Given that we have a form of the Council President, I'm calling the June 29th meeting of the Amherstown Council to order at 6.32. The meeting includes audio, video, and is available live on Amherst Media. It is also being recorded. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena know, and they will be monitoring that. If there's technical difficulties during the meeting, we will pause the meeting and address the situation or determine that we have no way of doing so. The town has developed a two-minute video. If you'd like to see how you can find out more about that, in fact, that's on your screen right now is the link for that video. We have a few announcements. We're going to show them on the screen. I just want to make sure you notice the Special Town Council meeting on the 6th with regard to public safety, on the 13th with regard to the library, and that is also the night that we will have our budget hearing. You can move up to the next, which is the meetings of the committees. You'll notice that there's a fair number of finance committee meetings, and that is because we are in the process of working on our budget as of tonight. We are going to be going immediately now into the hearing with regard to parking regulations on University Drive South. So if you, for the moment, would take that down, I'm going to be calling on Dave Zomek and Tom Reedy, but before I do that, this is a hearing to determine whether the town council will approve the proposed parking regulation changes on University Drive South. This hearing is being held in accordance with general bylaws section 3.14b, parking and delivery and charter sections 2.1 for regulation control of the public wise. Specifically, this public hearing is to review the proposal on changes requested by U Drive South, LLC, specifically to regulate future parking being constructed in accordance with ZBA 2020-26 special permit as follows, and it gets very specific. Eight meters per meter parallel on street spaces, a long University Drive South, timing of meters to be determined at future dates and 12 off-street parking spaces in the dead ends space off of University Drive South, be regulated 8 o'clock a.m. to 5 p.m. for use by visitors to the building known as one University Drive South located at 348 North Hampton Road, refers to map 12d lot 19 and properties identified as University Drive South map map 13d lot 56 and 57 and Snell Street map 13 lot 55 and to be regulated as permit parking from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. for residents of the building known as one University Drive South and it goes on to basically cite the exact same maps and locations. The town of Amherst bylaw 3.14b also requires that notice of the public hearing be posted at least the first of those postings 14 days before the hearing both on the town bulletin board published in the newspaper. The notice was posted online on June 17th 2020 it was published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on June 15th and June 22nd and a notice was sent to it butters on June 18th 2020. Town Council public ways policy maintains the granting of long-term and permit permanent use of the public way including parking to the council. Town town of Amherst general bylaw 3.14 requires a simple majority vote of the whole council for passage of this change. So we're opening hearing at this point and David and Tom I believe you've indicated some slides you'd like us to show. Yes thank you Lynn perhaps I'll start and then if Mr. Reedy would like to chime in I'd also like to just acknowledge that Christine Brestrup our planning director is on the call and if there are specific questions related to this process for planning overall for this site and this project I'm sure Christine would be happy to weigh in. So Tom if you will perhaps I could just say a few introductory remarks and then if you wanted to add anything I think I just wanted to show a couple of quick slides these are all from the applicant. This is a slide looking south from University Drive. Route 9 is the main corridor east to west and then we have the if you will a dead end section of the former south part of what was going to be a street all the way south to south Hadley. And again I think the council has heard quite a bit of about this project already so I'm going to be try to be brief and go right through some things very quickly. I would refer anyone the council or anyone on this zoom call to the down managers memo of May 15th. This is a mixed use development proposed by Mr. Robert Roberts the applicant. It is 45 residential units with commercial on the first floor. It also is important to note that there are affordable units in the residential component of the project. The ZBA special permit has already been of course it's already been through the ZBA process and the special permit was granted. There was also an extensive notice of intent process with the conservation commission. It is a complex site with some wetlands that traverse throughout and the applicant was very responsive to the conservation commission's concerns and adjusted the project accordingly. The project does propose significant use of the public way as you see it here. Perhaps we could go to the next slide showing what is proposed. Here is showing a profile of the building as proposed. I want to emphasize that this project has received significant input from the planning department, from the department of public works, the engineering staff and and Guilford boring our superintendent of public works and the project has I guess I would say gotten better with time and with the input. The applicant has been very open and responsive to the input provided by the town. There will be a roundabout as shown heading over towards Snell Street and then the proposal for the use of the public way would be on street metered parking and off street permit parking. It is of note that the applicant will be paying for all the improvements that are done in the public way and DPW staff will be working closely with the applicant if use of the public way is granted to construct what you see before you. Overall, town staff are very supportive of the project and the improvements. I think the general consensus of staff is that this is the right project in the right location. The parking proposed is to support the commercial and residential use of the building and I would also note that the parking will provide both the permit parking and the metered parking will provide a source of revenue for the town in the future. To get to the parking specifically, there is the need for 20 spaces, 12 spaces off the dead end if you will and I think we can go to the next slide which would be permit well actually let's go back sorry about that let's go to the previous there we go so there'd be 12 spaces which would be permit parking and then eight parallel spaces along the western edge of U drive south so I think I'll stop there if Mr. Reedy wants to add more detail I would defer to the chair to call on Mr. Reedy. Thank you. Mr. Reedy. Thanks I'm not rendered speechless that often but I think David did an incredible job and if there are specific questions I'm more than happy to answer but I think he gave a great overview of where we were and where we are now and we'd appreciate a positive vote here. This is the process we start with counselor questions then we go on to audience questions and then we go on to people in favor of the project from the public and people who would like to speak in opposition and then finally back for more questions from the council and council discussion so does the council have any questions at this time okay then I'd like to see any raised hands in attendees to see if the public has any questions at this time Kelly would you please state your name and where you live? Hi I live at 34 Baker Street which is the street in that image that is just in the left upper corner. Okay if you would like you could also show your video so that people could see your face it's up to you. Okay at the moment I'd rather just speak and not just because I don't want to mess this up. Okay thank you. In any way so in the image in the top left corner the Baker Street is the first street as you round the corner off of University Drive you make the left up snow Baker is the street that abuts this project and the town may think that this is the right project at the right time at the right location but I don't as one of I'm one of the first houses on Baker Street and the turn that I make every day of my life the left turn and then the turn on to University Drive to go on to Route 9 as well as the turn up Snell towards the train trestle where the road narrows considerably like I can't like I can't the impact on on the quiet corner of my life of this project is immense. The project that was approved during the quarantine in the pandemic when there was no meetings you know I feel I feel like I can't even believe that this is being done to our quiet corner. I want to know what is going to be done with the flow of traffic up Snell.  I feel like the people who live here need to know more what is it going to do to us. There hasn't been enough information provided. Are there additional comments at this time? Christine you have your hand up this is Christine Brestrup who is the head of planning for Neat Town. Good evening Chris Brestrup planning director I just wanted to note for the record that this case was completed on March 12th which was before the shutdown and it was when everyone was meeting in person so it wasn't done you know under cloak of darkness during the pandemic. Just wanted to clarify that thank you. Are there any other questions from attendees? Please raise your hand. Okay then I'm going to go ahead and ask if there's any people from the public who would like to speak in favor of the project okay and then anybody in addition to Kelly who would like to speak in opposition to the project. Then we're going to go back to counselor questions. Dorothy Pam you have your hand up please unmute. If the design did not have the roundabout where the permit parking is to be then there would be more of a possibility I'm really asking because I'm not a traffic expert doesn't this doesn't that roundabout isn't it a traffic calming thing keeping people from zipping around that corner that's the question for I guess for a traffic person. So that would go back to David or somebody from the town staff. I'm wondering if Chris might Lynn if I could. Sure please. I wonder if Chris might be able to address that and and I also wonder if Tom might be able to say something about the site plan which my understanding and and having been through many of the conservation commission meetings the site plan clearly took great pains and spent a lot of time trying to retain the vegetated buffer and the tree buffer to the south so perhaps Tom could address the some of the concerns about buffering from the previous speaker and then Chris might be able to say something about the small roundabout there. I will say that DPW does see this as a as an improvement for for the street and the traffic it is it's currently quite an odd configuration and and is not clear particularly when vehicles are entering the intersection now and then headed towards snail it has always been a very awkward transition there so perhaps Chris and Tom could elaborate on a few of those topics. Okay let's go to Tom first. Sure thanks a lot Madam President Mr. Zomek so if you're if you look at this slide that's in front of you at the top of the slide you'll see a tree line that is the existing tree line so if you're to drive by this property today and see the tree line that tree line is not changing so the applicant is not cutting into that tree line at all everything is happening to the north of that tree line. This has been a process too I don't want it again to support Ms. Brestrup's comment we started this conversations with the town in 2018 had been through the conservation commission I believe in 2019 and then started this zoning board of appeals process at the end of last calendar year and I we had a hearing in January well before the pandemic hit and then as Ms. Brestrup mentioned the last hearing was March 12th where we received approval and then as maybe if we could go to the previous slide I think you'll you'll get to Mr. Zomek's point about somewhat the unregulated nature of this intersection you can see the if you look at near the dead end just the the traffic pattern you'll see that it's you know it's a 50 foot wide road is it one lane or two and then what happens when folks get to the southerly end of the separator where do people go so it was the town engineer that suggested as a traffic calming measure that the roundabout go in and if you go to the slide that we were just on you'll see that the way the the geometry of the design is such where folks entering need to think about what they're doing and that's why you've got kind of the the choke points if you will at each of the entrances and the geometry of the curves drivers know they're entering into a roundabout well before they enter into the roundabout and so then probably subconsciously take into consideration where they need to be looking and what they need to do and so during the process we also had a traffic engineer discuss the impact on the surrounding roadway one of the issues is that train trestle really limits through traffic I know that folks that live there and I'm I live in south Hadley and I'll use that road as well you know that's a traffic calming measure in and of itself so it's the expectation that most of the folks utilizing or residing in this building will be utilizing route nine so the traffic engineer concluded it wasn't going to have a significant impact on the surrounding roadways miss brush trip if you have more to add please do I also want to mention that gilford mooring is with us as a panelist and he may have a comment with regard to the traffic go ahead christine so I just wanted to comment that traffic circles or roundabouts are considered to be traffic calming measures and so this one being a very small roundabout would certainly be a traffic calming measure at that end of the street okay gilford did you want to add to that at this time yes please we were actually when we first got this project we were concerned that we were building something like is on old farm road where the staff rose houses we have kind of the same situation where the road takes a sharp 90 degree turn and then you go into a parking lot for a business we have lots of conflicts there and but the traffic volume there is much lower than we believe the traffic volume here would be so we we kind of guided them to this roundabout we were really happy with the design and we were confident this will slow people down and calm the the intersection and make everybody have a better traffic movement and get in and out of the buildings and in and out of the neighborhood much better than it would without doing the roundabout indy steinberg grab your hand up please yes it was about the traffic study question which has actually been answered substantially is there any as a part of the study traffic count as far as projected additional traffic generated by the new building but if i may yes it was i don't have the data in front of me but that was part of the study that was done i i think given the residential component which is 45 units they're they're all either studio or one bedroom and so you're talking about maybe one vehicle per unit but i think the attraction of this site it was designed more as a non auto oriented development because of its proximity to the pbt a bus stop as well as the bike trail and then also the other amenities big y cvs university embers college etc so we didn't think that the residential component would add a significant amount of vehicle trips