--------- It's 6:01. Shall we start or we give Matea another minute? Philip, do you know if she's coming? >> Yep. Um, she's currently in the waiting room right now. Can move. Okay, great. >> To panelists. Okay,
we have everyone here. So, it is now 6:02 p.m. on July 15, 2026, and I am calling the meeting of the Human Rights Commission to order. Uh, let's just start with attendance.
Milan >> here. Rizswana. Oh, Rswuana is not here. Okay. Matia >> here. >> Silus >> here.
>> Ronnie. Yes. Jay. Uh Jay, you're muted. >> Present. >> Alex >> here. Okay. Welcome everyone to this somewhat special human rights commission meeting.
It's um special for many reasons. One being that we have a full compliment for the first time in the two and a half maybe three years that I've been on the commission. We've never had all seats filled and we do today. All seven seats
are taken at the Human Rights Commission. And I'm happy to welcome Matia Kramer, our newest commissioner. Uh so Matia, do you want to say a few words about yourself and then we'll also go maybe we should Yeah. And then we'll
go around and say a little bit about who we are before we get started. >> Sure. I'd be delighted to and my understanding from Philip is that I'm not a voting member tonight um because I will have to be confirmed and sworn in. But I'm I'm so delighted to to be here.
Um yeah, I um have lived in Ammerst for many years and also went to college here and um I um most uh interfaced with the human rights commission a few years ago when um the town was working on the
reparations initiative and um have admired the work that the human rights commission does in um trying to create a space to um hear complaints. um of human rights violations in town. And of course I and I've also come up to speed a little bit on the work that you
guys have been doing on immigration over the past year plus and I'm grateful to that for that work and um hoping to be able to contribute. So thank you for having me here and very um glad to be here. >> Okay. Well, welcome. Um, I know our
names are on the screens, but if it would be good if everyone's voice could be out there before I start getting into the official official meeting. So, let's start with um, Milan since you're a C
and then we'll just continue. Milan, call on somebody else when you're done. Your name, something, whatever you want to say about yourself that's not too long. >> Okay. Um, well, I'm Milan. I've been on the commission for has it been a year
now I think. Is it even a year? Like yeah a little bit. Um yeah I uh am resident and uh went to UMass and stay here for like afterwards. Um and uh yes
we uh have met before. So uh welcome. >> Oh uh Roy. >> Hi everyone. My name is Roy. Um, I'm not very important. I'm not on the commission, but I am here to sit in and take the minutes. I am Philip's intern in the DEI department and I am going
into my senior year at UMass. So, >> Roy, you are important. Let's get that on camera. >> Let's get that. >> The work does not happen without our interns. >> Thank you. Thank you. I have a very nice boss. So, I'll I'll hand it off to Phillip.
>> Hello. We've uh met briefly. I'm Philip Agula, the assistant director for diversity, equity, inclusion. I'm also the staff leazison for the town of Ammerst um and many I'm sure other things but yes so yeah the formality of things is that uh the council will meet
on the 20th for um Matia's official uh acknowledgement and then and then from there you you will get sworn in and be a voting member. But as the practice of the commission, you always get invited to the meetings when that is all
happening. >> I will pass it to you, Silus. >> Uh, hi, I'm Silus McClung. I use uh he him pronouns and welcome welcome to the commission. Really thrilled to to meet you if not virtually. And u so I've been
on the commission now for maybe close to the past two years. um and was just renewed. So very excited about that and to um to get to get to work with you on on the on the various issues that that are that are facing facing Amherst. So
thank you and I'll pass it to um Jay. >> Well, hi. Um also welcome Matea. Uh you know we're all very happy to have you here. uh you know also you know living in the
town uh for the past 20 plus years and I've been taught uh I guess in the college system here especially amateur college very sad to see it close um and so I'm just doing research now in the areas of Alzheimer's as well as
ethnusicology but I'm you know quite active in things such as human rights and things like that uh So, Alex, >> thank you. Hi, my name is Alex. Um, I've been on the commission for a year now. I
think it's going to be a year in August. And, um, I go to Ammerst College. I'm a rising junior. So, I've been living in Ammerst uh, for a little over two years. Yeah, I think I think those are the main things. Um, Rswana. Is Rswana here?
>> No. >> Oh, okay. Ronnie. >> Yeah. So, uh, I'm Ronnie Parker. I am now the chair. I'm probably in year four of my appointment. The sec, so it's the start of my second appointment.
Um, yeah, I came here to retire. I closed my business in December 2024 after I moved here. It took a while to close. Businesses are easy to open, very difficult to close. So, uh, I closed the business here and
I've been retired. And I think, uh, the two things that are closest to my heart are food, insecurity, and human rights. So, I'm very proud, honored to be here, and uh,
I will be stepping down at the next meeting. So, everyone should start thinking about who's going to be the next chair. So with that um I better do the formalities. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will
be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access
the proceedings in real time via technological means. So, welcome everyone and um are there any announcements as we start? Okay, let's move to um reports.
Uh is there any public are there any members in the public of the public present? Um, it looks like the answer is no. Um, so I won't bother reading the directions about public
comment. Uh, are there any member reports? run it. Can I just highlight a um event that's happening tomorrow that I think the commission should be aware of um in Switzer Park at 5:30? There's going to be a gathering for immigrant rights and
it's organized by various groups. So, just want to flag that for you all. >> Yeah. Um I just have Yeah. No, it doesn't matter. Let's go to the action and discussion items. So, the
first uh is to approve the minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? >> I motion to approve the minutes. >> Um, thank you, Silus. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Are there any comments on the
minutes? I'm sorry to be the only one to be reading the minutes, but I just want to make some little comments, Roy. Um, uh, if you go to three approved minutes, that first sentence and the sentence before that, it says J. Ple approves the
minutes. You say he makes a motion to approve the minutes. Um, and then I just had a couple of questions that I comments that I couldn't put into the uh text because it
was in PDF and I don't have the capacity to do that on my um uh computer. They're small things like that. So, if I could just send it to you via email, if the group could accept that, that would be helpful. If
not, we can go over it now. Milan Uh, from what I read, I would just make one little tiny comment about um the spelling of Joe Komaford. Just no e at the end. >> So bad, too. Yeah. >> Sorry, that's my bad. Thank you guys for the comments. I'll make sure to not send
it as a um as a PDF next time. My apologies. >> That's okay. So, is it okay if we just um if I just give a few small comments like that to Rory? And can we make a motion
to approve with changes? >> Could somebody move to approve with changes, please? That I will give to Roy. >> Okay. Approve. >> Can I make the motion, Philip, myself? Yeah, you can make a motion.
>> Okay, then I I move to approve the minutes with the changes that I will give to Roy. Can anyone second that? >> Second. >> I second. >> Okay. All in favor say yes. Yes.
Um, okay. Great. Thank you. All right. We have Rswbana here. Rswana, do you want to introduce yourself? We have a new uh member of the human rights commission, Matia Kramer. She's there somewhere, but >> yeah,
>> there she is. Okay, >> Rswana is here. The >> So, Rswana, do you want to say a little bit about yourself? We all did that. Pomia. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Welcome Kmer. Nice to see you. And um um I am
right now on a vacation having good time also I'm very much into the town of Ammerst politics and I love it. So wonderful uh we have done actually a great job. I'm just trying to I'm
totally honest about it because recently there were so many proactive things that happened and they are making a lot of waves like good stuff is happening uh from the perspective of human rights you know so it is just amazing that you have
joined us I'm really happy to see that uh you are going to be part of our team so uh cheers >> thank you so much Okay. Um, so shall we move to the next
agenda item? It's the annual report. As you know, we put together a report every year and you have the draft now. Um, has everyone looked at the draft? Okay. So, let's go by section. Are there
any comments for the first section which is in the introduction? Okay, Matia, is your hand up? I see a hand behind you. Okay. All right. Um, so I just have a small an
edit here, but I can make that. Um, so the next session is about our work. Um, are there any comments on that? Okay. The only comment I have really has to do with moving around text a little bit so things flow more easily and
that's because when many hands write in a text in a document things get a little weird. Uh comments on the events section. Okay. um comments on the complaints section.
We had more complaints than usual this year. We had 13 complaints. I see that as a not as a good sign, not because complaints are good, but because it means people are speaking up. And then the way forward which is very generic which is not atypical for our
reports because the planning for the way forward comes right after we submit the report but we can discuss that when we present it to the town council as far as the way forward. So it sounds like just a few edits and
then we can send it off. Are there any overall comments about the report this year? we'll see that it's you know when I first started it was one page and then it became two sides of a page then it became three pages and now it's five
pages this is just during my tenure I assume somebody will say something if they think it's too long so then I'll say thank you all for your contributions to the report and I will work with Alex to finalize it and then
we'll get it out to Phillip Yay. Another agenda item gone. Did we um Did we vote on the Did Did we vote on the minutes? I mean on the report, human rights report.
No, we did not. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes? That should have actually been done in the beginning. That's okay. Could I have the motion to approve the minutes with a few edits at the end? Do you have We already did the minute.
>> Did we? That's what I just asked. >> Yes, we did. Thank you. Well, I am getting old and maybe it is time for me [laughter] to >> No, no, Ronnie. And thank you, Ronnie, for for pulling together this report, both you and Alex. We appreciate it. I know it's a lot of work. >> All right, so we're all done then on
this agenda item. Let's go to the DI update. >> All right, >> let me pull that up really quick. Of course, I had it and then I lost it. [laughter] The DEI update. So, just want to acknowledge um Ammerst Pride that happened last month. We had over 500
markers with 37 different organizations there on the comments. So, we really are thankful to all of our partners um Ammeris Pride and the Ammeris Improvement District as well as all the other talent departments that help make that event uh possible. Community Heart
and Soul. We are in the process of um conducting second round interviews this week for the project coordinator and we're hoping to hire that position by the end of this um month here. So then that way they can start in August. We
shall see what happens with that. Um and then more information will come out probably soon after about when next events will happen and all that fun stuff. I just want to acknowledge that we were at the Ammerst fireworks show um tableabling there saw a lot of foot
traffic got a lot of um word out of what our department is doing. Um with that on display at town hall is a exhibit that the department created really focusing on voting rights and constitutional rights. The title of the exhibit is the
United States democracy 250 years in the making and it highlights kind of um you know the not so uh fun topics of our country's history in terms of voting rights and constitutional rights that have existed and still continue to
exist. The department supported and participated in the reading of the Frederick Douglas what to the slave is the 4th of July. Um that was happening on July 5th at South Church. Just want to thank everybody that was involved in
that as well. Tomorrow we are having a um disability pride month celebration with the Jones library. Um it is going to be a special reading that will happen, a story time highlighting um parolympic um athletes there and we will
have a special guest reading um two par Olympics here that live in Ammerst, Juan Dixon and Tory Dixon. That is tomorrow at the Jones Library or no not at the Jones Library. Oh yeah, tomorrow at the Jones Library sorry at 1:00. Um then on
Monday of next week, so July 20th at Mil River Pool, Tori and Juan are going to be joining us and talking a little bit more about their story because they were um swimmers there. So we thought it'd be wonderful to have them there at the pool. And then also the recck department is going to be highlighting some
adaptive swim equipment that um exists for our um disabled community. So um if you're able to join us at any of those two events, we encourage you to. And then um lastly, the DI July newsletter is up on our website. We're currently
kind of tweaking a little bit our website. Roy is helping with that. So, thanks Roy and we're hoping to get that rolled out by the end of the summer. With that, one thing to note for you all as a commission and all staff leans are communicating this to um every
commission board and committee that exists in town. we are kind of streamlining the process for agendas um documents and minutes so that way it's easier for community members to find kind of agendas and documents and all that. So there's going to be an agenda
center icon on the town's website starting August 1st and from there it will be like a pull down website. So, every board and commission will be listed and then from there you can click on the human rights commission and it will be agenda um packet and minutes and that will be easy for people to find.
With that there's going to be a u more cohesive like form that will exist for agenda and minutes. So, the minutes might look a little bit different as far as structurewise that's probably going to stay the same and we won't be able to
change it. But as far as contentwise, obviously like you all do every meeting, uh, we'll be able to vote and say, you know, what what needs to be in there and what doesn't need to be in there. So, just want to highlight that for you all.
Other than that, that's that's it. I just realized that there's a big agenda item that we have attachments for, but that's not on our agenda per se, but so we can come to it when we get to number six for other topics. Okay? Because you all looked at the
attachment, right? Because the last attachments have these other substantive work that we've been doing. Okay? Well, let's go to the um commission retreat planning. We agreed u last time that the retreat would be on the 5th of September.
Uh, is that still okay for everyone? Matia, we usually do that in person. >> I did see that in reviewing the packet. I um I have a conflict that I'm going to need to iron out. Um, so I'm Yeah. Um,
I just saw that this afternoon preparing for this meeting. >> There's not not a time scheduled yet for that for the retreat. No, we're going to talk about it now. Would the timing matter for you? >> Um, morning morning would potentially be
feasible. I committed to host something that day. Uh, so um if if but morning wouldn't could potentially work if that's a if that's an option. And also I realize I'm new here and um yeah, so
here we are. We try we try to get everyone to be at the retreat because it is our planning for the year and it's an important sort of getting to know each other and that kind of thing because all our meetings are on Zoom. It's really important to have that face to face and
I think we want to try to ensure that you're there too. Um, did we have another date or we Milan? It's your >> Well, I was just going to ask if uh it's possible to do August 29th instead.
It's uh just the Saturday before that. >> Uh I'm not I'm not able to be there on the 29th. I'm just flying in the into town on the 29th. Sorry. And did we rule out Sunday?
Because if we didn't, there's Sunday the 6th and there's Sunday the 29th. >> Philip, do you have a preference? >> Uh, we would prefer Saturday, but I mean Sunday work, >> right? Because you'd have to work on a Sunday essentially. Yeah.
