dy will be given an invitation to join if they are eligible. You need to present your badge or whatever it is in order to gain access. It is a pretty elaborate process. Vaccines are hard to come by. Emma has stepped up. Secured freezing capacity so that we can store it safely. Next slide, please. We have a couple of things. I always give you an update. What we are noticing is that everything is still operation go. Things are moving forward. We have seen additional, just as you have seen it in the community, more and more town or fish town employees are either being exposed or contracting COVID-19. That requires us to then, if they have had contact to have those people quarantine, that is happening pretty much every department at this point in time. We have de-densified our buildings to the greatest extent possible. If you have the ability to work remotely, we are encouraging people to do that. I have asked each department head to go through to give me their staff report, their staffing plan. The governor has de-densified office buildings to about 25% capacity. We just cannot afford to have an entire office be out of commission. Each department is working at their own length. Next slide. We continue to do communications weekly call and show. The biggest thing that is happening here is that we have ramped down the ambassador's outreach efforts. They are still around, but they are working fewer hours. We are preserving some of the funds for when the students start to come back in February. We have the director on staff, and she is still working on that. In terms of the other part-time employees, they have lowered their hours until the students start to come back. We need to reach out again. Next slide. We have one last slide on the recent update. That was going to do. Next slide. So, pretty similar topics to what Paul and I got to speak to last time in November. We are still in the pandemic. I know that lots of us are tired. Really try to just be aware of that pandemic of fatigue. I can't speak anymore. My heaven. And as we have more time inside, that will happen as well. Holiday gatherings are happening and trying to navigate those in a thoughtful way. One thing that they did notice was at the airports is there was actually very high travel rates this winter. And in the last weeks, more than they were expecting. So, we do continue to see increased numbers of cases. Trends are up nationwide. The town is not exempt from this. And even on the local level, we are feeling it as well regionally. I think in western Mass, we did not feel the weight of the pandemic in such a way like the eastern part in Worcester area of the state did earlier this year. But we are certainly feeling it now. And we are just really trying to thoughtfully plan with the schools and the university that how the students and staff will be returning for the spring semester. Continuation of the robust testing regimen that they are going to be happening there. There will be the community surveillance testing but on a reduced level, I believe, right, Paul? That will happen. And I know that one thing that I have been continually working on is trying to have good communication with our partners, seeing what is working well with others and really just trying to build off the successes that we had this fall and the lessons learned and how we are going to make a better spring. I will just close by encouraging people to sign up for the community testing at the UMass Mullen Center. It is incredibly well organized and really easy to do. It is self-administered. It is a short swab.  Plenty of parking there. And they have it really super well organized. You get your results within 24 to 36 hours. I have gotten mine in less than 24 hours. I go weekly. You are allowed to go once a week. It is just to make sure it gives you a sense of peace of mind. And I encourage every member of the community to take advantage of that while it is available to all of us in the community. That concludes our presentation. Thank you. We really appreciate that update. And Emma, thanks again for coming on board. Paul, we are going to proceed with a master. Oh, I am sorry. Here are counselor questions. And I might actually have a few myself. So let's start with 30 p.m. Okay. Quick question. I am really interested in phase two and phase three. So like when are we going to be getting vaccinated? And the second question is what is that little ratio number, the one that they use for the schools in determining in person schooling? Sure. So for the first part of your question, Dorothy, phase two is estimated to be between February and April, like between February and March. But these are always subject to change. And then phase three is estimated to start in April. Phase two, even today, they adjusted that to include individuals that are 75 years and older, even without comorbidities. So that was a great change to see for our wise population in our community, evaluated that way. So that's just constantly changing. UMass will be having this large vaccination site that will be available. And from what we have heard, will be here throughout the spring as those phases evolve. Us on the local health department level will be augmenting them. And people's primary care providers should be receiving vaccine this spring as well for eventually. So more to come. And we're learning more each day. In terms of the metrics for school, I believe I was not part of the committee that set those metrics when they were initially set. So I would have to go back and review that because I don't have that straight off my mind right now, Dorothy. I'm sorry. So I don't want to answer it unthoughtfully. Thank you, Emma. Alyssa? Yes. Thank you, Emma. Thank you for pointing out that, you know, even though we didn't get our slides until noon today, they were already out of date after the governor spoke. So that was really helpful. And it is really useful, as you indicated, especially for our community, right? We have a ton of people who are over age 75 here. So that's really helpful. And that will be well received, including by my mother-in-law who lives with us. But the thing I wanted to add about that is we're seeing some really what I would consider to be very unfortunate press about, and this is actually more for Paul than it is for Emma, from first responders elsewhere who are saying, I'm not getting that vaccine. I don't trust that vaccine. I don't need that vaccine. I'm not going to get sick. And that's really the tone they take. It's quite embarrassing to me if our public safety staff were quoted that way in the newspaper, I'd be mortified. And so I'm wondering if you have a sense from our public safety staff how they're feeling about it when it comes to, you know, fire, police, DPW. And I know that obviously the governor's required that school and college students have the vaccine. There are some workplaces that have the flu vaccine. I'm sorry to be very clear they have flu vaccine, although they extended the date. There are some workplaces that are requiring flu vaccines. Given best practices, given this is a brand new vaccine, I'm assuming we are not making the requirement for the vaccine for COVID-19. But are we doing so? My questions are, are we requiring flu vaccines for any of our staff? And secondly, what's been our local public safety response, which I am sure is going to be a much more positive response than the response we were reading about in the newspaper. So we do not require any vaccines by any employees. It's a negotiable item and we have not pushed that as an item that we want to push on with our first responders. My understanding is that our most of our public safety officials will be accessing the vaccine. Not all. There will be many who don't or there will be some that don't. You know, part of it is public education, but part of it is more cultural or a sincere scientific fear that the vaccine hasn't been tested adequately to take it. So I think that and who knows if there's a political component as well. So we won't have everyone, but the vaccine will be readily available to all of our first responders and dispatchers. I think we should keep track of how many are actually vaccinated and be able to respond to that. Obviously, we're not even all accessing it yet, right? They're saying the 11th, but when they can, I think that will be an important number for our community to feel more comfortable. Thank you, Paul. Kathy? Yeah, I just want to follow up on the questions about when and how this distribution starts. Emma, you said that UMass will be a distribution site. Will UMass be a distribution site for the whole community the way they've started to do testing or will be mainly UMass? And I'm asking because what we're reading is that vaccines arrive and then we don't have the ability to give them to people because they're either and we've got a nurse and staff at UMass. We don't have a medical school, but in terms of vaccinating lots of people. So I've been so impressed, Paul. I've gone twice for the COVID testing. They have such a smooth operation and seeing the people. So is UMass going to actually be opening that up for the communities that we go into these phases? I think there's more to come with that. Initial discussions have given that first impression, especially with how they're being involved with the first responder site. But I know that all of us are just eager to get more information when it's ready and prepared to be clear, Kathy. Yeah, so I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. What we do know is UMass will be offering vaccine to first responders period. That came out today. So whether it's going to be opened up to the community, whether it's going to be flowing through the local boards of health or not, whether it's going to be through Walgreens and CVS or through your primary care physician, none of that stuff has really been communicated out for the general population. Is that because it's a state? Someone said to me, you know, we've been saying the vaccine is coming at some point. People had to have been thinking about this. But so is that at the state level making a decision? Yeah. Yes. And they have really high quality people. Dr. Beninger, that M&I both knows, he's at MGH on Beth Israel, MGH. And it's just very complicated. And then who actually distributes it becomes an issue as well. And who has the storage facilities to store it. And that's why I commend Emma for being ahead of the game, getting us a freezer that we can store in the Moderna. We're going to be holding the Moderna vaccine. And so having that being able to store that, and there's all these protocols for how you manage once you open a package, where it's a timeframe, you have to make sure. And that's why we do it by an appointment basis only. So we're not having one person show up and you open a whole package for one person. It's not going to happen that way. All right. Any other questions at this time from the council? Okay. Then Paul, we are going to move to the MassWorks Pomeroy Village grant. And you put a memo in our packets. At this point, you said you would just talk to us about this. And I believe the vast majority of this will be on our January 25th agenda. Right. So the idea of this is, this is, we received the MassWorks grant for $1.5 million to redo the intersection at Pomeroy, West Pomeroy and West Street, what we call the Pomeroy Village intersection. What I want is to lay out the process that we would recommend that we would make a presentation to you at the full