and then the commercial space is maxed out at 4,700 square feet which again isn't incredibly large likely to be a ophthalmologist's office with regimented schedules folks coming into appointment so it's not like a i'm sure everybody was familiar that this was proposed to be a walgreen some odd years ago which has less regulation in the number of vehicles that would be there so given the residential component and also the minimal commercial component it it wasn't a material impact on the surrounding area is there any further comment of from billford or anybody else at this time we have one more question from heli yeah but there's also the the issue of 20 parking spaces right which are public parking spaces right you have your parking lot there that's for the residents of the building but you're adding parking spaces that are metered i'm i believe i'm correct they're metered that is correct so you're adding public parking spaces again to a quiet residential corner um which is a concern it's a concern for me it's a concern for me as again as as the resident of this quiet residential corner um you know i know i'm only voicing my grievances and i know i'm not going to get anywhere by saying any of this but i just feel like i'm the lone voice here saying that you know i'm i'm i'm devastated that this is happening and that's all i gotta say uh we always want to make sure we hear from our from the public and thank you for your comment pristine you had a comment yeah i just wanted to follow up um my understanding of the um discussion with the zoning board of appeals and of course this is completely under the control of the town council and then possibly the town manager but my understanding was that the um parallel spaces along university drive right in front of the building were potentially going to be metered spaces so those are eight spaces there and then the other parking spaces beyond that the 12 other parking spaces were potentially going to be permit parking spaces and mr reedy may be able to clarify that more but that was my understanding so they are not all going to be um hourly metered spaces and if there's a fear that students would park here and then hop the bus to the university i don't think there would be enough time for them parking at those metered spaces to do that this is really intended for the ophthalmology office where somebody would go in and maybe be there for one or two hours not you know half a day or a full day so just wanted to share those thoughts with you there is one more public comment zoe crabtree please identify yourself and where you live hello hi i live um in south emmerced uh my name is zoe crabtree um i just think this is a really good opportunity to speak up for more affordable housings small units especially for students in this space um i understand where the other person is is coming from um and i just think that affordable housing is really really important i don't know what the cost of these units is looking at being but i know that uh shortage of housing spaces here um and i would love to make it easier for people to live here thank you are there any more questions from the council or discussion from the council if not i'm going to declare that the hearing is closed but we actually are going to move immediately to the uh item to vote and so i will need a second to the following motion and is to approve regulation of eight meters parallel on street spaces long university drive south timing of meter to metering to be determined at a future date and 12 off-site parking spaces in the dead end off of university drive south to be regulated 8 a.m to 5 p.m for use by visitors to the no building known as one university drive south located at 348 north hampton road map 13 d lot 19 and properties identified as university drive south map 13 d lot 56 and 57 and snell street map 13 d lot 55 and to be regulated as permitted parking 5 p.m to 8 a.m for residents and of the building known as university drive south located at 348 north hampton road map 13 lot 19 13 d lot 19 and properties identified as university drive south map map 13 d lot 56 and 57 and snell street map 13 d lot 55 is there a second second thank you uh is there any further discussion by the council then we are going to move to a roll call vote okay and i ask the students that are joining us to just be patient okay um the first vote is uh elissa brewer hi pat the angeles hi darcy domont hi lindy greasmer's eye lindy johannike hi dorthy pam hi evan ross hi george ryan hi kathy shane sieve schreiber hi andy steinberg hi sarah schwarz is absent and shallony ball milne yes the vote is 12 in favor 0 0 and 1 absent okay thank you very much and uh we are going to move on to an item that is actually brought to us by kathleen perkins who is a third grade teacher at crocker farm and during the past several months she and her students have been working on the expansion of little libraries to have three more little libraries and so as you see various different people joining us it's because we've invited her and the parents and the students of these um of her class who have just finished the school year um i just want to mention the town council has had the opportunity to meet with a previous group of miss perkins when they came to us a year ago to put up little libraries again in the general vicinity of crocker farm the um they're coming to us now even though the libraries won't be able to actually go up because they won't be painted until the fall when the students reconvene but i want to mention that the libraries that are up already have not only books in them but they have snacks as well as treats like water and juice and so they're being used for students in a variety of different ways my cat is gone not sorry so i think what we need to do is have miss perkins kathleen please present we have slides and we know that you put these together with the students and we're going to go ahead and watch the slide presentation have you talk about the project thank you president greesmer and town council for having us um i just want to say quickly that uh this is an incredible and amazing group of children and third graders if you want to turn your your camera on so we can see you that would be fine um we've been working hard on this project despite our unique circumstance of not actually being together in the classroom right now um for those of you who saw our presentation last year this will be different because um the students and i have not actually been in the classroom together to kind of practice um the presentation we do have some students at the end of the slideshow who wanted to share their thoughts just on why this is a great idea so i'm going to walk us through the slides and then you can hear their voices so this is the reader the carver farm read around town expansion project presented by the room 26 third graders next slide please and here we are this is this year's class um each year the third grade class is are the library stewards meaning they we take care of the libraries make sure that they're stopped make sure that they're in good repair make sure that they're beautiful um next slide please so why is the expansion of reader on town an important community initiative well i asked the experts who are the third grade students and here's what they had to say next slide please asher gordon said i think adding three more free little libraries at public bus stops is important because it can give people a thing they can do that is not on a screen that makes it important because being on a screen for too long can be very bad also it is at bus stops that makes it important because people can read on the go also everyone can have a new book each day that makes it important because no one will get bored with the same books and finally everyone can share their books with everyone that makes it important because it helps the little free library continue that is why i think we should have three more little free libraries at public bus stops next slide please julia sites who um i hope is coming um said there should be more little free libraries because it's fun for people to walk to them it gives you a nice little giddy feeling of hope and surprise to find out what books might be there sometimes we have left some books there this can feel hard but it's nice knowing that other people from our community will find them and get to enjoy them next slide please kaleb jones says i think three more little libraries would be great for the town one reason is if you get bored on the bus you can read a book another reason is if you have reading in school you can read on your way to school so your teacher won't get mad and the final reason is if you have trouble reading in school you can get some extra practice in so you'll be good for school next slide please and the final um comment is from sol hershberg who says due to the coronavirus crisis miss perkins class is trying to add three more little free libraries to different places in amherst max especially now people are losing money and losing their jobs in this ghost town of stress people are losing money to even read books a little free library would help people with less money read books and have good education during this time i still think that adding three more little free libraries to our town would make it a better place these are the reasons why i would like to add little free libraries to our town and his contact information next slide please so where would the new libraries be located well we would like to install them at the following locations bus stop 0145 at the corner of west street and mill lane bus stop 8011 at the corner of east hudley road in columbia drive and bus stop 0152 on east hudley road in front of mill valley estates next slide please here is a map for you to look at um marked with our library locations next slide please and then the next three slides are pictures of the bus stops next slide please next slide please okay what will the libraries look like this year's libraries were ordered unfinished from the little free library website thanks to our generous community donors when we are all able to be together again at school in the fall we look forward to painting them to be equally as beautiful as last year's library next slide please and here is a picture of the gorgeous libraries in their current unfinished state waiting for third grade artists to make them beautiful next slide please um these are our three currently operating libraries as you can see they're quite lovely um they get a lot of use every time i have gone to fill them up this past year they have already been full um they're really an important resource in our community people are always sticking books in them people have started putting cds and dvds in them and as i mentioned they're they're using it they're being used for a different purpose at this moment next slide please who will install them um that will be me and some community volunteers this is a picture of a helper installing one of last year's libraries digging the deep hole and putting in the quick treat and installing the posts and then the libraries themselves are the act of are the last piece to be installed next slide please where will the books come from the three current libraries have become important community resources for many kids and families while third graders and teachers fill them as needed our neighbors add to the book collections as well the current libraries are always full of great books next slide please who will keep the libraries clean and in good condition each year room 26 third graders at crocker farm elementary school are the official stewards of the libraries teachers and parents help to we take great pride in our beautiful libraries and know that it is a very important job to take care of them next slide please here's a fun fact during the school closure our three current libraries have been transformed into little free snack breweries we raise money to purchase healthy snacks and drinks for anyone who would like them many people use our snack stations and they are refilled several times each week next slide please and sometimes we even received received notes in our libraries from the people who enjoy them this one says thank you this was so needed and welcome today gratefully m i don't know who that is but it was lovely to get these third graders are definitely great changers who are making important things happen in our community for sure and in summary we think that the reader on town expansion project is absolutely definitely critically important and beneficial for the town of amherst we hope that you agree and we appreciate your consideration um i see some third graders here would anyone like to tell the town council why you think it's a good idea to have more libraries at bus stop you can raise a hand and we want to share their thought yes iris um so i think that we should have some more free little libraries for the town because if we have more free little libraries then more people can read them and more people will donate because the more we have the more books we'll have and yet like julie said it might be a little hard to donate a book but you'll know that it'll help someone and someone will really enjoy it and there's yet there's a feeling of gratitude if you donate a book and if you take one you should definitely leave one third would you please take down the slide so that we can see more of the audience thank you thank you iris that was very very well said any other third graders like to offer a thought james or ductin lora james go james you need to unmute we're having a little trouble hearing you james maybe you need to turn your mic up james technology can be so tricky very interesting i think he doesn't have his mic up because his mic he is unmuted i think so too yeah james while you're working on that i'm just gonna see if anyone else has a comment okay actually julie cites is in the attendee side oh as her hand raised okay julie yeah okay you need to unmute julie there you go thanks did we bring you into the room yes we see we see a box with a big a and a julie so if you'd like to say something please go ahead we can hear you julie thanks julie okay are there other students that would like to speak james did you figure out your mic yet did you like to offer a thought no lora you don't have to james did you figure out your mic yes i wonder if james has if his mic he's trying to use a mic that's not on the computer like if you had a headset plugged in still thinks it's something like that and he has to switch which mic is trying okay he's shaking his head no i mean i i actually was at miss perkins class and the students all seem to be very well connected which was impressive um kind of we had a great hour half hour meeting anybody else kathleen i don't think so um maybe james maybe you can email me what you want to say and i could send it along to president greece mark does that work yeah okay um i think that concludes our presentation okay are there questions from the council yes uh mandy joe i have one the decorations on the little free libraries are so adorable and cute and amazing and they look like they each took a theme from an artist or something how do you guys decide the themes and do you know what the themes for these three will be um we don't yet know what the themes for these three will be um we actually were studying different artists last year with this project in mind so kids were really kind of hands-on in choosing the three artists we chose um yuyu kashima and um georgia o'keith and sol the wit sol the wit and um we actually went to math mocha and we saw you know a present an exhibition of sol the wit's work and so then the kids came back and we tried artwork in each of these styles and then each kid got to um have a piece of their artwork on one side of of a