All --------- right, Erica, we're recording, so you can go ahead. Thank you. So, uh, welcome. And I guess we're going to get started. I'm not sure. Um, hoping Julian can still join us.
Um, we should call to order and, uh, just say aloud who's here. Uh, Bernie present. Ken here. Andy here. Marcus, you're muted.
I heard you earlier. Raphael. Yeah. And Meg, I'm here. Great. Um I am going to follow Julian's uh
agenda. Um to the extent that I know all of the pieces that he had uh had in mind. Um I think between all of us we can put it together. So, the first thing on our list I the list I don't
have I'm sorry before I get started is is who's taking minutes? Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Does anyone know? I think I'm not sure that I was, but I know that I was on the list at some point when we called off the next, you know, three, four people. That was a
while ago. So, I'll just Are you up for that? I'll just take it. Yep. Thank Thank you. Thank you, Ken. Um, great. So, the first piece of business is to approve previous minutes. Uh, there are two sets of
minutes that are in the packet. The one that I submitted came in a little bit late. Um, but, uh, would you like to review or approve that one or should we hold on it because it came in late? That was the
April 17th I I reviewed them. I reviewed them. Yeah. Same same here. Okay. I I can certainly vote on the 17th. I have to abstain on the 24th, but I'd like to make one small point if I might. And
Athena, please correct me if I'm u straying. Um neither of these minutes has a reference to the documents for this test. And my understanding uh again I haven't
um can't claim to be current although I should be is that when you do minutes you're supposed to list um in the minutes the documents that were before the committee discussed by the committee and ideally a link um to
them but you you at least have to list them out in their formal title so somebody who wants to um follow up on it can find So, neither of these minutes have um a list of documents at the end of them. That's correct, Bernie. You're you are correct.
Okay. Noted. And Ken, can you make sure that gets um noted so that we can pass it on for well for your minute taking tonight and for future reference. So, I had one potential correction to
the 17th. Yeah. Um, on I think it was the end of the second page, uh, we were talking about the list of feedback that Megan and I had put together and Julian had was quoted as saying that it didn't include the League of Women Voters
feedback, but it did. So, Oh, okay. Um, I think I think I corrected it then, but but it should be noted that that it might have slipped by. It did include I think I I said something like actually it did include the the League of Women Voters. uh uh recommendations. It it did
and it did include the substance of the two letters we've gotten from our former and current uh counselors, both of whom possess legal degrees. Um when I had chat GPT um corate this stuff, I went
through after made sure that um nothing got left out or at least to my best knowledge that nothing got left out. So yeah, at least to that date. Yeah. Yeah, to that date. Um haven't tried to update it since, but I will take a shot at that
in the future. Okay. So maybe then we shouldn't appro if approve those minutes if they left out some piece of detail that I'm okay approving them as long as we just, you know, as amended to include
the the the comment that actually they did include the legal end voters. I can I can correct and resubmit to Athena for the record, please. Okay. So, um approve. We're motion to approve the minutes from April
17th. Second. Let's vote. Bernie I. Ken. I. Andy. I. Marcus. I. Raphael. Yes. Meg.
You're muted. Sorry, I abstain because I didn't read them. Although Okay. Uh I'm an I. So, I'm going to say we approve them with the amendment that Andy um pointed out earlier. Uh, as far as the April
24th minutes, um, I had one edit. Um, and that was just very simply my name. Um, sorry, Ken. I've been called many things Raphael, but not not Leon. As much as that sounds like James Bond, I'm so sorry. I wish I
was James Bond, but I'm not. Sorry. It's okay. There is a remarkable resemblance. Oh, very good. Okay. Other than that, um, can we make a
motion to approve? So moved. Second and let's vote. Uh, Ken, I Bernie S wasn't present.
Andy, yes. Marcus. Uh, I abstain. I was not present either. Uh, Raphael, yes. Meg, yes. And I am a yes. So, I think they have been approved. Okay.