council at January 25th meeting. You would then consider the proposal I have put forward to you today in terms of how would you like the public to be engaged? Typically, we would have the staff organize that outreach, but it should be, there should be a host committee of some sort, whether it's, you know, whichever committee you will move this to at your, when you refer it, when we refer it. And the big question for the council, and it's really going to be the council decision is whether you went a signalized intersection or roundabout. And we'd like to be able to have the opportunity to present both options to you, take those out to the public. They're about the cost, the costs are about the same for each of them. The state was okay giving us a grant with us not deciding which way to go with this, which we were worried about initially. So, but it's an important decision. It's a major intersection. It's a primary location in the south part of our town. And so it's a big decision for the council to come to. We're hoping that you would be able to do that before July 1st. So you have plenty of time to think it through, listen to the public, ask all the questions and get all the engineering answers that you need to get from us. I was trying to lay out a process for the council on how do we move this forward to that decision point. The grant requires us to expend the money by June 30th, 2023. There's a time frame. There's a schedule in the memo. And so that's where, that's what I'm presenting to you tonight, not for any action, but anticipation of your meeting on January 25th. Are there questions at this time? Melanie? Yes. I had three questions. I think first is what is the scope of this project? Is it just the intersection and the roundabout? Or would it also include, you know, like installing the bus stops and surrounding areas, like easing the road traffic and sort of the whole area? Yeah. So it does go a little bit down West street. How far we're able to go depends on pricing. Quite frankly, we want to do the sidewalks, the bus stop on both sides, make sure the crosswalks are all done, all that things. But so we estimated a certain length down Pomeroy West Pomeroy and down West street on either side. I don't think we cross the stream on the north side of West street. Okay. And the other question is, I'm sure we're going to go into more details, but I was just curious what is the cost of maintenance of an intersection versus a roundabout? That's a really good question. We can bring that. Yeah. And that can be answered later. Yeah. And the last thing is what sort of feedback are we looking for from the community? So we will be reaching out to the businesses in the area, people who live in the area and sort of one on one and sort of talk to them through it. But also, I think the council will want to host some general meetings of the public, at least a couple of them, just to get feedback from people as we make it typically the way those things work is that town staff would make a presentation and then say now we're in the council would open the floor to feedback and you would listen to what people have to say on that. Kathy Sheen. I'm not sure this is directly to Paul, but I saw it like it's coming back for discussion for ideas of how to do this. If we have some and we can't talk to each other a lot before we come to the next meeting, is there a way that we can write things down and get them to a central place so that we're not all just sinking on our feet so that we can get a collective group? And it's some of the questions are building on the kinds of things that Shalini had, but if you could get us what you know about the engineering design so far, I had a question how far on Pomeroy could a sidewalk go? If we ever get the Hickory Ridge land and we have a lot of people and we have a development you'd want to be able to walk and bike lanes. So just some sense, but if we wanted to collect a bunch of ideas that then would be vetted at some community thing, how could we collect them first and then talk about a process? I just ask you to send them to me and we can try to answer as many of those in advance of the presentation on the 25th. Okay. I want to also mention that when the District 5 meeting was held, they had a very nice discussion about this and I would hope that as we look at additional district meetings that would be relevant to this intersection that we might be able to use the district meetings as well because I found that conversation to be extremely interesting and very thoughtful.  Yes, I just wanted to underscore the importance of what I think Paul was saying that you're going to the town will do direct outreach to business owners and to other groups because there are people who come to our meetings and the majority of them don't and I think it's going to be really hard to do in COVID, but I think that actually could mean actual door knocking and standing their masks six feet apart because otherwise we're not going to get the kind of feedback that I think we should get. And we've already done some of that prior to when you know with a grant during the grant making process to the major property owners specifically, but we need to do more of it. Alyssa. Okay, so a little pushback on that. We absolutely cannot expect to send town staff out to people's doors during a pandemic to discuss this. This is not an emergency. This is not what you use town staff to do. It's a risk to everyone's health. That's not appropriate. We need to think of something more creative than that. I agree we need various kinds of outreach, but it's ridiculous during a pandemic that someone's going to come to my door to talk to me about something. No, not okay. But so please don't feel obligated to do that because I think that's a horrible idea. The thing I did want to point out that I want the town council to think about because you've never done this before is it's important and I'm sure Paul and I will have some disagreement about this in terms of the edges, but I think we are solid on the base, which is as he said, this needs to be hosted by a town council committee because this is a town council decision staff does this immense amount of work to make this all clear to people. They come up with all different kinds of possible sometimes an exercise not counting on that this time, but different ways of interacting. Obviously it's all going to be Zoom, so it's not going to be the usual like put little stickers on things, right? We have new ways of doing things, but we have to be clear that the town council owns this and we don't sit there and say, well, staff just said what they said. I mean, I don't know. We own this situation, but what part of what that means is that whichever committee has this, when we talk about this in future, whatever committee has this, they need to feel like through Paul, they can talk to staff about how this is going to work because you do not just show up and say, so what's staff going to do? That is a recipe for failure. I have been through these when we have had amazing dedicated staff who've talked for 40 minutes straight at people before anybody could actually get a word in edgewise to talk about anything else. I'm not saying that was going to happen this time, but it has happened in the very recent past. So think about whichever committee is going to end up having this, what's an effective way for you to work through Paul to talk about how this layout is going to work, even though staff is going to do 99% of the work, because otherwise your constituents are going to be mad at you and you're going to be frustrated and nobody wants to blame staff because they're awesome. So figuring out a way to balance all that is really going to be important, especially given we don't have the physical contact we normally do. Mercy? Yeah, several people have mentioned that we had a District 5 meeting where we brought this up. It was our last meeting and we had a number of comments that we forwarded to Paul. And so I think that if we know that this is a project that's going to span a couple years and we know that we're going to be reaching out to residents and businesses and so on, if we could come up with some timeline and plan for that outreach and incorporate some of our district meetings in District 5, that I think would be helpful. And as we like to work with staff to be able to do that, I think a lot of the people at our first meeting, you know, they had some strong opinions about Roundabout versus Intersection. I think that the town is obviously going to be putting forward some rationale for a Roundabout that the residents haven't heard before. But I think that we all need to maintain an open mind about that. So to the extent that we can get a timeline and work together on outreach, that would be that would be good counselors and staff. Thank you Darcy. Shalini? Yeah, I was going to actually piggyback on Darcy that having an engagement timeline that's posted on the town website. So having a clear town website page for this with showing what are the different stakeholder meetings and whether they're the council, public meetings, listening sessions of focus groups. And all of these can be done over Zoom, even having a project newsletter maybe. So after every stage of data, you know, I was through schools and district people and neighborhood associations, we could be sending out information to them. And I was wondering in terms of collecting data, like we have the focus groups, you have the public meetings, and you had mentioned bang the table. And I don't know if that's something that can also be used as another. So we want to open up as many channels as possible to collect. And I think this is really an opportunity for us to use as a prototype for community engagement, like what, you know, what are different channels we can use and making sure that all key stakeholders are being represented. Right. Other other comments from counselors at this time. Okay. Seeing none. Thank you, Paul, for that. And we look forward to a more full discussion on the 25th. We are going to move to the action items. And the first is the capital inventory. And I'm going to start, I mean, have Andy Steinberg introduce it. But meantime, Andy's of Sean is going to put up on the board, the actual motion, which you may want to make and then call for a second. We need to suspend 8.4 first. Oh, I'm sorry. All right. So in order to move this forward, we need to suspend rules of procedure rule 8.4 for this agenda item. Is there any discussion? That means because we're not bringing up twice. I'll second it. Thank you. Any other discussion? Then we start with Evan Ross. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Chain. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Aye. Shalini Balmium. Yes. Melissa Brewer. Aye. Pat D'Angeloz. Aye. Garcy Dumont. Abstain. Okay. And Griezmann is aye. Mandy Johannike. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. 