library so um that was my vision for this year it didn't quite go the way that i planned um but we're gonna we are going to um figure out a creative way for these kids to be able to decorate and take ownership of of these libraries at the shane you have your hand up oh yeah i'm curious about the kinds of books are that that are being left are they mainly at the um third fourth fifth grade reading level so that our kids picking out the books um i i'm partly uh we our kids are now 40 and 36 but i recently brought huge boxes of kids books to some friends whose kids were younger but we still have some so the types you know the age of the books that are being left reading level good question does any do any third graders who visit our libraries want to answer this question i'll just give it a minute to see if anyone wants to iris would you like to yes um so we have all kinds of levels there ones for grownups for kids and grownups and kids both come so you can donate like any kind of book basically thanks iris thank you very much are there other comments or questions from the council i do want to ask and kathleen i know you're going i know the answer but you did have to talk to one of the departments at the town make sure you got approval for this could you just tell us about that um so i have not been in i believe i needed to talk to gilford more right um i've not yet been in touch with him this year last year um i worked with uh jason skills and we met at each library and he marked the appropriate distance um so i have not yet done that piece but if this project is approved i will get it right on right and so the main thing is to make sure that it's not in the way of the buses or the snow plows and gilford is with us tonight so he'll be expecting that when you're ready to mount them you're ready to do that great comment gilford okay no okay then um we have to have two votes tonight for this the first is we have to to suspend town council rule of procedure rule 8.4 for the current agenda item and that allows us to vote tonight instead of having a second reading so i will make the motion which is just to suspend town council rules of procedure rule 814 for the current agenda item is there a second second de angeles okay and we any other comments at this time then we will do a roll call vote uh pat de angeles yes dorsi du mont yes lin greece murr is he yes uh mandy joe hannacky yes Dorothy pamm yes evan ross yes george ryan yes kathy shane yes steve schreiber yes andy steinberg yes shall any ball mill big yes and elissa brewer huge yes okay all right that's just to allow us to vote and to nitty gritty so the nitty gritty is to approve the request of the crocker farm elementary school third grade class to install three three little libraries on amherst public ways one adjacent to bus id number 0145 at the corner of west street route 116 and milling one adjacent to bus id number 8011 at the corner of east hadley road and columbia drive and one adjacent to bus id number 0152 on east hadley road in front of the mill valley estates is there a second shane kathy shane okay any further comments from the council all right then we're going to move dorsi du mont yes lin greece murr is yes mandy joe hannacky yes dorsi pamm yes what a great idea evan ross yes george ryan yes kathy shane yes steve schreiber yes andy steinberg yes and shall any ball mill yes lissa brewer yes and pat de angeles yes the vote is 12 for this none against no extensions we do have one person absent and we want to thank you for this wonderful project thank you all for this incredible opportunity third graders we did it that is what is called a unanimous vote and i am very proud of you and thank you again we look forward to making our town even more beautiful with these important resources and all of you have a safe summer you as well thank you take good care yeah bye bye it is 722 so i'm actually going to check to see if we have public comment at this time i don't see any public comment and then i also want to just check to see if all of the people who were associated with the proclamation are here and unfortunately racy is here he's here racy is here but uh franklin is not um and we're actually not going to get to this till 7 30 um could we do the consent agenda with just removing the resolution completely from it thank you i think that's perfectly fine okay we're going to move on to the consent agenda and the consent agenda is uh these are the items that were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy as in the past if you want to remove an item please let me know and i will remove it from this vote and we will then take it up afterwards um so i'm going to go through the items first and make sure that you know which they are and why first is the adoption of the resolution but we're going to skip that and do the resolution separately okay the second is to suspend rule 8.4 for the following agenda item and that is separate consideration of the capital improvement program um 8 8 as in the number 8 e referral of f y 21 budget to the finance committee we'll have a full presentation on the budget this is just to refer which must be done by the council 9 a 1 9 a 2 a to b approval of town manager appointments to the following multiple member bodies cultural council board of health conservation commission public shade tree committee and then also separately the elementary school building committee both the town and uh and school staff members and the town council and school committee members and then finally approval of the minutes for july 15th the special town council meeting on the capital improvement program presentation july 15th the special town council meeting on the capital improvement program public forum and july 15th the regular town council meeting is there any counselor who would like any item removed at this time and consider that a motion and is there a second mandy seconds okay then we'll do a roll call vote and we start with i guess greasmer and the answer is yes panicky yes bam yes ross yes ryan yes chain yes driver yes seinberg yes valmille yes brewer yes the angeles yes yes umont yes the votes 12 0 0 and one absent and i just want to see whether or not we have franklin was not actually going to speak and we're not reading the full proclamation but we are actually going to move to the resolution denouncing xenophobia and discrimination against asians and asian americans and tracy who is one of the sponsors along with three counselors they are uh shallony dorothy and darcy and tracy you had some things you might comment on please unmute unmute your mic and if you want to you may also be seen by the camera that's fine there you go there you go hi um i was actually just messaging franklin to see if he was still coming um he and he had he had said earlier that i could speak and so i will but he's much more of an expert on these things than i um so yeah so before you here you see this resolution denouncing xenophobia and discrimination against asians and asian americans um there was a similar resolution that was passed in north hampton in may um there's also been similar resolutions introduced in congress in both the senate and the house um so we asked the council to consider this resolution just to reiterate that america is a welcoming community and supportive of everyone who lives here um with covet 19 um there's it's exacerbated the historical discrimination and harassment of asians and asian americans i'm including in some of the language that you see in the media um so we really see this as a first step um you know in terms of just affirming this and then the next step would be conversations and action to implement and to make people actually feel safer um and i just want to thank the council for considering this resolution and and thanks to the council sponsors and also to frankenoto and george this has been so forth by gl would you like to report please yes just briefly we we met um as a committee on june 17 we had an excellent conversation with the sponsors including tracy and franklin um and um that's reflected i think in document you have in front of you and we voted five zero to declare clear consistent and actionable okay question shallony uh i just wanted to take this opportunity to thank tracy and frank and also um speak as um i just want to say that before i joined town council i was not aware of what can be done and how to raise these concerns and i just want all the residents to know especially people of color that uh the town council is committed to making this a safe place for each of you and um and this is as tracy mentioned just our first step and showing our commitment to making this a safe town for everyone and also i i invite this resolution i'm hoping this resolution is also a reminder to the residents to speak up when they see any actions of uh racism or any verbal assaults and so we all need to be working together at this time to make amos a good thanks for all of us thank you thank you well are there any other comments from counselors at this time okay then um motion for this resolution is to adopt the resolution denouncing xenophobia and discrimination against asians and americans as presented is there a second i second second okay we'll put george a second on that and i'm going to begin with mandy johanneke yes Dorothy pamm yes ebb and ross yes george ryan yes kathy shane yes dief schreiber yes andy steinberg yes chalene baum yes elissa brewer yes at the end yes darsie domont yes and greece murr is yes so the vote is 1200 with one absent thank you very much tracy and have a good evening thank you are going to move on to mr bachmann and the financial people uh and the budget presentation i think i've been kicked off the zoom here i just see the word zoom in front of me i don't see you what do i press it down and click on the camera click on the camera okay okay thank you i learned something very good all right paul hi um i think shon is going to run our budget presentation for you for us and joining us tonight are shanmagano the finance trector and senya aldrich our comptroller and as you know nothing gets done without those folks working on it and they were also called specifically holly bowser the assistant comptroller who put an enormous amount of work into it and support from a lot of other people every department head uh and brianna sunred who helped put this together so um we have a bit of a presentation not a lot of detail but i do want to just put it in context so when we started our budget process back in you know october november things were going well as you all know it was really positive note um and then we had the um and the council had um established budget guidelines for us we were operating within those guidelines building our budget and then covet nineteen hit and just threw everything up in the air um it's almost you know preparing a budget is always an arduous process and it's something that we put a lot of work in because it's an important document i want to emphasize it's a planning document it's what we know now and how it's going to guide our decisions going forward it is a it's it's not set in stone because it's something that we will come back to but we can't really but it's again it's a planning document where we think the money's going to come from and where we think it should go during the coming year um so the and i think this year um the council passed two sets of budget policy guidelines and i think this year um we've never appreciated them more we've really gone back to them many times we appreciated the sort of care and detail that the budget policy guidelines gave to us because a lot of thought went into it by the finance committee and the council and they really um covered a lot of the issues that we were that we were dealing with and it was important for us to know where the council stood and so again sort of re-emphasize the importance of those budget policy guidelines um so we can go to the next slide so when we talk about the the amherst munis budget we really are talking about five different budgets we have the municipal budget which is the five which includes four enterprise funds which which is the um water sewer solid waste which is the transfer station in essence and transportation we have the elementary school budget we have the library budget we have the regional school budget we have the capital improvement program those are the five elements of our budget that we um that we present tonight uh we will we are focusing on our municipal budget because that's the one that you have not seen in details yet um next so this um i want to give you the highlights of what what we're talking about this this is sort of the top line we our budget for FY 29 21 is 81 million three hundred and thirty three thousand four hundred and thirty nine dollars that's a reduction of two point eight percent or two point three plus million dollars and that's lower than it was in FY 20 so those are real dollars um it's not it's not we didn't increase it and then reduce it and which what some people do uh this is like two point three million dollars lower than we had last year um what the directions from the council was to level fund our operating budgets which we have done we've cut the spending for capital and OPEB OPEB is other post employment benefits which is um health insurance for retirees and over time the town has been very diligent about putting money aside into the OPEB fund we will continue to do that but just not at the scale that we had anticipated doing this year and the budget includes the elimination of three full-time equivalent benefited municipal positions in several part-time positions so these are positions that were on the books um they're vacant we're not going to fill them and it was it's one way that we are meeting the needs of this budget and importantly we're committing $80,000 to explore plant explore explore planet implement strategies to confront systemic structural institutional racism and I want to mention that here because it's really important and I'll mention it again later with you go to look for that in the budget it there's not a specific line item in the budget we did not want to put it in any one department's budget because it's important for us to listen and hear what people feel this money should go to and so we have it reserved in a separate line item but again I didn't want to really take the make the effort to put it into a not the effort but they make the decision to put it into a particular department until we had full engaged conversation with the broader community so the next slide so Sean is going to take over for a little bit so we're just going to do a little tag team action here yeah thank you Paul um so i'm going to do a brief introduction um talk a little bit about the impact COVID-19 has had on the budget um turn it back to Paul for a little bit talk about budget guidelines we'll get into the revenues expenses reductions and new investments a little bit on some of our long-range planning and then we'll we'll open it up for questions so the top of Amherst has had a long history of prudent planning and strategic thinking by its financial leaders in particular but by many of its leaders and that has put us in a very solid financial position to start this year our reserves entering FY 20 were about 15 million about 15.8 million which is roughly 19 percent of the budget and we're anticipating at this point that we'll be able to add to that those reserves at the end of FY 20 as well because we were in a solid financial position to start FY 20 we were able to put forward a FY 21 budget that maintains core services and in particular a level funds operating budgets despite the economic downturn that we all know about and by maintaining core services we're able to continue doing long-range planning and in particular preparing for some