Good evening and welcome to the select board meeting of April 18th sorry I'm a little discombobulated because we're in the community room of the police station tonight and it's our starting time is 6 36 as we call ourselves to order so on our agenda tonight we'll start with the opening announcements opening remarks announcements and agenda review one thing I will mention at this point and we'll come back to it though is in our agenda that we always have a place that says topics that chaired not recently anticipate 40 hours 48 hours before the meeting we do have a topic that we'll cover under that we'll do it later in the meeting we got a memo from our town council I guess we should get into saying town attorney to make sure there's no confusion there regarding some some things around transition and and you know things that can be taken up or not taken up underneath by town meeting and those questions that ever risen around what does it mean by essential necessary etc etc so we'll talk about those very briefly tonight just to sort of daylight that that memo from our our council and then we'll take it up more fully next Monday night but we will have a little bit of a conversation about it tonight as far as just initial reading of it like I said we and the town manager actually only received yesterday so that's one thing I'll make you aware of other than that are there any other changes to the agenda additions anything else that anyone needs to mention the other thing I'll mention at this point if there's not when we get into taking a positions on annual time meeting warrant articles under article 8 the regional school budget the elementary school budget and the school district assessment I'm going to play the schools and therefore I will step back I will literally step back but I will recuse myself from the conversation and I'll ask Mr. Steinberg to chair the meeting during that time without objection and we'll confirm that when we get to that point but just as a heads up that will be something that I step away from and so it'll be a different conversation because I'm not a part of it so let me begin with public comment anything that people want to talk to in public comment not related to an item on the agenda things on the agenda will take up as as they come up but if it's not related to items on the agenda then now's the time to to share with us your thoughts just twice do you want to join us so just yeah you can come come to the table there's no mic here there's no mic there's one on the camera I believe so just take your name and tell us this is a general reminder not that you need this but this is a general reminder we usually try to keep I promise okay I gotta go I'm Jerry Weiss precinct eight I guess it's gonna my comment is gonna touch into this later item I hope that's okay I just wanted to add something to the whole conversation about town meeting and there are efforts right now made by several people to try to hold a community conversation in the near future to try to bring the community back together heal some rifts and and so what I was gonna say is I very much appreciate attorney the town attorney's comments about basically I mean there are exceptions but basically saying that the show should go on Kaz is and I appreciate that because I think efforts to to squash that will greatly interfere with the community effort to to find peace among the warring tribes and I think it would be unnecessary ranker could develop if there are strong efforts to really contain town meeting away from the warrant that's been that's all I have to say thank you thank you it's interesting to be on this side of the table in this room I spent hundreds of hours I'm gonna appreciate this public comment opportunity I'm as I've emailed you circulating a petition for a special town meeting about a really critical matter that is extremely related to implementing the charter in the best possible way and a matter that I believe is routine so the interesting use of the word routine when we're in the middle of totally changing our government and absolutely nothing is routine I invite you to think about the concept of routine in terms of what are the routine things that have to happen in order for this charter to be implemented in the best way in a way that reflects Amherst values in a way that's going to help give everyone in town a chance to participate equally in the charter the two key components of my proposal are a limit to $250 contributions from individuals to the candidates and to to limit to $250 right now it's $1,000 the same limit for the governor of the governor of Massachusetts is for the council of Amherst it's way too high 250 for independent expenditure groups from individuals we need to address this problem immediately rather than hand it off to the council which will have been elected without these limits and we'll be very unlikely to want to change the system that brought them there this is the wild west and we're in this crazy scotis supreme court situation where it's really extremely important that people in this country and in this town who care about giving everyone an equal chance to run for office speak their voices I'm not doing this though because it's important nationally although it is I've worked on this issue for 20 years at the national level I'm doing it because of that work I see how crucial this is for Amherst that we put in place routine rules that are likely to allow everybody who wants to run for office to get to make contributions to do so it's very hard to predict how much these races will cost looking at other towns it's between five and ten thousand dollars but much higher when the lots at stake and if you look at the possibility of people running for the council which is going to appoint the zoning board with and then make zoning proposals back to the very same council just appointed them there's an awful lot of interest on the part of people who have zoning concerns to make sure certain people get elected again it's the Wild West we do have one political party in Amherst already they have developing a slate platform candidates on the slate will be expected to support the platform I look forward to the reading the OC PF office of political campaign and political finance report on how they choose to identify themselves but we really need to pay attention to this it's highly urgent and in the context of changing our government I it's routine this is a routine thing you should do when you're changing your government is to implement changes and how people are elected so that everybody gets a chance to run I can't think of anything more urgent and central and routine than this and the charter and I know it's not on anybody's agenda and I I'm not I can see I read the legal memo the letter so I'm still doing it because I think it's so important thank you thank you Chris for the precinct to I'm just asking a question if I if I wished it will there be opportunity when will there be opportunities for public comment in this agenda that is to say before item 4 and then before item 5 and then before item 6 or before item 4 a for item 4b and so forth should I speak to any anything that's on the agenda right now or should I wait till it comes up that's my question until it comes up and it'll come up and we'll probably when we're finished with public comment we'll go probably right into 4a so is there any other public comment all right so given that we'll take up our action discussion items the first one is take positions on special town meeting articles with special time being scheduled for 659 on April 30th article one is an act to hold a special election as was required by the charter the past is that we have a special town meeting and ask the question of town meeting whether or not to place well seek a request from the legislature to allow us to have our first election for council members concomitant with the November election and so that is the article that is before us on that on that special town meeting warrant and so yes it's really hard for us to see it's an odd arrangement before we go right ahead I just wanted to mention that of course this was in the charter and so this isn't just a thing that we made up this is word-for-word what is exactly in charge and town council has advised us this is the format to do it in and we talked briefly about what night to do it on in terms of town meeting and we realized that given our legislature's history of special legislation and how quickly that sometimes happens we wanted to do it the first opportunity given the 14-day notice for special meetings that kind of put us right there at April 30th to do it so that then we can after we finish the war dissolve it and then we can send it away rather than having to wait until later so so I'll repeat that just for the sake of the audience here basically part of the reason we we set the meeting the special town meeting to be when we did was because it will by being a special time meeting as opposed to putting on the regular town meeting warrant that meeting will close and its actions will become final and therefore we can then pass that legislation you know that request for special legislation to our legislators almost immediately if not we have to wait until annual town meeting finishes before we can send it to them and so it's more a question of timing than anything else and so we wanted to put the question in front of people so that's why it's at 659 so it essentially is it immediately before our annual town meeting it gives telling an opportunity to vote on that issue and if they approve then that request to the legislature will be made as soon as we can and that gives the legislature its time to do its work and and potentially allow us to hold those elections on those on those dates in November and I believe the primary in September are there any other questions or comments by members of this life board I think there are some folks I presume there are folks here to talk about this so I before we get into that I just want to make sure any other members have anything else they want to offer if not I'll recognize you speak to it first thank you my name is John Boniface I'm a constitutional and voting rights attorney living here in Amherst I'm the founder of the National Voting Rights Institute which I directed for more than a decade before becoming a general counsel and I'm the co-founder of free speech for people which I have directed since 2010 I'm here tonight to speak about the proposed act for the state legislature in article one of the upcoming special town meeting on April 30th this proposed act would violate the federal and state constitutional rights of student voters with the presence of UMass Amherst Amherst College and Hampshire College the town of Amherst is home to thousands of college students who account for close to half of the town's voting age population during the course of constitutional litigation against the town in the 1970s around the student voting question the town via a select board adopted a policy quote to hold municipal elections on dates that afford all registered voters an opportunity to personally participate therein by casting ballots at the polls article one proposes state legislation which would establish an election calendar that includes nomination papers for candidates for the town council to be available on June 1st 2018 and to be returned by August 1st 2018 a time period when the vast majority of students are away for the summer and thus unable to participate in this process as voters and as candidates this exclusion of student voters from the process for nominating candidates for the town council would violate their federal constitutional rights under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and under the 26th amendment in addition to implicating students federal constitutional rights to the franchise the election calendar in this proposed legislation also implicates students rights under article nine of the master's is constitution including their rights quote to be elected and quote the town of Amherst should not be engaged in excluding nearly half of our voting age population from a critical part of our election process in violation of the US Constitution and the master's is Constitution the select board has a responsibility to help ensure that Amherst not disenfranchised student voters in this way which could subject the town to unnecessary and costly litigation the select board should not recommend article one to the special town meeting and you should exercise your leadership in urging town meeting members to reject this unconstitutional measure the right to vote is the bedrock right of our democracy we must ensure that this right is protected for all eligible voters in Amherst and I have a copy of my statement for each of you thank you thank you if you would please thank you my name is Sarah McKee and I have a letter from five attorneys who live in town to the members of the Amherst select board we write to express our deep concerns about article one and act to hold the special collect election article one asks town meeting to authorize the select board to file with the state legislature a request to hold a special election on November 6th 2018 the election calendar in article one and in section 10.7 of the new charter effectively excludes many student voters from the process of nominating candidates for the town council the timing of filing of nomination papers and running in a primary largely takes place when most students are away for the summer nomination papers for council candidates will be available from June 1st 2018 with a return date of August 1st 2018 and a primary schedule will take place largely during summer break the state primary will be held on September 4th the first day of new classes for Amherst College and UMass Amherst and the day before Hampshire College classes start article one and the new charter will prevent students participating in the council election process as voters and as candidates as you know students have constitutional rights to vote under both the US Constitution and the Massachusetts Constitution that include a right to run for political office article nine of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights states quote all elections ought to be free and all the inhabitants of this commonwealth having such qualifications as they shall establish by their frame of government have an equal right to elect officers and to be elected for public employments unquote the Amherst select board correctly has a policy not to interfere with these rights and quote to hold municipal elections on dates that afford all registered voters an opportunity to personally participate there in by casting ballots at the polls unquote and that is from the first circuit's decision in 1975 in the case of Walgreens versus the board of select men of the town of Amherst College students are vital and welcome members of our community if members of the select board vote to recommend to town meeting that it adopt article one they will be voting to violate town policy and the federal and state constitutional rights of these students any town meeting member voting in favor of article one will do the same this would not only be fundamentally wrong but it also could subject the town unnecessarily to litigation we urge the select board to carefully examine these critical issues and to vote not to recommend article one thank you for your time and your attention and those signing this letter are Janet McGowan Laura Quilter John Boniface Julia Rouschmeyer and myself thank you very much are there others that wish to come in on our discussion of article one enact a whole special election I was looking at the charter and there are alternative dates that are set up if the special election date doesn't happen my one