12 in favor. None opposed. One abstention. No absences. We are now going to move then to the actual motion and any an opportunity for discussion as well. Andy. Okay. You want to start with the motion itself and does it need to be read in just the beginning part? I think you could just with whatever's up there and then people can read that. It's in there. It's on the motion. I'm going to move the recordings with Charter section 5.7A. It is recommended by the December 7, 2020 Finance Committee 2021 Inventory Recommendations established the following requirements for the 2021 Capital Inventory. And then the motion continues with sections 1 having to do with buildings including strategic infrastructure from enterprise funds and that includes age condition maintenance and repair history renovation or major repair history amount for which it is insured, comment field to note plans for building note empty buildings and options for future use of buildings not currently in use in the second part of the list is vehicles movable equipment including age condition remaining useful life mileage purpose of the vehicle frequency of use type of fuel and budget replacement price. Is there a second? Change seconds. Thank you. Would people, Andy, why don't you give some background about this and then we can ask counselors for questions. Okay. I will try to be very brief. I want to point out that at the last meeting which I think was December 21st maybe there was a finance committee report and the process was described in that report which so it has been before the committee for several weeks but I realized that many of us read the current packet not the past packet so just real quickly this was recommended by the committee on a vote of five to zero of the five voting members who are the counselors at the time we had two resident members both resident members spoke in support of the motion. The process that we engaged in to remind you that Town Manager pointed out to us that there's a provision in the charter that requires that the council establish requirements for an inventory and that was referred to the finance committee on August 31st. We discussed it over a number of meetings that followed beginning with really I guess three stages of the process. One is we tried to identify the many needs for information that might be needed to assist the council committees and other multi-member bodies and we reach out and do some consultation including with reaching out to ECAC because we recognize that they might have some items that they would be concerned what want to have included in the inventory process. We then looked at what information is currently available to us and we realized that there are inventory items that are collected for various purposes including our audit for information collected for insurance purposes and those kinds of things that we already know that is information that is collected on an annual basis and the third thing is we discussed the timing process and consulted with Finance Director Mangano about this and Mr. Mangano was feeling that it's very important that we try and make this decision as close to the beginning of the year 2021 as possible so that he can incorporate it into the process that he will be using with departments to assess capital needs and that they're integrally related and at that point the committee referred matter back to Mr. Mangano and myself and we discussed it and proposed the resolution or the proposal which was in the packet for this meeting and as well as I believe the last meeting and that's what was supported by the council so I think that having gone through the process a little bit I'll see if other members of the finance committee have anything that they want to add or emphasize in particular I was not going to do that but if others want to do if they can or just open it up to questions. Okay any members of the finance committee who would like to add anything to Andy's description I see none and I'm going to move to questions from the council. Alyssa. So I'm going to preface this with saying although I'm not real fond of dwelling on past failures this was one of the select board's past failures and Andy makes reference to that in the report that thank you you reminded us was in last times the select board had asked for this inventory information for years and years and it didn't happen it was in town manager goals for many years way before this town manager and then finally it did happen and then unfortunately there were some there were some staff challenges at that time it was a very difficult time and so when it did get finished there was almost no time to work from it so it's one of those things that like it just seems like we should have but it's not it's not been that simple so I appreciate the finance committee relooking at that particularly since Andy was there when we had this last conversation one of the things that for example that we went to sideways on previously was asking them to rate like in some rating scheme what the quality of the building was it's like don't make it that complicated right just give us this basic information but there are a couple of extra pieces of basic information I'd like to include here and I'm hoping the finance committee can find a way to do that one is because some of these buildings are not just things like you know town hall right we're not going to we're not going to knock downtown hall I totally get that but other things are odd like the DPW shed at the high school like the child care facility in the wildwood parking lot and so it's important I think that we show the zoning district that things are in and I think it's important I'm sure there'll be a map anyway but that we show the zoning district things are in and then the other separate thing is any strings that are attached to the property because of past funding so for example the North Amherst school had block grant funding associated with it and because of that block grant funding we have some limitations for a period of time as to what we're allowed to do with it so just adding that and it doesn't have to be a lot of detail but just say you know go look at the block grant funding information on this I think would be helpful because people often come up with really cool ideas of things to do and it turns out there are strings attached that we're not able to do it with. Yeah I just wanted to say that I understand that that you're putting this out now because it's a charter requirement and you're just sort of putting together the basic requirements of an inventory and I'm glad that you asked for ECAC input but it's still one of the things that that I had recommended was that we really need a master inventory because we have multiple inventories now and you know I've seen the you know a school department list I've seen a DPW list and I know the green communities has to have a separate list for you know on a regular basis looking at the different things and so I guess I just think it would be logical to have a master list and have all the different requirements added that are needed for all the different inventories in one place. Okay are there any other comments at this time? Kathy? I just you know I was in the finance discussion and if you look at what was laid out just in response to Alyssa I completely agree you know doing strings we had this column called comments and you know in theory it could be used for that because there's not going to be strings to this building but there would be you know put pertinent information and the other the thinking is that the to make this useful we have to make it easy to continuously update without a huge amount of staff effort you know so the information is easy to get and plunk it in so so over time if there's a way of cross linking some it may not be easy Dorsi to do a consolidated everything but if there's for more information on this at least cross listed so we the the goal is not to say we we've done it once took a huge staff effort and it would take another staff effort to update stuff so this was the easier to update list starting thing but I think that comment column is a critical one to cross list things and tell us other things about encumbrances you know the old school Alyssa is a good one because it's only partially used by the town it's rented out to other people you know so not only do we have block grant issues but we have we only partially use it so it's a that's going to be a heavy populated column for some items but not others and I guess that I would go with Darcy's comments where I did think about a ECAC as I was working with Sean on the proposal that came forward we were doing it with the timeline that we really had come to the conclusion that John needed to get moving on the first round right away and that I assumed that additional requests might be coming from ECAC as it continued its process because I know that it is a work in process and there was two things that we recognized and that one is that ECAC might make its own direct requests on a one-time basis for certain information and that I'm sure you have been doing that already and will continue to do that when it's relevant and important information for the committee to have and second is that this is just the first year and if there's an ongoing inventory item that it might make sense to add to the process once we've identified it and find that it's feasible we can recommend to future councils the beginning of year from now we add it so it certainly we did think about it. So Andy I guess I want to go back to you as chair of finance would you assume under comment field to note plans for building that we would include something there about what zone it is in or is that a separate bullet that we want to amend this with? I guess that way we probably would want to have staff in several departments think about questions like that because I think the question also is relevance of zoning to what extent to town buildings are they required to adhere to the zoning does the zoning apply and to what and how does it apply so I think we probably would want input from staff on that and then to move forward but it is a logical question if it is relevant and obtainable information then appreciate the suggestion. So in the similar way the issue of whether there's any kind of restrictions on the building based on prior funding when I can totally appreciate because when you're doing the grant money it's just complicated. So we are assuming that's going to be under the field notes but I'm wondering if our best process at this point is to go ahead and pass this tonight take it back and then we can always bring it back with amendments to add these other items. I certainly will report it to the finance committee when we meet tomorrow is none anticipated additional item but really at that point I think we would be looking for Mr. Magano to give us make an assessment which you may not be able to do on the spot at the meeting tomorrow but we can get that back then to the council is to can these items that have been suggested be added with specificity to the common field and does that really require than any change as long as there's assurance that it's happening that's something the council can decide at that point. Okay so in other words you your your desire would be to go ahead and move the motion the way it is and then come back with amendments later. Yes I think that in order to adhere to the plan for Mr. Magano to at least start collecting the information that is on the list that would kind of give him the license to do in instructions to do so. Okay are there any other questions and listen does that work for you? Sort of I mean I feel like I'm hearing if they feel like doing it as opposed to it's an important thing to keep track of so even if we don't fill it in the first time around because we're focused elsewhere I think it's important that it be in there and so if you will take that to finance committee as it's important to have it in there and then you can expand on what the comment field means I think that would work out just fine. Okay all right I think both suggestions are important I just think we we want to try to figure out how to proceed now. So Alyssa you still have your hand up is did you have anything further to say? Okay then we have a motion on the table and it's been seconded and it is the inventory as presented is there any further discussion? Okay I'm not going to read the full list and I'm just going to say so the motion is in accordance with Charter section 5.7a and is recommended by the December 7th 2020 finance committee 2021 inventory recommendations to establish the following requirements for the capital inventory and Andy's reviewed those no further questions at this point then we're going to move to a vote and starting with Evan Ross. Yes. George Ryan. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Hugh Shriver. Hi. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Sarah Schwartz. Hi. Shalini Balmille. Yes. Alyssa Brewer. Hi. Pat DeAngelis. Hi. Darcy DuMont. Yes. Lynn Gryfner is an I hand, Manny Johanicki. Hi. And Dorothy Pam. Yes. The pass is unanimously but it's not the last you've heard of it. Okay we're going to go then to the retreat follow-up. You may not be ready to vote on this tonight but we do need to finish it. The first is the library trustee memo and this time I did some major revisions based on feedback from people from the last time but you didn't get it until yesterday and it wasn't in the packet till this morning. So if you would like to wait until the 25th we can do that however we will the library trustees are obviously quite aware that we're discussing all of this. Kathy. I for one thought you did a really good job and I had one pretty minor comment the in the table that talks about total costs you've got you've got an asterisk going it was kind of awkward to find it you could find it saying we mean inflate the price up to such and such a year you know but I just want to make sure that it really strongly emphasized because otherwise we're likely to get back you know and total costs you have somehow to convey that total what I call total total costs you know that are we putting in energy efficiency into the building have we is it more expensive to build in 2022 than it was so just I think putting that is fine but just maybe say a few more words of what what we're asking to be done there because otherwise we're likely to get back on the grant program what was in the original piece because it's always been the same number so just okay is there any other comment at this time then unless I hear otherwise I am going to move to authorize the town council president to send the revised memo dated January 3rd 2021 request for financial information regarding library expansion projects to the jones library trustees on behalf of the town council and it will be as amended because I will make those changes is there a second ryan second thank you any further discussion darcy demont some reason I thought you were in the process of putting this off until the next meeting because it came to us so late we we can do that unless people are ready to vote I would like to get it to the to the library people because they need to start putting the information together yeah I guess I just feel like there wasn't a adequate time to look at it um but you know getting getting things the day of the meeting is doesn't you know and we had a problem we didn't have a problem but we were delayed this time because we had vacations going on etc so that's part of the problem this memo has been before the council two other times I just want to point that out right yeah no I I actually told no problem with the form that it um as as you know because I didn't submit any any comments um but you know when I saw it today I just you know skimmed it and saw the mess you know everything's completely changed and so I haven't had time to look through and see what that's all about one of the I think significant suggestions was that the same questions that are asked of regarding the building renovation and expansion should also be asked of all of the repair options as well and so the attempt in the memo was to make parallel the questions as they are asked both at the cost level and then on through the whole rest of the memo and not have it be chopped up into two different separate things I think what I would suggest is that we move that we do it as amended and if there are other scribner errors or any other major thing we would do it but George or Alyssa you had your hand up I I totally support the hey we didn't get this until very recently concept except for the fact that we've seen different variations of it and we do want it to move on and it's not the be all end all right and so we get all these answers and then before we have the public meeting the forum whatever we're going to call it for the public that we do jointly with them we can say you know what I think we still need this other set of information this isn't ready so as long as we having as long as we do it now I feel like we give ourselves enough time to prepare for that forum very first page describes in fact that this is not the end all to be all of any further questions George did you have a question no I just wanted to echo what's just been said I think we've seen this before it's important that we get it to the trustees for them to look at and we'll have ample opportunity for follow-up okay so um I don't know that we ever had a second on the motion second wait wait a fortune seconded it thank you um is there any further discussion okay then we're going to move to a vote and we're starting with George Ryan yes Kathy Shane yes Steve Schreiber hi Andy Steinberg Andy Steinberg yes uh Sarah Schwartz hi Charlie Balmone yes Alyssa Brewer hi Pat D'Angelo's hi Darcy Dumont the same Lynn Griezmer yes uh Hannah uh Mandy Jo hi and Dorothy Pam yes Evan Ross yes it's 12 in favor none against one abstention none absent okay we are going to move to the and the next item is the draft memo we want requiring possible to require and possible agenda items for 2021 and let me just say we're just at the beginning of this process and all you have in your folder is the compiled comments that we got back from all the from seven counselors and even then I know a couple more might still want to comment the next step is that at each of your committee meetings that you have over the next two weeks please make sure you and your committee look at this from the perspective of your committee and just make sure that anything and everything you think might be coming up or should come up or you would like to come up this year is on there get that to me by the 15th and we'll take it from there okay so we're not voting on that tonight it's just a update on where we are on it right um any questions on that okay then we're moving to appointments we have none committee and liaison reports CRC nothing to report new um and andy finance nothing additional okay gol george no nothing to report jcpc pathe no we haven't started meeting nothing to report uh tso darcy we're just meeting on thursday and we're going to be talking about the water and sewer fly laws and uh north common we need people's comments by uh the end of the day on friday and that will be taken up at the next tsr meeting after that on the 28th and the one on the 28th would be joint a joint it would be a committee of the whole is that correct darcy and you've just you've decided okay thank you um anything else any uh liaison reports at this point yes alissa yeah i just didn't want you to think i forgot about board of licensed commissioners you know how the charter says that um individual committees can make their own rules for public comment they did that so if you have any committees you know of that are looking for rules they did some and then the other thing they're trying to do is come up with some rules for how they review applications you may notice that they have public hearings when people apply for an alcohol license and they realized they don't really have a lot of guidance in terms of what they're allowed to say yes or no to and under various circumstances so they're going to come up with some so good on them thanks nice update any others for liaison reports okay seeing none we do not have any minutes to approve they will be there will be a couple that will come forth on the 25th uh we're to the town managers to report paul um just a couple things i want to note that the community safety working group continues its work it means again wednesday um they will be talking about two public forums that they're trying that they're going to schedule one is for wednesday january 13th at 5 30 p.m and one on saturday january 16th at 3 p.m at least that was the last dates that they had talked about so that's just a time for them to be able to start hearing from the public about the things that they're working on they you know give you a heads up that they're um going to be challenged to meet any kind of january deadline which is what we what the council put to me but they will they will give me an update that i will then present to the council on january 25th in terms of where they are in the process i think so and they and they but they're very actively working they took the week between christmas and new year's off um so they're very diligent working every week and just note that we do have a redesigned website that still has a lot of work to be done on it it's got it's basically got a new sheen to it but it's still there's a lot of organizational things that need to be done on it and we're working on that sort of you know over time as we improve the website and its functionality so that's all i really have there's you know this report was done prior to our vacation so it's you know there'll be more coming next time let me just also point out that if you don't update your version that you look at the website with it won't work well i learned that the hard way um and uh are you saying paul that the community safety working group that you will provide an update on the 25th and if they want an extension you will bring that to us yeah i think the council asked me to report back by the end of january and so that's why it's okay okay okay all right anything any questions of paul or comments okay um then town council reports i really don't have a president's report are there any future agenda items our councilor comments pat de angeles thank you lin um i just wanted to say to the council that when we passed the resolution that was a commitment to structural racism um part of that was an agreement that the council on action that would engage in individual and collective work to understand bias and his and the historical role of racism in our lives and and amherst um and this is ongoing work and so shallonee and i have been looking at a variety of or beginning to look at a variety of anti-racism trainings and workshops that we will be presenting to you to make a decision that we as a group can participate in i think it becomes really important because there'll be no change in amherst unless we are prepared to examine how white supremacy and has shaped us and personally and uh shaped every aspect of our personal and communal lives so i will be bringing that forward with shallonee you know in a probably hopefully at the next meeting or the one after that in february thank you are there any other councilor comments or future agenda items okay then i am turning the meeting over to um athena for the election of officers thanks lin i'm going to review the process