Curiosity. Meg, where are you? It looks beautiful. I'm in Washington State in the mountains outside of Levvenworth. Do you see that snowy mountain back there? Yeah. Gorgeous. It looks far better than the uh the rainy outside that is around here. Yeah. Oh dear. Some some thunder
off in the distance. But if I if I may. Um I'm sorry. Athena has her hand up. Yeah, Athena has her hand up. One second. Athena, please. If um if someone would please send me the approved minute, the minutes with those amendments so that I can post them. I don't know that I've posted any
because I I haven't seen the finalized version from the committee. Do you mean any minutes? Any minutes at all or just these two? I have to check to see what I've posted, but I need I need to know that the committee has approved them. Um because I haven't been
staying through the meeting. So, if you all once approved could send them to me with any edits that are made during the meeting. That way I can post them and we have them up to date on the website. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Should Erica, should we each take
responsibility for sending Athena the minutes that we were responsible for that were approved? Athena, do you want to review and see which ones you're missing or should we each resend you whatever minutes we took that were approved? Um, let me take stock of what's posted
and I'll reach out to all of you to see what I'm missing. Thank you. Thank you. And Bernie had his hand up. Yeah. Um, I'm I'm going to make what I hope is a simple request.
Um, when I looked at our web page, the Let me see if I can find on my screen here. Uh, our meeting packet, there are only two documents in there, the minutes. Um, I had to go search for the agenda on the bulletin board. Not that
that was difficult, but I had to go do that. Um and I noted that u there are a number of apparently a number of of documents that we're going to discuss or I'm not sure given the u
vagueness of the agenda. Uh so what I would like to ask is that in the future and this is you know Athena should not have to hunt this stuff down. She should get this material sent to her. We need to have the agenda as part
of our packet and we need to have copies of any documents the committee's expected to discuss that evening even if we have talked about those documents before. Now this isn't simply for my convenience although it is I'm being
selfish about this um but also for the public. We all love to talk about transparency. When you go to the meeting packet in the page and find that there is no agenda and you find uh just two um two
collections of of of minutes um that strikes me as not u terribly transparent. And it just it's it's a matter of clearing this stuff up and and and being a little bit more proactive about making sure that all of this is all of this is
is lined up for not only the committee but for the public who is going to access this. Okay. Thank you. And Athena, you have your hand up. I I don't want to take up too much space on this. I appreciate what you said, Bernie. Um and what Julian had said in the previous meeting
was that and I note that he's here now. Um he had said in the previous meeting was that um everybody can just send me all the things they want me to post and that makes my job a little bit more difficult when I have all of you sending different
things. It would be really helpful if the chair were to send me a document with the agenda and all of the things. So, if Julian, you could coordinate that and then send me the agenda to post with the materials, then I can do it all in
one fell swoop and not bits and pieces as I'm receiving emails from all of you. That would that would make it a lot easier and um I think more transparent so that we have everything in front of us, the members have all of all of the documents that you need in front of you in front of us. And a a good way of
doing that is say 48 hours in advance of the meeting I get the materials and the agenda so that I can post them all at once. That makes my job a little bit easier. So I would appreciate if we could do it that way. Thank you. That makes a lot of sense to me. Sorry I'm late everybody. I had thought that the
meeting started at 6:30 in my head. So I was thinking up here, oh 6:30. And then I got a call and was like, nope, the meeting's starting now. I better open up my computer. So I apologize for that brain fart, if you will. Um, Erica, were you chairing the meeting
or I was I was, but I'm handing it over to you. Me had a comment and then we were just about to go into public comment once we've resolved this issue about our agenda. We dealt with the minutes. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay, great. So, all the minutes are approved. Um, and we'll have public comment after this and
then I'll bring the league in after our outreach subcommittee update. Um, yes, Athena, that is perfectly fine. I I can totally see how that would make things much easier to coordinate on your end. Um, so I could send you an email every
every like Friday or Monday with the with a Google doc that basically or a PDF that says like here's the agenda, here's the minutes PDF attached and here's the other PDFs. What that will require from us members
is if you all have anything you'd like in the documents, please send it to me within 48 hours in advance of the meeting. So, it can't be like today or tomorrow. I know I got an email from some folks that was like sent today or
yesterday. That wouldn't have worked. We'd need it 48 hours before. And don't post it right at the last minute. try to do a little bit before 48 hours. That way I have a few hours after work where I can actually put and add your thing to
the document so we can actually look it over in the meeting rather than it being more hodge podge. So I can totally do that. But what I do need from my members is that stick to like even a 50our rule. um anything
after 50 hours won't be able to get posted and won't be able to be discussed in the meeting. So I can definitely do that for you, Athena. That makes a lot of sense to me. It's much more efficient. Um so I don't have a problem with that. Uh I will I want to first do public
comment and then I'll get to your comment, Meg. Oh, it's just related to what we're talking about. Oh, okay. Then go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Um I agree with what Bernie said very much a while what you came I didn't know what Bernie said. I wasn't here yet. Anyway, um and
um I I'm not apologizing. I'm explaining that I sent the the memo email to you last night because the dates were only confirmed yesterday and I thought it would save time uh to read something ahead rather than having me describe it.