concern about those alternative dates would be that they the election would be January 24th which would still be within I believe winter break from several of the colleges so but there are those alternative dates and I think it's section nine ten point nine is there other public comment relative to this particular article in special town being more okay I just clarify mr. Slaughter it's is it accurate to say that we will once public comment is finished here we will then deliberate amongst ourselves we will not reopen it right I mean generally we take public comment and then we we have our debate at that point so if you have something to say now is the time yes I do want to just address one other matter that is Brewer address which is yes the voters voted for this charter but the voters do not have the right to disenfranchise other voters and so despite the fact this was a past no matter how popular a measure may be if it is unconstitutional that does not mean that's a select board or the town meeting should advance it so I appreciate the point about it being passed but that doesn't take away the constitutional concerns okay so I think we've heard the public comment relative to this article so members select board do you have comments or suggestion to share with each other about this I would like to start by saying that not only KP law looked at this you know our regular now we have to start remembering to call them attorney rather than council I'll just take a lot until we hear somebody KP law this but more importantly the attorney general's approved this this went to the attorney general's office and the DHCD before we were allowed to put it on the ballot so while I am familiar with the wall grand case and the discussion around it because it's come up several times since I've been on the select board I don't feel it flies here and I don't believe that if the AGO would have thought about that too there's also the fact that of course the primary date is not established by us it is established by secretary gal and secretary the commonwealth so just as we are I'm not sure why we are disenfranchising local elections when we're not disenfranchising people from voting or participating in the election of a state rep for this particular area perhaps people are thinking that students would go home and participate in the state rep for their home but when it comes to the camera state rep obviously they're on a similar calendar so given that there are 25 signatures required associated with district representation and 50 required I don't see that as a high bar that would be difficult for anyone to obtain in terms of meeting with the student population here so if a student which I very much hope at least one student runs in this first election that they only need that number signature so having the majority of students not be here and those substantial number do you stay all summer does not feel compelling to me I do object to saying that I'm taking away people's rights by recommending this because it's been our understanding in the past associated with the Walgreen case that while we need to be sensitive to election dates it's incredibly complex as was mentioned by previous speaker in terms of avoiding breaks avoiding winter break avoiding summer break and then the actual length of time associated with nomination papers so I'm not compelled to believe that that is more valid in this particular case because the election date does still allow for student participation although it is certainly unfortunate the primary is so early on September 4th nobody's happy about that but that's what the secretary decided and the November election makes sense and if we say that this is a bad idea and therefore we need to go with the alternate plan so if town meeting doesn't pass the special legislation we need to go the alternate plan I don't see that it's an improvement and so I'm concerned that this wasn't raised more and not written down more carefully during the charter commission hearings when this was discussed numerous times but the fact that the charter did have to be sent off looked at by all those bodies concerns me that now that would suddenly no longer be valid so I'm not finding the case and I feel like we need to recommend it to tell you. Is it possible for people to speak a little louder? We'll endeavor too. We don't have our amplification that we're used to having which is you know a convenience of town the town. People are welcome to move closer to make you want to push things up toward us further but it's difficult because we're supposed to talk to each other not to you but you're supposed to be able to hear us so it's like this complicated process. Other comments from my colleagues because I can take up the topic as well but I want to get Mr. Steinberg and Mr. Wall a chance to weigh in as well. I did look at the alternative dates and the questions and thought about that too University of Massachusetts which is the largest number of students is the only one I had time to check and the first day of classes for the second semester begins January 22 which is the day after the Martin Luther King holiday. Mr. Walden may have additional information about other. Okay Hampshire is the 23rd Amherst College is the 28th according to the information done by college academic calendar so an election on the 24th which is a Thursday would be just after or just before for one college first day of classes and one of the things students who are very interested in local elections but are away for the holidays some staying town with the ones who are away would not have the benefit of being able to fully engage in all of the campaign information that is out there that eats up in the last weeks before election so I think that it's going to be a challenge in any event we need to give the best advice and hand the town meeting the way that the Charter is written requests that town meetings submit this to the legislature and the legislature enacted if neither happens then I assume it automatically goes to 10.9 which is cited earlier and which says shouldn't act outlined in section 10.8 for similar act not be elected the first election of town counselors under this Charter and then it goes on to the 24th and gives additional dates so I think we need to give the best advice we can to town meeting the town meeting and legislature ultimately will make decisions as those bodies determine. I think most things have been said I think that we're all sympathetic to the question of student voting and have been but I think Miss Brewer makes some compelling points if the state primary takes place then and no one raised objections about that and it's late to raise objections here so I'm not quite sure why this is coming in at five minutes to midnight. I'm not sure why this is being also why it's being raised now and wasn't raised in the Charter process by people who were part of the Charter process or had the chance to comment then and no doubt paid much more attention to the proceedings than I did in that long and very grueling. So I don't personally have any additional comments to make relative to that I think the points that I thought about have been made by my colleagues I think it's a difficult time for me either circumstance in some respects relative to student participation. The advantage I think in either circumstances that the dates have been known by virtue of being a part of the Charter since it became finalized and put before the public so it would be while it does create a complication for students regardless of which way it ends up being it is one that has been known since the Charter was was put before the voters so I think that also is a mitigating factor in some respects but is there any other further comment my members is I'm ready to make a motion or I guess there's one other point that I just raised and that is that the reason one of the reasons put forward to have the election coincide with election day was because that is the day in which the largest number of people go to the polls and people as people of all ages including students and so that in order to gain the largest participation in the actual election where the final decisions are being made that the delivered decision was made to place this first election if the legislature and town meeting would agree on the date when the greatest number of people will go to the polls anyway I think that it's been our experience that but for this last time election which was somewhat exceptional town elections don't normally have a huge draw of voters and particularly student voters so that it would seem that placing the election on a later date in January will actually result in less student voting than placing the election in the November election when a lot of students would be going to the polls because of the Senate gubernatorial elections which will pique much interest and sort of think pushes me to advise town meeting to balance out the primary which we don't know whether all the districts will have primary votes at all or any of which ones will versus the actual election where final decisions will be made it's just a difficult choice but I think the demortuant franchise a greater number of people by placing the election to coincide with the national election this time following up on that I think thank you mr. Steinberg for elaborating on this more because I did want to follow up on one of the things you had said earlier of course the entire election process is very important and needs to be accessible to everyone it is also simply the fact that the last few weeks are the most important and those last few weeks taking place in January would totally disenfranchise the student population whereas those last few weeks take place in November much more palatable I admit that the primary date is not great I wish it had been moved into the middle of the month that's Galvin had intended to do at one point and then moved it back to the fourth very unfortunate that it's around the time that it's so close to Labor Day and when classes start I think one of the other things that's not being recognized here is it's my understanding that we're just talking about the first year this is a permanent issue so if people are saying it's bad to do it this year it's at least almost as bad if not as bad to do it every year and that is what we will do no matter which provision takes place this year from then on it will be a November election and this will continue to be an issue which will continue to be a question that some people feel disenfranchised and consider litigation but this first year no matter which way it goes in subsequent years it's still going to be a November election for the very clear reasons that you stated Mr. Steinberg and were explained at length during the Charter Commission process that doesn't mean everyone agreed with them I understand that but the point remains that we are only arguing at this point about the first election forever after it will be November and then to respond to that Mr. Brewer's comments with a couple of additional points the November election in odd numbered years is when traditionally in Massachusetts most cities have their elections and Northampton Springfield all the major communities around that are city forms of government are in November of those odd numbered years so that was why the decision was made to come into that cycle as I understand it from having been at some commission discussions on subject of election dates the other thing this year's circumstance with the very early primary election was unique and had to do with the timing of the Jewish holidays and that was why the intention to have it it's more traditional date later in September was disrupted and in the separate decision was made after a lot of discussion of the state level so there's not further comment I would entertain emotions I move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 special town meeting article 1 and act to hold a special election all right with emotion the second is there for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye both and so that's a 4 to 0 with one absent and so we move on to article 2 decision of general bylaw town meeting advisory committee I believe Mr. Riddle wanted to speak to us about that a little bit so if you would be so kind as to share your thoughts with us and just updated on where the MCC SPP is and so thank you mr. slaughter I'm Chris riddle speaking for the town meeting coordinating committee and its subcommittee upon on policies and procedures I'm speaking to article 2 the move to rescind the town meeting vote on the town meeting advisory committee from the previous town meeting this this this mode created and I remember Tom meeting coordinating committee and it's up to these TMCC and the manager to to put that together in the upcoming town meeting our understanding from a meeting on April 13th attended by the select board liaison was that the select board would withdraw the article if the TMCC and SPP wished it and these two committees have both voted unanimously to ask the select board to dismiss article 2 why the TMCC and the SPP unanimous sorry we all in all probability it will have at least one more town meeting maybe more if the blade if the vote is delayed on the council is delayed to January it will benefit that that town meeting will benefit from report from the TMAC several people have expressed interest in serving so far many people work very hard on this proposal we're proud of it in principle it's an excellent idea that there be a group assigned to vet complex and detailed issues for legislative bodies and there may turn out to be a need for a group such as this to do the same job for the city council we asked the select board to move to dismiss article 2 there are other public comment article 2 on the special tell me Maureen Adams and I'm a member of SPP and was part of that unanimous vote to ask you to dismiss the article that you wrote and I just want to say briefly and I think that the memo from the attorney I guess we have to practice saying attorney so it's not to confuse people supports this idea that we maintain an intact government as we are until we have a new intact government this particular the TMAC was voted by town meeting as a bylaw it has the same by law status as other instruments of town meetings such as the finance committee and the TMS TMCC the town meeting coordinating committee so that there is an element of cherry picking and pulling this one out and leaving the others intact and indeed my view is that they should all be intact because the charter has its own provisions for the dissolution of the current government when the new government is formed we know that that's a difficult process we don't have crystal balls to know how it will happen or when it will happen and therefore I think it is inadvisable and unwise to pick out a particular bylaw and say we're going to dismiss this whereas the others dissolve when the current government is dissolved so I asked that you dismiss this so as not to unfairly select one bylaw for eradication while the other bylaws correctly stay in place thank you just very quickly just want to speak in support of dismissing I think it's truly important to have such a body to study complex legislation and I hope that it will be dismissed thanks any other further comments on the public relative to article 2 on the special time any more nothing will turn to my colleagues yes yeah I think I should say something in the right off the bat to clarify once town meeting has received once the select board has signed a warrant for town meeting then the warrant belongs that is no longer within our control and it is really up to town meeting to act upon a warrant as far as dismissal or action or referral which are the options that are available to it but