really quickly for just to refresh everyone's memory it's been a while since we did this and for anyone listening at home um you all have this in your packets but i'm just going to read it aloud charter section 2.2 requires the town council to elect a president and vice president who shall serve a one-year term the town council rules of procedures section 2.1a states that the clerk of the council shall preside over the election of the president i will ask you for the name of the person you wish to nominate as president nominations are limited to a name not an explanation or discussion nominations do not require a second counselors may nominate themselves after each nomination i will ask the councilor nominated if they accept acceptance is limited to a yes or no not an explanation or discussion when there are no further nominations i will ask each nominate if they would like to make a brief statement up to three minutes i'm using a timer i will call the roll and each counselor excluding nominees may make a brief statement on the election of the president up to three minutes and again i'm going to use a timer when we're done with that i will call the roll for a vote please state either the name of the nominee you wish to vote for or abstain at the conclusion of the roll call vote i will announce the results the nominee who receives the majority of vote at least seven will be deemed elected as president if no one receives a majority of votes i will repeat the process beginning with accepting nominations so we're going to start with nominations len did you have something okay councillor steinberg i nominate me and joe hannacky also hannacky do you accept the nomination yes how's our pan i nominate lin greesmer president greesmer do you accept the nomination yes are there any further nominations seeing none i'm going to ask each nominee if they would like to make a brief statement i have a three-minute timer councillor hannacky go ahead thank you long before i decided to run for president of the council i made the decision to not run for a third term as vice president because i have a firm conviction that it is time for another councillor to learn from the experience of being vice president two years in the roll is long enough only then did i even begin to think about whether i wanted to run for president yes the pool of more free time was a big reason not to be here tonight seeking your vote for president but i realized that i had something to offer this council in the next year i want to bring positive change to the role of the president when we adopted our rules of procedure we also adopted a statement of values many of those values are relevant to my candidacy creating a culture that promotes healthy balance respect for different points of view experience and knowledge teamwork and transparency in everything we do including processes and decisions in a pandemic change can be hard but this council can have stability while changing leadership having served as vice president for two years CRC chair for little more than one and on gol and jcpc since the beginning i'm well versed in the workings of the council the upcoming issues and the running of meetings which will provide stability but in addition to stability i also want to make the presidency more transparent and create a position that offers a healthy balance by bringing more counselors into the work make no mistake i do not intend to make the presidency a part-time job i've tried hard not to do that with the vice presidency or with the chair positions i've helped i don't intend this this to change i plan to spread out the workload especially the numerous meetings with other groups that lin attends in her role as president i'll invite other counselors to attend in my stead seek input about concerns and discussions prior items prior to those meetings and i would report to the full council as appropriate on those meetings let's share these opportunities together and help achieve a healthy balance for the role of president encourage more teamwork among counselors and provide more transparency about who is meeting with the leadership as i've shown throughout the past two years i also value our differences i've worked with several of you on legislation that has been heralded as bipartisan in an amorous way and i've worked with others to ensure that their motions and ideas for council action are presented in an actionable manner even if i don't support them i would bring that same spirit of collaboration and cooperation to the presidency the council's never before had a choice for president while that can sometimes be a good thing it can also be problematic one of the reasons i'm running is to give this council a real choice in its leadership and a choice to decide our values and how long a leader's tenure should be if you want stability while also desiring a presidential role to be treated a little bit differently with a goal towards more transparency better balance and more emphasis on teamwork i ask you to vote for me thank you president grisner yes thank you um being on the town council has been a great experience for all of us and i have enjoyed working with each of you as colleagues on the council my statement reflects what i've learned and what i've heard from you it is short and to the point it focuses on the following action words in the coming year the actions are listen to all the members of the council and to the public communicate regularly with each member of the council and with the public include counselors in decision making such as agenda setting and other key issues delegate to count two other council opportunities to represent or lead the town council's presence at events and other meetings both in person and virtual and explore options and seek solutions by identifying areas where counselors and or counselors and the public are in disagreement understanding why and looking for a path forward that is the greatest to the greatest extent possible allows all to feel they have been heard like all or most of you i hope that the that the residents of my district see fit to return me to the next council however i am constantly reminded that as we begin the final year or three or term there are many issues on our plate and we need to accept that we will accomplish some move some forward and leave some unknown and unknown for future councils for example some issues are required that are required for example passing a balanced budget that funds our schools library town services and capital needs another is our commitment to racial equity social justice and also the climate action i sincerely hope we make some significant strides in these critical areas knowing full well that we will take much longer to accomplish them and while we may make some serious progress in addressing the four major capital investments yet even with a tightening of our belts we will not break ground on a new elementary school during this term i have sincerely enjoyed the challenge of being president we have made great strides towards setting a new tone for this new form of government yet recognize that some residents are not always in agreement with our actions though none of us ran on a pandemic ticket we continue to manage the challenge that has been that was been presented to us i'm standing on my own record and i'm asking for your vote as president for a third term with the goal of making the job more doable more transparent and for those who will follow thank you thank you i'm now going to call the role in each counselor may make a brief statement on the election of the president for up to three minutes i'm going to follow where we left off so we'll begin with councillor shane thank you thank you both for statements i think both candidates are we're very fortunate we've got two strong thoughtful hardworking creative um and dedicated people willing to serve as president um well i want to speak on behalf of lin in terms of my experience with her as president um both on the very positive side but also ways to improve and i think she's already mentioned a few of them i've found both the way you conduct the meetings listen to people who are talking um particularly residents um are reaching out to all of us when you can sense there's um potentially different points of you and trying to figure out a way of bringing those points of you into the meeting if there's not a natural vehicle i think has been truly heroic um and i can only imagine how much thought it takes between each session you mentioned in your where you see that your next year going the one place i think that it could be opened up more is asking any one of us to take on um some of the leadership roles you've done whether it's going to a meeting and giving a talk at the veterans association or if and when we ever open up the north amherst library with this anonymous thing thinking of a local district council as being it you know so that you don't need to be the only spokesperson for the council and i think in your statement you said you recognize that you can loosen that up um so i think in this instance it's really important to keep that tone um that warm and welcoming tone and i certainly think you know mandy it's been a joy to work with you um working on projects with you has been truly amazing and i would hate to lose you in that role because i think you know rather than on procedural things you really when you're when you've got something to work on you do an excellent job so i i just think this the role of president has this other um the warmth in a face uh listening when little kids have come to talk to us i've been very impressed with it and i just encourage you land should you win the election uh to really stay committed to opening it up and to rotating the agenda setting thank you councillor schreiber just thank you both for running and i'll yield my time thank you councillor steinberg can i be heard yes okay um i guess i would let me just say i was pleased to start out by saying i was pleased to nominate mandy um as uh she said in her statement the council should have a choice and that was um one very important reason for me to come forward with the nomination recognizing that i've worked very closely with lin over the last two years and i've known both of those these uh candidates for much longer um we're very fortunate um as kathy said they have two extremely qualified candidates um but um i and i'm gonna be interested in what the rest of you have to say before i decide on my own vote but i did as i said only give a choice i wanted to just say a couple things about mandy however since i did nominate her i've known her since town meeting days i supported um her candidacy for the charter commission as a member of the select board i attended uh most commission meetings and spoke with commissioners outside of meetings mandy was vice chair of the commission and involved with each step of the process to uh develop the concept for a new form of government and a charter to implement that concept during that period we talked about the various options mayors chief executive a mayor elected to be the council chair working with town managers chief executive council electing a president with the town manager and um i've lived in cities or observed cities that had all of these forms of governments and mandy and i over that period of time when she was on the commission had several good conversations about the pros and cons of each alternative and i really appreciated her thoughtfulness and her understanding and her