But I appreciate the plan to get things out and get them on the website, particularly get them on the website so we all know where to look ahead of time. May I ask where you are? It looks very cool. I'm in Washington State. Cool. See the snowy mountain back there?
Bernie. Yeah. What Bernie said was you don't have to go back and and and watch the watch the tape. What Bernie said was when we go to the meeting packet page for the meeting, it should contain the agenda. Yep.
contain copies or links to all the documents we're going to discuss, even if one of those documents or one or more of those documents were discussed at a previous meeting. Okay? So, when you go there, it's all laid out. And I, like I said, I'm being selfish. Um, it's easier
for me that way, but it's also we'd like to talk we talk a lot about transparency and when uh Mr. Mi Mr. Ms. Public goes to our meeting packet page. Yeah, it will be helpful for them if they can see all of what we're going to talk about.
So does that Athena would it be easier if I send you the agenda in a document so that way you can post it right over without having to copy paste the the meeting notice is it needs to include the list of topics and that gets
uh pasted in but if you all would like a separate document in the packet that is an agenda document then I need that separately or else I'm taking time to it sounds like the committee wants that that's more work for me and Athena but if Athena is okay with it. I'm okay with
it. Um, I could basically create the agenda in a Google doc and send that PDF to Athena to post. Does that work for you, Athena? That's perfect. Okay, great. Um, okay. So, now we'll go on to public comment.
I'm noticing that Patricia can't get into the meeting room for some reason. She sent me an email. I see her in the room currently. Can you promote her to Okay, great. Thank you. Um I just got your email. Uh and we also have folks
from the legal women voters. Um I just want to bring them in afterwards if that's possible after public comment and then I will go forward with public comment. So um I see four
attendees. Uh if anyone would like to make a public comment um not related to the league's presentation um please come in and do so now. Um I'll give you 3 minutes to speak and you can click raise hand on Zoom or press star 9
if you're on a telephone or in this case maybe an iPad. Um so go ahead if anyone would like to do that. Okay, I don't see anybody. Okay. Um, I'll pass it to Erica and Raphael
and Meg. You can jump in if you want for the outreach subcommittee update. I know Erica, you sent me an email with a few different points you'd like to include in this. Um, feel free to discuss those now and then we'll bring in the League of Women Voters with their slide presentation. Okay. So, outreach subcommittee um, we
have a number of things that we wanted to update about. I guess the first thing that's top of mind right now is the scheduling of dates for um listening sessions and we've had some successes and some obstacles and Meg detailed that in her
email to the committee. Meg, do you want to say sort of out loud for the record the current status of the three in-person sessions? Which ones are booked and which ones are still pending? So, our plan was to have three in-person
sessions, one in South Ammerst, one in the middle of town, one in North Ammerst, and between those to have a a Zoom virtual session. The one originally planned for uh May 22nd, I moved to May 29th, and that's at Crocker Farm, and
that's been very difficult, and I'm grateful to Raphael for taking that on. The second one is on June 18th, Wednesday at Bangs. And uh the Diane, the woman schedules theirs was very helpful once I finally reached her. Big
thanks to uh Sam and Athena, I mean um uh Angela for helping figure that out. And the last one is at the bank at the survival center the 29th of June. There's we haven't someone has to sign a contract and I don't know who that is.