of the large capital projects and other challenges that the town is going to face in the coming years. So this year was a little bit unique on the revenue side we've had to really look at the different revenue streams that we've relied upon in the past and so you'll see that first section says rebalanced use of existing revenue streams and that's because we have had a pretty significant change in our sources. I'll talk a little bit more about it in a few slides but we're going to see our local receipt portion of our revenue budget go down which means the other portions of the budget have to make up the difference. We've put forward a plan for using reserves only if state aid is reduced and the strategic thinking behind that was to allow us to move the budget forward because we still wouldn't know what was going on with state aid if we hadn't made that decision. So making that decision allowed us to do what we're doing tonight and put forward a full budget. There's no request for an operating budget override. We are utilizing external funding sources to the fullest extent to address the impacts of COVID-19 so we received some money from the state which I'll talk a little bit about later and we've already started receiving some reimbursements from the state for our expenses related to COVID-19 and also later we'll get into our budget reductions but we've targeted them on areas of the budget that have seen a decrease in service related to COVID-19 or in vacant positions. So more on COVID-19 so it has had and continues to have a negative impact on both the revenues and expenditures in our town. In particular it has really impacted our local receipts which we'll get into some of the detail behind that. This budget assumes is really sort of line by line assumes different things for different local receipt lines so some of those line items we've projected an entire year of depressed revenues. Some of those line items maybe half the year and we project it coming back but we really thought about each one of the different accounts that make up our local receipt revenues and projected to the best of our knowledge what we think it's going to do for this coming year but because it is a projection that's one of the areas that we'll have to monitor every month to see how our projections are doing against what's actually happening and as I said before there is very little information on state aid at this point and we do know that the state has elected to go with a one month budget and what I've heard recently is that there'll probably be at least one more one month budget from the state because they're waiting for some information that's going to come out in mid to late July and that will help drive their full budget discussions so we don't anticipate any news on state aid anytime soon. So this Amherst was allocated $3.4 million from the CARES Act to cover eligible expenses related to COVID-19. We have already submitted our first request which was about $600,000 and we received the CARES Act portion of that which was a little over 300,000. We as of right now those funds can only be used for eligible expenditures. It can't be used to replace lost revenue but we want to be careful in using those funds moving forward. We want to use them wherever there are needs but there has been discussions about the eligibility potentially changing for those funds so that they can make up for any revenue losses that we're seeing in town. Another impact of COVID-19 is just the decisions that have been made and will be made in the future by the colleges and university. Those decisions will impact our revenues and expenditures and so we have to stay in tune there and an important thing for us all to do and to remember is during this time that we would need to try to become more efficient and some of the things we're already doing with technology and you'll hear about a budget addition later on that's about increasing efficiency and so that when the economy does rebound the town will be stronger for it and will be in a strong position to address the future challenges in the town and I'm going to turn it back to Paul to talk a little bit about the budget guidelines. So as I said the town council had adopted budget guidelines back in December which we used as our baseline for as we were starting to build our budget and at that point the council said that the quote was the services that are provided are important for residents and businesses and a budget must allow for their continuation. So that told us that to keep the ship going straightforward there are other initiatives that the council would like to see and and financial things to keep us steady and then post COVID-19 with the revised budget guidelines that you know one of the things about the budget guidelines is they were really good about recognizing the nuances of our budget and it said we need to be creative and remain flexible as the future unfolds but this year the goal is to maintain our current initiatives to the greatest possible extent adjusting as needed for the reasons that have been stated so I think this this again the budget message was pretty clear keep things going as best we can but we understand that things will need to be changed or adjusted and I think that's where we are today. So the next slide so the major things that we're looking at is we sought to fund the operating budgets at the FY20 level that was the directive that went to the schools the library into all into our town side of things. First make sure that we were funding all of our legally required obligations such as debt service assessments contractual obligations things like that we had to meet those needs first. The May guidelines recognize that if we were going to reduce something it was the one-time expenses the cash capital that we were reducing and we cut that in half and we'll talk a little bit more about that because that's something that if things turned around it's something we could you know if we if we decide not to buy a truck today we can come back and buy that truck if we lay somebody off today because of budget reductions it's really hard to bring that person back and there's a lot of expenses that come off when you redo a reduction in force and the other thing that we did was reduce the town's contribution to the OPEB trust fund by 50% I mentioned that before and you know we do have concerns that about whether that will impact our bond rating which is something that's been really important for us as we have such a good bond rating we want to make a better bond rating but we're seeing every lots of communities taking these types of steps the fact that we continue to make a contribution during this time I think it's a really positive indicator for us next slide so I think you're doing this one Sean right yeah so thanks paul so we're going to get into the revenues so this is just a pie chart of the different revenue sources that support the budget as I mentioned the balance of these different sources has changed a little bit so property tax has remained stable but you'll see local receipts have declined and we'll get into the specifics of how much they've declined and state aid is really an unknown so we've level funded it or level funded it for the FY21 budget and the the one month budget that the state has put forward level funds state aid at FY20 levels as well but that's something that we're going to stay closely in tune with and then the other the fourth funding source that hasn't changed too much is the other section up above so get into a little bit more detail property taxes we're projecting an increase of 3.4 percent that is the the baseline two and a half percent increase plus new growth we have lowered our estimate of new growth so this 3.4 percent is a little lower than in past years we've worked with the assessor's office to get an estimate of what would be sort of a bare minimum conservative estimate of new growth given the economic circumstances and so that's the number we've moved forward with so we we have factored in the economy into this into this number local receipts are decreasing 37.3 percent and that includes reductions in many areas but a few that i'll note here are excise taxes meals tax rental revenue departmental receipts licenses and permits fines investment income and then again a variety of other revenues and state aid is flat but we have a high level of uncertainty there so in total the general fund revenues are projected to go down 2.8 percent which is the the two million three hundred thirty nine thousand forty five figure that mr. bakerman noted before so getting into the numbers a little bit more in local receipts so these are some of the noteworthy reductions a 26 percent reduction estimated for motor vehicle excise revenues a 75 percent reduction for hotel motel and meals and excise taxes 67 percent reduction rental rentals of the bank center and other rental properties 73 percent reduction departmental revenues and in this area the budget includes leisure service programs at cherry hill and recreation camps and 37 percent reduction in licenses and permits and again we thought about each of these and thought about conservatively what next year could look like depending on if if we continue to handle coven 19 well and the economy continues to approve but also the flip side of that if something goes wrong and like we've seen in some other states if things start to go the other way we want it to be in a conservative place with our revenue estimates so the other portion of the budget that did have some or the revenue budget that did have some changes is that other area so there were a couple reductions there the ambulance fund which last year saw loss in revenue because of the town of Hadley going a different direction with its ambulance services is also seeing another reduction in receipts this year because of the the students at the colleges and university going home so there's just fewer calls and that's led to lower revenues for the ambulance fund and that supports the overall budget and then the enterprise fund reimbursements or indirect costs are down 251 thousand and that's also due to coven 19 related reductions in services in particular the sewer fund and the consumption being down also due to the students going home at the college university and also then transportation fund and the impact on parking revenues that have come into the transportation fund going down so on the enterprise fund front of revenues we're projecting a 2.12 decrease in water revenues we're projecting a 7.2 percent decrease in sewer fund revenues a 21.8 percent decrease in transportation revenues and the one silver lining is a 4.2 percent increase in solid waste and that's due to some revenue generating activities that are a little bit newer that they're going to try to implement next year as we'll talk about later water and sewer rates we're proposing to increase but they're still below the state average and most of our neighboring communities there is a reduction in consumption in the water and sewer enterprise fund and that had due to fewer students on campuses and that has lowered our revenue projections and then just the business downturn when businesses were closed and now when they're kind of opening up slowly seeing less demand in in the center town and around town for parking so switching over to the expenditure side so that was where the money comes from and this is where the money goes so you'll see the three biggest slices of the pie or the town the elementary schools and the Amherst Pellum regional school district a few of the smaller slices are for the Jones library capital um unappropriated uses which are cherry sheet items and miscellaneous which is our retirement assessment and OPEB and one other line item there so the guidance was to to level fund and essentially that's what happened here there was a small overall increase because of the complicated mechanism we have for the charter and choice reimbursements to the elementary school budget where there's always a lag and it kind of creates this weird adjustment that the elementary schools always get but the regional schools came in under guidance and so it sort of netted out that that mechanic so essentially it is a level funded budget for all four areas in capital that's where we saw one of the biggest reductions of 40.5 percent we're going to talk about the capital improvement program later you know the goal was to get to 10 percent of the tax levy and and before COVID-19 hit us we were planning on being at 10 percent but after that after the impact we had to drop it down to 5 percent so there's a big reduction here retirement OPEB is going up 1.1 percent that is our retirement assessment going up about 300 000 and that's being offset by the reduction to the to OPEB contributions that mr. bakerman noted before and then assessment other which are cherished items is going down 2.4 percent and so on the expense side just like the revenue side the total budget is 81 million three hundred thirty three thousand four thirty nine which is a reduction of 2.8 percent and i'm going to turn it back to mr. bakerman to talk about the budget reductions and investments so we talked a little bit about what we've done to help get within that level funded budget so i mentioned that there were three positions three equate fte positions that we have taken away they're not in the budget this year one is the budget analyst one is an assistant to the assessor the an lssc program director and the conservation administrative assistant these are all positions that are vacant at this moment we did not have not conducted a search and we will not be filling them going forward what's happening to them well for budget analyst we have our shan shon mangato here who's taking on additional work to make sure all the work gets done assistant to the assessor we have a new assessor and we're waiting for her to do an assessment of what the needs of that department are lssc program director the work is just getting distributed to other people on lssc and the conservation administrative assistant this is work that's being divided up but you know for all practicality the staff of the town manager's office uh angela mill specifically is taking on additional duties to support the assistant town manager in the send there's some temporary staffing that we're not hiring this year at cherry hill outdoor pool operations there are two hourly positions that used to help out in the town clerk's offices are things that we've eliminated this year um and they're they're things that are seasonal typically and or for activities that we're not doing or we're using lssc full-time employees and we're reallocating them to take on other duties as assigned to fill in for cherry hill operations just so you know for cherry hill we have hired no part-time employees we have someone from the finance department up there we have someone from the senior center working at puffers we have people from lsse we have parking enforcement officers all sort of being reallocated to where the need is so we don't have to hire part-time or temporary employees this year next slide so we've also had some savings and lowering our costs on property and casualty insurance um we have a lower cost for opav actuarial studies um one good thing that happened is that mya our new health insurance company has said that they would give us a premium holiday which means because people weren't using hospitals that much during covet they experienced the revenue kept coming into them through our our payments for our premiums but they weren't spending money out so they realized quickly that there was money to be that they should return the money to cities and towns which is they have done uh we are looking at doing this uh i think in october or sometime like that it will be shared uh in equivalently