were spaces for two and not mr sloveter so he i'm not defending the you know words perhaps used in the email but i think it might have felt like you were inviting him to apply again when it was clear that you weren't probably going to support him so i think that's where the response was coming from so um i mean it's it's feeling i it's i think it's important that the process remain as objective as it can and if you know a full-time member serving in good stead gets to serve for a second term if they so choose and that associate members can move up to full-time members in this case mr sloveter served two terms as an associate member he's fully he's been you know a member an excellent standing he's supported by the chair to move up to a full-time member it's a year membership i i can see where it seems like there's something personal going on and it seems like if we're going to have a process i i can't see why mr sloveter would not advance to be to fill out the next you know 15 months of an open full-year term it's feeling it's feeling to me like there's something personal going on and it feels like there was frankly last year as well because one of the associates you know you were supported to move up but but not him and um and that was before there was any email correspondence i ham i have my hand raised but i wonder if councillor ete wanted to speak before me sure if he's willing be wielded i think a lot of the conversation is flying above my head i i i know i understand english i know what the words mean but i can't draw meaning from them so in this case i'll simply listen while i continue to ponder on some of the other candidates to fill some of the other spots thank you thank you can sorry if i can speak pan sure absolutely okay thank you um i wanted to clarify that we selected two inexperienced full members we appointed two people one person had a lot of land and zoning and experience without any credentials and the other person was the lawyer but they were compromised candidates because the committee was really split and from everything we've gotten from the chair those two inexperienced members have done an incredible job um i was hoping that after reading statements of interest and listening um to responses that david alfell could be a full member and that's not what he wants and i respect that um i am more interested in vince o'connor than i thought i would be because of something that he said that was important to me um on question number six which i don't know exactly my question number six was what's your opinion of waivers and dimensional exceptions and everything everybody gave great answers on that but one of the things that he said was it's always on paraphrasing badly vince and everyone they're always conflicting factual presentation uh those who don't agree uh have different um facts and that the role of the zba is to really sort out the facts uh apart from the emotion uh to be um thoughtful about that so i still want david to be a full member but i understand i can't have that so i i feel like i can support vince because i've experienced him um as someone who really listens and really is willing to challenge his own assumptions and that feels important to me um that feels important to me and i understand i don't feel like i'm being disrespectful to mr slaviter today that i don't know him i am concerned about the geographical connection um and um and other things i've learned about his opinions over the years through public comment and um you know emails to council and stuff so i'm i'm not ready to support him as a full member um i absolutely support hilda as an associate member i support mr varner he's come back after a rough uh round a couple of years ago uh particularly with me um we bumped into each other at the survival center um and uh it was just interesting to meet him um but i appreciate what i appreciate without knowing him well is that he's come back and he's saying i want i you know i'm going to look at this again um and i you know i if mr slaviter would not accept an associate position then i feel like i would want to move to rizwana um because as i just learned she is a renter um she is female she is not white and i don't say that lightly um and i don't know what her experience is in terms of uh she could have have led a very privileged life or or not and i don't know about that um but i i'm interested in what she's potentially bringing um so i think that's where i am and i still feel open to moving around in here thank you oh Jennifer um yeah i'm still feeling very strongly about david slaviter i remember last time there were two associates who interviewed for the full-time position uh one of one of them is not someone who i actually usually see we have very kind of different points of view on on zoning and development but i was willing to vote for her to move up to a full-time member because i felt that she deserved it she had been a associate in good standing and it's not about me and that somebody you know is going to vote the way i may vote on you know everything that comes before the zba um and it's not a popularity contest or it's about personality so i felt that that person who i don't again always doesn't often vote on zoning matters the way i would but i felt that she deserved it was a member of good standing the uh chair of the zba had recommended that she moved up from zone from associate to a full-time member and i was fully on board to support her as i was with david slaviter because he had they had both been associates for the same amount of time in good standing were both applying to be full-time members both had the support of the chair and there was i'm gonna say you know the same you guys didn't want to vote i don't know why did not want to vote for david slaviter and i'm feeling the same thing now it's like there's i just don't understand he's said he would like to you know serve out he he's not you know craig is been a full-time member and david it was not you know expressing interest in being a full-time member for the next for a full three-year session but was willing to serve out the remaining full-time term and it just it's feeling like there's just um it's very personal determination for mr slaviter not to be able to move up to the full-time position and i don't understand why um in terms of the associates it's really hard because i think all the candidates that we interviewed