There was I had one question about the contract which involved insurance but I'm sure it's all fine. Uh I I can deal with that separately with Athena who who signs the contract. Um we need to decide uh somebody just needs to figure out
setting up the Zoom with I assume with the town Zoom account. Yeah, hold on. I'm going to talk about that, but I just wanted to say the three the three inerson sessions number one is still to be confirmed and Rafael's working on that. Two and three are booked pending a question about a
contract with the ammer survival. Okay. So that's so that's and if it takes too long to get Crocker. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. We could move the date another week later. I mean the advantage of moving them later is we'll be more ready uh and
there'll be more time but um that's yes that's the status of those three right grateful to Raphael and I should have responded sooner to you Raphael thank you for your offer we still have to wait for folks um but I think we have the right people and we're just finally yeah
I think it would be great to know though in terms of like fees and billing and point people when it comes to booking these spaces is like who will take that role, who will handle that, right? If I have that information
about fees, most of two of them are free. Uh, and I can share that, but I thought our subcommittee could Yeah, we should deal on that. Yeah, I mean, I I don't think it's worth our time given our big agenda to do it, but I do have that information. And the the issue about the contract and the insurance is
I'm sure it's I just have to get an answer so that we're I'm not I don't like signing. I don't know if I'm the one to sign it. That's the kind of question that we can address. But it's booked. Let's check in. Let's check in off. Yeah. But those two are booked and we're in the schedule and uh I know
exactly everything about what we need to do once we Yeah. I'll I'll check in with you both about Crocker. Thank you. Great. Um the rest
of the update is uh I met with um Athena and Sam Gifin from the communications office to talk about a number of things. One of which is the Zoom session that we had in mind fourth of those listening sessions. Either one or two of those. We haven't
fully decided that piece yet. But uh the bottom line I can report we can use the town's we can and should use the town's um zoom accounts for hosting those sessions and we can get support
from Sam and Athena on doing that. Um uh there was a question of uh the the sessions that we that are hosted on all the meetings that are hosted on
town accounts get posted to YouTube and I don't think that's appropriate for the listening session that we're going to do. So, we're just unless there's some objection from this group, um I would think that we don't want to post a public public uh forum
immediately onto YouTube, but I'm open to other feedback on that. Andy, yeah, I'm just wondering why that wouldn't be appropriate. I see to me it seems like a way to share what happened there for people who couldn't get there and it is a public forum. So, I mean,
I agree with Andy. Um, I've seen the League of Women Voters have posted stuff on YouTube and the town did like a housing affordability public forum that got posted on YouTube and I would argue that that has sort of just as much if
not more um public engagement, personal information, etc. that might be shared. Okay, other any other comments about that? I think we just need to uh make people aware of that fact going into it.
For sure. Yeah. Okay. So, I will follow up about that. Um the date for that for at least one one of those sessions is tenatively June 12th which is
uh th Thursday June 12th an evening date um for that Zoom session. it falls between two of the other in-person sessions. Um, and we we never landed on whether or
not we should schedule the fifth, meaning the second Zoom session. Um, I don't know if this group has thoughts on whether we should book that now because we also have the option of scheduling another round
uh even even if it's potentially a smaller round of listening sessions later in this process in case we don't catch as many people as we might like to given the time of year and everything. Um, Ken Ken and then Bernie. Yeah, just a
quick question about June 12th. Um, you said the evening. Do you have a you actually have a time block set aside? I am I was listing 7 p.m. but nothing is written in stone at
this point. Weekend evening. I'm sorry. Is this a weekday or a weekend evening? It's a Thursday. It's a Thursday. Okay. Yeah. Um it would be nice if we had some outreach events scheduled on the
weekend. So folks Yeah, we do. We do. One of those dates is a um Sunday. Sunday. Perfect. Um Bernie, sorry to interrupt. Yeah, I I was just reacting to Erica's comment that you know there's
four sessions queued up. I think we can wait on scheduling the fifth, sixth, or seventh. Let's see what we get back from those four. Take a breather because we're going to be everybody leaves town in July and August and then um we'll
want to come back. Oops. Andy and then Meg. Yeah, I just um I'm hoping that maybe the next round of these might be where we present some stuff and get feedback on actual ideas rather than just
collecting input. So, that might be a thing to think about. I agree. Um Megan, um two things. Um the reason we want to make some decision about which we're including and not in this session, I'm completely fine with four with only one being a Zoom meeting
is so we can advertise them all at once. Um a second point just while so I don't have to raise my hand again. I actually feel that we should not because we're so far along in the timeline that to the extent possible we should I guess I said this in my email last