between um employees who put money in and the town and this is one good news story for us as well um and then we had some money set aside for transitional staffing which is what we've been trying to do when there's a vacancy we try to have a little bit of overlap before that person retires for instance and we're taking that away the third one is veterans benefits so we're not reducing any veterans benefits at all every veteran who's entitled to veterans benefits will continue to get veterans benefits these are benefits that are paid um i think we paid 25 percent for the town 75 by the state um but we looked at our past usage um for veterans benefits and realized that we never got to where um those veterans benefits were so we felt we could reduce that um and be still be within a comfortable range and make sure we met every veteran's needs and there were some other things with cherry hill because we aren't opening that's the um the the place up there we're not buying stuff to sell or anything like that clubhouse thank you i don't i don't golf god shan does so so there are a number of things that um you know you don't do this without saying well what is this all magical no there's a lot of things that aren't getting done so again we talked about two and a half million dollars in capital that we're not spending and this is one of the ways that we're balancing the budget this year um that means we're we're either not buying or we delaying the request for vehicles uh for police cruisers we're not buying any police cruisers no fire trucks no ambulance no trucks for schools conservation or dpw computers facility repairs and improvements all things that we typically put put together we asked i wanted to put more money into roads and sidewalks but with jcpc they wanted more money taken out um but we didn't there's certain projects that are just not moving forward at this moment in time north common the athletic fields puff respond zoning revisions all things that we're going to require investment of town funds now these things haven't gone away we have a pot of money that we are holding until the fall that the council will have the ability to to appropriate at the right time once we have a better sense of where we are going forward um the other things um oh the op-ed funding delays we talked about that and sewer and transportation enterprise funds uh the one thing i do want to mention is we talked about we had such high hopes because we anticipated about six hundred thousand dollars in additional revenue this year that we were going to invest in things and that's that was where we were um really excited to be able to present to the council some new initiatives that's not going to happen so those are things that had we had a normal year we would have had the level funding plus another six hundred thousand dollars and that's not going to be there this year so as i mentioned the eighty thousand dollars i think this is really the most important thing we're doing this year um it's a sum of money that i am allocating or a request the council to allocate specifically to support work that we need to do as a town and it's not just police department but it is the police department and it is not just town offices it is town offices but it's also a broader conversation um and i don't know exactly what that will buy but i think that looking at other communities that are doing something like this um larger community communities typically we're about in the range of what what they're setting aside and again this is one of the things where i feel it's really important to listen and hear what the need is and where where that i know that change doesn't come easy but it also isn't cheap you need to have money to support these activities um we are investing in additional um uh software to streamline our application and permitting processes on the second floor and make sure that our all of our licenses are up to date so we can continue to move maintain our online presence which is really important we've recognized the the value of that during this COVID-19 shutdown um and we wish we had the these online permitting up right now but we will have it really soon we're working towards making that happen um liability insurance there are times um we can talk more about this in the finance committee when you need to have the head gaps of coverage that were signed scary to me come from the insurance world we were self-insured on some things i thought that was not a good place for the town to be especially in a down economy so we're dedicating some funds to plug those holes and then there's a small amount of money for to make sure that council can have um real secretaries that can record their minutes for them for you all right as i mentioned earlier we are um you know a lot of long-range planning right now because there's so many variables and the uh range of what reality could look like a year or two years from now is pretty wide um where you know there's many variables to consider like our state and local economies which will impact us in a variety of variety of ways um our state aid but also federal aid you know 10 years ago when we had a recession there was a big chunk of money that came um in particular to the schools i know that that were all the little bit and you know so there's still potential that more funding could come from the federal side but um it's a big unknown at this point uh the the operations of local colleges and the university uh what are some of the short-term changes that they're implementing and are any of those going to turn into long-term changes and what does that mean um for the town going forward and so you know all these variables have led us to you know strongly believe that the impact is going to extend beyond f y 21 from covid 19 um and possibly beyond f y 22 as well so we have to be prepared for a range of different economic impacts moving forward um and so we'll be monitoring the budget on a monthly basis and uh planning for multiple scenarios going forward and so now we're going to talk about what's next or what we're gonna what's going to happen moving forward so um tonight we're obviously doing the presentation and hopefully the budget will be referred to finance committee um tomorrow the finance committee will start a very uh strenuous string of meetings starting over the next couple of weeks um reviewing the different components of the budget um and so i won't go through all the the different meeting dates but tomorrow will be the sort of general overview of the budget um and then a focus on the elementary schools and the library um after the finance committee is reviewed and met with the different departments and discussed the budgets that they're part of the budget um there will be a public hearing which is on monday july 13th 2020 and then the following day the finance committee will vote on a recommendation of the f y 21 budget and then a week um actually the the following monday after that which is a tuesday or the following monday is the 20th um the council will then vote if everything goes according to plan we'll vote in on the f y 21 budget just one note on that shon um we've had a request to move community services off of the july 2nd meeting date to another date probably july 9th so once we confirm that we will update the calendars and check with the finance committee chair if that's doable for him perfect hi paul i will hand it back to you on how to get more information sure so um there's a lot of information don't expect you to absorb it all we have a 200 plus page document that's on on our website now there's a budget message that's on our website as well um all the charts the information is available everything is there um and um we want people to to review it there's different ways you can communicate back you can email us you can go to the website www amherstme.gov slash budget we're doing a couple new things this year um to try to enlist people and um we do our normal thursday calling show on at noon on thursday july 2nd the superintendent schools will be part of that con conversation to talk about the school's budget and or anything else that you want to talk about so these are just it's a zoom meeting it's a standard thing it's on our website people can plug in and we record them so you can watch that at any time that you'd like and um this is a newsflash to shon inviting him to be on july 9th um to make sure that um if there are other questions about the budget we want these two um sessions that are open to the public anybody can call in can participate to be there we're doing something really creative i've only know one other town that has done this uh and what they call an AMA ask me anything and our new finance director is brave enough to open himself up to this um we're on july 9th he will be available for 24 hours you can you know send in any questions and he'll turn it around um i'm not sure 24 hours exactly but um he'll be able to answer your questions for you and it just gives people an opportunity to post questions um he'll post answers all the questions and answers will be available online and we'll feed that out through reddit which is the normal hosting platform for an AMA and facebook and twitter things like that so another way to try to engage people um where they are versus saying come to me um and then of course there is on the budget page there is a forum that you if you want to provide budget budget feedback and we actually do get budget feedback questions we'll share those with the council when they come in as well and paul real quick on the AMA if you submit a question between one in the morning and five in the morning don't expect a very quick response we'll get we'll get to it as fast as we can but and i just want to you know again thank everybody we have superb um cooperation or relationship with the school superintendent and the library director and um high level communication with with the finance committee on the council so we thank everybody for their work on that um this is as sean says it's going to be an arduous few weeks for the council and especially the finance committee um by but i think it's really important conversation to have and we're really interested in your questions first of all thank you and um mention again that the budget is available on the town website and a few people did ask and did receive their hard copy um reminding people that the town council finance committee will be meeting every tuesday and thursday for the next two weeks and all counselors are welcome to those meetings as well um we will make sure that you have an opportunity to ask questions um during that time period as well but for the time being are there questions from the council at this time alissa thank you i um had three things and they can all be you know answered at some point in the future not today one i'm looking at the paper copy of the budget i keep flipping back and forth and the paper copy of the budget and then the slides we just saw that had the really great little things that say you know 12 000 for minutes taking three fte's i don't see that information in chart form anywhere in this gigantic dead tree so i see it explained in text in a couple of different places but i think that would be really helpful to us to be able to refer back to that um in terms of the increases reductions and reallocations again it's in text for example on page four but there's not a chart of those things like there was in the slides so that's just one for future reference and then the other in terms of answering a question is on page nine the positions in full-time equivalents i'm sure there's a really good reason the math is only down 1.48 even though it's three paul knows exactly what i'm asking about so maybe something that just says the reason these two numbers are like this is just because that's how it always works and that's fine and then because especially since that one's in a chart format people are going to climb on to that and not notice the other positions we didn't fill all of which we thought were important and we're sort of providing services to people but we've had to make adjustments and then the final thing is if you could let us know later on in the process something i've been trying to not ask about for a long time now but i finally feel compelled to under local receipts we have it broken out for motor vehicle excise we have hotel motel and meals excise although we've always asked that our quarterly reports actually separate hotel motel and meals because they don't always track directly and so that's not broken out here this is only the broad category but more importantly there's nothing in that i can find and i'm just saying it's somewhere in here is there's nothing in here about marijuana slash cannabis excise which we receive on recreational slash adult use we have had gotten some money from that and so we should know where that is being kept and then also the host community agreement payments from both medical and recreational adult use we should know where that money is kept i understand that our town is very low to have separate accounts for things other communities sometimes to do that but if you can just give us a piece of paper later that says where that money is and how we can track it because i don't see any ability to do that right now so and people have asked me about it as well as myself wondering based on my work on that so thanks for your help okay are there other questions from the council Mindy joe yes thank you i haven't had time to review the whole thing yet um so i will do that over the next few days and probably get questions to you um a couple things that stood out to me and just initially um is the sewer fund revenues decrease is a whole lot larger percentage wise than the water fund yet i would think they would somewhat track um so it'd be it'd be good to know why you're expecting one to be a whole lot percentage wise lower than the other um this was touched on a little bit the school budget was not level funded even if you take regional was 40 000 lower elementary school was 73 000 higher that's still a 33 000 dollar difference so an explanation as to why that is not a level funding um a little bit better explanation as to why that might not be sounds like you touched on that with charter school reimbursements but if that could be explained a little bit more so that we know that it is within our um budget guidelines even though it doesn't appear to be within the budget guidelines and then i i still i just want to put out there that i am still really concerned that we are planning for level funding from the state and i know that's something we can't do anything about right now because we have no idea what the state is doing but i am concerned that it will affect our reserves tremendously and that it's not something that's sustainable beyond one year um we might be able to do that if if it comes in really low for a year but um it's not really sustainable beyond that and so somewhere addressing what that might look like if it comes in 15 20 lower and what that means for mid-year changes potentially if we don't want to tap into our reserves but also what that means for next fiscal year and how we would have to adjust for that and what that effect might be um would be something i think i i'm not on finance but i think finance should be looking at and planning for thank you tathi um i i just build on what mandy just said because that's the other thing that it struck me in when we were on uh jcpc looking at what we had to do with the capital budget that next year the next fiscal year is may even be tougher because of what we had to do this year so sooner rather than later having sean you said you're going to have some alternative scenarios you also mentioned that when you completely close the current fiscal year there may