Um let's look at the timing. We usually do go like midm morning to midafter afternoon and have lunch in between so that again it's an opportunity to get to know each other. >> Mhm. >> Um but we could go in the morning and
end with lunch instead of having lunch in the middle. Would that help you, Matia? >> I I'm not sure. I have to um I have to figure out how this squares with an pre
proceeding obligation. Um >> is everyone okay? Is everyone okay with the Saturday before >> the 21? >> Yeah. Oh yeah, you cannot be here. I forgot that. Yeah, >> I'm sorry. Um,
okay. So, later is hard for me because I'll be out of the country from September 8th to October 10th. Um, so I would suggest
how about a weekday? Can you take off work f Well, I don't know. What's all your work schedule like? >> Well, I I have work. Um, I don't think a hotel don't [laughter] think a I don't think a work day would work well for me. I'd have to take time off. Um, but if it
was absolutely necessary, I could, but I really No, we don't want you taking time off. >> Um, so what do we have left now? We have >> if if the six works, we I I will commit
myself. I cannot commit Pamela. Um, Silus, do you have your hand up? You know, I see it. Oh, no. That's my thing. I I see. Okay. >> And there's two possible Sundays. The 6th or is it August 30th? The preceding Sunday.
>> Yeah. >> Those both work. And um although not ideal for staff, [snorts] >> that'll be fine. I mean, >> Philip has been kind enough to Okay, it so the Sundays are the 30th or the 6th.
Philip, why don't you tell us if you have to do one of those Sundays, which is better for you? >> I mean, I prefer the 30th because then I get a three-day weekend. [laughter] >> Oh, right. Right. It's Labor Day weekend. Yeah, let's do it on the 30th. Would that work for you, Alex? I know
you said that you'd just be getting in. >> Yeah. No, it will work. >> Okay. Is everyone else okay with the 30th? So, let's do the retreat on August 30th. Um,
was it like 10 to 2 or 3 or something like that, Philip? Is that what we did before? >> Uh, last year was 10 to three. The year before that was 9 to2. So, whichever you all want to do. >> Um, is there a preference?
I like 10 to three because I like to sleep in on Sundays and take my time reading the paper and all that, which seems like a big luxury, but since nobody else has a preference, I'm going to [laughter] I'm going to suggest 10 to three,
but lunch in between. Okay, great. Are there any um food allergies that we need to be aware of for ordering on our end? I know rswana. No pork. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, thanks.
>> I don't eat meat. I eat fish. Yeah. But no, no meat. >> I think we can email you all that. Yes. All the private. >> That's fair. Yeah. Or I could send out a form. Roy, remind me to send out a form. I'll try and remember.
Okay. So then it seems um we do have to go to public comment before we move on. The next item is uh part of the um human rights retreat planning I think. Is there anything else related to planning that we need to talk about
Philip? >> Um I think just what do you guys want to talk about? So far I have the charge the bylaw and the charge. Is that the only item? Is there any other item that you would like us to plan in? I think definitely the uh plan for next year.
And then we also talked about student mentoring or bringing in people who are not that familiar with human rights but interested in the work of the commission. More of an outreach kind of thing. We talked about that. >> Okay.
>> Um was there anything else? There is the strategy for next year. That's the big item and definitely probably connected to the bylaws. Everyone should read the procedures in great detail because this is our chance
to actually decide what the complaints procedure is going to be to look at what we have, see what we like, see what we would like to change and have that open full discussion. So look at everything that's in the
procedures. There's I think a sentence there about annual appointments of leadership to voting in chairs every year which we have not done in the past. So there are things like that that if you have an opinion you should be
prepared and have thought about it so you can participate fully at the meeting. Ronnie, are those procedures all in the packet in that was for today's meeting or this is a separate document that has been >> It's a second a separate document. It
was shared last meeting. It's on the human rights website, but I can send out an email proceeding this meeting with it um to everybody so everybody has it in their email. >> Yeah, that would be really great if you could send that whole procedure section to everyone. Um,
okay. So, we're ready for public comment. I'm just going to look again to see if there's anybody in the public. Nope, there's only us, so we don't have to worry about that. >> You do have one person. >> I do. >> Yeah.
>> Okay, then. Um, so during the public comment period, the chair will recognize members of the public. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name, preferred pronouns, and residential address. Residents are
welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based on the number of people who wish to speak. No speaker can seed their time to another speaker. The HRC will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a
matter raised during public comment. Public comments are not reflective of the opinions of the commission. Okay. Uh we are now open for public comment. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your raise raise your hand.
All right. Uh I'll assume that there is no public comment. Uh the next meeting date normally would have been the third Wednesday in April, but because we're having our retreat, we will not have an a third Wednesday in August. Uh because
we're having a retreat, we will not have an August meeting. Um, so we're now on to other topics in our agenda and I think we should address the rest of the attachment that we have not
discussed yet that's here and there are two things. one is a fairly comprehensive strategy from or some strategy from um that some of the Jay has submitted that some of us have
worked on and this is all connected to the public hearings that we had on June 8th and sort of our response to that. So there's a proposed more u comprehensive
action statement and then there's a letter um to our state representatives. So after June 8th um one of the first things we did was to identify all the questions that we submitted town council
submitted on our behalf that were not answered. And is that that's not in the attachment, is it? >> Can you share that, Phillip? >> Yeah, >> we sent that. We sent that to the town
manager on July 1st. He responded right away and said he would reply by the end of the week, but he has not replied and he's been on vacation this week. So, I don't think we're going to get anything back from him till um after he comes back. And so it's
something that will be part of our follow-up discussion um at the retreat. We we should have a whole substantive discussion on the that public meeting and what came out of that
and how we interpret that and what we're going to do about it. So, um, that was one thing that we said we would do and we did, but we're now awaiting a response from the town manager and the police chief.
Um, do you have that? >> I am looking for it right now. Just give me one second. >> I think we should just take a brief look at it before we go into the into our discussion of the next topic because it's relevant. What date did you say you sent? Oh, I
see it. >> July when I have it actually. >> So, do you have it, Philip? >> Yeah, if I'm pulling it up right now. >> Okay, if you can share it. So, you'll remember we submitted 30 questions. Some of them I think came from CSS. No, did
they submit their own? Anyway, CSSJC was involved in gathering questions and the town council also provided some questions and a number of residents provided questions. So, there were 30 questions that we submitted to the town
manager and I sent this note on July 1 from the human rights commission that said that these were the questions that were not answered. And one of the questions if you go to the back to the bottom
is a follow-up question and this is one of the things that um I think some of the other work aims to address which is this whole question of what is the legal basis for your position? Could you explain that for your position that you
cannot intervene? Can you explain that? So, um I think that uh Philip, could you send this to everyone, too? I thought we sent it at the time that we voted on it or something.
I think we were a little overwhelmed, to be honest, because after July 8th, I think everyone was a little stunned and sort of trying to figure out how do we respond to what they said. So anyway, we will get answers to these questions from
the town manager I think next week after he comes back and I will follow up with him and we can discuss next steps at the retreat. So now I'm going to turn it over to Jay
um since you were the central lead on this work the rest of the work that we have here Jay. So could you say what these two parts are and then we can we can definitely vote I think on if you
want to send a note to um our representatives. Yeah. Basically um you know we were trying to come up with some response after the um I guess it was June 8th or
was it July 8th? July 8th meeting, June 8th. And so, um, I mean, I was quite stunned of the, uh, stand by the town in saying that they
will not intervene, uh, even when crimes are committed in the town by federal officers. That actually quite rattled me and I'm sure it did with a, you know, with a lot of people. And that uh in the face of some
recent news where there was a killing uh in Maine of an immigrant, you know, just shot dead in the presence of his three-year-old daughter and then, you know, some other killings around the town like in Texas. I said what happens
if that happens in this town? We are not prepared. And so we need to show I think leadership from uh our HRC saying that this fundamentally affects our human rights. It fundamentally
affects our civil rights. We cannot be quiet about this and inaction by any entity in the town uh is an abandonment of our human rights and of our civil rights. that goes against our town
charter. It goes against the state constitution. Goes against even the federal constit the I mean federal laws um of 1964. Okay. The civil rights act. So there are a number of violations that are going on and we need to we need to
respond at least to see what little we can do in our capacity. And so there are two parts to this. One is, you know, the local response. And with this, I worked with especially Silus. We did a lot of the leg work to find sources on how we
could fortify our resources locally so that we could communicate better with each other. >> Um, you know, and strengthen uh our fortitude against such intrusions in the town. And I'll get to, you know, that
document in a bit. But the proposal itself is, you know, basically about restoring our stability and trying to ensure community safety uh and try to foster any kind of collaboration with the HRC and the town
council, the town manager and the police department as well as the state partners to prevent this level of abandonment. Because the idea being that if we have local roadblocks, then we've got to go around the roadblocks to see if there
are higher powers that could bring state relief to both both civil as well as you know human rights. And so uh from the legal perspective uh
I spoke with the um what's the constitution lawyer by the name of John Bonafas and uh he gave me the information that the supremacy clause does not grant
federal agents absolute immunity. It asserts that federal agents are subject to state criminal laws when committing unlawful acts. such as kidnapping, assault, illegal detention as well as murder and that the town manager and the
Amos police department have a responsibility to intervene in such cases. And so the goals, you know, strategically here is to look at the various components of what we can do the
HRC. So in joining uh forces with the state representatives like Mindy Dom uh we could you know assertively I guess reject things like the 287G agreements
which means basically cooperation from a local level with immigration. We don't have to do that. So we reject 287G agreements. the expansion of the protective zones. Um we're trying to
establish state codified zones around schools, healthcare centers, places of worship, college campuses, and other sensitive areas. And so we don't want any intrusion there. As far as child safety is concerned, we don't want the
we want a ban on the use of chemical irritants like pepper spray around children. As far as legislative uh I would say advocacy um we know that the uh you know mass
state legislature have passed the so-called protect act in both the houses the house and the senate those two bills need to be reconciled but we know that they will probably need supplementary
state laws following that and I think our HRC could have a direct impact by communicating our needs in the town to them to insert that into the legislation especially a town like Ammerst where we
have a very strong international profile and then there is the uh aspect about establishing things such as accountability we don't want the use of masks and commercial staffable gear by
private groups so that we can improve improve transparency as well as to prevent intimidation. So the idea here this is an invitation for I guess collaboration by the various agencies in the town. We need to all work together
in order to find these kinds of solutions and even though some folks may be sitting on the sideline my hope is we could woo them back in to say that this is for the good uh of our population. And so that was the first part which
we're trying to get an okay and an approval from for us to go further and investigate and open communications with other folks involving uh state representatives and other agencies perhaps Amnesty International the Amnest
group and just you know broadening our uh outreach so that we are stronger uh in dealing with these things and so That's that would be you know the first part of it where we seek approval of
that. Then the second part uh is moreformational. This is what Silus worked on a lot. He found better answers on how certain towns responded. For example, Kings County uh out in Pennsylvania. Uh some
really good and simple use of the English language on the police website. This is legal. There's a picture of that. This is not legal. There's a picture of that. And so show and tell ideas where you simplify for the immigration
of I guess communities uh for the immigrant communities about you know what represents safety and what is not. And that's all common sense things. And so I must thank Silas for his extraordinary work in bringing all
of those resources to bear. and you know even information about what to do uh for raids at libraries you know Silus want information on that and so I attached all of that as links onto the uh onto
the package so I I I think that would be useful for the town you know in general uh so that's where we stand and so you know we seek approval of of this way forward uh it's also about accountability you
know we're asking ing uh everybody to do their jobs and we are asking ourselves to do our jobs. Our job is to to raise awareness about this human rights you know catastrophe that's facing the town and we cannot be silent in the face of
other people's silence in the town. >> So Jay, it sounds like you're asking for the HRC to approve this proposal. Yes. >> And if you are, we have to make a motion to do that and then have discussion, right?
>> Yeah. Jay, you can make that motion too. >> Yeah, maybe you can make that motion and then we'll have discussion. I will. I'm making a motion to approve this document that Jay has presented to us. We need a second, please.
>> I second it. >> Thank you, RZswana. So, let's have the discussion. I saw some hands already Milan and then I saw Matia too. >> Um well my question well I guess it was kind of more just in terms of uh
building on what was being talked about. Um it seemed that in the June 8th meeting there was uh like some deferment to the attorney general's office and suggestions or recommendations that the office made. Um, also one of the answers
to the questions involved the police union and um as a body and what they would accept or not tolerate. Um, and I was just wondering if those two bodies are ones that we as a commission could
speak to or get direct answers from since that is where um, Chief Ting said that they were getting their information from. Um, >> that was a great point, Milan. Um, and I Jay and Silus, thank you so much for
your work on this. This was super helpful for me coming in and very impressive to see. And I one thing I wanted to um regarding um the immunity of federal officers and what John Bonafas said about um you know
the protections that they have or don't have. Like one thing that's the reality that we're seeing in these um in these fatal incidents with ICE officers is they're claiming that they were acting in self-defense and therefore that would
that then does protect them. And even if the claims are not credible, um that is that that does seem to be the approach that um that these that federal agents are taking in these incidents. So it seems
like from our perspective if we're going to put together like if our objective is to be proactive and be prepared um at the town level like we would want to anticipate that that is how they're going to approach it and
that like you know and and therefore we can't necessarily rely on that um that guidance because it wouldn't it would not be applicable. So, just like sort of a pragmatic thing to consider and in putting together what our um what we
want to do as a town. >> So, I think that this uh I think what you're really saying here is that when you say strategic goals, I think what you're really saying here is that we want to be uh um we want to be advocating for these
things. We want to be advocating for state to say no to 87g or you know u whatever all these things that you're saying here are good uh but I think we our language as far as if
this is going to guide us as a strategy of what we will do I think we have to be careful about each one of these and within it be clear about what we will do and is it in many cases I wrote down in the margins is this advocate Y and
there's nothing wrong with advocating for it as opposed to doing it because our capacity to do things is pretty limited. You know, for example, the legislative advocacy HRC stands ready to provide the guidance necessary. Well,
what guidance are we going to provide? I think our job is to um advocate if we know what's being discussed in conference right now and then beyond that to publicize it so people know what our rights are. Um and
I think one other thing that does hold me back a little bit is just that we haven't heard back from the town manager on what is the AGO's interpretation that they're looking at. So I think we don't have all that information for a full strategy.