I don't believe that select board has the legal authority and my colleagues to my who are sitting to my left to your right have been on the body too much longer considering my last year call of but I don't think that there's a provision to do that clearly I'm on the spot because I'm characterized as having stated something that I don't believe I said I believe I said that the select board would very much take into account what TMCC SPP which did not meet between the time of the election until April 10 well after we would have to sign the warrant so we couldn't get their opinion because they hadn't scheduled the meeting so I did say that if they wanted it to not be acted on that we would certainly take that under advisement and we could as has been stated by a member of the audience recommend dismissal of this article we can't withdraw it could not be withdrawn was too late to withdraw when the meeting was taking place that that's being referenced days before we signed the warrant well before SPP was able to have that one of the reasons that we put this on here was to give ourselves the option because like everything else you put things on you can take them up but you can't ever add something later unless you call a whole nother special town meeting which is a huge amount of paperwork for relatively the reason to do this would be because we are not expecting to need a substantial number of special town meetings after annual town meeting and this body once elected does not begin to act until after annual town meeting was dissolved therefore it's only task would be if not when but if a special town meeting is called sometime between the end of annual town meeting and the beginning of the government practically speaking the task that TM AC would take on could be done by the existing TM CC which no one has suggested we would not elect members to as we normally do during annual town meeting again whose actions whose terms begin at the end of meeting he was also discussed at that meeting by some of the members that the work could in fact still be done the research of the team that had been so eloquently spoken about by so many people at annual town meeting could in fact be done by TM CC members I also want to point out that this was not an overwhelming vote in town meeting it was a 99 to 81 vote there was not overwhelming support in town meeting to make this team that happened that does not mean that we shouldn't do it because all you need is a majority but it is not something that the entire community got behind practically speaking I don't think it makes any difference at this point we have the elections are not hopefully people have been considering running and that process is being managed not through the town manager so much but by the moderator as is indicated in the bylaw just as TM CC and they work with the town clerk to make sure that we all have that election and we all remember to actually go and vote in the back of the room and it's my understanding that both ballots would be done that same night so it's not to confuse people so I believe that it's been published one in one place that may be there's a deadline for people to express interest to the moderator and of course there are a variety of different ways of expressing interest since this body is open to the entire community not to town meeting members which makes it more awkward to advertise as well because it's easier when you can just tell town meeting members over and over about TM CC it's harder to try and tell the whole community about TM AC I don't think it's in any way a problem to move forward with it aside from the concerns I had when we did it at annual town meeting select board didn't recommend it then and one of the concerns that I had was the amount of staff time that was the expectation versus what was written in the bylaw I see that there's not likely to be a lot of special town meeting articles therefore not a lot of staff time so while staff is stretched especially thin due to some retirements changes in government etc it doesn't seem problematic to me so I'm open to what my colleagues think might be the best way to manage this so if memory serves when we took this up and part of the reason we we put it on the special town meeting war and please correct me if I'm misremembering you know the the idea had surfaced I don't think it was by us I believe it was brought to us perhaps my TM CC as a potential thing they might want to do but because they weren't gonna have an opportunity to actually discuss it fully as a whole group but I may be misremembering that but nonetheless you know we put it on it was not you know it was it was to make it available for action if if it was deemed to be the right decision based on what the subsequent meeting so we had to back up and say this more clearly my remembering is that we place this on this warrant to provide the opportunity for the dissolution of that or the decision of that that general bylaw partly because there was a need to have a debate in TMCC's subcommittee of SBP about whether or not they wanted to or not or whether they recommended to town meeting to or not to form the TMAC or not so in order to if they had decided to not that they didn't want to go ahead with TMAC recommend not going ahead with TMAC this gave us an option to do that and so since they have met and they did decide that they would like to continue with the idea of the TMAC personally I don't have a problem with that I don't know that we need to you know we can recommend dismissal to that effect because I think the my understanding is the purpose of putting this article on to that special time any warrant was to have it available to us and then allow the the TMCC and the TMCC SPP to meet and have a more full discussion about whether to take action on that article or to to try to get it dismissed or defeated so I'm I'm not opposed to us taking a position to you know recommend is recommend dismissal but I'm open to my colleagues opinions about that as well Mr. Roth just to try to emphasize but not repeat the points my colleagues have made my understanding there's no animosity whatsoever we're certainly not targeting a particular or article I think the only thought was that given as we've said the change in town government and the limited amount of activity for town meeting between them and when the council takes up its office it might be read it might have rendered moot the purpose of this body but if the those who worked so hard on it want to keep it going at a length of time I have no objection just a few two thoughts so if anybody my colleagues can respond to the second one but first is that the largest action in fall town meeting in the reason that we normally have a fall town meeting would in this year is financial articles because we need to make budget transfers each year in the fall in the fall in order to be able to have the budget ready to submit to get a tax rate approval from the Department of Revenue and since the purpose of TMAC was non-financial articles and finance as they pointed out finance committee is in place to make recommendations in town in this nephalia pointed by the moderator that it was really intended for non-financial articles so I don't think that there's going to be a lot of non-financial articles that would be likely on a special town meeting or if there is a special town meeting so the the other thing that I'd be like to know about is given the fact that the town clerk and the assistant to the town manager both retiring in coming months and those positions are in transition and the amount of work that needs to be done just to manage this transition process in the election process for the council how much work is required of our staff to support the election of TMAC this that something we ought to consider and I don't really have sufficient information to respond to that so we had this very discussion before we knew about the retirements at annual town meeting and we said we were concerned about the support that would be required and I mentioned that as well associate with retirements and the changes what we heard at some pre-meetings associated with the amount of staff supported versus what we heard at town meeting were somewhat different characterizations it remains in town managers area it's not the town it's not the town moderator deals with all the getting them elected by working with the town clerk part but then after that it's up to the town manager to decide how to deploy staff and so if the town manager and it's up to the select board to supervise that and we all know how that actually works in terms of of course he does the day to day work that needs to be done and so there potentially could be some question at some point as to whether or not given the push-pull of the issues that you've raised Mr. Steinberg that it would be difficult to assign staff to work on particular issues but again we're expecting them to be so few issues that it's not the same as a situation where they're looking at a full annual town meeting where they might have lots of different people they need to talk to about lots of different things so that's what caused me to feel like despite our feelings about this in the spring and our concerns about the use of staff that we would be able in this case it seems like it would be reasonable to expect that it won't be a huge burden and if it is the town manager I'll tell us and there's nothing compelling the town manager to give five hours or one hour to any particular issue it's just that obviously town manager doesn't want to make anyone in the community unhappy is there a we come to a place to make a motion relative to this article it's not like to offer one yes so one of the things we always struggle with when we're figuring out the more complex articles and in terms of our actions is are we recommending someone else's motion to dismiss or we ourselves making a motion to dismiss since we had to put this on as our article just to quick get it on there so that we'd have the option I think it puts us in the position of our first discussion should be around whether or not we ourselves are going to either support the article or rather than voting against the article we would we would in fact move dismissal rather than moving in terms of the article right so that I think is is our question here is are we moving in terms of the article and then moving to support it or defeat it sounds like a terrible idea or are we gonna make the motion that is I move to dismiss rather than waiting for someone else to do so and then we say yes we agree with them so I'm of the opinion you know given how I proceed we wait where how we got to hear from from our original conversation which was about placing this article for consideration to allow the the TMCC and the TMCC SPP to have a richer conversation about it and so if they're coming back to us with that that they're recommending that it be dismissed I'm personally fine with us moving dismissal because I think it was you know you put it in as as I don't want to say a placeholder but in a sense it was holding a place so that we could have action on it if we need to then come back to us and said we don't think we want to take action on it in that way and so I'm of the opinion that we can we can honor that and recommend dismissal by virtue of an actual motion to dismiss so I could make that motion but they wanted to raise it that way so it's not any of the options on our shears we don't normally do it directly but I move to dismiss yeah what you're really having to move is that you're you're suggesting what you're asking is the when this comes up at town meeting that that we make a motion to dismiss the action of dismissal is an action that has to be taken by town meeting we are not allowed to take that action but we could make a motion to dismiss town meeting has to act so I move I move that the select board move to dismiss article two recession of general bylaw town meeting advisory committee second so we're clear on what we're doing have you got that mister so I'm not recommending dismissal we are moving to dismiss all right these are for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye no okay so we've got three in favor one absent and one no all right so that's taking the two the positions on the two articles that are on our special town meeting just moments before the annual town meeting so now we're moving on to our action discussion item 4b taking positions on annual town meeting warrant articles the first ones we're taking up are under article 8 article 10 which are related to the to the school budgets and as I said earlier I'm going to recuse myself from this conversation and so I will ask if it's without objection by my colleagues if mr. Sandberg will share the meeting as we go through those those articles and hopefully we'll take the actions on those two lower well I'm and I can come back into the mix after thank you so we have three motions that are no three actions of town meeting that we need to consider since we've had substantial discussion on one maybe I'll save that for last and see if we can present the elementary budget first then we can do the regional budget and that will flow into the regional assessment that the motion that makes sense I think so show me again after finance for the schools start on page two of the elementary packet that was sent out so the proposed elementary school budget for f119 that was approved by school committee is 23 million 227 thousand 365 which is a 3.1 percent increase and it is within the guidance that was issued by finance committee it's below the 3.5 because of the whole charter choice whether it's not in a school budget but we did go up to the full 3.5 percent increase when you factor in charter choice this budget proposal includes 537 thousand 254 of net reductions which are listed in a couple pages if you go to page three the reason why we had you're seeing you're sensing confusion yes page two doesn't give a 3.5 percent and it gives a different total 3.1 right 3.3 sorry so f119 it's the greatest 3.1 right so it's the 23227 36 right and again that 3.1 is 3.5 when you factor in the charter choice which right by the time track it's highlighted in my packets page three just illustrates why we have such a significant gap this year in making those net reductions all heard about the health insurance issue that is pretty much all town departments the chart shows on page three the level service increases over f118 that we're projecting for f119 and by far health insurance is the largest anything like that in very long time but the increase over f118 is just north of $800,000 for health insurance alone the other three categories are pretty typical from your year but the health insurance one is unique this year on page four that list the approved budget additions and reductions for f119 I won't spend a lot of time on all of them but a point out a few we continue to make some enrollment based reductions so you'll see under the budget adjustments section there's a 1.0 reduction it's a classroom reduction again it's based on enrollment when we project how many kindergarten classrooms we come in have coming in how many sixth grade classrooms we have moving on to the region we can reduce one classroom it was a difficult year we try to keep the reductions as far away from the classroom as possible I'll say probably the hardest reduction here is the reduction of four intervention para educators redeveloping the model to deliver intervention but we weren't able to completely keep this away from the classroom there were some structural reductions just due to the health insurance increase the net reductions overall is 5.85 FTE from where we are today the next two pages just give you a little bit of a picture of our grants and our revolving funds I will spend a