were were terrific so i totally support as an associate john varner david offfield hilda roswana um you know i think uh i think that those would be you know and and vince but i think that you know you're saying that and you know i i've supported i'd love to see john varner and david offfield and hilden roswana as associates and i guess john varners which i agree i think it's great that he applied again after being but if he came back so is david he's coming back the third time i guess the first time he applied wasn't for an associate but he's coming back he's applying for the third time two times as an associate and now to fill out the remaining one year of a full-time position and i think if we're that i you know again i think it's great mr varner came back but so is david slovener so i would be willing that that's who i'm so i'd all to say we would have we have five excellent candidates for associates and i don't know how we're going to win out down to four thank you i don't want david slovener to leave the zba i would like to see him as an associate i understand that's not what he wants but i would like to see him there i um that's just true um but i yeah that's what i'm going to say yeah counselor etay do you want to add anything at this point um just maybe clarification again for my benefit so how many spots are open what are the positions within those spots given the number of people that remain we had seven i think this evening one is gone so that leaves six um so that would be helpful when i make the decision okay so we we just voted on the one full three-year term and that is one that would start july one and go for three years and we supported fragmentos for that position one of the previous zba members i really apologize i don't remember his name uh resigned in the middle of a term and he left a vacant full position the zba chair has had to use uh his his stable if you will of of associates very heavily because of the because of the lack of this full full position so there is one full position that that will end um at the end of june 2025 so it is a year and a bit year and a little over a little less than a half which is a full member uh and that person is paneled automatically for for most projects and then and then they fill in any shortcomings with associate members um then they're in starting in july one again for one year there are four positions that are called associate members and again it is just for one year one year at a time one year at a time one year at a time um it is it's a way of bringing people along giving them exposure um and not necessarily you know jumping into the water had first for someone who is interested in finding out if they even have an interest in serving you know additionally on the zoning board so those are the positions four associates which is a one-year term and one remainder of a term that was vacated halfway through um man did you if you give me a moment could i ask the question um so for the full one year once that is done what happens afterwards we need to and this same person for transition or continuity continue on maybe with a new term i'm not sure i understand your question so we have a full three-year term and then we have someone who resigned and is um a gap until that expires in a year yes i'm saying what happens after that year ends this term ends go through this process again and we and we speak candidates for a full time just to fill that full time position and they may come from the associates who have been serving for the for the previous year mandy um i like pat i'm slightly disappointed that david afeld is not seeking a full um position um given his civil engineering experience but i i in addition to hill da uh i'm slightly disappointed she's not either um i think i support hill da well recommending hill da green bomb be appointed as an associate for the july 2024 to june 2025 appointment year i would both support um recommending david afeld be appointed as an associate for to start immediately so for a term to start immediately and end june 30 and then also for a term to begin july one for the next full associate year we do have a current associate opening um because there are only three associates right now so i i would support him as sort of being recommended for filling the current associate vacancy that ends june 30 and then also being recommended for an associate position that begins july one um jennifer keeps implying that there's some sort of personal animosity and um i'm not sure i've met david slavitar in person at least i cannot remember having met him in person except over zoom on these interviews i'm not sure i've met him beyond that um um for five years that i've been on the council and for the years that i served on the charter commission um i have believed that these appointments as well as the planning board appointments are political um not everyone believes that that has been a dispute i think pat can say back through the very beginning of this council as to whether these are political appointments or not um i am one that believes that there is a political element to these appointments um and there are positions mr slavitar has taken not just in the interviews but in times he's written us that um give me concern for putting him on the zba it's it's one of the original reasons i had that concerns about appointing him to the zba those concerns remain but that but in my five years on the council i have appointed plenty of people that i don't agree with politically so to say those concerns are of necessarily a personal nature i just have to push back on that um i have concerns with how he handled um my reaching out to him as chair as i was required to do under the council's policy had i not reached out to him i would have been um called out for not following the policy um i have reached out to plenty of people in my time as chair that have not been happy with that reach out but that have responded in a more civil manner than mr slavitar did and given that the zba is a quasi judicial body the lack of civil response to that email concerns me as a quasi judicial body to be appointed to i have you know so i agree a lot with pat i i don't know what to do with six candidates for five positions or you know i i've got two in my mind so i guess that leaves four candidates three positions um uh all of which would accept um what would like to be considered for