night give people a chance to react because we're going to have a chance to talk about some of the feedback we've already heard which is significant give people possibly invite the outreach subcommittee to think about structuring these so that we're addressing some of
the things that we know have come up but that's for later in this conversation. I think is making two I think once we get that the first point I guess is more timely once we get that zoom nailed down or make a decision uh Samantha's ready to start getting the
word out so people start to get these things on their calendars. Excellent. Um Erica, yeah, the Zoom the June 12th is the proposed Zoom date and um is the if the committee feels okay
about that, I'm going ahead with um the publicity materials that we're generating and delivering to Sam next week, assuming that we lock down the Crocker farm date, which is the last piece. Um, in terms of that, the meeting
that I had with Sam, we confirmed the other piece which was the proposed website. I don't know if you remember that I had uh proposed a website. We brought over from the outreach subcommittee two ideas, the outreach uh a web a public facing website for all
the outreach that we're doing and a flyer to help um have a kind of uniform publicity face for all these things. Sam was very helpful. She agreed that the website could go forward on
um the uh an external platform, not in not buried inside of the town website, but could they could sort of link to each other and that she could help support with uh maybe help the website that that uh that we're preparing have a
like a do some branding to make it clear that it is sanctioned and belongs to a town committee and a town process. So, I'll I'm going to deliver publicity materials to Sam next week and work with her on making sure we're, you know,
complying and also making things look the way they should look. So the idea is that the p the publicity will direct people to the website for more information and that that information will include
um our charge as a committee to the link directly to the charter maybe to the charter summary that we've that that has been prepared link to um directly to the written feedback form link to the survey when we eventually create it. um and
link to information and or Zoom links for listening sessions so that everything is kind of gathered in one place. Does uh would it be useful to bring that back up on screen or or have we discussed that enough?
I feel like we've discussed that enough. I did have one other thing I wanted to raise with the committee that's somewhat related to outreach, but let me know. I want you guys to be able to finish up first. Um what else? Um the other piece that we
wanted to talk about is uh kind of enlisting the rest of the committee and some of the remaining pieces for what's going to be involved in facilitating uh meetings. So, as an example, and to Andy's point
earlier, I think what we had agreed on was that the first meeting would be pretty open-ended and and not necessarily thematically structured, and that future meetings based on what we hear and how it goes, we kind of can give them some more
um pointed topics. Um for the first meeting I think we've agreed that the as all or some of the outreach subcommittee is going to facilitate that meeting and then future meetings will have to solicit your
participation by in some in twos or threes to facilitate those other meetings um in in June um could be an item for a future
agenda. Um, I'm I'm we're pursuing as a subcommittee like some recording equipment so that we can keep a record of what is said so we don't have to be furiously taking notes during listening sessions. Uh, Raphael had a great idea to reach out to Ammerst Media to see if
we can borrow some recording equipment or some sort of uh even as a simple microphone to help us do that. Um, Raphael, I don't know if you have anything to report out about that yet. Yeah, we should just check in offline. Okay, good play. Sounds good. The other
thing is we had talked about providing some uh printed materials at the meeting at the listening session like for instance copies of the charter andor the summary. um copies of the charter might be a little bit harder because they're
they're kind of, you know, books and so but we could provide uh a simple two-sided or like a one-pager that is the charter summary and I don't know Andy, you had originally created that um put it
forward and also we dug up that org chart that has been helpful in our conversations and so I was thinking that a charter summary org chart on the back might be a helpful thing to have around. The communications office can help us make those copies and then we can have
them available. Um, but we need to sort of create that thing. So, I don't know if anybody wants to volunteer to do that. Nope. I raised my hand. I didn't want to volunteer. Um, Andy and Meg. Well, I
mean, I've already created a summary and I we have the org chart and I think we're going to try to run that by uh the Collins Center. um to see if they wanted to use that or or come up with some other different summary. But uh I'm happy to help with that if that's
useful. I think that would be great. I think that if you want if you want to take that on um again keeping in mind that May 29th is the date of the thing. So we want to give a little bit of lead time to whoever's going to make those, you
know, produce those copies for us and make them available. And it might be that the town has some leftover boxes of charter reports somewhere around. I don't know. Yeah, it may be. Um and and
we'll reach out about that. Um yeah. Um okay, Meg, I think we we can also let people have give people the link for getting the full charter online.