lot of time on them we continue to see some reductions in grants specifically early education grants the inclusive preschool grant is being phased out so we're in the second to last year of the phase out where the grant will go completely away it's dropping by 10 to $20,000 increments each year so you'll see that continue to climb it's at the top receive over 57,000 down to 38,000 from FY 18 to FY 19 on the revolving fund side the only thing I'll mention is that the school choice program continue to attract a lot of interest in school choice this year we had over 90 school choice in students which is the highest we've had so far and it is generating a significant amount of revenue you can see them at revolving fund summary at the bottom or shows revenue for school choice we're projecting at $605,000 a school choice in revenue for next year and those are the highlights I'm happy to answer any questions on the elementary budget that the board may have I look right see I mostly to my left as it is first see if any questions yes thank you Mr. Randano always very clear oh my mistake on the shading one of the things that the purpose of you coming before us this way is in many ways for the public to hear this because largely we deferred to the school we are not going to second gas school committee worked out with you and Mr. Morris but what we are going to what I am going to ask you about is what's town meeting going to try and add money so it you mentioned specifically talked about putting library pairs in past we had taken them from full-time down a part time and then they went up again in terms of the instruction with the intervention pair educators that's obviously something that you've drawn attention to because it's very painful at this point is there I know you can't predict the future anymore than we can but is there any movement that you're aware of to try and add things on the floor of town meeting in addition to this budget not that I know of we had the budget hearing the year when the library pair of issue popped up there was a lot of public input at the budget hearing this year I think it's a much different year because of the very large health insurance increase it really packed a lot of things so I haven't heard any of that and we are trying to redesign the model we do feel confident that none of those positions are actually gonna lose their jobs we have a pair of turnover from your year that these people would be placed so it's not gonna be a loss of employment for those four positions but it will be a model shift in terms of how interventions deliver so I'm not sensing anything right now but I could always change I could ask lots of questions about how that shift in delivery model takes place but I think that I'm gonna have to just trust that the school committee has dealt into those issues the question I'd ask is whether you're aware that the principals and the superintendent are comfortable with the model that will be going forward for delivering special education services yeah I believe so they develop all these as a team so all these have been better that would be helpful for having some sort of packet of information on what that change might look like because if not we could turn to the motion sheet very quickly and there is a motion that motion sheet about article eight elementary school operating budget if somebody wanted to make that motion we could hear that motion at this point I move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article eight FY 19 elementary school operating budget in the amount of twenty three thousand two hundred twenty seven three hundred sixty seconds so we have promotions made in seconded in further discussion hearing none then all in favor and take by saying aye aye no absent your absence and we have two members absent two absent would just point out I think you also meant I did say thousand didn't I thank you for that it's written it probably wouldn't quite work it's written well you know we just read what they put in front of us yeah it's all good okay so thanks for noting that emotional reflect the amount is correct amount and we'll proceed I guess with the second item of three which is the digital school budget so just like the elementary schools I start with the sort of highlights so the school committee approved a budget of thirty one million eight hundred fifteen thousand three fifty one which is an increase of one point six percent over the FY 18 budget this is the total budgets of the guys who received my ass committee is just at the assessment so the budget always goes up a different amount from now under this proposal the total percentage increase to the town assessments is two point three two percent so that's the overall assessment increase for all four towns however the increase to just the Amherst assessment is three point five percent which is the guys we receive this proposal includes reductions of one million one hundred fifty thousand seven fifty again driven larger than the health insurance I'll point out the exact increase in the second that's the largest net reduction we've had to make in a very long time if not the largest it's dribbled by the health insurance premium increases you go to page seven the show the this chart shows the revenues that are supporting the overall budget everything in here was developed before the house ways of means budget came out but it still appears to be pretty much on track chapter 70 came out a little bit better in the house ways of means budget that's what was approved this was based on the governor's and transportation came out a little bit worse because the house ways of means budget eliminated vocational transportation investment which we used to get quite a bit of but overall the spending plan is still on track the next page which is page eight shows our use of reserves which is an important indicator of how we're doing the amount of reserves we've projected for next year based on how much we project going back into our reserves at the end of this year I'll put us at four percent in regional schools can't go above five percent we try to stay between three and five percent so our four percent projection for the end of this year is right in line with where we want to be if you go to page nine that is the expense summary for the budget so I'll point out a couple key things so the health insurance if you go down towards this expense accounts breaks out health insurance from employees and retirees so the combination of those two increases which are initiated at my nineteen change column is just the north of just about nine hundred thousand dollars and that's over the current budget so again a very large increase that we haven't had before at least that's my time and on the bright side in other programs that's where we pay for our tuitions for charter choice and vocational tuition all three of those have come down this year quite a bit so we have a significant amount of savings projected based on reduced enrollment for kids choosing those programs and we hope to see that trend continue but that was certainly a really positive development in year when we saw this really large health insurance increase and helped offset some of that increase the next page shows the proposed additions and reductions again I'll just point out maybe one or two a number of budget adjustments which are really efficiencies transcribe the bottom of the barrel to find savings wherever we could given the really difficult budget year we're able to negotiate a lower tuition rate for one of our vocational school districts which is about 25,000 we made a number of other changes to secure lower pricing for some of our contracts we did make a few additions one of the notable additions is that we added a point to FTE Chinese professional staff position to route out our Chinese program we have pretty robust Chinese program but we were a section short of having a complete program so that will round that piece out and then there were just a number of reductions again we try to keep them as from away from the classrooms we could but given the magnitude of reductions we couldn't do that across the board and our total reductions proposed for next year is 8.98 FTE the next two pages are on grants and involvement funds similar to the Amorside is it worth talking about capital Mr. Steinberg why don't we hold off for a moment because well I think we tie this to article 10 assessment of the knowledge units come back to capital in a minute are there any operating budget questions are there any programs or classes that will have to be cut in their entirety as a result yeah so there's two programmatic shifts well there's three that I think are worth noting so Summit Academy is being relocated from Summit Academy building as you know it now to a vacant wing of the high school so that will have some savings but it's a pretty large shift in terms of its changing buildings the culinary program is going away based on these reductions it's part of that way where the Summit Academy program would go and also the preschool program is going away which is a self-sustaining program it's been around for a little while but it's not it's not a credit bearing program or a certificate bearing program where students can get an early childhood certificate based on their work with that program so it's neither one of those were true location programs where you get certificates but those are the three major shifts there's certainly other ones given the reductions but those are the three that I've been talking about probably the most school culinary program is not students who are really interested in cooling other than that is a career because they would be more likely I gather to go to the vocational schools yeah I think you could say that I think again it's more of an elective I think it's fun elected that kids take but it's if you were looking to pursue that into the college level I think Smith vocational have sort of more they the product varying for the certificate bearing programs that one would probably take for that the Summit Academy the educational program that's offered to students at the Academy I assume that the air hope let's say not assume but hope the shift does not affect educational opportunity that's needed for those students yeah no there's been a lot of work with the principal state our new facility director to try to make that new space as accommodating as possible for that new program it's going to be completely separated from high school it really has to be to maintain its sort of separate school status they've been doing a lot of work and plans and also that worked on over the summer so the kids are ready to go in for the start of the school year but they're trying to make similar spaces to what they have at Summit Academy in terms of common sense of that nature questions for so as not to appear disinterested as I indicated we defer to the school committee and we've also been to several four towns meetings where we've heard about the nature of these reductions and just to be really clear to the listening public if you haven't been watching school committee meetings go back and watch them because this is painful these are not good cuts these are over a million dollars the best that we do under the circumstances because we have to do real things but there are people who are hurt broken about the preschool program there are people who are hurt about the culinary arts program because although it was not the program for you if you wanted to actually go and run a restaurant you would definitely go to see that it was a place that just as we often refer to sports as the thing that gets the kid in the beginning of the day culinary arts program was that and so was the preschool program there are students who don't want to be there at the high school but when they could go to those programs it made their day and so I appreciate all the different things you guys are trying to away and to try and make up for that loss and find other ways to program those interests because a kid who's doing one of those two things is probably not suddenly gonna say oh that's fine I'll take drumming instead and it's finding ways to engage the students that that was a really important point of their engagement is critically important and so thank you for that and thank you for all the work that's gone into this one of the challenges always of course is you can't make it sound too bad because some people don't want to sound come to schools but it is awkward and it is difficult and it's not the program that the school committee administration teachers or the taxpayers would prefer we'd rather have more at least what we have rather than taking away it's nice to hear small adjustments like the Chinese you know finding a way to maybe beef that up a little since we used to have more language than we do now the one thing that has also gone back and forth in so many different ways is the GCC program could you speak to that briefly because we keep trying with that and different ways so this the GCC program that's being eliminated here that was the day program so that was this year was actually the first fully year of that program we added it a couple years ago we had a stronger budget year so it's from all accounts been pretty successful it's not it doesn't serve a ton of kids because it's just one class I think it's one class maybe two in the fall semester so it doesn't serve a ton of students but it did serve some students and the school committee did have a presentation from the person who runs the GCC in in during the day program so the school committee was fully aware of sort of the pros and cons of it so that is the program that's being proposed to go away there's still the evening program which is always sort of every year sort of are we gonna do or not do it based on how much demand there is out there started really strong in terms of demand I'd say it's probably waned a little bit but that's really managed by GCC we just sort of make the space available and sort of act like landlords a little bit when they can space available and then there are other opportunities with Amherst College and a couple there may be another one that I'm forgetting where kids can also take some college courses during the day depending on their schedule so that presentation was given the school committee I can't remember all the specifics but there are still opportunities for students but this program was probably most convenient because it was actually located at the school. I'm keeping my eye out on the audience it's easier for me to see in this direction in this direction so people raise their hands and I want to speak on the topic that we're talking about I've actually had the opportunity to see better than my colleagues so I'm not trying to ignore you. Before we proceed on to consideration of the budget why don't we talk briefly about also the assessment method even though we're pretty familiar with it so I have to go into great detail. So there are a lot of factors that would make this a difficult budget year helping to be the largest but also the assessment method the towns are in different places right now in terms of enrollment and property values and what way they're moving it makes the assessment that they're really complicated in terms of finding a method that seems fair to everybody. So the method that there are a lot of meetings and discussion over the summer the method that seemed to have an agreement from town officials at the four-town meeting was this five-year transition plan model but really just the first year of that transition plan was what we've heard and years beyond that first year still need a lot more discussion to see if everyone wants to move in that direction or move in a different direction but the five-year transition plan was essentially