And it could be that I'm biased because I think of the retreat as the place where we discuss strategy and I feel like all this stuff has to be really fleshed out very clearly like what are we going to do for each of these goals and so on. Anyway, that's my thought. Um
are there but I I really like what's here and I think particularly the child safety mandates. We have not heard enough about we started talking about that but nobody was interested when we had the options to fill out forms to protect your children if you're detained. If you'll remember we started
that way. Um, and I also think that we should add to this really updating and jazzing up our immigration page because when we started, we put a lot of information in there and we put time to organize that. But so much has changed
and now it's just a bunch of information. And I would like one of our actions to be some kind of summary page where you can go in and immediately see all the core stuff, see some headings and some core stuff and then you can go
down delve into the details that we have later. So I'd like something here that's more educational as part of our strategic goals. So I guess my proposal is that we flesh it out even more. I'm also concerned that not everyone is speaking
because this is these things are really important. We need to all be on board and we need to know what this says because this is what we are going to be representing to our neighbors and
friends and the press and whoever else. Jay, are you comfortable adding the issues that um Milan raised? >> Uh >> we didn't ask a question about the police union. I don't think that's in the questions not answered. So, somebody
has to follow up on that. Yeah, I I I think uh you know those you know issues that you've raised you know comes out of this broad framework that is in the proposal. >> So you know that is what I would think
of as like details and minutia things that can be fleshed out that grows out of the framework. So we first of all need to say that the framework is okay and then and then beyond that we could
start to include all of these other things you know like you know what are the responses of the police um you know union uh when you're saying you know we we
have something to to like contribute toward that well that's talking about the profile of the town. This is you know this is a town uh you know this is a college town and we uh have a lot of immigrants. We have different kinds of
visas. Yeah. So you know those are minutia right around all of those things. U but when it comes to a framework you know I mean this is basically what I'm looking at. So the details can emerge out of that there and what Milan has has raised is of course
very important and and I I think all the points you've raised are also very valid but we need to talk more about this. I think you know you you know perhaps during the retreat or what have you but in order for us to move from here now in July and we're absent in August and then
we meet in September and we may not have may not have a meeting in September. uh you know we still need to be working and so we need you know the framework out there so that we could still do the work to say that the HRC approved of this and we cannot
you know do the work >> yeah I was looking at that and I totally agree with uh you Rani that we we our capacity is just there's a limit to how much we can do But the fact that we can
educate them is very important and um for example as you said uh you know the public how the investigations I mean the receiving the compla complaints that is good and how do we advise the elected officials
because basically we should be doing that and where is the channel through which we advise them and who is going to listen to our recommend recommendations on the policies. So that is going to be a little bit of a
challenge as to this is what we should be doing and u the rest is equitable treatment that we already are everybody's doing but the fact is how do we connect to the officials how much of a power we do we have
>> right what you're saying is actually we do have another piece that we're going to talk about next that is about connecting to the officials but just sticking with this for a little bit longer Jay, I agree with you that we need a framework, but unfortunately, we've got lots of details in here, which is why we
have to talk about it. And we might want to look at our strategic goals and think about what level we want them to be because we are saying that the HRC is going to provide guidance on the protect Act. That's a very specific
thing. And we don't I don't know who in HRC is going to do that who has the background to do that. >> I think it's just more about the uh I guess supplementary laws because the protect Act as >> Yeah. But even that even that like are
we providing advice to the formation of laws and the writing of laws? >> Well, when you >> I'm just asking because Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. I I I think we can get I mean
legal advice like the way I saw it you know with John Bonafas and uh he's a constitution lawyer and then he says >> you know this is you know I mean this will work you know legally uh okay um at
the town level you know this can work at the state level this person knows the constitution and so we do have people who could guide us >> then We use uh our own capacity as I guess
commissioners to now you know with the backing of that kind of legal uh say you know input right we could then say uh we have agreed to work on these issues here and I think that the town of
Ammeris needs you know special kind of protections because of its particular profile and then we make a case for that you know things of that kind I'm totally in agreement. I think we're in agreement on the idea of what you're saying. Like I'm in agreement about
saying that it's a strategic goal for us to advocate for legislation that supports human rights. And it can be more specific than that for legislation that I don't know uh protects
immigrants, you know, but when so for me this is all sort of a mixture of too much specificity and generality. So I but I think we're on the right track honestly and I think we do have to do advocacy and I think
that's what you're talking about and we can do advocacy and we can draw on experts to help us decide what will we advocate for. Um so I think we just have to be careful about what we say we will do. um in part
because you know other people also are looking at what we're doing and where we do believe in what we're doing we have to be clear and we have to be consistent and be able to we have to be defensible
you know it's um so I think we're on the right track here I I do think this is a good document but I think we need to I would say we need to work on it during the retreat a little bit or >> I I need to add something to it. I totally agree agree with Jane that we
need to uh require the help of bonafas because but when we do go for his help we need to be very specific about how much we can cover because it's a very vast thing and we do not have time and we are all volunteers and right now we
are totally at a loss because we might be some of some people are okay with that some members but we need to be very clear about some points and that'll be really helpful if one of is has some kind of a directed um framework where he
can give you know include us or might have him for the retreat for like half an hour but with very specific um platform um Q&A situation we do not want to be all over the map so if something bad happens that'll be great at the
retreat you know it'll be a great education for us that's it >> other thoughts Um, yeah, actually just looking through all the details of it, I do think it's a a great proposal. Um, I think that I
agree that at the retreat since there is a lot to talk about and there's a lot of different areas and possibly different plans to make that it would be a good opportunity to prioritize some of the things and uh um also divvy up some of
the tasks more. But I think that what is written there is stuff that needs to be done. Um, and it's not even necessarily like most of those things aren't even within the realm of the town or any official sense. It can be done between
organizations and individuals. So, um I think that is a good starting point and I think um the part that we would need from the town or the response from the town manager um I think would be useful to hold off until we discuss that
further and then we can add that to the discussion at [clears throat] the retreat. But overall, I really like it. Alex or Silus Matia, >> I I can't speak on the subject of the document unfortunately.
>> Okay. >> All right. Then um I move that we uh move this document to the agenda item in our retreat about our strategic plan at the retreat.
Is there a second? I second. >> I think we're still in the last motion from approving the um proposal itself. I believe it was raised, seconded, and then we were discussing that. So, I
think we have to um >> right >> answer that one first before >> So, we have to vote on that now that we've discussed it. >> Yeah, >> I'm voting I'm voting no because another motion is coming up on it. Uh, please say yes or no. Yan,
>> no. >> Silus, >> no. >> Jay, >> no. Alex, >> no. Oh, sorry. You can abstain, too. Matia, >> can't no vote. >> I'm not a voting member today.
>> Oh, you're not a voting member. Sorry, I forgot. Uh, Vswana, >> no. >> Okay. So then let's go to the M new motion to um discuss this in more depth and to
elaborate on and finalize it at our retreat. >> I second. >> Okay. Um um let's start down here. Rswana. >> Yeah, Ronnie, you have to open it up for discussion and then vote. If there's no
discussion, you can go straight to vote. >> Is there discussion? Is there further discussion? Okay, given that there's no discussion, I'm now calling for a vote. Miss Wana, >> yes. >> Silus, >> yes. >> Jay,
>> yes. >> Alex, >> abain. >> Milan, >> yes. >> Ronnie, yes. Okay, so the motion passes with one abstension. Um, thanks. So, let's go to the next
piece here, which is the other piece. This is um Okay. Who wants to talk about this? I know a bunch of >> Jay. Do you want to present this one too? >> Uh okay. Are we talking about
>> I can Are we talking about the letter? >> This is the letter the letter to the representative Mindy Dome and Senator Joe Cmerford. >> Okay. >> Wait. Um, let me move first to
accept and send this letter to our state representatives from the Human Rights Commission. Um, if you're in favor Oh, we need a second. >> I second. >> Thanks, Silus. So, if you're in favor,
say yes. Alex, or abstain. saying >> Ronnie, do you want to open it up for discussion before >> I'm Oh, thank you. Phillip, shall we discuss
them this letter? >> Jay, do you want to talk about it a little so people can understand what's being here said here? >> Yes. Um I >> or silence whoever. Go ahead, J.
>> Okay. Uh yeah. Um I think following that uh June 8th um you know meeting uh we were all I think taken aback by the lack of uh I guess positive response
uh to deal with the human rights uh as well as civil rights issues of the immigrants in the town. And so the idea here is to reach uh our state representatives to bring state relief to
the town involving human rights and civil rights. Uh so you know this letter basically uh asks both let's see Mindy Dorm as well as Senator Joe Comlford uh to you
know help the town out uh to you seek a partnership you know to I guess chat with us about what the um you know impact uh uh of the protect act might be uh in the town.
um you know does that act free up you know free up the police to go and engage. Uh so we need their help in deconstructing what they are passing out there. And so
there are certain vulnerabilities. You know we're asking about we're asking them to talk about the existing orders and the state uh statues and the impact of the protect act to both to both the town council as well as to the HRC.
And so it's just about you know our representatives getting back to us. That is all that is. And if we do that it means that we uh have opened up a new pipeline uh I guess of communication you know to the stage and that's all it is.
So we're asking for a formal debrief. That's what we say at the end. We would appreciate a formal debrief to discuss how to strengthen these protections and effectively engage key stakeholders. Um so to me that
>> sorry um when I spoke with Mindy she said that she would happily uh report back uh to the town council uh you know about any such things and she's prepared to work with the HRC.
when I spoke with uh Paul Buckleman and when I spoke with Chief Ting about, you know, reaching out to the state, both Paul and Chief Ting told me they
would welcome any kind of state relief for the town and to untie their hands. So I think what this does is that if we do get both Mindy and Joe into town, they could help out the HRC which has to
lead in the effort because you know the presence of these ancient of these agents uh I guess immediately impact um our area which is human rights and so you know we need to lead in that charge to
give advice even to the town council and say these are the things happening and we have made an outreach to the state and they will get to you and we will contact you via Jill our leazison. >> So my question is this is a note that
we're sending to Mindy Dome and Senator Joe Kafford. >> Yes. >> What exactly do we want them to do for us? I think we need to be clear. Do we want them to have a meeting with us? It sounds like we want them to have a meeting with the town council perhaps
jointly with us in which case we would have to bring you know Jill and probably Mandy into it because we have to get on the town council's agenda and have a joint meeting. So I think we just need to be clear what we're asking them.
>> I think >> how can we say this? So maybe others can help to how can we say this so we're clear what we want them to do because a formal debrief with whom? >> Well, and then >> it it is with us and with the and with
the town council and you know possibly I think with CSSJC since they were also in at that meeting. So I think all the key stakeholders who were involved in that June 8th meeting and where we were flawed by the reaction of the town by saying that you know they will not help
us out they will not step in. So we're asking for help and say okay so you pro you know you've passed that law you know can you tell us in the town okay the human rights council I guess commission you know tell us here in the town okay what are our rights what can we do what
do these laws say that they can do okay can you give relief to the police department can you give relief you know to the I don't know town manager can you help our immigrants out it's all of those things are on the table if we have that joint meeting so it's about bringing everybody together like the
June 8th meeting, but is having Mindy in there as well as Joe >> Elan. Uh so my only question with that is just about
um in regards to like jurisdiction just because um Joe and Mindy are lawmakers but they're not tasked with enforcing the law. So I think we could definitely benefit from being in touch with the attorney general's office. Um,
and a representative from the attorney general's office, I think, could be uh probably inform us more of uh on actions or potential actions than um our reps cuz I would imagine that they would have to go to a source of information to get
that answer to debrief us on. [clears throat] Um, and I would just assume that we could also potentially go to that source ourselves. um if it's the you know attorney general or
secretary of state's office >> that's a great idea I think I think adding that you know to what we have just so that we you know build these pipelines because we need all the help we can in the town so I think any effort to build pipelines any way is going to
help our work in I guess HRC because now we can see all the pieces working Yeah, especially like part of my concern that with um the attorney general being >> well, I guess they're um she's elected anyway. So, I just thinking about
employees and um lawmakers, kind of like how town council doesn't is not really in their authority to speak directly to town employees, but they would have to go through the town manager to do so. But they're also the employees aren't elected, so probably never mind.