the full and three of which would like to be considered for the remaining associates i will say i still have concerns with um um mr slavitar mr o'connor um and mr varners some of their answers to the questions today will that stop me from voting to recommend any particular one of them over the other ones i mean there's there's four openings we know um that it's hard to keep an opening on zba because a zba as a quasi judicial body needs to be able to to have full panels i was at a zba meeting this past week that had four members at it and so they all needed to be unanimous votes um that makes it harder um than when there's five members attending the panels and so i recognize how much of a issue not appointing members are i recognize that um at the as as councillor d angeles indicated the last time mr varner was a um applicant i am glad to see him back because it was good to hear fuller responses to the interview questions from him it really was um and and and get a much better idea of of his his thoughts than we were able to have the last time he was in front of this body interviewing um through paper responses um in that case um for a position so i think i would lean i i actually don't know other than my serious concerns with mr slavitar is a full member um um i i don't know but but i i felt i had to respond to um jennifer's claims of personal animosity that it's it it is not personal it is concerns related to appointing people to quasi judicial bodies and the the and and my belief of a political it being partially political but but the temperament needed in quasi judicial bodies that i have not necessarily seen expressed by one of the candidates so i'll take a turn um it it is disappointing that someone reacts in a particular way i think what i need to focus my attention on is how does that person serve on the board and i have as i said before you know i've got a bad habit of listening and on zba and planning board meetings um i am i think the qualities that we want in members of this quasi judicial body are exemplified by mr slavitar in this professional role and i think that is those are the qualifications by which at this point i i will rely on um i have seen him function as you know in in somewhat similar um projects where it is not a pro forma a pro development and anti development it is a case by case facts on the ground and a very balanced uh consideration of two projects that you you might consider as sort of similar uh large apartment buildings in different locations and i and i of any qualification i think the ability to be concise efficient with time to the point and articulate and and as was stated many times by mr slavitar um the rules and the facts are what what lay out the process and what and what they base their findings on i think he meets all of those expectations and i would strongly support his a lot of recognition for the work that he's already done i would support him being uh promoted and nominated for the full-time position even though it's a truncated one it's some recognition of the work done i think it would be smart for us to vote on that on that one role we're doing this we're dividing as we did the other night and i think it would be good to clarify the the remaining um full member role of about a year and a third and take care of that and then we will deal with um the positions available for or the people available for the associate membership so i will make a motion to recommend the town council a point answer it has a question oh i'm sorry i'm sorry you had to you cut my monologue off counter attack um i was going to say that wouldn't it be easier to have the order votes before this one and maybe i can explain why i received the email from the chair recommending or at least offering support for um the three candidates i listened to the questions and um i i had leaning towards several as the process went on and then at the end when the question was asked what each candidate would want mr slobberton mentioned that he would go only for the full which at that time felt to me that was it it for it it forced it forces the hand of the committee but on the other hand i want to give deference to the chair who has worked with him and in a way knows what he is able to do and what he has done with the zba already but since that is the sticking point wouldn't it be better to focus on the order for first with the votes and then depending on what comes out of that we could decide who gets this full position for one year i i could be switched the votes why why this first one rather than the other four i think from my perspective um i would not like to see us do a default full membership again it's what we that's what we ended up doing last time and it was sort of by default that we ended up um picking two people with no experience for the full membership positions and it felt um it felt that we had not honored we had not honored the the essentially the input from the the chair um so i in this case it feels like it would be if people are uncomfortable with this decision we'll find out and if we don't vote for someone then that person is eligible for consideration in another in another capacity um and so i figured that would be the the way to approach it man uh hand hand joe hanneke um i hate this title it's really confusing two two things um one to respond to councillor etay about why start with full if mr slaveter is recommended for a full position to start immediately that opens up another associate position for the next three months so that we would need to make another recommendation on that so it makes more sense from that point of view i actually agree with our chair that it makes sense to start with the full position because we might end up with a different type of we'll need a different conversation potentially additional conversation because we might be looking at appointing or making recommendations for two associate positions to start immediately for three months instead of one depending on how that full recommendation goes um so that's the one thing i wanted to say so i i do think we should actually start um with a determination as to who our other recommendation on the full is um i am i want to comment on um the what appears to be the heavy reliance on the chair of the zba's opinion to the exclusion or um not exclusion exclusion's the wrong word um to to the higher weighing than other opinions we did