moved from where we are now to the statutory method by phasing the statutory method 20% each year so the first year would phase in 20% of the statutory method and the other 80% would be based on the regional agreement which is largely allocated by a body roll on average of enrollment and so that's the method that there's consensus on at the four-town meeting and the school committee voted to recommend it and because that is an alternative method because it's not statutory method it's transitioned to it but it's not the actual statutory method it does require approval at each town meeting and it will be considered an amendment to the regional agreement because it's not the method in our regional agreement so it'll be considered an amendment and require approval at each town meeting and all the town meetings are on a different basis here which is great if you look at the town meetings So for people that were watching this meeting the person are at home and I'm not familiar with the interplay between the two they really are separate votes but they're very much interrelated because in the end it has to do with the amount that we are going to be assessed as a town and the amount that each of the other three towns is going to be assessed and so that while they are separate votes they have accumulated the effect of determining a very significant part of the budget going forward for the 2019 operating budget so without going into gruesome detail that would go beyond that I just gonna leave it at that for the moment and see if any of my colleagues would like to go back to the motion sheet at this point and offer a motion under article 8 for the recommendation to town meeting regarding that portion of the operating budget that is the regional school budget So here I move to recommend to the April 10th 2018 annual town meeting article 8 FY19 operating budget embers regional embers Pellum regional schools in the amount of 31 million discounted 835,351 dollars and do we get a proportional share here or in the same motion okay and go ahead okay and the appropriation of 16 million forty five thousand three hundred four dollars for embers proportional share remember to be determined to speak to the article the absolute for the assessment of the second motion down here okay yeah they're second second so moved and seconded before the discussion being done in the request to speak I would in favor indicate by saying hi hi that's I also says three in favor you're not you're at we have two absent so it's three in favor in two absent for the second article eight motion for the evening one we just voted on then turning to article 10 and I want to go just to the warrant for a second because it's actually fairly short the warrant article itself reads to see if the town will vote to amend article 6 of the embers Pellum regional school district agreement section 6 the embers Pellum regional school district agreement by adding subsection I as follows for fiscal year 2019 only the alternative operating budget assessment shall be calculated at 20% of the minimum contribution with the remainder of the assessment allocated to the member towns in accordance with people method found in article 6 e of the embers Pellum regional school district agreement the reason I wanted to read that is that the article itself and therefore what we presume will be the motion made by this finance committee will not talk about a transition portion it tight it is a specific amount of money calculated according to a formulation and so that this is not asking town meeting to take a vote for a transition to something it's asking the town meeting to take a vote for a specific assessment methodology for the year that has no reference to transition to anything so without I would ask if there's a motion or any further discussion first before the motion yes and that is and thank you for making that super clear and if mr. Zomac our illustrious notes taker would please include the actual language of article 10 in our minutes rather than just saying what article 10 says that would be helpful constant reminders that this is one year and then I would like to follow up based on our many discussions including it for boards for towns meetings as you indicated all the town meetings are on separate days you have to be in two places at once as usual so that's that's a lucky year but in terms of moving forward as this has been quite challenging to get to this point we do believe at this time that all boards are recommending this to all of their towns yeah I haven't heard anything to the counter for that so I believe that is the case well just a minor point thank you for that explanation about what the article says and doesn't I'm assuming just to mind on or someone will nonetheless give a full explanation to town meetings because reminders are helpful so so now I move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 10 Amherst regional public school district assessment method I want the word yes well actually well actually yeah it's just the article says nothing although it talks in terms of numbers rather than that's a good point article title isn't actually meaningless it's just supposed to help people figure out where we are is it more accurate to just say assessment given the words we just went over so we'll just make sure our minutes say assessment method and then actually give the full text to the article as Mr. Steinberg so if anybody questions later what we voted on they'll know exactly the words second it's been motion made in second and any further discussion seeing no request for further discussion all in favor say aye aye and we have two members absent so passes three zero with two members absent and that concludes it thank you very much appreciate your time this evening and slaughter back to thank you thank you yes sir I just ask one question of the board is it your practice as you're going through these to assign we will take them a term meaning I just didn't know whether you want to get through all of them and go then go back through well I think this is not here she's taking all of these we sometimes decide on the spot we sometimes decide later so we haven't decided no one's volunteered as yet to speak to them haven't volunteered each other exactly so next on our agenda is article 12a which is CPA appropriations and introduce yourself to the camera and they're just to us but camera purposes and then tell us about thank you I'm Nate buttington chair of CPA this year and we have a number of interesting proposals I do want to say before I get into the proposals that we had four new members of CPA this year a novice chairman one of our members passed away halfway through our cycle throughout all of that we were able to act with a pretty high level of efficiency largely because of the pretty extraordinary support we received from Sonia Aldrich and Holly Bowser from Town Hall if there are any indication of the type of work that takes place in town hall where in good shape so I just want to thank them so we have a land purchase which will be voted on separately I could do that I can separate that out the others will be in a slate for approval we also have a debt service I didn't know is that you have to pardon my novice chairmanship is that voted on separately it's a separate now if you want okay discuss them all okay so let's start with the debt service okay 320 thousand eight hundred and forty three dollars this is for the time masonry Hawthorne property Amherst housing authority payments for rehab of a number of units the rock farm Amherst housing authority payment for some existing affordable housing rolling green and curious land acquisition pretty straightforward the land purchase is the Epstein property this is a piece of property it's about 30 acres it's sort of in the southeast corner of the Devil Rotary near Atkins this is a pretty remarkable piece of property that has one of the biggest ponds in Amherst it will allow us unfettered access up to Mount Holyoke range there is a pretty significant state land grant that comes with this so CPA has allocated a hundred and thirteen thousand dollars the land grant I believe is a hundred and ninety five thousand for this this purchase it's got some meadow habitat it has undeveloped wetlands and this and the pond so that will be voted on separately the slate of projects so let me stick with open space while we're on that category we've allocated ninety thousand dollars for the Amherst dog park task force to construct a dog park this will be in a corner of the landfill off of a little town it'll be about an acre I believe it'll be fenced we there are a number of expenses would this be on the construction of the dog park we have to do a DEP reuse study there's surveys that's largely what the ninety five ninety thousand dollars is this there's a very very strong likelihood this will be matched with a Stanton Foundation grant which is a foundation that exists to create dog parks and they'll pay about ninety percent of the total construction costs we also have a sort of unglamorous twenty five thousand dollar conservation due diligence fund that we're funding this is something that is created to pay for land surveys and any kind of preservation project for appraisals any kind of study that we need to do for any of these projects and that fund is dwindling down so we're replenishing it with a twenty five thousand dollar grant we have a couple of recreation proposals Amherst baseball has asked for forty four thousand five hundred and fifty dollars this is to complete a project that CPAC funded in 2015 to restore the two little league baseball fields at no river for a number of reasons that I can explain to you if you're interested the original proposal the original budget came in short we were able to restore one field only partially restore the second this this amount will provide for two batting cages for some shades for field one which we were not able to complete and for irrigation of both fields we've allocated fifty thousand dollars for an LSE request to completely reconstruct the basketball courts at no river these are heavily used facility they're the only adult basketball court in town they're very bad shape last year we allocated fifty thousand dollars for this project it became pretty clear as soon as we got into it that that was not going to be enough money so this is completing that project and this will involve a complete reconstruction of the surface new hoops and the installation of two smaller groups for younger a couple of historic preservation projects the Ingram Dickinson farmhouse on North Pleasant Street which you may recognize as being at on the North Pleasant Street side of Simple Gifts Farm we're awarding them a hundred thirty thousand dollars this is for a preservation project that they're involved in to preserve this important building they will eventually carve that house into two apartments which will be used for farm workers who work at the farm this allocation will be for the exterior of the building and they will be raising other funds for the interior reconstruction of the farmhouse the Amherst Historical Society we're awarding thirteen thousand five hundred and eighty dollars to them to continue a study of their textile collection we funded this last year they got they have a woman Lynn Bassett who's a real pro in analyzing textiles historical textiles and once they really got into this project last year it became clear that there was more work to be done that involves identifying these textiles coming up with different preservation methods dating them coming up with strategies for conserving so we're extending in essence that grant from last year strong house needs a new boiler so we're funding a thirty thousand dollar sort of conversion project there are two heating systems in that house now I believe one is gas or propane one is steam heat and we're going to have one unified heating system it'll be hot water from an oil so that will get their heating system up into the 21st century we also have some community housing proposals one is a forty thousand dollar proposal to continue funding a consultant the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust has been very lucky to have an incredibly skilled consultant to kind of walk us through some of these AMHT proposals and this is to support that consultant in planning and overseeing housing projects in consultation with the town and the housing trust there's also an award for the housing trust for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars this is to have at their disposal with working in concert with the town a sort of kitty of cash to be able to jump on a potential project if it comes up allowing them to be financially nimble enough to really act on a property that may become available rather than waiting through going through the CPA site the Amherst Community Land Trust has asked for and we've approved two hundred and sixty six thousand two hundred dollar grant this is to the land trust is going to identify two properties ideally close to town centers ideally close to public transportation where they will purchase the properties they will sell to qualified low-income buyers the homes on the properties they will retain ownership of the land for perpetuity so this allows these properties to be significantly less expensive for the home buyers and those home buyers of course will be will be vetted for their low-income status lower income status Amherst Community Connections has asked for and we've approved a hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred and fifteen dollar grant this is to provide three housing vouchers to chronically homeless Amherst residents this will allow them to get into stable housing and to have support life skills support while they're there and hopefully get them to the point where they are self-sufficient they've been Amherst Community Connections has been doing this for a couple of years we boarded them a grant a while ago it's been successful so we want to continue that good work that they're doing and lastly pretty unglamorous our administrative expenses thirty five hundred dollars this is to pay our membership dues in the community preservation coalition and for public meeting notices and things of that sort just a thirty five hundred dollar allocation and that's our slate thank you are there questions this is actually not about all these wonderful projects but in regards to your votes because it's one of the things we always look at is our split votes and in your case it just looks like there are a bunch of extensions and of course it it's true that people never need to say why they're abstaining Mr. Slaughter for example mentions that he works for the schools but there aren't any issues that you feel anybody needs to be aware of associate with those abstentions no there were two extensions that involve a conflict of interest one was the AMHT proposal one of our members had been on the board of that organization and the other one was the baseball proposal because one of the members me is on the board of Amherst baseball we had one member join us midway through and she abstained from a number because she didn't hear the original presentation so they were pretty non-controversial abstentions are there any questions is there anyone in the public that wanted to offer a comment or suggestion relative to the CPA article in town on the town war that opportunity since we still have folks here so the other thing I would say is runnington did a great job of chairing this year I know it's a trying experience to take on that role for the first time and the report and the presentation are continuing part of that role having been the latest and to the committee and having been to a number of meetings at all the number of the meetings this year I thought that it