>> Well, actually, I think you raised an important question because you're saying that we want some rather tech, we're saying that we want some rather technical answers. We want to know how much legal space there is to maneuver and we, you know, we've heard from our authorities that the space there's no
space to maneuver and so they cannot intervene. But we're appealing to them and saying, "Wait, there's got to be space. These are unprecedented times. Things are different. The rules have to be adapted to the current context. And we're asking them to give us guidance on
what give us and our town leadership guidance on the possibility to have that space to act. So then if that's what we're asking for, the entity that can give us that space is the attorney general's office. It's not our elected
officials. Um, it's not to say that our elected officials shouldn't be involved, but that you're saying that we need to be really be asking the attorney general's office. And you'll remember Milan, I don't know
if you were there that time that the attorney general's number two or number three or whatever, but one of the staff came to the League of Women Voters lunch and talked about the specific lawsuits that they were undertaking and why and
had hung around afterwards and have detailed discussions about what we think are the suits that are needed and what our concerns are and all of that. So I I think we'll find that they're an office that is very open to talking with us
about what's possible within within the law. So I I I think your idea is a great one and we didn't think about contacting them and they're the ones who are actually um advising the town manager and the
police chief. >> So it doesn't have to be the attorney general herself. It can be somebody on our staff. Silus, >> just a a point of clarification. um prior to this I guess I I guess meeting if of if if it is with multiple
stakeholders including the attorney general um that that would require connecting with the attorney general and identifying like and and what I don't quite understand is if the town of Ammerst has um guidance from the attorney general's office that is
different than what we're hearing from different um sources locally. How will that be different than than someone else that we like is there conflict within the attorney general's office? I imagine that they're pretty um
uniform, but maybe that I'm mistaken, but can someone can someone help me understand that piece? Milan >> and then Rswana. >> Um I would just say just quickly to that
is that since uh the town is at that point serving as a representative, they're not necessarily advocating for their own um individual questions. So, if we are talking to the attorney general's office, we're more likely to
press a particular issue that the town might not know to follow up on or might not be passionate enough to follow up on Wana. >> Yeah, I agree with that. But the issue over here is that we did attend the
meeting. The town policies are not clear to them also. Basically that was what had happened because they had just I'm sorry to say offloaded all of their own responsibilities onto the attorney general and uh they don't even
know whether I must you know so basically what we were seeing was that whether we whether they have any clear policies that's the reason we were there and they were not even sure about that and they were not able to reassure us also what their policies were and
whether the town employee employees will cooperate or not and whether the employees were trained on p privacy laws and confidential information. So they didn't even answer to that also and whether these policies were reviewed
regularly because that's what the reason I'm saying is because I did ask that uh do you have any kind of a measurement? So basically that comes under the review the revision of whether they're reviewing their policies because if they
were doing it the you know the timeline and the way politics is has always been it's very fluid. You just cannot have one policy all the time and just go by that because that is really because that's the reason I very it's everybody
was astonished by that. That was the whole picture that we got when we went for that meeting. So they are not reviewing the policies regularly. They they don't even know what the training is. So they were handing out everything
as a I don't know whether it was a scapegoat or fall guy or whatever. They were using the attorney general as their their crutch. So that's what my thing is and that is the reason there was no public trust as you people who were attending that meeting they saw the
trust how much trust the public had and we we do need some of they actually they are supposed to have some kind of a trust they need to build trust um of the residents who were there and they were not able to do that because of these
reasons. Yeah, I think that in addition sort of saying that they're hypothetical is not a good way to go because I think that in reality um all safety agencies train for hypotheticals all the time. What if the
school burns down? There's a policy. Everybody knows what to do. So, it's not unusual to prepare for bad things that might happen, especially bad things that are happening elsewhere in the country. So, I didn't really get to all that, but
I think you're right, Milan, that um it's possible that they were in a meeting with a bunch of towns and the attorney general office said X, Y, and Z. And they said, "Okay, thank you." Whereas if they were having that discussion, we with us, we would say,
"But what about and what about, you know, um and I don't know if it was Chelsea or Chester, the place where they intervened successfully. So what about that kind of example? I think we would say that. So that's in my mind the value
of what this letter is trying to do, which is that it's trying to get us to engage more directly with the people from whom this guidance is coming, which I think we agree with. But I think if we do write to attorney general's
office or and we can find out who we could talk to the league to see how they've set that up, how they work that that they got some really good top lawyers to come and talk to us to to the league um or these representatives, but
we have to be very concise and clear about what we want them to do as I think anyone can read a letter and feel some sympathy for us. But what can they do? We have to tell them very is it a meeting? Is it with us? Is it with the
town council? And if it is not with the if town council is involved, we should do the homework upfront about what's involved in that. We should alert them. We should know that that's possible. Uh and they should be involved in something like this. We can't go and
promise a town meeting with the town council without getting the town council's approval. So all that stuff has to be worked out. It's not easy. And we're used to doing work. That's what we do. We like I'm, you know, I can't
follow my own motions because I'm so tired, ready to step down. So >> So I Yeah, >> it you know, we're used to working and we will work because this is important to us and we'll continue to work, but we have to do the highest quality of work.
for communicating with these people. We have to show them that we know what we're talking about. >> Sorry. >> Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. But the and you did say that over it overwhelmed you. So the I am going to ask Phillip.
Phillip are we allowed [clears throat] to be accessing the attorney general and because it's not easy and the fact you know we are just volunteers. We are there to just press the person who's being paid that is the the the and
elected and that is vocalmen and the council we are why are we going into the whole process of as this is our business you know do you do you see Philip that I I think we have limits there we are just there
we are at the totem of farm hierarchy we at the bottom so we Our responsibility from the day one was that we press the town counselors and we have a leazison with them and continuously you know have this nuisance factor but we cannot go
from there onwards to mind and all that because that is a whole process everybody's working and and then by the time we go there they will say this is none of your business you shouldn't be doing this you know this is not your responsibility so the fact is I think
that the way we have approached it we should just go for the response from the townman and we just tighten up the pressure and get him to do things. That's it. That's my opinion. I don't know about the rest. Yeah. >> Yeah. To answer that, I think that it's
not a simple answer. So, um, as Ronnie pointed out, you know, you obviously I mean the body of you all can send out a letter to whomever under your body. that does not mean that that letter will have
any pressure. And so Ronnie is correct that if you send out a letter to the attorney general's office saying that you would like to meet with that office and the town council's office, well, the town council is going to need to have that all underway on their end to have
that meeting occur. Um I think the other factor that um you all are not talking or naming is that the town has its own lawyers and as things go um people get how do I say it nicely territorial about
their opinions of law and so in there and that way um you know the town is going to defer to the town's lawyers right on on issues because that is going to be >> the advice of the lawyers that are being paid. So it it all is not a simple
answer. Um to answer your question in the most simplest way, you all can agree to send a letter to whomever. That does not mean that it's going to be heard in the way that you may think that it it will be heard.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Jay. >> Yeah. I mean since these I guess new bylaws came into being there are a new code of of of ways that we can communicate and you know one of
them says that we can contact you know the attorney general's office we can do these things you know we can contact any international organization you know so if we if we have that and if we have you know that kind of a power I mean why are
we I don't know handcuffing ourselves you know Those are the new bylaws. You know, we can do that. >> I can tell you why. It's not I'm sorry. There's one I want to answer the Why are we handcuffing ourselves? It's not handcuffing ourselves. It's taking that
responsibility very seriously. The Human Rights Commission is highly respected. That didn't just happen. So, we have if we're writing a letter to whoever, we need to be very clear what we want to say. If we want them to do something for
us, we need to be very clear what we want them to do. We want to be very clear that any other organizations or entities that we're assuming will be involved should be properly notified and on board etc. So it's really a matter of
doing it with the right amount of preparation and the right quality of preparation. So in your case, you know, yes, the town's one of the reasons I mentioned the answers from the town
manager is that he's going to tell us what advice the town lawyers gave him. I think having that information, if if we can see what the town lawyers are saying, it will help us to be more informed when we talk about
these legal issues. And you know I do respect some of the people who are advising us as far as their technical knowledge but I think in each case we have to make an independent assessment of for ourselves about the spectrum of
opinions about law today and to make sure that we've covered that spectrum. So in our advocacy we have to be very well informed and we have to do a lot of research. So that's what I don't see a clear thing here that says if we're writing to Mindy and Joe, what's the
what is it we want them to do? I think we need to say that and it sounds like it we want the town council involved. So, let's send this to Jill and get her advice and have her bring it up at the town coun with the town council and see
if she can get us on the agenda and what's involved and then we can send out a letter saying yes, you know, come or maybe the invitation will come from the town council as a co joint meeting. >> Okay. Yeah. as Philip just said as just
Philip just said that there are every actually Jay said that why can't we write to them obviously as a lay person even if I was not a committee person I I am I have written so many times to attorney general
there's there's a lot of openness there transparency and they respond there's not a problem but the issue is that we we are trying to educate and becoming the experts in it uh at at a lot of expense, you know, time expense and then
they it's to them. It's their prerogative to listen to us or not listen or just delay it just like it happened. It took three years for just the bylaws to pass and they because right now Mindy Rome is doing fundraising. She's not going to be
listening to us because she will have a million actually exaggeration but millions I'm just saying of letters of the same nature. All right. She right now wants to get funding all of elected
uh people who are in the elections and this will be in the back burner because we have seen the pattern. It's okay for our own self all right we are just doing it. We are telling them but as Philip also pointed it's to them they don't all
right they have formed this Paul uh actually is the one who you know got us in the committee so they under no pressure the only pressure they I saw happen the only pressure was at that town meeting that was the only pro
process and I saw it I witnessed and everybody how after that so many things came out and at a very high level. You know, the ICE meeting that was the only pressure because it was all the residents were there and it was a very
uh highlighted you know u spotlight they got and it was very public. This is what they afraid of because just us because they will just put it in the backlog and it has happened. So and and and by law they are not of any um nature they're
not um you know responsible for uh answering our questions or letters because they're already getting a lot of letters and I have already done that also on my own. So everybody is very special and human rights committee we
have seen you know the specialtity of that is they don't even they haven't even given us a leazison the the fact that I just call you know mentioned in the beginning also there's no policy how how am I affecting them because they
don't even know uh what we are doing they they don't even have a person who is linking them to us so that is my issue or are uh being how how important we are. >> I'm sorry. Could you clarify when you
said they you mean the town council? >> They is the town council. They were by if we look at the bylaws as Jay also pointed out they were supposed to give us a leazison. >> They did >> and they have given us a leazison >> but I don't see that person here.
>> They were here today but it's >> sorry to cut you off briefly. Um, councelor Brevik was on actually I did see them in the audience and so they were on for a good half of this meeting. And just one other point of or
perspective to offer up um is that uh Annie Guthther who is the town council member I think did an excellent job of getting our bylaws back on the agenda to to be reviewed. And so um I I think that
uh Mindy would would not have been involved in that. uh specific process. >> Yeah. So silence basically what you just said thank you proves the fact that we have to have an ally in the town council that is very important and that is what
brought us up to this point where we feel that we have made a difference as I have told material so that right after the ICE meeting things really turned up really well you know I'm sure everybody will agree with that
>> I do want to say I feel compelled to say because I was at all those meetings, but that nobody else went to about the bylaws um that they sat for three years, but this town council put us on the agenda
right away. Put us on the go. They tackled it right away. We had an issue with one piece of it. They took it back, tackled it right away. I think the council was very very efficient and
detailed in helping us become formalized which is why I put something in the note about it and that joint meeting was not easy to arrange. That's one of the outcomes of having a liaison who really
rooted for us with the town council. So we have support. It's just that we should then live up to that support. This is my thing. If we're asking them something, let's be clear what we're asking for. And I think we have support in the town. We have other support in
the town council. Um, so I think we have support. We just have to we have to do our job. We have to pull our weight. >> So let's go to this letter, please, and take a vote on it because we we're past our time at 7:33.
So, is there anything anybody really needs to say because then we're going to vote. Okay. Then >> would just say that if there is any question about who to talk to or any authority to do so, it is rated number
six in our char and number six in our charge as a commission um to where appropriate make referrals regarding any concerns, complaints or questions of discrimination to basically to the appropriate or relevant bodies. One of which is the office of the attorney
general and it says any other governmental agency having the jurisdiction of the matter in question. So if we are questioning then that would be it is within our charge. >> Yes it is it it is within our charge and nobody can we can write to whoever we
want but what we write represents us. So we need total clarity. Let's take a vote on this uh letter. I think the proposal is that it be sent to Mindy Dome and Joe Cmerford.
Um, so if you're in favor, say yes. If you are not at this moment, say no. Milan. >> Yes. >> Silus. >> Uh um
I'm Hold on. Sorry. I'm a little confused. I know we just passed discussion, but um I I thought it was going to go to Jill to then bring it to the town council to Is that implicit in this conversation about it? >> It's not It's not clear. Our motion was
simply to send this to Mindy Dome and um Joe Cmerford. >> Um I'm going to abstain. Jay >> actually I mean I'm trying to figure out if it is within my right to
you know recommend that we move this letter to to the retreat so that we could work on that. >> Yes we we can move to do that after we complete the vote >> because we made a motion to send this as
is we need to close that loop. >> Okay. So, your vote is yes or no. >> No. >> Okay. Um, Alex. >> Uh, Rswana, >> no.
>> And my vote is no. So, we have a majority nos. We have two abstensions and one yes. So, I think the vote is a no. Uh why don't you make your motion now Jay for the
>> uh for discussing it at the retreat. >> Yeah. I move that the uh HRC letter to let's Joe be moved to the retreat for further discussion.
>> I second the motion. Is there any question discussion about it? >> The only Go ahead. >> Thing that I would raise would be that um if we're going to save the letter for
the uh retreat, then that we also draft one for the attorney general's office since if that's who we're going to be contacting, we should also have a letter ready to go for that occasion as well. >> Why don't we put that on the agenda for the retreat?
>> Okay. So, as far as this is concerned, Moving this letter to the retreat. What is your vote? Milan. >> Yes. >> Silus. >> Yes. >> Rswana. >> Yes. >> Alex,
>> yes. >> Vonnie, yes. So, it's unanimous to move this letter, discussion of this letter or whatever the communication is going to be to the retreat agenda. and we've added an agenda item for the
attorney general's office. Um, >> do you want to identify someone that's going to write that letter before the meeting or are you going to have that letter be written at the agenda or at the retreat?