be some excess um and looking at what that money is and whether that goes back into reserves whether it goes into capital spending sort of the timing of when we would make those decisions and i um it won't be something that comes up directly in finance but we have some places where we've tapped into reserves so the purchase of hickory wood a golf course that as far as i know hasn't completely gone through yet unless someone had um when or when would we or would we potentially say this isn't going to go through and the amount that was set aside at reserves to enable that um gets freed up so i i just think we need to be thinking of um where do we potentially have money if uh this the state does things um even in our worst case scenario it was a big you know you had a worst worst case but you were doing uh possible worse so just thinking through those then um elissa picked up a couple small i won't call them small but um i really like the places where you have trends and in one case you're showing state aid going back as a share of the budget to 2000 and to f y o one but then in the dollar one you only do it to 2010 so i think telling the story back 20 years um i found it very helpful to have those kinds of numbers when i was talking to people about why their property tax dollars don't buy them as much as they used to you know to be able to say because we used to get more state aid and now we're more dependent on property taxes so just thinking in terms of those longer term trends are sometimes extremely useful and i'm going to be saying that tomorrow on the schools sean i just think trying to understand what has happened to enrollment but also staffing from the time when my kids were going through to now um so so as background information when we're looking at the current year budget i just think they're extremely useful you know just as you know whether they're in an appendix or wherever there are other questions or comments from the council okay then uh i would like to thank hall and sean and sunia and all of the staff that worked on this i know that putting together a missive like a budget is not exactly small work and uh it's now already in the hands of the of the finance committee because we already voted to refer it so um we have our work cut out for us andy and uh we look forward to uh meeting with all of you um so we are going to go on very quickly uh i hope to the town manager evaluation update and uh this was referred to go well and i personally want to thank the council for doing that uh because uh i think their comments were incredibly valuable and uh it led to some changes that we'll talk about briefly so uh surge can you increase the size of that those of us that are already ready wearing bifogals thank you okay so this is the timeline that you've seen before it and it's been updated and you'll notice that it says note one two note three note four don't worry about five six seven and eight but note one two three and four are the things that are in your packet tonight the first of those is the town manager's evaluation that we're proposing to use the second is the email that we would be sending to staff and how we're going to be doing that the third is the email to chair committee committee chairs et cetera and the fourth is public notice um the group of the gl also did talk about goal setting and uh a variety of other kinds of things um george do you have anything particularly you want to mention from gl i think it's probably the most useful to get right into other changes that were made especially on the town manager form um so i think no i don't want to add anything we need to get into the specifics we did discuss the timeline it's tight but to have to do anything else is basically just shoving it later into the year and that doesn't work either so uh just turning to the note one which is the town council members it's a memo to you and then it covers the background so we struck a compromise last year you'll remember we asked you to rate every little item this year we're not we're asking you to rate the overall goal and any capital letters like in this case a so let's go to the next page because i think it gives people an example so here we're asking you to rate b and c and at the end we're asking you to comment on the whole area using as a guideline the subcategories under each of the a b and c and also ask that you include thinking about how this particular thing has been affected by covid so as an example finance is the one that is has the most detail in it so if you go to the next page which is climate action you actually rate on all five areas and but you only write comments for one for the whole thing you don't write comments for each okay and then so on and it continues through all of these so it's a change it means there's not as many tallies and but at the same time it also gives an opportunity for more comment and we gl i actually went first to gl with only having each broad goal rated and the suggestion was made at the meeting to rate the a b c's and so forth and it because it felt that it gave the town manager and the council more detail on how to think about the work that's been done or not been able to be done okay are there questions about this particular form yes elissa i'm sorry i may be overlooking it in the packet but without comparing it directly to the actual goals document that we put out i'm i'm trying to understand i understood the words you said but i'm trying to understand the rationale behind why some things were rating a heading and not the things that are underneath it and other things were rating the things that are underneath it i'm just not seeing what the rationale was behind that so the goal is to not have as many things we actually rate them okay so what we chose to do was come up with rating all seven goals okay and then under the seven goals whenever there is a letter a b c d e also rate that but don't rate the subcategories under that if i if i could just follow up that's that's not how we designed the goals when we designed the goals i don't think we were making decisions about which were the things we were rating or not and so i can live with change i'm just trying to understand that when we divided up the goals we might have set up the goals differently if we knew that some things weren't actually going to be rated i will mention that during the committee of the of the group that did the goals this year that were brought to the council we did talk about doing something that would be more rating at the higher level of the goal maybe subcategories and comments but not all of the categories like we've done in the past so other people may wish to speak to that kathy you have your hand up uh yeah that that is what i think we were also we discussed when we were creating the goals but also when we presented them and i just i think um if you can go back up i thought when i looked at this that we are in every instance rating the big bold um so we're doing the bold and then we're doing the capital letter a so we're treating goal number i the same as goal number roman numeral two correct is that correct okay so then my one of my questions is will the form we get this in um allow so on the actual rating it's just a check mark and then on the comment will it allow us to write as many words as we want so if we want to for example if there's on this very first one there's lots of sub pieces so it may be that there's something that stood out to you is particularly good but some areas for improvements so you want to write more about it can we just create space in a way that we're not limited um you know some we're we're not going to have much we want to write on um but others you might want to say here's an example of this that just was looking for what's being thought of in terms of allowing us to convey why we gave commendable satisfaction needs improvement up above so that's exactly the purpose of the comments and let me just mention that i did spend some time talking to a survey research expert we explored the various options for doing this including survey monkey which is what we used last year we also discussed fall tracks which the town does not have a license to and we cost additional money we discussed also using google but google is not considered to be as secure as the as survey monkey or qual tracks and the other alternative is we just do a paper document and then when i receive them all we have i have to conduct the tally using a excel spreadsheet you could also put it in excel but that doesn't save any time so my preference unless i hear a resounding please don't do that to us is to stay with survey monkey but i'm more than open to whatever wishes of the council survey monkey does allow you to have unlimited words elissa so i'm sure i wrote a great deal about what the shortcomings were of survey monkey last year and maybe we can somewhat accommodate those this year but one of the things was is you couldn't flip back and forth very easily and there were things that were repeated because they were just errors in terms of how it was set up so i think a lot of it's going to depend on how the layout looks right just how you set out certain sections but yet you're reminding us what the subheadings are under those things i think that the way that was laid out last time was as i said at our last meeting really difficult to follow so if when you translate this there has to be a way if you're using survey monkey to have it be in these bold sections and then these are the underneath things but these are the only things berating because when i did it on my big computer last year only like six things showed up then i had to go to a whole nother page some of which were repetitious it was really messy and so if somebody feels like they are going to dig in and do it a different way this year i'm fine with that i'm just saying it didn't work very well last year for me i'm working with angela to convert it to survey monkey and she and i will do a test run to make sure that it is and if it doesn't work that way we'll just give it to you in a document like this the main thing is you cannot give it back to me as a pdf because i need to be able to swipe words out of it and stuff like that in doing the summaries okay and remember all counselors your document your individual response is a public document and will be published are there other questions okay then let's go on to note two note two is the staff survey i realize i forgot to include the staff survey in your document you have to go into a different note surge thank you okay so a couple things first of all i'm going to do a video introducing this to people people can click on a link they've been doing a lot of this during covid where they've been having all kinds of meetings and stuff like that so it's very clear i also i i also did consult with the town human resource person and they in turn talk to the town attorney or the the town yeah the town attorney um in the past we actually provided the council and then put in the manager's file the individual responses instead of a compilation of them so in other words not a summary but compile the individual responses so that in no way can you identify an individual in if you have like 30 or 40 as we talked about this as i talked about this with some staff they felt that that was one of the most inhibiting reasons why people didn't answer the survey they felt they could be identified and the other is they also feel that computers for some reason are not safe even though they are and that you can be identified based on your computer so we're the plan is to put paper out as well as the electronic possibility and um again have people respond and then we will compile them and individual will compile them alissa thank you and i'm sorry to ask to speak again but obviously i have a long history with this and so i appreciate your indulgence one of the thing and we've talked many times about how we need to improve the staff query and i and i appreciate all the work that went into that one of the things i just want to point out and i'm wondering how you're planning to deal with and maybe that's the word compile instead of summary is every year we get responses that say he because it's always he is absolutely terrible in these five areas and then we get responses that say he is amazing in these same five areas and they're clearly you know it's it's the same areas and they're saying so how does that get compiled how does that get reflected because it shouldn't just be five of this and four of that but but what's the fear without seeing those individual pieces and getting a sense of what each person did like are they a positive raider are they a negative raider are they all over the place that's we're not going to see any of that what's that what's that actually mean to us then because if you just have people at each end of the spectrum then what does that mean well that and that is what you lose by not having the individual of forms in front of you it's a it's a trade-off it's do you want more responses which is what i've heard from people and therefore can't guarantee people more level of anonymity or do you want to be able to see the individual responses and then people feel that somehow or another you are able to identify them so it's a trade-off what you will see is five people said this four people said this and three people said this the other thing i want to point out and i and i mentioned this to the gol committee and that is the form that we are using has now been used consistently for at least nine years it is time to come up with a better form and update it but we're not doing that this year there are other comments okay then we're going to go on to note three note three is actually the one that we do committee chairs and we asked them to make sure they get it to their committees and then if they need help with that we do everything we can to do that um and in your packet this one particularly had all of the counselors emails but if you'll see that was a note that said eliminate that because we really want them to just send them to town council at amherstma.com dot gov excuse me okay all right and then the final is there any question on that one all right and then the final one is to the general public and the only real change we made on note four thanks is we actually printed the goals in this because we felt that it was while we refer people to where they can see the goals and they can see more detail about the goals in this one we actually printed the goals and again um this is pretty much the way we've done it in the past uh what the council will see is a um compilation of the responses we get and these are all written uh there's no we don't provide a rating scale or anything else and again this is something that should be considered as we look at revisions in the future because people will tend to rate on a scale before they answer uh they before they bother to write something is there any question on this yes Darcy um so we didn't get very good response on this last year no we didn't and i'm wondering i'm wondering am i muted no um i'm wondering um how we can do better this time around as as far as getting better responses also i hear you saying that we're not going to see the individual responses like we did last year all you'll see is the is a responded x yes said this responder y said this you won't see any content analysis which you didn't see last year you'll basically see the full responses we just won't send them to you actually i'm sorry you will see them because they'll be sent to you at a lot of them will be sent to you at town council at amherstma.gov so some you will see some of them and others will go to the town manager thing and and do it but they actually in this case they send it to town council at amherstma.gov so i'm i'm sorry to have misled