was a very open very good process and I really appreciated the guidance that you gave it thank you yes come a little bit closer so the camera can get you Jack will my daughter precinct five I just wanted to thank Dave so Mac for giving such a wonderful presentation during the TMCC bus tour so I'm familiar with all of the things that you're talking about because Dave really gave a complete overview thank you thank you thanks for their discussion or if not then perhaps one of the motions on our motion she goes to article 12 it's parts that authorization includes other so I think this is to separate motions the way it's constructed yep so I moved to recommend to the April 30 2018 annual town meeting article 12 a community preservation act annual distribution of funds in the amount of $955,645 and there's a second is there for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye and this 4 to 0 with one absence that's what you want to go ahead maybe I should note to my colleagues that I'll be willing to speak to that as soon as I'm if so requested in 12 be a move to recommend to the April 30 2018 annual town meeting article 12 be community preservation act open space borrowing authorization for obscene property acquisition the amount of $113,000 and I'll put in that I would be willing to speak okay so mr. Steinberg speaking is there further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye and so that's you have one absent so thank you very much appreciate your time so next on our list of articles for town meeting is a series of capital program items equipment buildings facilities bond authorization bond authorization for water sewer etc etc so miss Aldrich are you coming to share some information with us on those items bear with me because I came in on the tail end of all of us as clear as possible so I will suggest I'm presuming check pretty long list through all the things that are going to be you can get the highlights as it were of the of the things that are within any of the given articles if you would prefer the little more brief because we could be here well don't have a plane meets a number of weeks in a row so there are certain ones that are of particular interest within each of those articles that would be helpful so article 13 and 14 to be a part of the joint capital planning committee report so all the information you ever need to know about any of these capital projects can be seen in this report and it is on the website in the town meeting page and I believe you and it is on the JCPC website as well this is broken down article 13 is the equipment purchase first I want to note that we kept to our 9% in the capital plan as spending but just a little side when we put our budget estimates together this year we went with the 9% for capital spending because the town manager feels it's very important to keep with our goal to 10% however you all remember we had a $400,000 deficit overall and up in our revenue sources for the entire town budgets town school library and what the health insurance that's what the health insurance deficit we were still $400,000 short the contingency plan is if the state aid didn't come in differently more that we were going to reduce the capital to 8.5% town manager didn't want to do that we did a lot of scrounging around and we found three years of overlay surplus that we were able to release which totaled 329,000 so we're staying with our spending of 9% in the capital plan however the funding source we've reduced the taxation by 300,000 and added 300,000 from overlay surplus to keep it at 9% and keep going forward but still recover a good chunk of that deficit we did receive a little more money in state aid with the houseways and means budget that came through most of that was in the reduction of his assessments but we our budget is now in balance going into town meeting the overall town budget and this is how we accomplished it so I just wanted to get that on here it's not in the JCCC report because it happened of course days after the report was done granted and sent to town meeting however did get it in time for the finance committee books so the funding sources in the finance committee book and article 13 are as they will be at town meeting so I just wanted to get that out so article 13 is the equipment portion and we are recommending 1,136,925 dollars to fund equipment purchases and of that 260,000 will come from ambulance fund receipts which will cover an ambulance which we are buying in this equipment list is one of the noteworthy things and 300,000 of it is coming from the overlay surplus as I just explained to you in this article are things software applications cruisers school bus special ed van furniture backup generator for river and like I said the list is online and it's also in the finance committee book anybody I don't want to take a look at it article 14 is the buildings and facilities portion of this and we this article appropriates 2,007,864 dollars from taxation for building repairs and maintenance of and maintenance and facility improvements and that includes roads the town manager wanted to get a million dollars in for road repairs in addition to the chapter 90 funding we didn't quite hit the million we have 968,364 this includes energy management upgrade for school buildings police station roof design and repair townhouse security street lights and list is like I said I'm not sure I need to elaborate elaborate any more on this we think questions will come back to it but that's a theory on okay so that's so article 15 is a bond authorization for the transportation phone and this is I believe 400 it's not in the article but the motion an authorization for $450,000 and that is for the parking lot in front of town hall and this is in in conjunction with the North Common doing to the North Common renovate or restoring yes that's in combination with that we wanted to do the parking lot at the same time that we are doing the North Common which the money the funds from the North Common came from CPA funding previously article 16 is a bond authorization for the water fund and this is a to borrow two million dollars for to pay for replacement of water main and old water lines in conjunction with the mass highway work on North Campton Road that's about all I can tell you about article 17 is a bond authorization for the sewer fund and this is for a million dollars to replace the new gravity belt thickener and they want to thickener the gravity belt thickener they have now is very old and it breaks down they want to continue maintaining that and use it as a as a backup but they need to replace the one that's used every day with this funding and then bond authorization for public education government fund which is Amherst Media and this is some part of the contract that was just recently signed by Amherst Media or ACTV and the town of Amherst and this in that contract town agreed to ask for a bond authorization for $410,000 to pay for cost of audio visual equipment this the money that were the capital money that we're getting from this contract comes in over 10 years I think the first three years was 95,000 and the next seven years is going to be 120,000 and in order for them to do this and do it right they need the capital up front and the town said the town agreed that we would ask for a bond authorization to do this when they were ready that is correct and I actually had previously reported that for the select board when we constructed the warrant I explained the nature of the contract and why the contract required that we put the money in the debt services will be paid out of ACTV's portion of the capital that's coming in there's 1.1 million yeah it's paid out of I think the revenues from Comcast isn't it that we received from Comcast in the contract with them they provided and what we did was we agreed with Amherst Media ACTV to divide the money between the town and ACTV on an agreed upon method because we have expenses coming during the period of the long length of the contract for replacing what we now call the INET and in that whole negotiation there was an agreement that we would do this ask town meeting to authorize this in order to move more money early make more money earlier in the contract available to ACTV and but it all comes out in the end from the payments we will be receiving from our contract with Comcast. The other thing I'll note on that is that you can correct me if I'm incorrect on this but there's two revenue sources from Comcast there's one that's related to the number of subscribers and the other piece is a commitment by them for capital expenses and so this is a dedicated resource that's not as dependent upon how many subscribers there are so regardless of the number of subscribers over the next decade that contract is still such that they will pay this capital portion of that contract to us so the income stream is essentially guaranteed by virtue of that contract which gives us additional confidence and in sort of going into this debt authorization to help them get equipment in the short term so I think at this point unless you had anything else to add about all six or seven of these that we have questions for yes you mentioned the much needed work on the north parking lot in front of the town hall but given that there's been some kind of a scheduling change in the work of the North Common these two projects supposed to be coordinated is that Mr. Zellnig want to speak to this too does it make sense to do this without that or how can you talk about the interface between these two projects because there are some aesthetic as sure yes I know that there has been some reference to these projects in the newspaper recently so the plan has been slightly adjusted originally back in the winter we had hoped to design and kick off this project and actually been at construction during 18 realistically when we looked at schedules when we looked at funding sources and we looked at how much public involvement we wanted to have in that process we working with the town manager and staff and committee and board members decided that more realistically it made sense to kick off the design this year I have the design done in 18 bid it in probably February of 19 to be under construction for both the main street parking lot and the common together as soon after the colleges and the university graduate as possible and we have that kind of sweet spot there when town is not as busy and we won't interfere with the movement of traffic and pedestrians as much so that's really the plan Chris both of the words toward the end of the fiscal year yes a Christine Breastrup the planning director will will lead that effort with of course some lead involvement with by the historical Commission and two representatives have volunteered to be part of that effort as well as two representatives from the LSE Commission because of course some LSE and the historical Commission really combined to recommend the North Common Project so I know that we are planning a kickoff meeting in May that date is being finalized now as you all know dates in May with some meeting dates are challenging but I know Christine Breastrup is working on that and we'll have that date to you as soon as we can okay so short answer is because the same fiscal year we're still safe here it's a borrowing application right we won't borrow money until we start studying right but it will be done so the other thing I will add at this point just talking of bonding I believe it's relative to the water fund borrowing the two million to pay for water main and system replacements on North Hampton Road the Mass DOT has been and actually had a meeting probably a year ago at this point talking about some changes and renovations to Route 9 from Central University Drive up the hill to Pleasant Street that stretch of North Hampton Road or I guess that is North Hampton Road in its entirety there they have a fairly wide-ranging set of things they'd like to do there in including more sidewalks and multi-use paths and things like that and so the idea behind this is that a while they've got this thing torn us under we'll fix some things underneath it that we need to attend to anyway I will report that when the Piner Valley MPO Municipal Planning Organization meets next Tuesday we will be putting out for public comment the what they call the tip which is the transportation improvement plan for the next five years this particular project has been moved back a little bit but that doesn't mean we if we can get authorization for that borrowing now it again as as Ms. Aldrin said we wouldn't borrow the money till the project would come into into reality but that plan that that tip plan the it's essentially the capital plan for the road projects in the in Piner Valley use state and federal money you know it will be done with town meeting by the time it gets locked in and they technically it's like our capital plan it's the coming fiscal year is it's solidly in place the other four are subject to things moving around and so it while being pushed back a little bit from what originally was planned which I think was probably federal fiscal year 20 it may go to federal fiscal year 21 but at the same time this this work may actually proceed that work in some respect so but that's the intention behind this while they're doing work on that stretch of the roadway that will will take care of the underlying water system at the same time sort of trying to coordinate with a mast out on that we have other questions relative to the equipment or buildings and facilities or other things that we have a number question on our motion sheet which I know you don't have but article 13 capital program equipment I believe you said 1 million 136 925 we always fill in those numbers but since we're putting it on yeah I think double-checking but I think the sources were slightly that's where it's going to be different and that's what I just wanted to make sure we reflect that before we make the first motion right so just to confirm that because the total amount the 1 million 136 925 is correct 264 the ambulance fund is correct the amount from taxation right now is showing on our on our motion sheet as 876 925 but you're saying it's gonna be reduced by 300,000 so it's 526 okay so it's exactly 300,000 yes he said 264 260 I mean it's 260 enough it stays to stay okay so yeah so the 876 925 number changes to 576 right and then we need to mention the 300,000 from so whoever would like to make that motion we'll have to get on those details right or at least mr. Zomek will in our minutes but I move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 13 capital program equipment in the amount of 1 million 136,925 dollars of which 576 925 is from taxation 260,000 from the ambulance fund and 300,000 from the is there a second second he's there for their discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye I care as you need to stay with one absent yeah and on all of these motions miss Krueger will be making the motion as chair of the committee and I think as has been prior practice for those mr. Slaughter who is in that dual role it's likely that we would just have her speak to it mostly to report our vote that you wouldn't be saying anything separately and a likelihood yeah I agree I think that's likely what we'll do so I just want to indicate speaker assignments right give me a way that she's not here she's not here and she's the chair and so all those reasons are good reasons yeah all the yeah all the capital one she'll take those so if we could have another motion in less than two other questions but we'll take a marco 14 as far as a motion I move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 14 capital program cap program buildings and facilities building facilities in the mouth of 2,000,000 7,864 second his motion is