Yeah, that will be on the website. Yeah, for sure. Right. Uh I think that is I think that's it for the outreach subcommittee except for the fact except just one thing Julian the the survey the
town staff this is not about listening sessions. The town staff and elected officials survey that we discussed at length. I sent a final sort of test drive version for everybody and I just want to take the opportunity to make sure that I have a green light to to
lock that down. Um, and I have one question to raise with the group that came up in the conversation with Sam Gifin. Um, I discussed it with her and she felt like that it might be useful and kind of legitimizing or unifying to
send it out from her office, uh, like within, you know, from her email and have a paragraph that says the charter review committee invites you to blah blah blah, and then we can have an introductory paragraph with a link. I think that would be an excellent idea.
Very helpful and it would make folks in town feel more comfortable with it coming from another staff person. Okay. So, I can pursue that with Sam, but um any other objections or anything to that? Oh, okay. Andy,
I I just um I think as I recall, you were sending the the um survey to the Collins Center for their their review and um did did that happen? And I guess I have a question about the um the final section.
And I think we had some discussion about whether we would have one box with here are some examples of areas that you might want to talk about or if we're having separate boxes for each of those areas that you picked. Yeah. So, can I answer that directly?
Yes, the Yes, I did um I did send Patricia the copy of the survey after our last meeting. She sent me feedback. I sent I did those revisions and I sent it to everyone um with those revisions included. Um I think that the most
recent version I consolidated the long version of those additional topics into just a short list. Um we can go back to the way I had it before, but I don't know that I don't want to open a can of worms because we're very close to approving this
thing. But that's where that's where it was. It did go through that last round and it did go back out to you guys for a test drive of the the live page. Got it. Um Meg and then Bernie,
did did Samantha have any opinion about us having a separate website? Erica, yeah, I I addressed that a little bit ago. I was just Okay, I just Good. she could see the value of it and she's going to help us with branding
it. So, great. Okay. Sorry, I missed Sorry, I missed that. Bernie, you're muted. There. I turn the microphone on. Um, no worms. I just want to make sure that we can catch the former counselors as well
when we do the survey. So, uh, if Sam has those email addresses, that's fine. If not, I will try to track them down and send them to her. If not, I have three of them, too. So, um, in order to just kind of organize this the process,
uh, Bernie, if you if you could I know you had posted this as a document on one of our meetings long ago. Mhm. If you could send the list that you had compiled of the people that you thought were the kind of the set of people to
send this out to current performer, that would be great. And then I like me to forward that to you or to S. If you want to forward it to Sam and CC me, that would be great. And then I can track it with her. Be happy to do that. And uh because my view is is that the
former counselors have got some valuable Yeah. input. they've been through it and they've had a chance to uh to think about it. So, I really want to capture what their impressions are, right? And also, she volunteered that she may have some addresses that we don't have. Um,
so that can be part of what I send her uh or communicate with her about early next week. Awesome. Andy, you're muted as well. Muted. I'm still muted. I just looked at the survey again and I
noticed that you did combine the the list and have one box for them to those are examples of things they might want to talk about, but there's one box for it, which I I think is a good move. And um I'm curious if Pat has anything to say about the survey, but it looked good
to me. Looks good to me, too, Pat. Um, I did send feedback, although I don't I did not receive a copy of the final survey, so I haven't looked at the final one. Um, so I don't have anything to say about that one. Um, I'm assuming
that, um, Erica read through my feedback and took what was helpful and ignored what wasn't helpful and it's probably a fantastic product. Um, ju just to answer that, I did want my idea was to get the last feedback from this group and then
um send it to you again because I did I did take all of that in and send it to everybody. Excellent. Thank you. Um, okay, great. Yes. Do I need to do I need to motion about the survey? Um, where are we at with that? I don't think so. I
feel like we're pretty good. I mean, you can if you want. I don't feel the need. I just want to make sure we've had a lot of debate. Great. It looks like other people agree. Um the uh only other thing that I had to
share is I got an email from um actually my counselor Anna Devlin Goth here. um who is the chair of the governance organization and legislation committee of the town council and she was wondering if we wanted a liaison. This