you on that you will actually be seeing these and we'll be seeing the staff um evaluations also the staff compilation because we saw the individual staff last year uh you saw a compilation for those that answered electronically and then you got about 11 more because they were paper ones and then we actually entered the paper one so that you could see a compilation electronically so do we do do we have an answer to the question about how we can do better outreach this year well the staff thing is where we've made the biggest changes that's where we're doing a taping we're also doing a we're providing everybody with a paper document as well as an envelope that they can either drop in the mail or drop to us there are no markings on any of these we're trying to give people an assurance that they can't be identified uh and we're also trying to just get encouraged people to answer them so that we are trying to a variety of different means to do uh to get more staff feedback dorthy give your hand up this is just a note since you have the paper in front of you that um we would need to divide perhaps may need to make an additional goal for next year uh having to do with climate um in terms of efforts uh I don't I don't have the words but you know the $80,000 which is going to try to be spent to at request from the community to create a better racial climate clearly that shows that that is one of the goals uh going forward that um the town manager is working on and so there's climate both within the um workforce and the um town council and in the town I I just in other words I'm saying I think that there's a movement towards another goal that would be for next year right and George and and the committee have already set a date or beginning to discuss the goals for next year so that they can come forward as we've scheduled on the timeline that you saw earlier okay Alyssa yeah just quickly if you could run through um what we who we're getting specific responses from again and who we're not because I hear that we're not getting them from staff we're getting a compilation I'm not clear on the difference between public and committees and why some things would come to the town council address and whatnot and I also just do we want to put in a plug for the fact that the select board made a point of never using an electronic form for staff that was a decision staff made to start using for themselves without any select board authorization we didn't get a huge amount of paper either when we did it for years on paper but we did do it on paper with the envelope just like you're talking about for exactly the reasons we talked about so maybe we'll get back up to the highs we had then which still weren't very many but I bet the video thing will help with that when it comes to so we're going back to what worked better before so that's great but the things that are coming to us at town council that is the staff will be a compilation so that won't be coming to that group except through you but then the public comments and the committee comments are going to hand be handled which way I'm confused I'm sorry and I did mislead you I was in fact of the both the committee uh comments will come directly to the council and staff and the public comments will come directly to the council okay they are to address them to town council at AMA dot gov great okay kathy you're making an effort on staff to make sure we protect um confidentiality for committee members if there have been any I know I'm not even knowing whether there's been any friction with any committees would a committee member be able to submit a response without us knowing which committee member that what that person was or would they always have to be identified we provide a mailing address as well so that if they wanted to mail it and just say it was anonymous they could do that okay are there other questions okay then uh we're going to begin this process tomorrow and uh what I'd like to do is suggest we take a five minute break so we're going on with the rest of our um action items and I just want to mention every one of these has been before the council at least once so we've talked about them they've been referred to committees and they've come back to the council so I'm basically saying unless there's something really pressing we may not need to spend a lot of time discussing any one of these okay the very first one is the temporary zoning amendment article 14 um Mandy Joe would you please speak to this amendment yes as I mentioned two weeks ago on June 15th this is the follow-up to ensure that this is able this amendment and this zoning bylaw article 14 is able to be in in force for more than 60 days what we did two weeks ago allows it to only be enforced for 60 days so passing it today under the correct charter provision 210 a allows it to be enforced for the full 180 days so just a reminder that the planning board the planning board voted unanimously and the um CRC voted unanimously to recommend this article be adopted the plan is to adopt it with the 180 day count to begin as of the original adoption date of June 16th that would take it to December 14th 180 days is actually December 13th which is a Sunday under our charter and general counting principles Sundays move to Mondays for deadlines so it would be in effect until December 14th um if we pass it tonight uh George anything further from GOL we met on June 3 and we voted five zero declared a clear consistent action is there any further discussion or questions at this time Evan I'm just confused about the motion that's on our motion sheet which I'm not sure I guess maybe what I need to do is hear the motion before I see if I actually have a question because the motion doesn't make sense thank you I agree with that and I'm going to ask Mandy Joe to make the motion please the motion is to adopt zoning by law article 14 temporary zoning as presented in accordance with charter section 2.10 a so the assumption being we pass it tonight it goes into effect 14 days and then we don't necessarily have to include in that motion that it going to affect uh repeals the emergency measure that just happens automatically so yeah so we'll need a second Lynn from from that motion a second is there a second oh second okay so yes last week uh two weeks ago the motion for passing it under emergency provisions provided for the automatic repeal of that emergency one upon the passage of the identical provision under section 210 a which is why the motion tonight does not include any actual rescission it was included in the motion two weeks ago beautiful thank you for that elegant solution okay are there any other questions yes Darcy I just want to repeat that I um you know I very much support the part of this provision that allows businesses to move adapt and move out on to the uh to the street and sidewalk and so on but I can't support the part that allows new new businesses to be permitted without going through the planning board and I'm especially concerned about this um continuing after the 180 days uh or being extended because someone thinks it's a good idea so I'm going to have to vote against it again okay are there any other comments at this time okay Mandy Joe would you please read the motion again since it was not correct on the motion sheet sure it is to adopt zoning bylaw article 14 temporary zoning as presented in accordance with charter section 2.10 a okay the motion's been made and seconded any other comments seeing none we're going to move to a roll call vote and we're going to start with Dorothy Pam yes Evan Ross yes George Ryan yes Kathy Shane yes Steve Schreiber yes Andy Steinberg yes Chalony Balmone yes Alyssa Brewer yes Pat DeAngelis yes Darcy Dumont no Lynn Griezmer is yes Mandy Jo Hanneke yes the vote is 11 for one no no abstentions and one absent we're moving on to the water and sewer rates and these were presented to us um oh gosh um back on I guess two weeks ago they've been to the finance committee and they've come back uh with a recommendation to proceed as they were presented and we do have with us today both Guilford and Amy I believe if there's any questions yes Amy hi Amy Dorothy do you have questions yes the motion as it reads is raising the the rates just a small percentage this year is that correct yes okay the rate sheet that I got um had rates had a series of increases into the future so I was just kind of confused by that we're only voting on this year okay thank you Mandy Jo yeah my only question is um do we as a council need to direct the manager to investigate a new rate structure or is that going to happen the report indicated that would have to start in September um I definitely want to see that follow-up to the presentation we had earlier um do we need to vote as a council to make that happen or do we know that it is happening and um we can talk about that but we did discuss it and then we also mentioned that it's going to be a little bit of a unusual year to be trying to look at rates to look for a new model uh perhaps people feel that's not important um from a mathematical standpoint um having having a more regular year is very important in setting up models but that's not part of this motion okay so the the answer would be if we want to direct the manager to do that we need to do that in a separate motion okay Dorothy you have a question I I had forgotten to take my hand down I'm sorry thank you Kathy you have a question uh no I just want to build on what uh Mandy uh said that and if you look forward out five years uh just so everyone knows what that rate structure is it's more than a 40 increase in water and it's nearly a 50 increase in sewer but the discussion of might we want to change the way we do rate setting I think can be analyzed um without having to say we're doing it next year and I think we should be doing that to at least see what the impact would be of different um types of rate structure so I realize that is not what we're voting on right now but I want to remind people that I think we left it that we would provide at least some options that we would like to see and then it would be easier for to then get the analysis on it and I would be happy to work on that and I I assume that that analysis that looking at those options would go back to the finance committee and then come forward yeah and and I think you know yes this is an unusual year so you could just do it on look at a full year an earlier year and it would be a pro-former kind of if we had done this in FY 18 or you could do something that's logical rather than when we're down on use and mixing um to see what the impact is okay are there any questions about this year's rates and this motion this area okay Andy would you since this came to finance and is in the finance report would you please provide the motion okay I'll start with the motion itself and then just really briefly speak to it initially and then if the more questions go from there motion is to adopt approval order 2110 an order setting water and sewer rates to be effective July 1 2020 is recommended by the finance committee and shown on page page is nine of the finance committee report titled town council finance committee uh June 29 2020 is there a second Dorothy is the second good yeah okay thank you any further questions or comments then we're going to go ahead with the vote we are starting with Evan Ross yes Brian yes chain yes Schreiber yes Steinberg yes Elm Elm yes Brewer yes yes de angeles yes Jermont yes Greece Merse yes Hanikki yes Pam yes passes 12 zero zero one absent okay is there any further discussion at this point or is it understood that the finance committee would come up with um the kind of idea models of what we might are if you will the parameters of what we would like modeled and then come back to the council is that Mandy Joe you raised that particularly that sounds okay thank you Dorothy just because of the comments uh in the New York Times which was an incomplete statement uh the the rates are not just because of a drop in usage because of college populations movement but also um in in recognition of use and a future plans to secure a good and strong water supply for the town of Amherst which we're not just waiting until things break but we're moving ahead for the future so that that is part of it and the Times just had to just threw that in I think as a teaser right okay um so we are going to then move on to the capital improvement program we already did um agree under the consent agenda to um suspend town council rules a procedure 8.4 and so we are now moving to the capital program and Andy this is finance committee as well okay so we're back to uh the just to tell you my motion sheet is uh to the next appropriation transfer order as recommended and uh it is the capital improvement program I think that we need to actually uh do two throughout so as I understand that we have to have to move to suspend council town council rules a procedure rule 8.4 for the already did that that was passed the consent agenda okay that was I'm sorry that wasn't a consent agenda then um in accordance with uh I moved in accordance with charter section 5.5c and in compliance with charter section 5.5a and 5.5b separately consider I'm trying now I'm down lost as to whether we did that one to separately consider an act on the capital improvement program fiscal year 2021 is there a second second d angeles thank you any further questions and then we're going to move to a roll call vote George Ryan yes Beth Shane yes Steve Schreiber yes indy steinberg yes yes shalini ball moon yes elisbrough yes patti angeles yes bercy demont yes lindy greesmer is a yes mandy joe hannity yes berthie pamm yes evan ross yes okay that's 12 001 absent the next motion may andy yes um to adopt appropriation transfer order f y no i'm sorry it's the next one in accordance with chapter charter section 5.7 in accordance with I move in accordance with charter section 5.7c to adopt the f y 21 capital improvement program in the document entitled f y 21 capital improvement program as presented okay is there a second second d angeles just a friendly amendment it's chapter charter section 5.7 e at this point in the night I can see why it looks like a seat is there any further discussion on this yes mandy joe I just want to indicate that I will be voting against this um because I'm still concerned that capital the split between the reserve and the roads and sidewalks um is the wrong split um and so both votes indicate what that split is and I don't think we're reserving enough for actual capital needs beyond roads and sidewalks for this year okay any further comment or question okay then we begin with kathy shane kathy did you not hear yeah yes thank you see schreiber yes indy steinberg yes alissa broer alissa broer too many windows open at once yes kathy angeles no garcy dumont yes yes then greece mersey yes mandy joe hannacky no garthy pam yes ebb and ross yes george ryan yes the vote is 10 in favor two we're no zero abstain and one absent okay we're moving on to uh the transfer order andy yeah finally we get to the transfer order right i moved to i moved to adopt appropriation transfer order f y 21 o 5 a in order appropriating funds for a portion of the town of amherst capital program equipment buildings and facilities as recommended by the finance committee and shown on page eight of finance committee report titled town council finance committee june 29 2020 okay this requires a majority vote is there a second i'll second it how's that any further discussion um if i may just for a moment uh since we have the chart on the screen and this is where we've been building to what is before you is the line that's facilities is the roads and sidewalks number except for the chapter 90 which is state money that is made available and the 62 000 was an additional amount that's available and shan