second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye and that's you name this one absent someone want to continue on anyone move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 15 capital program bond authorization transportation fund in the amount of $450,000 is there a second second all right the motion is second is there further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye and that's you name my absent move to recommend the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 16 capital program bond authorization water fund in the amount of $2,000,000 is there a second motion a second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 17 capital program bond authorization sewer funds in the amount of $1,000,000 second motion second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye and so again 4-0 with absent and all of those I'm assuming that we have agreed to this last one I'm going to vary from that but I mean to move to recommend to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 18 capital program bond authorization peg fund in the amount of $410,000 Mr. Steinberg to speak on the article on behalf of the select for a second motion to change the speaker thank you is there further discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye and one person absent so it's a 4-0 with one absent I believe that takes care of all those articles this Aldrich thank you very much I want to it's my fault because Miss Krueger said didn't you complain about something last year on the report well tell me what it was you complained about last year much really but I remember what one of the things was which would be lovely we know for next time to put the names of the representatives and the designations you know so-and-so and so-and-so from the select board so-and-so and so-and-so just like her in the CPAP well when I was here we made sure to get that in there yeah how is it possible that online they're there and they're not here it's the better one thank you that's interesting and I love that but what went in the mailing didn't have the names so you might want to double check that nothing else changed like dollars into a thousand some place well that great so thank you for getting those things there and so thank you very much so next on our agenda under action discussion items is article 38 it's petition article a resolution to nuclear war so thank you for your patience this evening we had a lot of other hurdles to get over in the meantime but if you decide to introduce yourself and tell us about your article I will Linda say a precinct nine and I'll speak to support the resolution to pull back from the brink and prevent nuclear war and to do so I'd like to share an abbreviated version of talk that Dr. Ira Helfen two-time Nobel Peace Prize winner presented at the UN last Monday as long as nuclear weapons exist it's not a question of if they'll be used only a question of when for 70 years the world has dodged a series of bullets and we've been extraordinarily lucky but we cannot depend on our luck lasting forever if we do not eliminate these weapons one day either by design or accident they will be used and statistically there are some 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world today most of them are 10 to 50 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb recent studies have shown that even a limited regional nuclear war using just a hundred Hiroshima sized weapons will be a global catastrophe 20 to 30 million people will die in the first week as a direct result of the explosions of fire and radiation but this is only part of the story the fires will loft 50 million tons of soot into the upper atmosphere blocking out the sun for more than a decade the resulting climate disruption and catastrophic decline in food production will cause a global famine and that is a limited nuclear war so let us consider the consequences of a large-scale nuclear war by describing what an attack today on a city like New York would look like to understand the devastation let me use the model of a single 20 megaton explosion this model underestimates the destruction that will take place but it's an adequate approximation within a thousandth of a second a fireball will form reaching out for three kilometers in every direction within this area the temperature will raise to 20 million degrees and everything will be vaporized the buildings the people the trees the upper level of the earth itself they will all disappear to a distance of five kilometers in every direction the explosion will generate winds in excess of a thousand kilometers per hour and blast pressure greater than 25 pounds per inch mechanical forces of this magnitude will destroy anything that human beings can build to a distance of nine kilometers in every direction the heat will be so intense that automobiles will melt to a distance of 25 kilometers in every direction the heat will still be so intense that everything flammable will burn cloth paper heating oil gasoline plastic it will all ignite and hundreds of thousands of fires will coalesce over the next 30 minutes into a giant firestorm 50 kilometers across within this area the entire area the temperature will rise to 800 degrees Celsius all the oxygen will be consumed and every living thing will die this is the danger we face it's not the future that must be but it's the future that will be if we don't eliminate nuclear weapons to this end a hundred and fifteen nations have signed a humanitarian humanitarian pledge which was created by ICANN again the organization that won a nuclear a Pulitzer Prize Nobel Prize this legal instrument fills the gap in international law and we propose that all communities in the Commonwealth support back from the brink a call to prevent nuclear war we call on the United States to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first ending the president's sole unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack taking US nuclear weapons off hair trigger alert and canceling the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons and finally actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals once approved this petition will be sent to Elizabeth Warren Ed Markey James McGovern and President Trump many communities including Northampton have already supported the pledge at their town meetings and we anticipate thousands of communities across the country will embrace the call and flood legislative offices with support and we urge Amherst to be among those communities thank you thank you I appreciate you bringing this forward to us for consideration and to town meeting for consideration and I speak very eloquently to the issue so I don't need to repeat what you said it has been policy of the select board in past several years that if there are petition articles that are resolutions do not have a direct bearing on the operation or the budget of the town that we defer to town meeting and the judgment of town meeting and those motions and do not make a recommendation so I will probably suggest that this falls into that class where it really is a question of the town meeting and doesn't mean that as individual members of town meeting we wouldn't support felt for something in that category because we often do is individuals but it's a question of whether the select board is should be making recommendations so but I turned ultimately that's a decision for the board as entirety and I always say that as an individual always pleased to see and work with the petitioner and I know Mr. Dr. Hellfam is also very eloquent spokesman I haven't come to my class once he's scared the hell out of the kids accident with there were the next day I just I agree with Mr. Steinberg I you know just two comments in the margins here I mean think number one the relative frequency of these kind of resolutions that have no practical bearing on town government of course is one of the things that help to erode people's patience with town meeting and number two one of the reasons people were dissatisfied with town meeting is because it became very clear many town meeting members did not understand complex articles such as zoning and housing and budgets and have not done their homework or hadn't received adequate information and so here for example some of these questions such as whether to upgrade the nuclear arsenal with more accurate weapons have been debated for years at least in 1980s you know the arguments on both sides of that now it's simply submit that if town meeting members can't understand zoning I'm not sure they understand nuclear weapons and technical military technological questions but I'll leave conscious well actually I can pretty disappointed as would many people if the select board didn't support this I understand your previous history of not supporting articles that are not specifically related to embers but this is the very basis I mean if we if we had a nuclear war actually the budget articles would be moved I just am making a point I think that the the rationale we've used in the past is that that well not the rationale but if we what we typically do is take no position which is neither positive nor negative so it in and that often sounds as though it's a negative although it's it's more about deferring to the judgment of town meeting relative to the to the article so so that has been our our our past practice particularly on on resolutions of this sort because it really I think the generally the intention most of time of these kinds of articles is to get a sense of the body of town meeting and and we sort of yield to that to that notion and so we don't want to promote or push back against those those sentiments following up on what you all said it may not appear as clear to other people but since we've been doing this a while that's how it appears to us this is not a select board resolution and so if it was brought to us as a kind of proclamation then we might decide if we were going to do research we were going to do and then we as a select board would say as a select board we believe this for all the other town meeting articles because we're part of the year-round government we say because our town government says we're supposed to we give recommendations on those town meeting articles we do not interpret that to mean that we have to give recommendations on proclamations and petition articles and so again rather than the select board saying we think town meeting you should do this because based on what so we kind of take ourselves back a step as opposed to the capital planning that we've been involved in all year round and so it doesn't mean we won't vote for it it doesn't mean we don't agree with it it's just that I think we've been trying to establish that line to make things a little clearer as to where we see our role thank you so any other comments or does someone want to make a motion to take no position on the April to the April 30th it's not recommended the select board reports that they have taken no position to the April 30th 2018 annual town meeting article 38 petition resolution to prevent nuclear no position can be reported out by the chair I can probably do that is there a second there is a second all right is it for the discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye all right closed so we have one answer thank you for coming thank you for staying appreciate you sharing it with us and sharing it with the town because that's also an important thing for you to do is to get in front of the community with the with the television so that's helpful and thank you for listening appreciate it thank you all right now moving on to our next action and discussion item which is for C the establishment of a town charter transition committee I believe it was on our desk this evening was a copy of it yes so the material is put together the top of which was a letter from from the folks at the Hampshire what Hampshire Cobb but we're looking at the next page which is the the charts that mr. Bachman puts together that basically brings forward the language as it's written in the in the charter that passed in in March and I think for us at this point we have to I think what we have to do is to think about this particular piece that is a actually need to take relative to the charter passing and and in a sense sort of fine-tune you might understanding from feedback from a couple of members who preach out to me and eventually it's just they want to articulate more specifically the the task this particular group would take as we go through the transition it can be viewed as a kind of more straightforward exercise which I think you know the manager and I characterize it as he's I think sees it as a much more ministerial act of going through the existing bylaws at the town has and kind of making sure that there's a clear path for transitioning those to to the new council form of government I think there are lots of other more subtle thorny and problematic things relative to making the transition personally I I think those things regarding transition we may want to have a different committee do that but I think articulating what this group is going to do to what extent would be the discussion we need to have tonight as far as trying to frame it as precisely as we can and think about how we would populate this with with members so I'm open to hearing people's suggestions comments etc I also don't have any expectation will necessarily do all of that tonight but I do want to see if people have opinions having read through this a little bit and thought about it if they have so I think that the one thing that I would like to see this committee do and I would like it to be in the minutes it's not necessarily rewording the charge to do something different in the wording of the charge from just picking up on the actual language and the Charter Commission report in the Charter is adopted but to also as the body is looking at the changes that might be necessary in the bylaws as a result of the adoption of the Charter to use the opportunity to take a look at the bylaws in general and if there are any bylaws that might need the attention of future attention of the council once elected for any number of reasons including that they're no longer enforced that they no longer legal but they're no longer necessary whatever but they're not sufficiently that she were to achieve the purpose that was intended if those types of things are found in the review of the article that the committee not be shy about including those in its report now motion because I said that I was not suggesting as motion but wanting it to make sure that something along those lines got into the minutes of nothing else so I'm gonna try really hard to make this shorter because I already talked about this a little bit when we first touched on it for a second and my opinion hasn't changed about the the thing I want to if I could first ask Mr. Steinberg to be clear on the fact that what you are considering is adding a couple sentences to this to it will do what it's supposed to do but just to be clear in the charge we would also like to be clear that you can do this when I see when you see the bylaws which if that is what you're talking about makes me feel better about the whole thing because I have talked with four different members of the nine member charter commission and gotten four different answers as to exactly what they believed this to be so it's not as simple as well it's just what the words say no it's not just what the words say there's a lot more to it than that potentially as we dig in so for example I was wondering at first why this wasn't simply a KP law job where they would sit down and say oh look here's what bylaws they have change all the references to this for town meaning although as one charter commissioner pointed out there