own study of each of those issues and other things that came forward um as far as um problems in challenges as we developed a uh charter a financial policy for example and town manager evaluation which i'd experienced on the select board and consulted with some other councils around the country to get their sense of what they were doing when we first elected a president i knew that mandy understood the charter and the skills required to be president and i was willing to support her at that time but i think we all coalesced at that point around the idea that uh we should start with uh linus president and uh but during that time as mandy served as vice president and has uh demonstrated that she has knowledge skills and commitment to be a good president um but we've worked with lin for two years and we've also observed her skills too so um we have um two very um qualified candidates and um a difficult choice to make for all of us thank you councillor swerx i'll yield my time councillor boneville thank you both for um running for this very um it's a very difficult um position to hold and uh it's been really hard for me and i have to say i still have not decided i'm listening to everyone um the one question that does come to my mind is um that what you know we are going to be making decisions in the middle of covid around some very important capital projects like the library school and and what i'm what i'm thinking about or contemplating is who is going to bring not that one is better than the other or anything but it's just so hard both of you are so good but uh i am thinking of who has uh the experience and skills to navigate the difficult conversations that are gonna happen and gonna be able to um channel those discussions to engage the public and and the councillors in a way that's constructive and moving forward so that's uh i think one thing that i'm keeping in mind as i make my decision thank you thank you councillor burr as everyone says this is incredibly difficult with mandy joe back when we were all running when she initially we were all just running for town council and she asked for my support for president i said of course obviously um and so um then it turned out that that lin was running for president and i'm sorry i'm hearing a lot of noise am i not i'm i'm muted okay so wherever i was um so and then um ended up meeting with both she and lin trying to figure out because as you all say we have should they both bring incredible skills to the table and we are very very lucky that either one of them is willing to serve in this very difficult and challenging role um i certainly uh you know andy mentions his history with mandy joe i recommended her to the town moderator for an appointment to a committee when she was an even younger more fresh faced town meeting member um and i see how hard she's worked in all the roles especially the charter commission where my friend andy says that he was the show horse but she was the workhorse and that was incredibly important and her skills of bringing what the charter commission thought versus what necessarily ended up on paper has been incredibly valuable and so i'm so glad she's been here and been in a leadership role at the same time i've also um enjoyed working with lin and found that even though lin and i have had several long and difficult conversations where she in fact decides not to agree with me on something i appreciate that she does work to listen to me and consider my experience even if she chooses to go a different direction and i feel like in talking with others that she does work to listen to each of us and has worked hard in her role to not play us against each other which i think is so tempting for people to do in a leadership role and i've been very pleased that none of us have done that here that i'm aware of i'm feeling comfortable with her leadership at this point and feel the changes she's willing to make because you all remember me complaining that every time we have this election that i think that there should be less of a team between the two and that there should be more delegation of work and not even looking at it as i'm delegating to you but rather that it is a leadership opportunity for someone else to step up and so i'm really incredibly pleased to hear that she has can that she is planning to embrace that for this final year i think we're ready for that and i think her leadership in capital projects in the past is really going to help us move forward thank you councillor dangelis i have great respect for both of you so i'm going to yield my time okay councillor dimont yeah i find it very interesting to hear that so many councillors have not yet decided and i guess you can count me among them so i i am i am going to yield my time too councillor pam well as everyone has said this is a very difficult decision because both lin and mandy joe have worked together so effectively as a powerful team these last several years but i am supporting lin to continue as president and these are my reasons lin is inclusive she's open to opposing views she does not limit contact to only those who agree with her she's a practitioner of openness and transparency she works to make sure that people have the information they need in a form that they can understand she is respectful of others both in council and town government as well as a residence from the various neighborhoods and amherst she's open-minded and thoughtful and after consideration has been known sometimes to change her mind when presented with new facts and opinions but i think one of the most important qualities is she's very pragmatic she's not doctrinaire and finally sometimes she has been known to have wisdom so i strongly support lin to continue as our president thank you councillor ross i will echo what others have said that we face a tough choice because both of these candidates are incredibly qualified i think the positives that have been spoken about mandy are true about lin and the positives that have been spoken about lin are true about mandy which presents us with a really difficult decision and so i just want to thank both of you for stepping up to this role for running for putting yourselves out there even if you have made it much more difficult for us tonight council ryan and i think this is one of the few council votes where you can't lose whichever way you vote so that in some ways makes it attractive to me whichever way we go i think we're going to go fine i do share some of the sentiment i'm hearing we're going to have some rough waters i think in this third and final year of our term not that it's been smooth sailing for the last two but i think we're going to face some difficult challenges and issues and i guess i'm feeling that i'd like to have a consistency of leadership if only for the public's sake in terms of who's the president so really more for that certainly there's nothing to do with qualifications mandy would be an excellent president and i'm sure she'd handle these things well as well but i just from the point of view of the public the point of view of lin's ability to manage in a way that i know i never could do the many demands that are placed upon her her familiarity with that and the public's familiarity with her i am very much leaning towards her more for the sake of consistency in this third and final year okay we're going to move on to a vote please either state the name of the nominee you wish to vote for or abstain at the conclusion i'll announce the results we're going to start with councillor schreiber greasmer councillor steinberg greasmer councillor schwarz greasemer councillor ball meld greasemer councillor brurer greasmer councillor d angeles greasmer councillor du mat greasmer president greasmer councillor hanneke Councillor Pan. Griezmann. Councillor Ross. Griezmann. Councillor Ryan. Griezmann. Councillor Shane. Griezmann. Congratulations, Lynn. You would please raise your right hand. Do solemnly swear or affirm to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties incumbent on you as president of the Town Council for the town of Amherst. Congratulations. I need to go. I want to pause for a moment. And just because you've been so clear. That you're not willing to run for vice president. Even though I've said, well, what if I nominate you? Well, somebody else, please feel free to do that. Because I want us to hear her act. Absolutely. Say no. This is, I know there's times that you've all felt we had this little, cabal. Well, let me just tell you. It was an amazing experience to be able to have Mandy Joe as vice president these last two years. And she has been. Outstanding. In every possible way. There's going to come a time. When she will leave this council. And I look forward to that time. I know there's times that you've all felt we had this little cabal. Well, let me just tell you. I know they've all been looking forward to that time. So we're going to go on. And I hope that others will have an opportunity to say thanks to Mandy Joe for her work as vice president, unless you nominate her and she becomes president. You know, she may change your mind. So I have to find the script because I guess I do this next election. council vice president nominations are limited to a name and not an explanation or discussion and nominations do not require a second. Counselors may nominate themselves. After each nomination, I will ask the counselor to nominate if they want to be nominated and they agree and they have to accept this and so forth. When there are no further nominations, we will have brief statements of up to three minutes and then we will move on to asking for comments as well as move on then to the roll call vote. So, Alyssa Brewer. I nominate Evan Ross. Evan, are you willing to accept the nomination? Yes. Steve Shriver. I nominate Kathy Shane. Kathy Shane, are you willing to accept the nomination? Yes, I am. Okay. Evan, would you like to make a statement? Yeah, sure. So, thank you. I'm honestly honored just to be nominated to serve as this council's second vice president because, you know, when I decided to run over two and a half years ago, I actually wasn't sure I stood a chance. You know, I was a first-time candidate. I hadn't really engaged much in local politics. I'd only lived here for seven years, which in this town I might as well have moved here yesterday. And so, I really wasn't sure if the public would give me a chance, especially running against and alongside folks with more established status and reputation, many of which I'm surrounded by virtually today. And so, to be nominated and to be considered for a leadership position on this council, to have that vote of faith, it's really significant. And so, I just want to say I appreciate being considered. And I'm also really appreciative of Alyssa for nominating me. You know, she's been a mentor to me as I've grown into this role. She's provided a sounding board, advice, guidance, and, you know, occasionally she's not been afraid to tell me when I'm doing something wrong. So, thank you to Alyssa. Serving as this council's vice president, it wouldn't just be meaningful to me. Symbolically, I think it would be an important move for this council. I am the youngest member of this council, a council which I think we can all admit does not reflect the generational diversity that we see in our community. I'm the only renter on the council in a community where the majority of households are renter occupied. And look, I know I'm not representative of the renter community. I