>> Is there do we have any volunteers to write like the letter to the AGO's office? >> Yeah, I could do that. >> Okay. Anyone who writes a draft, don't be too attached to it because as you can
see, we discuss and you know, our ideas evolve as we talk about it. So, it's not a reflection of your draft. I'm talking to Jay, but also to anyone else who does these writings. You know, by writing, you're really helping the group because you're laying out something to work
with, but the fact that it changes isn't a reflection on the writer. All right. Um, is there anything else that we need to discuss? We've done other topics. Is there any other topic
that we did not anticipate? >> Well, then we'll see you at the retreat on August 10th at 10:00 in the morning. >> August 30th. >> August 30. >> August 10th. >> August 30 at 10 in the morning. And DEI
will send instructions about where it is and so on. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let me u I'm asking I'm sorry I'm asking for a motion to adjurnn. >> Okay. Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> I second.
>> All in favor just say I. >> I. >> I. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> 7:39 p.m. and the meeting of the Human Rights Commission is adjourned. Thank you all very much. >> Thank you. Part: 2
Thank you. >> Okay. So, we uh we are set to record. I am going to call the uh July 15th uh 2026 recreation commission meeting uh
to order. Um uh in attendance from the commission we have Jonas Cox, Josh Broadhill, Mary Clay's, Chris Paraso, uh staff liaison, uh David Zomeck, and
Amy Roski, and myself. I am filling in for Andy McGregor right now in and running the meeting. Uh did I say did I say McGregor? Yeah, I was myself say McGregor McDougall, but
we'll call you out, but we'll give you a free pass. >> A minute after saying it, I said that didn't sound right. >> Would have been worse. >> Uh I'm still thinking about that fight the other night. Uh Andy McDougall is uh is absent and so I'm going to be running
the meeting. Um, for our uh for our agenda today, I guess first up, I'm going to try and go in the order that I know that that Andy tries to hold to our agenda here. The first is I would like to offer the opportunity
for approval of the of the June minutes of the minutes from our last meeting in June. Um, have all four of you all had a chance to see the see the minutes? >> Yep. >> Um, I am a non- voting member, so I can
ask you all if if uh haven't had a chance to to review if you would be able to uh uh vote to approve. Now, >> can I vote on my own minutes? You may vote. >> Yes.
>> I'll vote to approve what I did. I think it was good. >> I can. >> Um, can we see a show of hands for all those that approve the minutes? >> I apologize. I may have not seen the
minutes. So, um like frantically looking through um my emails and um so although I >> You're good. We got enough. Mayor, >> you got enough. Okay, >> we got enough. >> Good. >> Do we have enough? We have three.
>> I'll abstain and I apologize. Josh, >> you're not conspiring against me. [laughter] >> Do we do we only need three people to approve minutes? What is the >> I think we we're not gonna get a Yeah, I think we're good at three. >> Okay.
>> I will make note here that three people that three people were able to approve one abstension and three absences. Um do we have anybody that would be willing to take July minutes?
>> Mary is going to take July minutes. Thank you, Mary. Yeah, since I'm the slacker, I'll take the July minutes. >> We appreciate you. Thank you. Um, I am looking now at at the attendance and we do not have anybody in
the wait in the in the uh public comment section. So, I can go past the public comment uh um and move right into the agenda for the evening. Um, I should add to begin. I'll do that at the state of Ammeris
Recreation. Um, >> Ray, not to interrupt you, but my screen's still saying that you're in a practice practice session, so I don't know if that's why we're not seeing attendees. I don't know that anyone's here, but sometimes that hides them until you officially start the meeting.
>> Thank you. I am going to wait one second to see if this registers anybody new. Thank you Amy and we have attendee zero. Okay, thank you for the observation. Um
so so moving on we have I wanted to start today with a uh we have a just a short PowerPoint presentation that Jose and I went over. Jose Allen, my sports director for the
folks that are new. Um, Jose Allen and I went over a little uh uh sports presentation here that's looking at we we've been uh challenged to try and find a way to put some new life into our especially our summer sports programs.
Um, our registrations are flagging a little bit right now. uh are uh you know the there's there's a complicated mix of things and and I would like to be able to uh uh request commission feedback uh
participation. We'd like to be able to put it in front of you and sort of what we're working with in this in this particular space. So I'm going to share my own screen. Let me get my glasses. I believe
um need to slide show. >> Okay. Um >> and so are you with me? You guys can see my screen. >> Yep, we're good. So in terms of Ammeris
Rex Sports, uh Jose Allen uh in addition among the things that he covers for us, Jose is uh the and and his role in and as my sports director, he covers Cherry Hill. He manages our Cherry Hill clubhouse revenue coming into the golf
course. He manages in season in school year uh sports programming. He does our sand lot. Uh he does he does a bunch for us. Frankly, some of our more traditional programs, there are people in the town that at this point right now still believe that that Emmer's
recreation is ball and sports. It's kids out there in sports and putting on jerseys and competing for it. That is a part of it. There are people in in our other facets of our department that view us in as being the the the the department that runs uh our
co-curricular programs after school and and morning movement and that sort of thing. There are people in town that believe that we are the aquatics program. People who the place where people participate in Ammeris recreation sometimes that feels like like that's
what we are. It's the old um it's the old uh what is it the the the the blind man the elephant sort of ideal that that that you know the the blind man see describes the elephant as the tusk or the blind man I I feel sometimes
that that's our department because our department is so varied and dynamic. Um our structural model right now is uh for for youth sports looking particularly right now at youth sports. Our structural model is split between
sports leagues which is largely seasonal opportunities. This is our our uh lacrosse leagues, our basketball leagues. This is our this this are these are kids that are going into compete for
their town, their schools. Uh this is this is developmental models to get them ready. It's a feeder uh for Arps athletics. Not all of our kids that play for us are Amoris residents. Not all the kids that play for us are going to the
high school, but by and large our our uh leagues, our our inseason uh leagues are serve as feeders for the for the Amoris Regional High School programs. Um, we're not the only ones that feed there. There
are there are outside organizations uh be it through soccer or baseball. There are outside organizations that play a role that we work with for field space and have have strong organizations that that work to develop people in
their own models. And so we do some on the side in the summertime, but in terms of leagues, there are there are select leagues that our department runs and Jose C oversees those. Um, we do we split between recreational opportunities and travel opportunities. uh travel
opportunities being you try out for the team. Some kids make it. Some kids are told what they need to work on, but it's opportunities to try out for a team and compete in at as sixth graders or as seventh graders against kids from other towns and they're run through sanctioned
leagues in the area. Uh recreational opportunities, it's basically intramural. We run the the best model that we have there is of our AYBL, our our winter basketball league that the town gets together, we split teams and we let them show up and play against
each other regardless of their skill level, regardless of of how much experience they have, regardless of how much they want to play in the future. It's an opportunity for people to play sports. So, our sports leagues are largely inside the season. Um, sports camps, uh, where we are right
now and the main reason why we put this together, sports camps, uh, are short clinics, frequently a week long. Sometimes we have little pop-ups for a week, I mean, for a weekend, but they're typically a week long. They are, you know, primary purpose number one is
introducing people to sports, introducing young kids, introducing newcomers to sports. Hey, you have a friend that plays soccer. You want to try and learn how to play soccer? Come and perform in this soccer clinic that we that we're putting on. Primary purpose number two is skill building. Uh
I grew up that I never I didn't go to a lot of camps as a as a young athlete, but I spent a lot of my young my young adulthood working week-long camps. And that was something that that that the skill building. I want to become a
basketball player. I'm going to go and spend this time getting into getting into a clinic where they teach the fundamentals where they teach they can break you down without the without the looming spectre of competition that that that is like that's like the test instead of just going into the test and
figuring out where you sort out. Summertime is frequently a time where people can get a chance to really work on those fundamental aspects of the sports they're trying to play. This is where you can work on your drive. This is where you can work on on your
footwork or have have specific coaching that looks that breaks you down and is able to uh build and scaffold on the things that you're working on right here. And it's not about your position on this team. It is about your own individual development. Secondary purpose, of course, it's something to
do. It's it's a way to get kids active. Hey, it's summertime. Do something. Get out of the house. Be active. Be in something. It's a chance to put people on a field. do something during the day, tire them out. It's for some kids, there's a secondary function of being
child care at the at the young at young ages. It's a chance to to spend time during the during the summer. You're away from school, learning, socializing, uh being active. Uh and of course, we've always had a a
strong sense of instructors. We inherited a we inherited some rock stars and we've had some clinics that have been put on by rock stars. Uh uh people who are really good high school coaches uh u uh you know community people who
who've played professionally or competed professionally, people who are experts in their field. We have a pool of local instructors and their staffs of former players of of sometimes parents of like learned parents, sometimes it's the it's the varsity staff. We have people who
are were dedicating them their time out of season to come in and develop the next the next generation. We've had other attempts that that we've also included slightly outside of the model. We've been stalled in our downhill skiing. We've brought together
an archery course. There are other things that sort of can tag into this model, but largely our youth sports are sports leagues during the school year, sports camps during the summertime. And so here we are with revenue projections. Um the challenge that we've
been working on, Jose and I have been have been trying to find a way to look at trends in our participation in youth leagues and youth camps. First with youth leagues. Uh u this is a major fall
in revenue from from our actuals from FY24 to FY25. are, you know, the the two most recent completed and submitted revenue totals. Um, in 25 we saw a market decline.
Um, that is largely based I I every time I see that and it's been a few times here. Every time I see that I have to remind myself that there is a very specific reason for this. It was a shock for me when I put this together and it and I hope it shocked somebody out there
to look at those numbers without any context. um uh for two seasons when we first brought in Amoris United as a as a wreck department program. Ammeris United is the swim team that Denise Lechenby has
has uh pioneered for us. The first couple seasons we were putting that means FY24. We were putting the revenue from that in our sports leagues because it it fit in the same model that we saw before. start to fit in the same model
of of uh sports leagues. It was kids trying off the team, kids were competing against each other. We didn't have the precedent uh of of of placing it someplace and and and and we wanted to
try and put that in it basically a suburban league type format. We wanted to try and put that for that purpose. We understand now we understood coming out of that that the right place because we had so much of the expenses could not be pulled out of aquatics. The expenses
were largely being placed inside of our pools and so we wanted to put that revenue with aquatics in in anticipation of the aquatics revolving fund which you all know we was one of our great successes of last year. Uh building an aquatics revolving fund to to house our
expanding aquatics program. So, the revenue from our Amoris United swim team is now being placed appropriately inside of our our aquatics revolving fund. And so, a large reason why that number is
$50,000 less is because revenue is coming out, moving elsewhere. We do still have we do still have some trends in there. They're going down, but our programs have been relatively consistent. our our our youth leagues have been relatively
consistent. Uh basketball, lacrosse, ultimate football, that's two basketball leagues, wreck and traveling wreck and suburban league. So we've we have revenue coming to us from five different sources there. I see Mary's hand. I will pause for a question.
It may be pre premature because I don't know what your next slides are, but do you have a breakdown of those same numbers with the aquatics funds moved out? So, we can kind of compare apples to apples. I do not uh I can I I can
tell you I might still have it up here for myself, but in looking at this and prepping earlier today, uh I believe that the difference was I um I I can't tell you how much of the money before was Ammeris United, but when we pulled
Ammeris United out, I can tell you there was 93 thou we we had $93,000 in our wreck revolving fund for our indoor pools where it had been 38,000 I believe before that uh in the years it's pretty consistently 38,000 before some of that
is retained some of that is other it could be other slight changes there but it was I believe it was roughly $60,000 of difference between of of ad to our aquatics revenue thank you for the question
um and so youth leagues is not the point of our of our challenge here we do have some questions we're asking about our youth leagues and about about trying to make sure that our numbers are are uh we don't have as big of a pool to choose from in the in the in the tryyouts for
rec for uh suburban basketball. Uh we have been chasing there's been there's been some sense of us trying to chase kids into lacrosse in particular. Uh football has changed over the course of the last uh two or three years as our
our partner organization has has done a co-op with Beltown and Graanby and we still run we we still gather uh revenue from our Amoris registrations in that but we are not running that program
anymore. We don't we weren't running it before, but we were we were full partners when it was Amorest Youth Football. Um, and now we are we're simply uh registration partners for BGA, Beltown Grandst.