can explain it if need be but it's from a special fund because of the fees paid from services like uber and the reserve amount is below and as was referenced in Mandy's comments and Kathy can separately report on this chair of jcpc jcpc initially had a recommendation for a slightly higher wasn't substantially higher amount to go into the reserves and the recommendation that was from the manager that was then adopted by the finance committee was to have the maximum amount available for roads and sidewalks particularly sidewalks this year i understand as what is planned given the large um on that uh need and the need to determine the amount that's available for that purpose early in the year so that um mr mooring and his uh and mr skeels can um go through the process that's needed to get contractors in place to do the necessary work and that that was why the recommendation was made to go to a slightly lower amount we did have some discussion within the finance committee about that and concluded after discussion to accept that recommendation because the um amount for the reserve um is really for unknown purposes at this point and may or may not be needed if there is a much larger request instead of covid there might be other funds that become available and um there is also um the ability if there is a really substantial unmet need that we could uh go to our request to use reserves for the purpose but that we didn't as a committee conclude that that was sufficiently likely to diminish the amount that's available for media contracting for roads and sidewalks kathy you have your hand up i just want to add as mandy said jcpc voted instead of a 50 50 split we did a 45 55 split with 55 and reserves and part of the reason i think when it came to finance um and also during jcpc there is an expectation that we're going to close out f y our current year with some surplus we won't know how much that is until probably end of august or september and what i'm hoping um when we look at this is that we can bring that reserve back up um particularly it's the reserve if we have a major systems failure and we're betting on systems not failing during the year so i think we really need to be thinking that way and the roads because they have to contract right away at the beginning of the summer to get the work done need the cash up front so it's it's a balancing act um as when shawn originally presented the overall budget 1.4 million is damned by more than 2 million of what we thought we were going to have to spend um just a few months ago so this is uh we're we're in uncharted territory with even the notion of a reserve like this this is the this is unusual is there any other comment from the council motion's been made and seconded we're going for the roll call vote steve schreiber yes andy steinberg yes shall any ball mill yes elissa brewer yes pat de angeles yes garcy domont yes lind greece murr's yes mandy joe hannicky no Dorothy pamm yes ebb and ross yes george ryan yes kathy shane yes the votes 11 zero and one absent 11 for one against we're moving on to the regional school budget and there are three votes in this and then we are going to be done with the votes for tonight so the regional school budget the regional school debt and the assessment method and i think um if you didn't all hear at least some did that all of the three other towns have met they have approved the regional school budget and the assessment method and so basically we are the last of the four to complete that process um any other comment at this time mandy joe yeah i just want to again comment that it looks like this budget really depends on state aid being level or even increasing the way you look at the budget and i'm not sure how practical that is and so i'm really concerned that we'll be faced with the school regional school committee coming back to us for more money um mid-year uh because state aid might not be level funded or not um and so i i just i'm not comfortable with that um i'm going to put that if things don't get level funded i at this point i'm unlikely to support any piece in that funding um you know so i just wanted to put that out there because i'm not comfortable with a budget that essentially assumes increased state aid in this environment and east i move yes um the uh state aid i mean this this is a an issue that can come up each year obviously i understand that the anxiety level is slightly higher this year the um schools um the regional school district is the one that has to bear the responsibility if there is a change because um in the state aid for um the chapter 70 because that money goes directly uh to the regional district as part of the regional district budget um that's why um in part the school district maintains the excess and deficiency fund which is the reserves which is explained in the finance committee report because it gives um the school district some flexibility to deal with changes on either side of its budget revenue or expenses um i have um in my years not had the experience of the uh regional district ever coming back and asking for towns to do a supplemental budget and it is such an onerous process because it involves multiple town meetings that um it's that the whole process is not structured in a way that is likely that unless an extraordinary situation for the ability to ask three different select boards now to schedule special town meetings and for the towns to be able to redo their budgets and the regional district um understands that as it develops its budget so andy i just i i actually would like to clarify the reason that we didn't run into this in 2008 9 and 10 is because the state placed more money more of a priority on education in those years and other things fell by the wayside what we don't know is whether that will be the case this year do they may they come back to us if they want to um they could come back to us but they would have to go through the entire process that we've just been through all the way through because it would be an amendment of the budget that would require votes in three town meetings as well as the council and uh so it's a difficult process i think you raised a very good point and i think that it's one that's worth bearing in mind again for this year in what was then a very difficult year in which there was substantial reductions that were happening including what are known as nine seat cuts where we were getting mid-year cuts the legislature was very protective of schools and the uh real difficulty on the uh cut the nine seat cuts and in the reductions and state aid for the 2010 year came through the unrestricted general government aid not through the chapter 70 side. Before you speak i'd like to ask what is the amount of the reserves for the regional schools? It's uh 3.8 percent of their operating budget i believe and which is close they have a maximum that they can accrue of 5 percent which is different from cities and towns.  Yeah i just wanted to um quickly note the region did include a $300,000 placeholder in their budget for a state aid cut um so you know the amount could be um discussed but they did include a placeholder for that.  Okay we have three different votes so we'll just start down with the first one Andy do you want to do these or do you want someone else to? No i think that i can probably get through i don't have to do preliminary motions after all i moved to adopt appropriation transfer order 2102 an order approving the Amherst Pellum regional school district budget let me go back i should give this one 21.2 on the screen so i'm gonna stay with that so i um to adopt appropriation and transfer order 2102 in order appropriating the Amherst Pellum regional school district budget and appropriation appropriating the Amherst town of Amherst share of the budget assessment as recommended by the finance committee and shown on page nine of the finance committee report titled town council finance committee june 29 2020. Is there a second? Second ryan thank you any further discussion? Then we start with uh steinsteinberg? Yes. Paul Milne? Yes. Brewer? Yes. D'Angelois? Yes. DeMont? Yes. Griezmer's yes. Hanneke? Yes. Pam? Yes. Ross? Yes. Ryan? Yes. Yes. Schreiber? Yes. Both passes 12-0-0-1 absent moving to the next uh this one is particularly around the debt authorization indy. Yes i'm gonna make the motion and i need to speak to it very briefly uh motion is to adopt approval order f y 21 both three in order approving the Amherst Pellum regional school district debt authorization as recommended by the finance committee and shown on page seven of the finance committee report titled town council finance committee June 29 2020 and i'm gonna second it so andy go ahead okay this is the one that is very peculiar because you see on the top of it that says no vote required i don't think that you're going to very often see orders that actually say that and um the reason is explained in the report but in actuality what happens with these um with with debt authorizations under our former former government and in our three partner communities in the regional district is that if the school committee proposes borrowing for capital amounts that um select boards can um in in towns can choose to place on the town meeting warrant um a disapproval if there's no disapproval within a 60-day period it is automatically approved um if the practice in Amherst had been when we had a town meeting form of government that select board just never placed it on the warrant and um and after 60 days it was approved which i believe is what has happened within the other three towns um because we're now in our new form of government and the question is risen as to whether we should just act on it make this affirmative motion and it was suggested that we do so the finance committee basically concluded that there's absolutely no reason not to do so and it's good to make a statement to the region that we affirmatively believe that debt is um something that we're willing to take on because the work that is to be done with the um capital plan of the regional district is valid and important and that's why it is placed before you um but um that no vote required is a peculiarity and I just um though the committee does unanimously recommend to the council to go ahead and approve this order okay the motion's been made in second is any other climate okay then we start with Shalini, Ball Mellon, yes, Alyssa Brewer, yes, Pat D'Angelois, yes, Darcy DeMont, yes, Lynn Griesmer, yes, Mandy Joe Haneke, yes, Dorothy Pam, yes, Evan Ross, yes, George Ryan, yes, Kathy Shane, yes, Steve Schreiber, yes, Andy Steinberg, yes, DeVote is 12-0-0 with one absent and we go to the last motion and this one is regarding the assessment method, Andy? Yeah um so we get to 2-1-0-1 which comes at the end instead of the beginning and I'm going to make a motion to adopt approval order FY2-1-0-1 in order approving the Emerson-Pellum Regional School District budget in in the needed fixed so we have to I think read the title from the order itself. Yeah I was going to say this is uh I looked at the motion sheet it's uh so this is the motion sheet is incorrect so we're yeah um that's the uh problem of relying on motion sheets uh I moved to adopt approval order um 2-1-0-1 in order approving the Emerson-Pellum Regional School District assessment method. Okay is there a second? Second, Brian? Thank you. Any questions? Yeah I just uh really quickly point out that uh this is the method that we agreed to at the Port Towns meeting and if we don't adopt this then um we are the anomalous town that forces the agreement that we were urging to happen to not happen and we would end up on the state statutory method and so this is the other three towns have taken this vote and but it requires an affirmative vote of all four towns is unanimously recommended by the finance committee. Okay, Alyssa Brewer? Yes. Pat DeAngels? Yes. Darcy Dumont? Yes. Reese Mears Yes. Hannake? Yes. Dorothy Pam? Yes. Evan Ross? Yes. George Ryan? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Steve Schreiber? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Yes. Melanie Balmille? Yes. Votes 12-0-0-1 absent and we move on to appointments which we have already done in the consent agenda and we actually therefore move on to committee reports and so on the committee reports let's begin and see if you have things to add community resources committee. Yes I just have two things the one I just want to point out that um CRC uh voted to recommend that the noise bylaw the unlawful noise bylaw not be modified at this time so I thought I'd point that one out the reasoning is in the report and all after discussion it was a referral from the council so we have not brought forward any recommended modifications or revisions to that bylaw and then the other thing is there's a report due from CRC on the referral for the wild animal act by July 6th the report is going to be an oral report tonight which is we are still considering it we've had a brief presentation from the proponents earlier um and we hope to bring it back to the to the CRC for uh potentially a final presentation to get it over to GOL sometime in July um at our July I guess would be the 14th meeting and hopefully we can get it to GOL after that or at the latest sometime in August. Actually sir you can take that down because we're um and we don't need any more slides at this point thank you we've done a fantastic job tonight sir um the finance committee Andy anything else? Uh just to remind everybody that we are in now the season where we are going to have heads of all of the departments coming before the committee and if any counselors are interested in attending um they certainly are welcome to do so um I don't know if Bettina would like to have knowledge of that so that in advance of the cheek and also determine whether it needs to be posted as a council meeting if there's sufficient number of people coming um the uh tomorrow is the uh schools and library on July 2nd which is Thursday is public safety and police and um fire department EMS um operating budgets could be um a matter of public interest and council interest and so I particularly want to alert you to that one we are trying to get community services moved to another night as Mr. Bachmann previously reported um so let me just mention we did not post the one tomorrow as a committee of the whole but Bettina let's make sure we do post them for the other three and tomorrow during the one that we did not post that way we'll just make sure that we have plenty of opportunity for public comment so that counselors can be part of the audience and comment okay um GOL governance organization legislation yes thank you Lynn um two things quickly we meet on Wednesday and we will be conducting the interviews for um resident non-voting members for finance um their SOIs their statements of interest are available they've been available now for the past week on the GOL town website um and we hope to bring forward a recommendation to the council at its next meeting um also just briefly um in the report covering the resolution related to um xenophobia there was a discussion during that uh this period about our use of consent agenda and when we have proclamations and resolutions and I just urge people to look at it I'm not sure this is the time to talk about it or whether we even need to talk about it I thought it was handled well today um but there was some concern about the use of consent agenda where something like a proclamation resolution um is is there it's there but it's never actually publicly presented or um and and sort of made made visible to the public um I understand the desire for us to stream on our meetings I think that's important um anyway it's in the report people can look at it I also should mention that uh Brianna is working on a press release about that resol