know that I have a lot of privileges that many renters in our community don't. But I have strived to be a voice for renters on this council to represent their interests. I'm also a counselor who balances this role with a full-time job, at a time when we're trying to send the message to the community that the job of a counselor is doable for working folks. And so for the council to elect their youngest member, their only renter, a working member to a leadership position would send a message to our community that we value those groups and that we elevate their experiences and perspectives. But I'm not just asking for your vote simply because it would be symbolically important to members of our community whom are often underrepresented in our town's politics. I believe that I have shown you that I am capable. For nearly a year, I chaired OCHA, guiding us through a difficult and often contentious process. From the start, I worked hard to achieve consensus among diverse opinions. And while consensus did inevitably prove elusive, my goal and my process always revolved around consensus-building and trying to find common and middle ground. And I'm so proud of the work that we did at OCHA, and I believe that my tenure there helped prepare me for this role. And I hope that my colleagues from other committees, whether GOL or CRC or Biola Review Committee or TSO, can also attest to my work ethic and my competence. I also want to assure the council that I have the capacity to do this. While I do support a more restrained role of the vice president, and I will say that I want to be a vice president who serves in a more limited capacity, I do have the capacity to fulfill the responsibility of stepping in when needed. A year ago, I served on four committees, four, and I chaired one of them. I don't know how I did that. Now I serve on two committees and I chair neither of them. And so I believe that I have that capacity at this time to serve in this role. And so I'm asking for your vote because I believe that I have proven myself capable to this council, because even though some of that self-doubt when I was deciding to run, I think I figured it out. And I think that I've worked hard and I think I've earned the title of counselor. And I'm also asking for your vote to show our community that our council values young people and renters and working folks. And so I want to thank you for your consideration and also hopefully for your votes. Thank you. Hey, Matthew. Thank you. Thank you, Steve, for nominating me and for all of you on the council for considering me as vice president. One of the things that has been an incredible joy to me was my decision to run for council because I've lived in Amherst. Evan, you said you've considered a youngster here, but we've been, we've lived here for, our son is 41 and we got here when he was 39. So I dated by our kids. But I didn't know people in town because I was always working outside of town. I was one of the commuters that managed to live outside. So running and knocking on everybody's door played to what I have always valued as a skill of listening really closely to different points of view. But the words people are using because sometimes we talk past each other just because we've stated in one way versus another way. And I would like to be able to bring that set of skills to be the support person to the president. Those of you served with me on committees, whether it was the ad hoc committee on percent for art, or the finance committee where I've got this incredibly strong leader called Andy, Andy, that we all know. But when he reaches out or when he asks me to do more or he seeks my council, he listens and we end up having a conversation that I think just makes things better. And that is who I am. And it probably comes out of the more than a decade I worked with labor management issues, often very confrontational. But then I would think if we both have the same goal or the same, let's get through this and make it better. And my proudest moments were when the opposition completely ignored me, didn't treat me completely very well, but adopted everything I'd come in suggesting. So it meant that I had been heard in a quiet way. So I see that as a skill and I am, I've been a fast learner I hope on the council. I am now chairing committees where I hadn't before. So I know I can preside, but I would see it as a support role to step in. And what I would bring to it is really listening to what we're all saying and that sharing of a gender setting like what haven't we been talking about? Or where should we create more space to have those conversations is what I think I would bring. I think you have two great choices, which we said about the president. We can't lose here. When Evan said he's the youngest, he's the renter. What I really liked running up in district one was when one of the people said you can't lose, you're going to get a woman because all four candidates for district one were female. But I think you have strong candidates here. And I would be honored to serve a couple of people have asked me if I have the time because I have taken on leadership roles and others. And for me, I like the diversity of things I'm working on. So I don't plan to spend an inordinate amount of time as vice president. It more broadens my spectrum of what things are coming up for the council. So I can think ahead. I don't have to do that right now. So I think I'll end that statement. I'd be honored if you vote for me, but I think you've got good choices as well. Thank you. Okay, then I believe. If I'm wrong, that the first person that's starting with I'll slow Steinberg. Oh, Andy Steinberg. Thank you. Andy. One minute, spot again. Again, we have two very strong candidates and I have enjoyed working with both of them in the very in the capacities that they have been on the council with. I think that we all have Kathy has been a really tremendous vice chair in finance. I've worked with her and during capital planning on the percent for arts and her organizational leadership skills have been great. I've observed the same qualifications coming out of on the committees that he's chaired that he's referred to and on his work that he's done, for example, now in CRC. So I think that we have two great choices and it's going to be a tough decision to make, but so is the last decision we made. Sarah Schwartz. So I guess one of the things that I would say is that the year that I chaired OCA was very difficult and I had to step down for personal reasons. And Evan took over OCA and I was not surprised, but completely impressed by the way that Evan was able to organize our conversations and he was able to lead us through some very difficult conversations. Evan actually has a lot of warmth in addition to, I think, being a leader. And I would have to say that he has definitely been one of the brighter spots that I have had on this council and I'm impressed by the leader that he is and that he's willing to listen to other people and that he actually has a lot of humility. Melanie. Today's council is literally giving me ulcers. I don't know about the candidates, but I am really, again, both amazing candidates and we're lucky for that. Thank you both. I can say for Kathy that having been in some of the committees with her that, of course, we all know she's extremely thoughtful, extremely hard working. And one thing I particularly appreciated is her bridge building capacity where we would get stuck in issues and she would be able to listen to different perspectives and provide a solution moving forward. And one of my concerns about her right now, not concern, but would be that you are already providing a lot of leadership in the different committees that you are already participating in. And with Evan, I don't think I've even shared this with Evan, but I heard him during the campaign somewhere in some public meeting and I was like, this young fellow is going to be in a leadership position in politics. And I recognize that potential in you and you've proven me completely right in your work ethic and the initiatives you've taken with the different bylaws. And even with the CRC, I may not agree with you completely with what went down, but I'd so appreciate you taking the time to actually understand those complex issues and moving us forward in that. And I also, I did not come into this meeting decided because of different people and everyone was so good.  But now that we are here and I would like to see a mature, wisdom led leader and the opportunity to have a younger person who's mentored. And as Evan said, having the youngest person really sends out a message. We do want to invite more people who come from diverse backgrounds like, yes, and being a woman is definitely diversity as well. But also renters and no doubt Evan has been a voice for renters. And so I am leaning towards, I would say. Yeah, that's my reasoning. And it's really, really, really hard. Listen. Okay. Racing with the with the clock is we know that Kathy is very capable. I worked with her on rules of procedure. As she pointed out, she was not engaged at all in town government before she ran with for town council. And I was very skeptical of that. And she has shown herself to be incredibly capable, diligent, thoughtful, and trying to bring people together around a number of different kinds of issues. There's no question that she does a great job. And I'm supporting Evan for vice president for just some of the following reasons. Evan is obviously smart, capable, has a sense of humor, but yet doesn't take himself too seriously and does take our work very seriously. He explains things really well at district meetings. I've seen him do this. I've seen him engage with college students. And he does a terrific job. It's clear that he wants town council to be more accessible to our residents. He is far more patient than I will ever be. You will see that if you look at back at any of our hoka meetings in particular, if you look at our TSO meetings now, you will see that he is far more patient than I could be. And as he pointed out, we do not in fact agree on everything. If you think I've forgiven him for disbanding Oka, that hasn't happened and never will. But the reality is we work together well and I think he works together with others well. He always worked very thoughtfully and diligently to ensure that all points of view were represented and the reports he wrote as chair of Oka, which was not easy because we had some really, really hard conversations. He never ever said, I'm the chair. So I decide he never takes that approach. And I think that is so incredibly important with 13 really opinionated people to work with. And as he said, in a town with our demographics, we need to look at how we look to the community. Seven of 13 of us are over 70, which comports super well with the emails we just got, but also tells us a little bit about the emails we just got. So, you know, this is not about ageism, but it is about the fact that people of the global majority, people of color, people who aren't anywhere near retirement age, need to be able to see themselves as leaders in municipal government, which seems really boring in comparison to a lot of other things they could do, but in municipal government as well as all the other organizations that people are always recruiting young people for people who aren't older white homeowners, who don't participate, don't participate, not just because they're busy raising their kids, it's because they don't see themselves