might be some refer to select board or town manager and we would need to there's more of a judgment call associated with that then there is with simply changing all the town meetings find and replace anything then of course there's also the issue as mr. Stiver just pointed out one of my favorite bylaws is the signed bylaw that was from 1939 about the select board permitting political signage on in public on town on property which was written obviously in response to the brand-new and exciting representative town meeting that was developed back then and has no bearing on anything we've done in the last 20 years at least then anybody can remember so what I don't want is I don't want the earnest people on this committee saying oh look the select board had the power to issue political signage on town property therefore now it's up to the town council to do that or it's up to the town manager do that's like no nobody's actually doing that because we know it's a bad idea and so trying to understand how we can put the people and keep a lot of them know that either they don't know if I handed that to them they might tell us it's illegal or unwise but they wouldn't know that we're not actually doing it because they don't know our bylaws that way either and so I was concerned that to some extent this seems like a way of chipping out on doing the project that's like really we're gonna just have volunteers do something that attorneys should be doing but from the standpoint of thinking about the judgment issues you know probably you know six of us in town know that we don't do that political permitting thing so I don't know how we put somebody on the committee who knows that and knows to ask the question on the other hand you know the thing other things are much simpler and I'm sure there's some other stuff in there too that we're simply not doing because it's become illegal you know we're not in the situation we're talking about pitching posts at least you know our bylaws on that far out of date but they are out of date and one of the charter commissioners mentioned that a colleague of theirs who had worked on their charter commission and on their bylaw review commission did find to that theirs were out of date as well and so they were able to separate out what those things were and that helped them that helped the future council decide where to focus these things are the easy obvious things these things need more research etc they had a much larger that was the slow matter in particular they had much larger bylaw review committee when mr. Bachman recommended three which came up evidently in individual conversations one thing I mentioned is that that then prevents any of those members from talking to each other and we all while we always just encourage people to from talking outside of posted meetings and it's not just a quorum issue it is also true that it's really awkward to really not let people talk at all I don't have any idea how three members select men bodies do it throughout municipality and the answer is they often don't do it very well and so I'm a little leery about the three but again I'm concerned about who we put on it not from the political standpoint a couple people have mentioned to me not to our commissioners but walk actually one chart cushion about people who are running or not and I don't think that's relevant at all to this discussion that separate committee that we've alluded to a couple of times that might be dealing with other transition issues as we come as we run across them might well need to appear not to be politically motivated in any fashion but people who can review by a willing to work with town council the town manager on this and to then go to my view need to you know when they see something it's about signage to talk to the town manager about talking to mr. Mora or about talking to the select knowing to ask about some of these things I don't think that that had anybody should have to count themselves in or out associated with whether or not they're eventually running for council or hoping to obtain some other position in the new form of government so I think that pretty much covers all my concerns hopefully one of you has a magic solution right well I think you might read conversations with managers he did feel that the lion share of the work would be that would be undertaken by the town attorney because it is you know sort of finding all the instances of how meeting how manager select board and what language changes need to go with that but I think the the secondary piece you know that you guys have alluded to relative to some judgment about you know either things being outdated or the practicality and that sort of thing that's a that's the second tier that's definitely more in the the rightful place for determining that is is the committee members themselves because they live here and and hopefully have some sense of that but I do think it is an essential component is to identify any of those that seem in need of a more significant refresh than just swapping out who's in you know the town meeting for town council and and that sort of thing so I think perhaps if we can tidy up or add that language to some extent Mr. Steinberg mentioned that might do it I think the other question that you raised just about whether it have like an odd number so they can always come to a majority you know whether we should go with five perhaps it is going to be tedious I think is maybe the best word to describe a lot of this will be just come tedious work to go through these but necessary so as far as moving from it as well what my colleague said and I was chicken and egg thing I can't quite figure this out either because if it's a matter of changing town meeting to town council a monkey or rather the algorithm could do it if it's a matter of thing more complicated than the town attorney should do it so that's you know that's that's one issue I also agree about the numbers three being rather small I guess the other thing is that since Mr. Steinberg and Miss Brewer mentioned the need to look at larger questions I have the same question how do you populate such a committee who knows that so I have two thoughts on that fairly incoherent one might be that since we probably know some of these issues of the town manager know some of the issues we might begin to develop a list of things for people to look at along the lines of Mr. Steinberg said but the other thing is it seems to me it might almost be necessary to create this committee in tandem with the other one so we can be clear what the differential differentiation between the roles is I know that's probably what I'm puzzled by I've had people ask me too so do you understand what the transition is going to be you guys can have two committees and public is confused about this also I think the the biggest concern in the short term relative to this because the charge specific right and and it has a requirement that be formed in the 30 days right I know we have time that's the real yeah I don't mean difficult point but I I think that if we decide to form a second group to sort of analyze some of these things that to draw those in parallel draw them up in parallel and distinguish those differences important as well yeah by tandem I just meant thinking about them the same way because obviously time pressure does bear on this one right I was actually need to look at the calendar we have another meeting before the 30 days expires I think we have a packet for Monday yeah Monday week so we could have it come back on Monday that's right but Mike I think that what could be considered is the addition of a sentence and the reason to do this to do this as a single one is you're looking at the bylaws anyway instead of doing the work and as you're going through the bylaws by go through the bylaws twice you have two separate groups going through the bylaws something along the lines of and we don't have to just craft it tonight because Mr. Backemin may have some suggestions on wording too but the committee shall also review the bylaws to determine whether they are serving their intended purposes and make recommendations to the council elect as appropriate oh yeah I totally agree I didn't just be clear I didn't mean that we should have separate committee for the bylaws as opposed to the wording of the bylaws but just there has been talk of different transition committee units we should I think as soon as possible figure out what the if we need one in so the charges but I quite agree the encouragement to look at bylaws in general can go here in one place beyond wanting to be more specific as I always do associated with references to 10.7 you 10.7 v because it's not term of appointment until terminated normally that means that it's either an ongoing or a time-limited committee those are the two choices for that right and until terminated is that just sounds bad but in fact it does that language is pulled out of the charter which does indicate that when the council appoints the new version of this it may very well bring all the same people over but that this particular committee is terminated and so we'll just find a way to reference 10.7 and be there to make that clear that it's not it doesn't expire the day Town Council gets elected it expires one Town Council decides it does based on what the charter says and so that is more or less until terminated but it just especially this phone employees is not an S there but especially this phone employee status and yes we would want to give people that because of course they might also be serving on conservation commission or something like that that would be appropriate one of the things that I think I've gone back and forth with the town manager about associated with this is while the charter indicates we have to do this right just like we put that question on the annual on the town town meeting more we do not generally for many of our committees well let's perhaps we have a varying amount of responsibility we take on for various committees that some of them were very hands-off with some of them go to every time they meet some of them we work closely with them to make other things happen others just are kind of doing their own thing and yeah we appoint them but kind of that's the end of the story not saying all that's good that's just the reality of where we're at because there's limited time and energy to go around this is a committee that we're required to appoint we just have to do it I'm a little uneasy given the importance of the committee of just saying okay off you go bye bye and you report to the town council at the end and I don't get to hear from you ever again so I'm actually encouraged by the idea of adding a sentence about bylaw review in general and I'd like to somehow say because we usually have much longer charges than something along the lines of showing that the expectation is they will talk to people that they and I know that seems obvious but I don't think we should assume it's obvious and that they will talk to of course to talk to staff they need to go through the town manager but that they will talk to you know if there's there's one about Adcom for example that they talk to Adcom or somebody from Adcom not just make assumptions based on the things that they know because we're planning that point that's the whole point of figuring this out is who are we gonna point to it and we want them to be people who are familiar with things they're not gonna be as familiar as we are but I want to make it clear somehow something to the effects that their work will be informed by interactions with other committees so I'm not saying they got to go to committee meetings or the committees are gonna have to appear in front of them but to show that there's the expectation that they're not just working in a bubble and because they're not just doing a fine every place they are doing does anyone think we need to have one of the one or more of the select board members be a part of this I'm sure she'd appreciate that we offered that while she's gone I'm not saying I have an opinion about them just offering as a suggestion to you know carry some intent and some experience into this but at the same time doesn't necessarily have to be that way yeah I think the the idea of whether one of us should serve serve to help bring that experience to it or not okay so along those lines yeah too is really busy and so this is going to be interesting work but we still we're not giving anything up so the tent while my initial temptation was to ensure that a select board member and the charter commissioner were on it because again that whole four people four different answers but nine people nine different answers but just to have some continuity you know when there's a question of well what did you mean by this what was the discussion that went behind that and they would that would be helpful to have rather than having to go and find them so to speak to have them be but I was also even wondering if we wanted to somehow make a select board member and a charter commissioner member like associate members which is not something we typically do we normally have you know we normally just have our liaison though which we all fulfill in different ways some much more diligently than others and others just you know depends on the committee but this is an unusual thing so maybe we do an unusual thing and we consider having non-voting associate members not liaisons but non-voting members so the idea would be that you're responsible so that they that the select board member and the charter commissioner responsible for being the point person for those two organizations so there is somebody that's responsible beyond the town manager but then they don't necessarily have to go to every meeting and they don't have to be the ones doing the finding the place work they're not you not altering the quorum of two of three if you take those two off then you can have any number and have them as associate non-voting members you can have any size body you want yeah I mean I think if you did that what you probably want to do is not is leave the number of voting members is it is and then an associate members section immediately under above the bold line I also amended tried an amendment to my sentence to capture some to capture what you just said so that the sentence could read night have to say you don't need to copy it down as she's on that I can get it to you later the committee to consider this language the committee shall consult with the appropriate staff boards committees and members of the public and also review the bylaws to determine them the rest is saying whether they are serving their intended purpose and make recommendations to the council elect as appropriate so the captures all of the thoughts that come forward in this discussion and send this along to his judgment a little bit difficult I know I mean you may have different wording to get those words across so so I feel like that's done so that's good and so now what about the membership so what about I mean this crazy idea that I was living for the first time because we can only do this in a posted meeting of associate members and then and then just the three core still makes sense and so therefore the three core would not be a lot more remember our commission member they would be three members of the public I know individuals have contacted some of us and have written to us this board etc we don't have time to do the CAF process at this point and it's not necessary anyway but in terms of not only getting this charge done next week we need to be thinking about bringing members forward next week I don't think we have to have it populated right I think just I think we just have to go come on but you can't form a committee that doesn't have people a point a committee sorry guys I mea