Um, but but we've been chasing kids to try and keep our numbers up. One of the reasons why we're going to a co-op in football is because our numbers for football are way down. And that's I should I should pause right now and say that we're not unique this way. There
are other towns our size that are dealing with the exact same issues about numbers in youth sports. Maybe especially football. Uh uh if they don't have a history with sports like field hockey and softball, those are numbers
girls sports for us are still are still struggling for numbers. Uh but but softball and field hockey in particular, we've tried clinics in both of them. We've tried to reach out to get people involved, but that's those those are
both sports that have that the high school has struggled for numbers a little bit because there just isn't a strong feeder. Uh there isn't a strong interest and we can't create that interest without without a lot of work uh to be done in the future. So, so in
terms of youth leagues, that's not our main goal here, but there are there are trends that we're also looking at inside of this. Big one is camps. So, moving into youth camps, this is the
the decrease here is more slight and more nuanced. Um, the difference here, we're looking at youth camps uh from 24 to 25 drop from 74,000 to 58,000. um um you know notes on that summer camp
enrollment is down in general. So we in terms of our summer sports camps our our enrollment is down that is across the board for almost all of our sports. There's a couple small exceptions here but uh the enrollment is down there. Uh
we do mirror other towns here. We've talked to other sports directors. We've talked to other sports programs where where those uh those trends are echoing what other people are seeing um u for instructor contracts. U about
five years ago, four or five years ago, we had inherited a model that couldn't we were told we can't operate anymore because we had independent contractors running our summer camps. By and large, we could bring people in and pay them on a side contract, but but because uh our
our hiring practices had been audited and and we were I think the basically the lesson we learned was that we were hiring and and and providing independent contracts to instructors that did not qualify for that status. And so we've
worked out over the course of the last four years, we've moved now it's become second nature. We've gotten some of these rockstar coaches. We created a stipened uh uh formula that allowed them to maintain some of their independence and control. Uh it allowed them to
maintain the level of pay that we were that we had committed to them for years with a stipen added to our added to our putting them on wage. uh but they are hired and and vetted by by town of
Ammeris and our staff. They are Ammeris employees now not independent contractors. Uh we identify other internal external pieces which which probably come up here later on. 26 and 27 are also right now. Uh 26 was relatively speaking low and
we're trending low right now. Although numbers do it's still too early to call us to call us uh way low. I see questions. How about we get to Josh first? >> Yeah. Ju um just two quick questions
first. So, um, the difference between 24 and 25 is like 16,000. Uh, how many kids does that equal? Do you know? >> Yep. Um, that includes, uh, that's my next slide. Uh, it's not
the totals, but you'll see the decrease in the next slide. >> Okay. >> Um, I can get there now. So, I'm gonna answer that by pulling the next slide up and uh going to Chris's question. >> You know what, Ray? Let's let me let me
finish let's finish the whole thing and I'll come back to my question. I should have lowered my >> I will be sure to leave time at the end for any >> Oh, there's going to be plenty of questions. >> Okay. Um for for 25 and 26 here. Uh did I say 25 and 20? Uh 25. Yes. So, it's 25
and 26 where we are right now. uh for this summer and where we are for last summer. So that's this is FY26 and FY27 that we're looking at right now. Um and so I guess that's not the answer to Josh's question about 24 and 25 from the
last from the previous slide. Um but these are the numbers we're roughly looking at that leads to that leads to where we are for for this year's 26 and last year's 25. >> I'm just Can I just be sure I'm reading that right? So from on ace tennis, I'm
not picking on tennis. I'm just cuz I love tennis. >> Yes. >> From 25 to 26, we roughly lost >> 66 campers. >> Correct. >> Okay. From from this year is 101. Last year was 167. >> That's I'm I'm reading it correct. So
thank you. >> So um and the comparison between 24 and 25 is is small decrease from 24 to 25. uh uh 25 numbers are slightly less than
they were in 24, but it's it really is comparable. Uh 26, as you can see right now, one of the reasons why this is moved up our our our queue here in terms of in terms of issues for you sports to deal with is
because we're really slow in building those numbers here. Now, um some of these have qualifiers. the many of the programs they they do build as we get closer to the this is registrations as they exist right now.
complete player basketball camp. We're we anticipate that that will probably be up close to the 28 number from before because it typically does as we get closer. People say, "Okay, well that basketball camp's coming up. I'm going to sign up for it then." There there aren't a lot of the trends for us in the
town and for our programs is not for people to apply to register for these in in you know April is not to register for these well in advance. We are sometimes we are hoping all the way up to the week
before and trying to push push out uh through our channels, hey, we need to get these numbers up because the four people are signed up for this camp really need to have more people for us to run it or for them to get and or for them to get something out of it. Um
inside of this uh baseball is relatively low was relatively low here, but that's consistent. 23 may have been a little bit high for them from where they've been for these clinics. That's uh but the uh this is relatively consistent
with where it had been for a little while. That is a clinic that didn't that that's not that's not a a a far cry away from what our average typically is. Um for the basketball the for the two
basketball ones, level up and complete player. level up definitely took a hit this year. They had a they had a camp this year that this is eight kids in a camp that already passed. So those numbers aren't going to go up. Those numbers are not going to go up. I believe they have one more week off.
They have another week later on. But their numbers for a short period of time it was a comet for us. There are kids that just wanted to try and come and play that. It's connected to some AU opportunities. is connected to a lot of kids who it's uh you know there there
was sort of a sourcing out for other kids who had been involved in AU programming that came in for that this year those numbers were way down and we certainly for all the programs we do an assessment of what how they look for us now what can we do to try and get these
numbers up for the future but that was a little bit of a surprise how low those numbers were uh Ben Harrington does a terrific job with his camp we we're happy to have him in there and we're trying to find a way to make sure that we have somebody with that expertise that has a chance to to put kids in
front of him and and we want to we want to try and make that work. Complete player camp, we think those numbers will go up. Ace tennis this year, there's a few things that are involved in that. The price went up a little bit. I think it I my my first instinct to say is that
that is that that increase was negligible. Um but I'm not the one writing that check. Uh um we also added two weeks to our summertime. Uh um our instructor uh our instructor is it works
over at Hampshire College and and in his transition uh he knows he's not going back there in the in the in the fall which is the reason why we we only had six six sessions in in the previous couple years. We've had five or six
sessions every every summer. This year because we get cut off at the end of the year on normal years. This year we have him coming to us for two more sessions at the end. This is one of our biggest uh camps throughout the summer. We get a lot of kids coming in. He does a great job with his camp. The quality of the
camp we believe is is is strong. Numbers have dropped. We are thinking anecdotally. we've been trying to figure out both in talking with Jamie and his first three weeks this year and and just following up with with some of the people that we know in the in the that
that typically have done it. Uh we have we have the issue of of maybe extending it so much that people are trying to find time to get away right now. They do typically register late also. Uh we think those numbers we definitely
believe those numbers will continue to climb. we won't be 60 below uh our last year's mark later on in the season, especially with those two extra weeks. This week in particular, we were able to get we had as of last Thursday, I think we had six kids that were registered for
this week's uh tennis camp. Uh and starting this week on Monday, we had I believe 16 or 17. So, so we were able to we're able to sell and sometimes we fish them out of the Thursday or Friday sessions which I know helped last week.
Um, volleyball, let's get to some good news. Volleyball numbers are way up. Thank you, Chris. Uh, volleyball numbers are way up. Uh, we have participation in volleyball, popularity of volleyball. We know anecdotally from people who are participating. We know from the numbers
for our clinics and for the middle school team and the and the you know trials there volleyball is a sport that is not that's trending in the opposite direction. There are a lot of kids who are interested in volleyball. We've tried to tap into some of that. We try to provide some of those opportunities.
I had a chance to go over and watch a little bit of like the beginning of the volleyball [snorts] camp at the high school. Not this week but last week. uh it's it's a popular it's a really popular space. We think that those numbers are solid and moving in the right direction for us there. That is
the one place where we it's the one spot here that is ultimate ultimate certainly has has you know large numbers of girl participants but volleyball is the most reliable uh sport for girls participation in our in
our whole offerings and I think that's consistent as you move up into the high school also. I mean, there's there's girls that are playing. We don't have girls playing basketball. We don't have girls playing the girls are playing soccer. Girls are playing volleyball. Soccer, unfortunately, is not a feeder
for us. Um and so so a lot of these the last note I have here is that the men's league uh it's kind of out of place here because it is this is a conversation about youth sports but the last last summer we were able to we've had three seasons of of [snorts]
men's basketball leagues at Ammeris High School. um that that was easy money for us uh because we sell that and it's been a big part. It's here because that's been one space where we've been able to offset slight losses in other areas in
youth sports. Jose's done a really nice job of marketing that out of getting participation of staffing that of getting uh that's been a pretty smooth uh operation for us this year. uh the region the region is because of maintenance in the two buildings and the
middle school and the high school those gyms have been have been um uh they've been presented to us as off limit for for our programming and so we didn't have that opportunity this summer. We're looking to try and find a way to to to
uh bring that money in for the fall also. I put that in here because the men's league is it contributes to a space as a catchall for where our our youth our youth programs are not currently where our youth programs are maybe flagging a little bit that that
that safety net is not there this summer. So we feel our numbers even more right now. Questions? Um that's what I just did. Uh, and so for potential factors, we've identified >> I'm sorry. Did you say ultimate and I
missed it or we just haven't had the ultimate? >> Sorry, the ultimate our ultimate camp. Uh, that's I think that comes up here later. I can go back uh go back. Um, >> that number was just down and I didn't know if we'd gone over it or we maybe we just haven't had the camp yet.
>> No, that's that's also a very easy No, that's also a past situation. It's this was an easy explanation and it's a correctable explanation for us in the future. Um uh a new Greenfield ultimate clinic and it's and it's run by some
pretty good ultimate folks uh uh siphoned off a bunch of our kids. They scheduled for the same week. We weren't aware of the weeks that they had scheduled. And so by the time we realized we were bump bumped right up against a pretty popular a lot of the kids that would have been in our clinic
went up to Greenfield uh and and it's an easy correction for us in the future. It was sort of a it was a it was a a surprise for us and so competition will be one of those things that we talk about in this next slide.
Um so potential factors that we've identified number one it's an a lot of this is anecdotal uh um you know in terms of solidifying that you all might be able to help me with this but uh but in terms of potential factors things
that we've gathered Jose does follow-ups with coaches and with families Jose does talk to a lot of people I talk to some folks on on our uh you know in in terms of in terms of in in in in my uh uh you know sort of watching observing uh but
kids don't aren't doing as many activities. the the sense of kids going out and and trying out a bunch of new sports or trying out different things or or I've described it as that I mentioned earlier about that whole clinic model that summer is a time for kids to really
look at working on the fundamental skills working on on skill development working getting themselves better at the things that they want to do and maybe finding out a wide variety a town like Amoris our size towns our size really rely on kids that can become three sport
athletes uh two three sport athletes that can really that can really push themselves in all these different things are we want our best athletes to be trying to find different things if I was I am a varsity coach but if I was a if I were a
if I were a coach if I was a high school coach one of the things that I would be looking at especially for younger kids is trying to find a way to get them involved in a bunch of sports if they choose me it's great they choose me but those other sports can get them better at those also and And for our purposes here, it also gets more energy and
allows those kids to compete with and against at the developmental levels with and against kids that are better if they choose. If a if a great football player decides he wants to play lacrosse tomorrow then and and leave football then then we get out of them what we can
get out of them. But they're making decisions based on on something that's in front of them. If a softball player decides that I don't really like softball, I'm going to do track instead. We want we want them to to do that out of a out of a a proactive trying things
out and try to do this. It uh es we've always known that specialist kids that are pretty good will choose a sport and kind of stick with that even at a younger and younger age now. But it's it's disconcerting sometimes when kids who aren't yet established in those
sports say, "I want to try and play soccer. I'm going to try and play soccer in case in case I'm good at it." And then they realize later on that the one sport I wanted to do is not there. But the in terms of kids doing activities in the summertime, uh we don't see kids, they're knocking on our doors trying to
get into these playing opportunities the same way the stories of what Amoris Recreation and LSSC used to be. I should also say that we are demographically this is less anecdotal. We don't have as many kids. Uh we don't have as many kids
in the pool here in town. Lack of visibility with younger kids and new families. We've talked for a while about about about sort of focusing on introduction. We've we spent a lot of our energy, Jose and I spent a lot of our energy early on in our time at trying to build up the feeder programs
and build up the middle schools and build up those spaces, especially since that's a time where the idle hands really hits our community. But we really want to try and capture like there's a lack of visibility with the younger kids, new families into our programs. There's a burden of outreach. We know
that this is real inside of my department. There's a burden of outreach where we're we're asking so much of my sports director. We're also asking so much of our outreach director that is that that that that um you know, one of the ways that we used to be able to fish
people into youth sports was by having an outreach uh uh outreach program that could go out and basically sell those youth sports. my my outreach director is loaded with a ton of really valuable, really important things that that we ask
her to do and that we that we need her to do as a town. And so some of that is a burden of really making inroads into the communities that are that are out there. >> And so part of that is an outreach burden. Part of this is competition with
uh we prepared a year or two ago for a big blitz that UMass we we had heard and we we knew that UMass was trying to trying to really sell some summer programming and goodness you know you know even if their quality was worse and
we it's too early to tell anything about that but even if their quality was worse the opportunity for kids to go to the to the college and do things at the college competition with the colleges and sports foundations talk about the the the ultimate situation. There are a lot of
people who are getting into finding ways to do this. There's there's personal trainers that are going out and and teaching offering people lessons, private lessons. And so that's always been a part of the issue, but our competition for camp service or clinic services now at a time where kids aren't
doing clinics the same way they used to. And then of course price and hours. Most of our clinics are are halfday clinics. Uh, and so fitting that in, that's really good for people who who don't who maybe don't have a lot of uh um uh six
hours is too long for me to play a sport that I don't even know if I really want to play or I don't know how much I love it. Uh, but in terms of that child care, that intro child care piece, sometimes that's a deterrent from people saying, "Well, I can take care of half of my child's day, but then what do I do for
the rest of it?" And so we uh we know that that's one of one of the things that we need to address in our structure pricing structure. We haven't gone up but we have gotten feedback that that our pricing is is steep for people who don't know that they want to spend it.