within the town council. And it's really important we do that. You might think it's strange given how much I complain about the president and vice president team, I believe someone else referred to it as a cabal, although I certainly did not. But I still see the vice presidency as a good way, not an essential way, but a good way to learn about being president. And I very much plan to have Evan B. Town Council president in the future for all the reasons he talked about. And so I think this would, I'm thrilled that he has the time to be vice president now. And I really hope that you'll support him in that role. Pat D'Angelo. Oh, I work very well with Kathy on the wage theft work. I've worked with Evan and a variety of committees and particularly loved our work on the bylaw review committee. I will yield my time. Two very good candidates. Darcy. Yeah, I would just like to say that that I think that it is, it would be really valuable to have a president vice president team that is represents more of a view of a mix of viewpoints. And more so than what we've had. And along the lines of what we promoted when we had our first election, if you recall. And I really, really admire Kathy's ability to, as Shalini described, really collaborate, really bring people together of different views and help them to move forward, just like she did today. You know, she really, her goal was to get something done and to do it in a way where she was trying to get everyone to agree different sides. So I'm supporting Kathy. As I get to actually say something, let me just say I could work with either of these people as vice president, each brings something to the table, different from Mandy Joe, but in a very, very equivalent way. And so I'm not going to weigh the way at this point, but I am going to just assure you that as one of the old people in the crowd, I'm more than glad to work with the youngest in the crowd, and I'm also glad to work with one of the other old people in the crowd. We're nailing people for their age these days, seven of us over 70. Ooh, I don't know if I like that one. Slap for your shots now, gang. So let's just say that I yield the rest of my time and I go on to Mandy Joe. I yield my time. And Dorsey Pym. Well, I'm going to say to Evan what a lot of people say to young people, which is we appreciate you very, very much, and we know you'll still be here tomorrow. It's not as if you're going to disappear from your leadership role, which you have been playing a very strong leadership role by not being the vice president. But I support Kathy because, yes, although she is older, she actually does have the same energy as someone of Evan's age. I have worked with her a lot and have enjoyed it. She works very well with others. She's fair, trusted, a positive force, a talented researcher. She's very collegial. She goes the extra step and she brings us into the picture. And she's a great listener and she often incorporates the ideas of others into her vision. I did like the word that I forget who said it. I think it was Shalini, that she's a bridge builder. So we have great choices here, but just as Lynn is going to reach out to Mandy Joe, as she always does to find out what is the right movement here, she will be reaching out to Evan too because we know where his strengths are and that he's an active positive force. But I do strongly support Kathy in this particular role. George Ryan. I felt that Alyssa had stolen my speech. She really touched on almost all the points I was going to make. So in a sense I want to say what Alyssa said. But let me just say briefly that having served with Evan on what is it, GOL, OKA and now TSO, that I can very much attest to his respect for process and for how hard he works for consensus. And those are two things that I've certainly taken, observing him when he was chair of OKA, as Sarah mentioned. I've tried to, in my own small way, emulate as chair of GOL. But he very much is someone who cares about process and seeks consensus. And he has extraordinary grasp of complexity. The current structure that we have of council committees is largely his work. And I think it's a testament to his commitment to council and to his intelligence and to his work ethic. So for all those reasons and numbers of others that Alyssa has mentioned, but you know my main reason is I just want to vote for somebody who's half my age. I'll try to compose myself after that one. Steve. Steve's run. Yeah, so thank you. So you might recall that I nominated Kathy Shane for this position last year. And she, as I recall, you declined to run. So that was an open offer. And I'm really honored that you, I mean I'm really happy that you accepted this time. So I have had the honor of serving with Kathy on, well, Kathy's been chair of two committees that I've been on, the Public Art Task Force and the, I'm sorry, the 1% for, the Percent for Art Task Force and currently the Elementary School Building Committee. And I think she's done a fantastic job in terms of being fair, in terms of organizing, in terms of communicating during the meetings and between meetings. So I have a tremendous amount of respect for her. Councilor Jamon also hit on a reason that I nominated Kathy because I think that differing opinions, not that we, I don't think that this council really has any blocks. I think that there are those that want to think we have blocks. I think that our blocks change the way that we vote changes depending on what the issues are. I do follow Kathy on the voting, so I'm right behind her. So I should know whether or not we vote the same way or not. But just if nothing else, I think that, you know, at least the perception that we have differing opinions at the top, I think is important. I should also speak to Councilor Ross, so he's my neighbor, he's my fellow District 4 Councilor, he's my UMass colleague. And we've obviously served together on District 4 meetings, but we're all largely organized by Evan and we've served together on committees. And I have tremendous respect for Evan also. He's all of the qualities that Kathy has. And I think others of you have said this, that he's also organized smart, great communicator. So I think we have a win-win situation here. We have included individual comments, and we are now going to move on to the vote. I'm going to ask the Clerk of the Council to call the roll call. And when you do that, you state the name of the person that you are voting for, for Vice President, or you state abstain. And so with that, I turn it back over to the Clerk of the Council. Councilor Schwartz. Evan Ross. Councilor Ball-Mellon. Evan Ross. Councilor Brewer. Evan Ross. Councilor D'Angeloz. Evan Ross. Councilor Dumont. Kathy Shane. Councilor President Griezmann. Abstain. Councilor Hannake. Evan Ross. Councilor Pan. Kathy Shane. Councilor Ross. Evan Ross. Councilor Ryan. Evan Ross. Councilor Shane. Kathy Shane. Councilor Schreiber. Kathy Shane. Councilor Steinberg. Evan Ross. We have eight for Ross, and four for Shane, and one abstention. Congratulations, Councilor Ross. If you would please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties in coming on you as Vice President of the Town Council for the Town of Amherst? I do. Congratulations. We have concluded that. We have a big year ahead, and it's late at night, and so the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


Hey, Judy, whatever reason, the one I have isn't working. But I'll bring it in, maybe. I need some instruction. I want to get it now, I don't know. Hey, that's the shot that you can't get on the pad. Nobody's sitting close like a window. Booked up to 8.15, so we don't step on it. OK. OK. I knew I was going to follow you. OK. One thing down. Maybe you lower them with gas there. That's it. OK. The mic came down.  OK. Better way to do that, John. We'll have Bob tap you on the shoulder when he's clear. When I'm clear, you're going to tap me twice. OK. Did you feel me? I hit both of you. Yes. And I even saw you go. And I looked over and I didn't see John, so I figured he was gone. I was down in the middle, and the mic came down. Well, but you did good, but I tried to recover one. No, I waited. I was stuck between John's and Bob's. No, my mic came down. I was just getting ready to leave that image to see. He bumped into me. OK. And then I fell into that hole. Yeah, well, I saw you fall in. Yeah, I saw you there. Yeah, once you fell in there. Oh, I realized that I started to get up. OK. Just hold on real tight. Keep your feet coming down. It's a lot harder here than it will be on the other side. OK. There's no push. Is there any angle and moan? No. You don't have to hold on. So your cast is wrapped around the metal rod. Why are you pushing the tension on the wrap? Once we've finished raising you up, you'll go down about halfway. You'll just release the tension that you've got on here. And lower yourself down. Just speed it through your hands. Don't let your hand get close to you. Yeah, you don't want to be up here. So now what happens is, in real life, what you can do is put your visor down at that point. In training, you're going to have your visor up. Where have we done this before? With the free hand. With the loose hand. Then what you do is you make sure your visor is down. You take this thing, you pop it away. Now you're free from the sky, Jeannie, and you lower yourself.  Make sure the film... Dude, I don't think you could... There's nothing you can do. You can thumb it with one hand, but then you have to have a hand for the rope. Every time you let it go, it's going to lock. Jim Bottles can get hung up on the stand, so just be aware of it. If it gets hung up on the stand, you might have to push yourself away, you know? If it gets hung up on the side hatch. I did. I just did that. Hey, Mike! The slide didn't work! Here. Well, one guy can be hooked up and ready to go right behind him. I mean, more than two you can't use. No, there's no point in doing more than two. But you can use two, okay? Yeah, that's all right. It takes a while for you to get on the side. Yeah. And then, you know, Jim's weight worked better? I think so, because, you know, you had to wait for Bob to clear. This way, I was ready as soon as you were done. Yeah, because, you know, you have to unwind the rope. Yeah, I mean, just... Another thing to get more slack unwind, is to think about, as soon as you get to the bottom, just sit down and walk away, and then walk towards it, and it's loose. What's that? Everybody with Jim should have no trouble getting tangled, because the cable comes off to the lock. Jim's off from the right. Yeah. You gotta watch him, or he gets twisted. Oh, yeah. So, he's the one you're gonna... attend the most. Thank you. Thanks, Chief. You were smiling, man. I was smiling. Never. Never.


And soldiers have caught on off the site where the Nigerian Air Force plane crashed on Friday evening at the Kaduna International Airport. The plane, which was carrying the chief of army staff, Lieutenant-General Ibrahim Atahiru and other senior army officers, crashed near the airport's active runway, killing all 11 people on board. Manager of the Kaduna Airport Amina Salami said that they have rather prevented civil aviation officials from gaining access to the crash pending the arrival of officials from the Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB. She explained that the military plane was initially scheduled to land at the Nigerian Air Force Base in Mandu area, but was later diverted to the Kaduna Airport due to poor weather conditions.