not offer ask um every member of the zba to weigh in on who they like we did not ask our planning department to weigh in on who of the seven they want um the zba chair did not listen to the interviews um before we did that and and i actually go back to you know it it almost seems like we had a question in here about um you know and considering you know who's interest should be given greater significance you know we ask that about that and i feel like members of this committee are giving greater significance to one person's um one member of the community's opinion um rather than others and and i i'm we need to take that into consideration but if we're going to take a chair's view into consideration on a regular basis that was not solicited um but that then we're going to weigh it as if it was solicited on who i think we need to change our process to solicit opinions from all members continuing members or even our staff and then weigh them just as well maybe um so i i respect our chair um but i don't want to give his opinion i don't want to overvalue his opinion um um beyond um how we value the opinions of ourselves um and and the interview were quite answers themselves and and our own thoughts and our own deliberations thank you jennifer so um potentially if in another associate position were to open at least for the next three months then there would could be five candidates for five associate positions right because we have four associate positions now if i i mean solverers would become available then we would have sort of i mean if if you think of it that way we have five associate positions now one one three month term and four one year terms i'm not really thinking of it that way i'm thinking of is that true though i thought there's an empty associate position now for that ends june 30 and then there's four associates right positions that start july one and and if mr slaviter was recommended for a full to start immediately there would be a second associate position for now to june 30 for three months i i'm not necessarily thinking of it separately it's i'm thinking of it as we should be recommending someone that is not a current associate that would we're recommending for associates starting july one to also fill the current one vacancy of associates so i wouldn't necessarily think of it as five separate positions such that miss greenbaum is not eligible to be appointed to the vacant associate position right now because she's already in a situation yeah but i can't i have to i just keep thinking when last time mr varner interviewed we kept three associate positions open rather than give him an opportunity to be an associate so i think um i so i'm i'm a little just to have some concerns about the whole process um but i would support yeah going ahead to a vote on the full time that position that's left thank you i just want to make a clarification about the two people who were selected for full positions one of them it's i believe it's philip had a great deal of experience with zoning and land use and all kinds of stuff and had uh knew i whether it was south carolina or north carolina zoning laws by heart because of the or because of the work that he was doing so uh it wasn't as simple as we just threw a couple of people in without any experience uh and that's an important clarification um out of respect for him and also for the process that compromise was a reasonable compromise um uh i wish i could come up with a compromise right now um but i agree that we probably need to go ahead and vote for the full-time associate based on uh mandy's just statement right now about what it does if we don't go ahead jennifer no you go ahead sorry um i think i then will proceed with with that motion and that i am going to make a motion to recommend that town council appoint david sloweter as a full member starting immediately first term to serve um starting immediately through end of june 2025 june 30 2025 20 june 30 20 20 yeah so i'll second that any discussion any additional discussion council etay i'm a greenhorn here um so i will defer to the chair and to the answers that i received this evening i suppose my responses would be different if i had more interactions and um i was more knowledgeable about some of the events that have been shared this evening but in the absence of that power knowledge i'll go with um what i heard as answers this evening and what's the chair recommended so i'm going to move to a vote and just going across the screen uh jennifer taube uh yes dameroni is a yes pat de angela sorry no okay uh councillor etay yes councillor hanakie no so we have you're going excuse me would they split vote we have um we have recommended to town council that david sloweter be um fill the remaining full term for the council i said that poorly but that's the gist of it we're going to move to we're going to move to the associate members so in consideration we have rizwana kahn we have john varner we have vince o'connor we have pelta greenbaum and we have david also i heard some some um consideration of uh so before we start that we would uh we now actually have two associate positions that are free and as mandy said earlier i think the um the linking the remainder of this term the the vacancy of this term and then starting afresh in july is the smart thing it brings the the zba up to full staff or full membership um and it gives someone three more months of experience before they're before the real full term associate term starts does anybody have an issue with trying to do that andy and no i don't have an issue i was going to say i think looking at the remaining five candidates for or associate positions um as i said previously i i would support miss greenbaum for a july one start uh she's currently an associate so i can't really appoint her to two separate associate positions held simultaneously it's not going to work too well um i would support david afeld for an associate both for a term to begin immediately and end june 30 2024 and for a term a one-year term that begins july 1 2024 um i think i would support reswanna con for an associate that begins july 1 2024 um uh potentially um giving her a little bit of time to prepare and maybe watch some some positions and all um uh meetings and and read a little bit and and talk to people before potentially being put right onto a panel or something um and i i'm not sure who the other one is