We we have between our our you know part of this is competition from within. Also we have an incredibly strong uh swim aquatics program which has a the numbers in aquatics are up. I don't know enough to know that that it's a onetoone that
the kids are leaving leaving youth sports, field sports, and moving into swimming. But but but there is a sense that that at the same time that our swimming numbers went up. Thankfully, it's it's revenue for our town. Uh the
same time that those numbers went up, our numbers in youth sports started to drag a little bit. the the interest in the in the field of sports, ball sports, those are those are starting to become more of a challenge for us. And so so in terms of what our what our future looks like inside of youth sports, that is
something to consider. Our our free opportunities uh um you know, we're active morning movement is activity for kids and it's important. It's a really vital part of our of our town and our department. It is there could be kids that say I don't
need to I don't need to play more. more. I don't need to do more here because I' we've got a bunch of this in the in the early morning piece. There are a lot of things where people can be doing opportunity cost here and saying, do I want to spend the same amount of money on our clinics if I'm getting opportunities to go out there and play
and be be my version of active where I need to go. Um I believe I have one more to the uh any questions on this wrapping it up on the next slide. And so what's next? Naturally, our pivot is
towards uh the biggest one here is program marketing. Um we're in the process right now of of you know sliding some pieces inside of my department or chart to to present a
marketing somebody who can focus on marketing inside of our our org chart. Uh, one of the big tasks at least the first year is going to be to answer these questions for our for our u uh for marketing as we attach that to our registration. Um, we're going to be
looking at trying to trying to build the the particular responsibilities to support Jose and support our other programmers also in terms of getting their numbers up uh in terms of our afterchool and and uh outreach and
aquatics numbers in terms of the the place where we're looking at at at numbers as being a challenge for us. This is going to be one of the focuses of our of our marketing position. look at trying to add some promotions. We talked about interdep department
promotions about trying to get people uh discounts if they're doing other parts of our that say that somebody who's involved in our afterchool program gets a discount to come and participate in our sports things inside of our department that can that can basically crossromote uh um you know have the
advantage if you are in our programming of being able to participate in these clinics. Um um we're talking about a feeder shift. I mentioned earlier we've we were focused early on the on the middle schools and some of the upper end
young kids, kids who had already decided they were basketball players or already decided they were football players. We're talking about doing we we tried it didn't work out this year, but we're going to get back. This is something that that could work for us. We looked at at Triad Sports Clinics where it's
basically a sports camp with some with some young high school type professionals like near peers that can go out there and instruct them on a week of we're going to try this sport, we're going to try this sport, we're going to try this sport for young kids just to get them thinking about this is this is
one that I really like or just get them working with the idea of play. It is a bit of it is a bit of u of child care, but it's also a chance to do something that gets kids that don't know if they're athletes yet. Um, looking at
that as being a possibility. Um, we we're challenged because everybody everybody's challenged with instructors, finding finding quality instructors. Some of our rock stars are moving sort of to the fringe or away from us. Uh, we're trying to replace them and uh and
get new life into our instructor pool. uh we're looking to try and incentivize for our former athletes to be involved and get getting them some some training and and what have you. We do have the resource of the colleges, but sometimes sometimes it's really hard because if
they're not part of the community and we know we have them for their their schedules, their calendars do not line up with ours very frequently. And so a lot of times you're hiring to to uh you're hiring just to rehire again
shortly, [snorts] but but we know that we're looking at doing some instructor recruitment and having them involved in building a culture of grassroots try it and and that sort of thing. And then fee structure and subsidy as a tool. Subsidy is going to be one of the things that we've already talked about using as a
marketing tool. uh we we do try and aggressively subsidize our programming but we want to try and make sure that we are aggressively putting subsidies in front of people and saying this is an opportunity to to apply for the subsidy
if we don't want cost to be a deterrent. We don't want to be we don't want cost to be an issue that keeps people from coming in for fee structure. Put this in front of the commission also for fee structure. We uh we've we've toyed with the idea for our town residents who
would love and need to have more numbers in their clinics. Um, we've talked about about cancelling at least in certain programs, but cancelling out out of town uh um an out of town fee hike. Uh and so
so we we basically involve all kids and then and expand our scope to other towns and start asking to bring other kids in to build our numbers up without we have to be careful because we don't want to end up poaching people from other towns and their opportunities. it. But we do want to make our our our programs
attractive to to those that are not just from our dwindling pool of of numbers and interest inside of Ammerst. Exhale. Uh Mary's hand is up. Uh Mary, question.
>> Yeah. [clears throat] Yes. Thank you for the presentation, Ray. Um and I think uh you touched on some things that uh are happening quite a bit all in all the different towns around. Um I have a lot
of ideas. Um but uh one of them do you have um so when you you gave us the numbers in the beginning and then I was trying to just wrap my head around on trying to [clears throat] follow the what you've
provided and I wonder if there's excuse me more comprehensive numbers to span the 23 24 25 26 number one number two trying to keeping it like um a
little bit more apples to apples and a little bit more comprehensive of numbers. That would be one thought and question. Number two, um like planning and like goals and objectives when you look at this I and you've already said
it and you um your Amoris Wreck does a lot a lot for our whole town, a lot for a lot of different ages, a lot of people. So trying I don't know if there's like identifying specific areas, you know,
are you talking Elma? You know, so there's a lot of stuff going on and like organizing it into um specific like goals and objectives, apples to apples across the board. So, I guess that's kind of what I'm thinking
about as far as um a lot of the stuff that you just pre presented cuz I do have quite a few different ideas that um I can just spew out. But I think getting
more information would be helpful to me to be able to help you um and the Amoris Rec department. That's helpful for me. If there's any both of those both of those um u opening
up the span and also making sure that we're looking at apples to apples. Um that's that's helpful for me. I can certainly put pull together some of that and continue this conversation with you individually or to follow up with the commi and or follow up with the commission on that. Uh this is stuff
that that that I will be bringing in with in my conversations with Jose uh about about planning out and with marketing and trying to plan this out. This is this is something that I think certainly can be can be uh followed up
upon. >> Yeah, I was even thinking a working group uh that Yeah. >> And Chris Chris, you're on mute. >> Thank you. Sorry, interesting numbers. Um,
after school programs, Ray, you still doing two one at one building or >> one building? >> One building. >> We are, we are still at Crocker Farm. >> At Crocker Farm. I just didn't know if there was a way to introduce some of the, you know, at some
of the sports that you guys do so well, you know, at those type of things, you know, seasonally. And are is it is it a facilities issue? >> No. >> Because I know the town is we're scrambling around, you know, for fields
and courts and stuff like that. And are you are you allowed to use the court at Wildwood now where you're >> the court where? where the school where your office is now where your temporary um not right now because they're in school. They're I mean they're in summer
school. Okay. >> Um but one of the one of the best parts about us about our presence here in Wildwood right now, one of the one of the truly silver lining pieces here is that we we uh we will have access to
this gym theoretically when when you know to have a gym when there aren't people around. we can program to get, you know, some of our adults. We can focus on some of our adult programming. We can focus on it. It it allows us to answer the pickle ball question. It allows us to answer
some of our some of our u some of our other adult programming things that we just haven't had a chance to do because most of our time is uh most of our time in our gyms is in times where there can't be school,
>> right, >> Josh? Yeah. Um, I just wanted to go off I agree I agree with what Mary said. I think it'd be very helpful for a better apples to apples comparison. I also thought something that should get looked at is like you said before in general
there's a declining just population of kids. It's different in different places. So, I think something to look at would be like how does the decline in certain uh sports signups actually line up with
the decline in kids populations? Like if if they're declining at the exact same rate, then it sort of begs the question like what can you do about something like that? But if they're like way off of each other, then there's definitely going to be some other underlying issue.
Another just my two cents as far as ideas. I think the idea of doing like a free try it thing is a really good way to get kids out especially like gives parents a break. They don't have to worry about it costing a bunch of money.
Like you let them go to like one try out or whatever. Try a bunch of different things for free and then they can decide what they like. And that's also good for kids who, you know, like you said, kids are less active. I think that's definitely true. But if they get an opportunity to try a bunch of stuff and
it doesn't cost the parents anything, maybe that could yield some good results. >> Thank you, Josh. Questions, feedback. Um, we are we may be looking at involving commission in some of these
conversations. Mary just said that magic working group word. I don't this has not been presented to the town manager as a as a working group idea at this point. Um we've talked about about our numbers here certainly but this has not been
presented as a as a working group concept. I certain I wouldn't be opposed to that. Um uh we haven't reached that level yet of planning but I I mean that certain what we're looking at here is the seeds of of a definitional sort of a
of a look. It's an existential look at how we do like when I when Jose and I were putting this together, we're thinking existentially about it's not just a matter of finding a program that's going to work. It really is looking at at at at the structure about
what we are and what we want to be with this. And so that involves some soularching, I think, which which does beg for some eyes outside of our [snorts] our uh department. And so the next I I'll certainly uh
share with you all share with the three absences absentees here. I I'll share with you all a little bit about like next steps as they come up. Um, we know that sport is a big part of that uh u that so-called elephant, but it's a big
part of our department and and there are a lot of people who rely on this for the just the celebration that goes with with being a part of of you know the games. it there's a there still is in some ways
I think certainly we're we're reinforcing the healthy ways but there's there is a sort of a of a test yourself out and seeing where you fit in inside your community that goes on inside of sports and trying to see what you're good at what you're not good at all [snorts] the lessons of sports uh we
haven't gone away from those again our leagues still tell us that we are that that there are people who are looking to try and do the things that we're offering but there's they're I know that we're looking for ways to to make sure that we're we're still doing
that service of getting kids um you know prepared for their athletic future, for their competitive futures, for their for the futures that for their for their cooperation and and and teamwork type futures and also giving them a chance to
come and participate in in our town. And we have we have a ton of different ways. Um Jose Jose and in his capacity I mentioned earlier that as a sports director he does this, he wears this hat, he wears that hat. A lot of the hats he wears are are very much tied to
revenue and and and so we're looking at ways to make sure that that he has the tools necessary to make that happen. Mary, >> have you looked at running um tournaments for revenue?
>> Yes, we looked at we looked at doing uh u uh we looked at potentially doing that for the upper end kids in the summertime to do league tournaments during the summertime. So, they're not doing clinics. they're not coming with us when
we say we have these camp opportunities for you to come and learn how to do what you're doing a little bit better and learn some quality here. We can do some threeon-ree tournaments. We can do some some uh uh u some contests. We can do those sorts of pieces.
Uh, we talked about not cutting the middle schoolers out, but if they're not the focus there, about finding some way to do the things that do draw them in. And tournaments are are exciting for kids, that might get us back into the high school level because we don't have
a high schoolers don't do hardly anything with us. Now, our numbers are almost ultimate. We still are involved at the high school level, but we have very little in the direction of high school uh participation in youth sports
>> for high school. Um just having some a high schooler myself um because a lot of them are tied to the high school sports themselves. A lot of them might be doing kind of needing to do strength and
strength uh speed, agility, that type of stuff. So rather than the specific sport itself, have you um discussed maybe doing like strength training, speed and agility skills for athletes in high school?
>> We've looked at that. We we got we did that a couple years ago and we got undercut by free or very or like uh in inside of the world that we that we know. uh there was
there was sort of free conditioning that was going out and we can we can [snorts] get into the competition piece of that. It's hard for us to invest and to match that level. The people who we were trying to get as the as the starters for
that were participating in in open gym, open weight room hours. they were participating in in these opportunities with with cheap or or free training programs. So there were there was some competition
there for us that that has hindered our ability to really make our forays into that. Um sorry I wanted to write that down before I forgot it. Um, so if anything else comes up, uh, I will
I'm going to want going to stop my share here. If anything else comes up, please do reach out to me, reach out to Jose. Um, you know, we're we're tossing around ideas right now. We are looking for ideas outside of ourselves. We're looking for
some I know there's a variety of different interests in the on on the commission here. There's a variety of different uh uh experiences uh inside the commission. There's been there's been a a large amount of sort of help that that you've offered in the past for
us. Please do feel free to reach out with any sort of have you thought about this, have you thought about that? Uh the answer is probably, but the conversation helps us to try and figure out how to put it on the table. >> That's um I'm just going to circle back to the more comprehensive getting more of a history because I can continually
throw out ideas. Um, but I think it might be fruitless. It might be just like be throwing things against the wall. Um, because I know in the past or I feel in the past and I know out east flag football is a very popular um
sport. And so I just don't know if that like if you looked at 23, 24, 25, 26, was that ever in the mix? you know, kind of looking at what you've done historically, what has been successful, what have the numbers been, also like what you want to hone in on, what are what's the type of revenue that you're
like you want goals and objectives with all these things, too. >> Thank you. Uh we did we did have a flag we department ran a flag football uh league at one point. It was aimed at young that could be something that actually potentially gives us an
intramural sense with the high school age kids also. But we talked about we did offer flag football for a while. It's been a couple years and we also contracted outside of us at for one summer to bring somebody somebody offer the opportunity to run bring us in.
We'll do some flag football. We'll put this together and that was that had a little bit of interest but didn't really hook on. But that you were correct with that especially if we can get the hooks at the high school level. If we can get that, that becomes an opportunity for us
certainly to look at at uh bringing some older kids back into the picture. >> Okay. With volleyball is one of the more popular sports right now. Is there any other What do we have? Just one week of camp right now. >> Yeah. Um we've Oh, actually that might
be two weeks. Um great question. I I know that uh uh >> was Liz doing a week or was I know >> I think I think the second week was was Liz's week. So I think we do have two weeks um um
former and incoming uh coaches have run our our camps for us. uh finding somebody that uh Chris and I have had this conversation for a couple years that that we've been trying to find consistent strong coaches that can pick up the torch and move forward.
Volleyball certainly has a network of people who can who can be involved, but trying to find somebody who who can ideally be around for more than uh more than this short cycle here. But but to have to have quality coaching is a big
part of this. >> Mhm. And that's actually a popular sport where um is it is it um co-ed or is it mostly geared toward um girls? >> Well, right now it's I mean I think they
they allow boys into the camp obviously. I think part of the problem that we have is we we don't have a JV or varsity boys team. So they really we can get them to a certain point but then after there it's we don't have anywhere to go with them.
So I mean at that point there would have to the high school would have to take over something and I think you have to be a JB sport for Ray would probably know this answer better than me three or four years. >> Yeah, it's a it's a club sport until I think it's I believe it's three years to
become a varsity sport. >> And so everywhere where where high schools are interested in a new sport really the people who do it are pioneers for the people who come behind them. Um, >> I mean I I have heard some things out there though. I mean, you know, the the the
>> the club sport world is becoming just blatantly overly expensive. >> You know, it just the numbers are shocking and, you know, the the elite camps and, you know, there are still some people that, you know, I know
population is down. Hopefully, still some people that, you know, would, you know, be very happy with their recreation sport. and then you know as a starter and then if they choose to go that route um you know that that would be hopefully something else that we can
capture on Mary I'll find something and I'll send it to you. So, >> okay. Thanks. >> Um, I can whip through the last pieces here pretty quickly as introductions. Um, >> because I'm hungry.
>> That was my presentation piece. Um, yard rank. And Amy, get your ears perked because this is going to be I don't think I don't know what level this is news for you, Amy. Um, but I'm sharing yard rank really quickly.
Um, can you see my screen? Yes, maybe. Can you see my picture here? >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, um, we have purchased uh, Ammeris Recreation has purchased a yard
rink. Um, this is a this is lifted. This is not ours, but it's roughly the look and the size. We've we've purchased a um a a miniature all sport sort of uh playing surface and we are going to be
citing it for its first season on the basketball courts at War Memorial at the old broken down basketball court at War Memorial. Um and so this gives us an opportunity to provide a drop in sort of pickup spot here. Nets uh people can
bring a ball out and play. We're going to be we'd like to be able to do some grand opening pieces. This has a chance to stay with us for a long time as we look at the at the uh at the transition of the war memorial space, the the
upcoming transitional war memorial space for in pool reconstruction. This can easily be picked up and moved to other spaces in town as we sight it and find uh places for people to drop in, the most convenient places for people to drop in. We would like it to be uh a
place that is particularly accessible by Amoris youth which is why the space across the street from the high school at war memorial is perfect for us. Um we would like it not to be dominated by the college folks. Uh we thought about Kendrick Park a little bit uh but but we
don't want to put it right out in the middle of the college folks. Um um this is the the yard rink gives us an opport Oh, it also can be converted in the wintertime over into a hockey rink. Um this is a space where we we intend to be
reaching out to the Ammerst Hockey Association and pulling them in for some street hockey clinics. um um which we haven't been connected to them since we did one street hockey clinic uh four years ago, but we'd like to be able to feed Ammeris youth hockey with some of
the work out here. We'd like to be able to use some pop-up soccer work. This is a chance it's a it's a community asset. It's a small and manageable community asset for us on a space that we don't use
um that we hardly use or or don't use at all. Um um I'm working right now. It's sitting in trees and grounds right now. I need to connect with uh with DPW on the voting process. It'll it'll be up
for us in a couple of hours when we when we do set this. We It came in right around the same time that we're doing all the July 4th and the heavy heat stuff. And so so it's been a couple weeks. It's been sitting here. We're going to be putting that out here uh as soon as we can schedule time for it.
Questions? exciting comments. Uh [laughter] uh >> looks good. >> Well, does it come with everything? Hockey, nets, basketball, and the ice skating thing. >> So, the the question I the question I have to ask for myself is came up when
we were first talking about pickle ball years ago and we were first converting courts over to pickle ball is h how much do I want to leave stuff out there? Will it walk away? Will will if we leave equipment there, will people pick it up and move? we can place nets out there.
Um, my concern is about security in that space and and what have you. Um, but yes, we actually have these exact model nets uh in our storage that we could
have over there as pop-ups and and and and leave them that leave these nets there. Uh, we've used them for our for our uh street hockey clinics. We've used them for for some of our prime time
field sports. Uh you know, these are the type of nets that we could just leave out there, push off to the side if people wanted to move and do something different. Um if we ever pull them away, then you know it's a it really is a
in in my day, says the old guy, you know, you don't need that. You just throw a couple shirts on the ground and you have you have your own sort of kick it kick it between the shirts. Uh but but we would like to be able to leave stuff out there for people to be able to do. We will have we can have scheduled
times where we come out with equipment with with hockey equipment. We can have scheduled times where we do this. That will be where we see what the what the community wants and what they what they're looking to try and do with it. But we have equipment that we can meet them
that we can't bring this to their homes, but we can meet them in the space that we provide to for them and say, "Let's do some wreck." Or we can walk away and turn a blind eye at for for most of the time out here and
let them just have this space and have open goals to come and play. And so this was exciting. It was it was relatively cheap. It was a no-brainer for us to purchase because we found a pretty good deal on a pretty affordable
a pretty affordable uh setup in the first place. And so, cross my fingers, I'm thinking this is a this is a pretty good get. No, I'm I'm excited to see this because I I know you've been talking about this in
theory a little bit, but that's like you said, that's a space that isn't used and it's a way to kind of energize it and hopefully get some use as you know, obviously long term there might be some changes there and so this also doesn't lock us in, you know, because hopefully
the new pool house will be going right where that is. Um, but this gives us a space and a, you know, a space for kids to to play and be active in the interim. So, and then if we need to pick it up and move it somewhere else in a couple years, that's great, you know, or if we
find there's a lot of need, then we know before we put a big investment in there. So, it's exciting. read um stop share and um
quickly the state of Ammeris recreation I'll leave space for Chris to share anything about the working group that he wants to um the state of Ammeris recreation uh we are set in our in our new space the I left this as part of our agenda here just to say we're I'm right
now on a Wednesday night sitting in my office at Wildwood which is not the first time that this old teacher has in a school at odd hours at a time. Uh it feels like this classroom over here. I invite any of you all to come over and see it. This is still a temporary space
for us. We understand this as being a temporary space. And the frustration for us is that we're like we want to get we've been an orphan for so long and we've moved to our transitional orphan orphanness. Uh and now we're now we are
looking for our next space. So, anybody in the commission that wants to come over and see our see where we are in our in our new transitional space, I invite you to come over and see us, talk to us about it. Uh um but but just as you come in, know that you're walking into a
space that is that is the the step to next step. I I don't want to say I'm so comfortable here that that you know, it's really growing on me. This is where I want to be forever. Uh there's reasons why the school has left this space. Uh but but I
will tell you that that the more I'm in here, the more I realize we can we can be okay in the space for the time that we're in it. >> So while we're >> I don't I don't know if I'm allowed to like jump in with questions or whatever,
but I'm just kind of curious while you guys are at the school if that gives you opportunity to utilize some of the space there for programming. like you've got the gym there. Is there opportunity there or or are you not allowed to use that? I I don't quite know the rules,
but it seems like there could be some possibility. >> So, the what they have here is they do have a large footprint of space that's not going anywhere immediate immediately. Um, we have uh um, as I
said earlier and I've been saying since we settled on this as being our summer space, as our summer transition space, the the one silver lining that we know about is that gym. We were worried because the Amethyst gym is smaller than
than the Crocker than the than the uh, Fort Rean Wwood gymnasiums. This is slightly smaller than on the inside over there. And we have relied since the schools went to late start. We've relied on those elementary school gyms even
more for indoor programming because the time that the high schools gets to spend inside of the region schools is much it's it's a shorter window with more interest on their part. Um, we were really worried about losing this
gymnasium because because it's important for our for our ABL and our in our uh suburban practices. It's it's really important for our young suburban practices. It's uh it's an important pop-up space for us for a lot of different reasons. Having
this building open for the town use while there isn't school in here gives us gives us the gym and any other potential. We haven't really thought conceived about all the other places inside this gym that we could use. We've looked in the little library space and
said, "Hey, we can do movies over here." Like we have like big eyes that are looking around the space and saying it's going to be abandoned pretty soon. What can you do in this abandoned this old abandoned building? Uh we know that there's space here and so that is a possibility.
Um um the the town owns the building in September. The town the town will have the building in September. We will be able to use this for our purposes as much as it's as it's manageable by us.
Uh the the when when we have that we can we can certainly program out of here. We can do classes. the it it's it's nice to have this gym. It's nice to not be paying rent to to run programming. So, there
are things about this space that will be that they're inviting about where we are right now about keeping this program at least partially online. Dave, >> hey everybody. I've been listening. Thanks. No, I just wanted to add Yeah,
just a few things about Wildwood. So, I think you're all aware that, you know, the school committee voted to turn the building over to us officially on September 1, as Ry has has mentioned. Um, you know, all this summer, we're we have a small footprint there. Certainly,
the footprint can expand clearly in the gym. I think what we'll be doing is doing an assessment with our facilities department to determine what spaces are usable. we need to look very closely at at accessibility issues. Um I think it's
important to remember that you know a 1960s school um it doesn't meet current code in a lot of ways. That's one of the reasons why we are building a new school and tear, you know, and tearing down Fort River. Uh and eventually something
will happen with with Wildwood. But we need to look at ADA. How does the public access it? How do how do um participants access it to make sure that from the parking lot to the programming space be it basketball or something else is ADA?
Um I think the clear message we're getting from the town manager and the town council is that you know there will be a process to look at the Wildwood spot the particularly the land. I
it is not my decision. It's not the town manager's decision, but it's certainly going to be influenced by staff, but the building is very likely to come down in the future. When that is, I don't think any of us know, but you know, wreck will be there likely for a few years. our new
planning and economic development director, Jeff Bag, will will um in all likelihood be kind of central to a a visioning, a community visioning around the school and the school more so the site than the building itself. The building, as we know from all the
studies that were done to lead us to the Amethyst Brook School, um the building needs millions of dollars worth of work. And um I I doubt uh uh there is there's an opportunity there to reinvest in it.
So whether the gym stays possibly, but the rest of the building, the roof, the HVAC system all need significant work. So I think you know for a couple of years it is probably where Ammerisre will go and I think Ry is right to kind of be we will be thinking and helping
Ammerisre kind of figure out where does um where does Ammeris Wreck go for a permanent site. We've talked about a we've talked about a community center. We've talked about a youth empowerment center. We've talked about a new senior center. All of these things are
somewhere in the outyear capital plans. But we've got to build a DPW and a fire station first. So, um, that's kind of the the big picture, but, um, in the meantime, we're going to make that space for wreck as as good as we possibly can. They're actually the council, keep an
eye on the council. I'm not sure if at their meeting on July 20th or the next meeting, they will be considering and hopefully voting on an appropriation for uh, our care of the Wildwood School in
site. It is not going to be free. Although, as Ray said, we're not going to be paying the school rent as we were in the middle school, but there will be some very real costs for caring for uh for the school itself. We'll have HVAC costs, energy costs, snow removal, uh
lawnmowing, uh and various contracts. The building will still have to meet various codes to be habitable. So, um I believe there is u perhaps as much as a $200,000 ask uh coming to the town council. I don't know the exact figure
on that, but that'll be coming up next Monday or the following meeting. Uh so, please keep an eye on that. So, that's kind of the big picture longer longer term. Um but yeah, it's a great space to to
imagine some some things happening for Wreck in the meantime. If anybody wants to imagine with me, you know, we have plenty of time to get into that. Um, you know, I'm sure there there's a lot of people who would love
to be love to imagine what this Wildwood site could be for this part of the town or this part of the town or this part of the town. There are things that I love about this site that that you know I'd like to introduce as part of our conversation uh part of the conversation
about recreation long term but but we are we don't even have the space yet. So uh >> yeah and and just to be clear I think there will be a real um hesitancy a pretty strong hesitancy to
allow other uses of the building in the meantime. We we have no intention of of leasing up other spaces in the building and creating expectation. Um communities all around the state do that and then something happens like oh
three years down the road we we envision a new use for that site on Strong Street and now we have six tenants and where do they go? And so Ammerstre is there, but I I I all indications from the town manager and the town council are that,
you know, we we will not be moving in that direction. So um we'll take care of the building. We'll take care of care of Ammeris Wreck and um and and uh I imagine the town manager will be setting up a committee to look at the reuse of that strong street property and there'll
be an opportunity for people to volunteer to be on that group. So, look for Paul Buckman talking about that in the fall. >> Happy to take any questions if anybody has any >> questions. >> No questions. I just think it's exciting
some opportunity for the town. >> I agree. Um, so, uh, Chris, do you have any updates for us from working group? Well, we've been we it's it's been summer, so we missed our when we not we haven't missed a
meeting, but we're rescheduling a meeting, I think, for next week. Ray, I don't remember. >> Over the date either. >> Yeah. I mean, we are excitingly winding down the process over a long process, but it's been uh you know, a up and down. It's been very
good. Uh learned a lot. Um, you know, but we I guess we really will when we get to the vote on our final things, I think that at that point, Sanjay and I could give like a a better probably a longer recap at that point. Um, if anybody has any questions, I'm more than
happy to answer them. It's just right now we're I think the next meeting, Ray, I think, you know, we'll we'll put some stuff in and uh hopefully get some stuff voted on and then be able to start getting our report to Paul. It's exciting.
>> Yeah. No, it's exciting. It was a very good It doesn't mean when I'm done with that working group, then I'm joining another working group. >> I I'll throw you on the next one, too. >> Yeah. I hear Mary already. >> It's like It's like Rumble Stoken. If you just say the the word working group
three times, you'll end up on one. >> I heard the word working group and I ran. >> Okay. So, uh, I don't have any new topics for us here. The question was asked and as we're we're going to get started about July 4th. July 4th was
fantastic. Uh, uh, it was it was we're calling 8,500. It was a it was a great opportunity for us to bring people together and the things that we brought in as new attractions all hit. Uh it was the our vendors all spoke of of of like
they they were they were selling out on on the food truck row. There were people who uh who really appreciated the opportunity to come and be a part of it. And it just felt like it was clockwork this year. It felt it felt really like clockwork this year. And I obviously
will give uh u the the yman the the burden of that credit to Becky Demling who does so much for us to make that work. >> Um u you know we were able to do that this year because we had a blueprint that has been slowly becoming something
that's it's just uh that that operates in some ways on its own. So and it takes a lot of work to get something to operate on its own. [laughter] >> Oh yeah. So uh with that said uh um I had on the agenda the next meeting is
the first Monday of August. I apologize about missing it was at post July 4th here which is why I missed the July one but I will send out early u a confirmation for August 3rd if there's anybody that can't make that. I would
like to be able to get back to a first Monday sort of regular meeting schedule. Um, if that doesn't work for anybody here, speak to Andy or bring it up amongst at the next meeting and and and motion for a new date to come because
that was picked at at another time from different commission. >> But I first Mondays work for me. >> Yep. So, uh, at 8:31, right on time, at 8:31, I
can, uh, adjourn the meeting. >> I'm good. >> Sounds good. >> All right, everybody. Have a good night. >> Thank you, everybody. >> Thank you. Have a >> good night.