was a broad email sent out to all the committee chairs. Um and basically she's just curious do we want a liaison as in a town counselor from the town council comes in and sits in our meetings and asks questions but cannot vote. Um, if
the answer is no, we don't need to respond an email. If the answer is yes, we do need to respond or I would need to respond. So, if folks strongly want that, please let me know. Me, if this requires discussion, I suggest
we bring it up at our next meeting. It's not like a highly It's more of a an opportunity less of a we have to make a choice type thing. Like if we don't respond, we're just automatically saying
no. It's a generic email sent out to all the town committees. Um and if we do respond, the council would consider giving us a liaison, but it doesn't mean they have to. It just means that we ask for one. we would probably still be pretty unlikely to get one even if we
asked. Um Andy, I don't see the harm of having somebody um if they want to participate. I mean, it would get it would give a a it would give a sort of microphone into the into
the council which is going to be reviewing our stuff down the road anyway. But um like you said, if it's unlikely that we're going to get somebody anyway, I don't I don't know exactly how to how how to respond to that. Um I'm curious, maybe Pat could say if they have they had councils have
liaison on these kinds of things in her experience or not. Some it's it's rare, but it certainly happens. Um there are also some committees that actually have select select board members or counselors on well select board members I haven't seen
counselors on committees um and there are some that are liaison um who may come to the meeting um it is certainly sometimes helpful especially um but at the same time um you you could also
invite them to specific meetings where you might need their help more than others um rather than having them at all the meetings. It's completely up to you. Uh Bernie, yeah, I don't see the point in having
leaison. Um especially given all the workload that individual counselors have right now. Um I think that suggestion that if we need to have somebody from the councils or from that particular committee sit in, we invite them. But
otherwise, um, we we really I don't think we really need one. And, uh, frankly, as a manager, I've always advised boards and committees not to do that because it involves a certain
degree of capture and, um, a certain degree of spin on the part of the person who becomes the liaison when you go back to the the body as a whole. I would prefer that we speak as a committee to the council as a whole and
not to have the council rely on an individual to interpret what they may or may not have um seen at a at a a committee meeting at our meeting. Julian, you're muted. Thank you. Um I
would generally agree, Bernie. uh Erica and then Andy and we'll try to wrap this up. Okay. Yeah. Um just another just another vote of uh just expressing this the same sentiment, but I think that if we want to invite
council members to participate in our conversations later on, that's great. I don't I feel like the independence of each is important in the in in the process. Um until such a time as we feel like it's it's useful for everybody to
have members of the council present. I'm on the same page. Um Andy? Yeah, I I I think that's probably right. Um, I I was just wondering if we wanted to have them identify somebody. If we wanted to have somebody attend a particular meeting, who would we who would we request or
would we just send out a request to the full council, but they have they have a large workload and adding an extra two hours every couple weeks is not probably not the thing they want to be doing. So, I agree. I won't respond to that email. Um, and now I will ask uh that we bring
in the legal women voters as panelists for a while. It's been up for a while. Sorry, I didn't see it. A quick note, there are rules in the council's rules of procedure that govern what liaison to boards and committees, council liaison to boards and committees can and can't
do. Um, they can't participate in the meetings. They're just in the audience. If they're called on to answer questions, then they do that. um but they don't express opinions during meetings. They basically convey what's going on in the committee to the full council to kind of keep them appraised
of what's going on. But um while I'm mentioning that, it would be really helpful, I think, for members to be aware of the rules, the council's rules because it they uh they use those to to figure out how to work their their legislation.
So, um, if you haven't seen the council's rules, then I can forward you a link. They're on the council homepage. Thank you, Athena. That's helpful. Okay. Um, any other comments, questions about
this? Uh, let's bring in the legal women voters as panelists and they have a presentation. Um, so I'll let uh whoever it is share their screen. Um and we can go through it and then ask questions. This should be pretty quick.
Is it Adrien? Uh yes it is. Um Adrien Darcy and iPad. iPad is Phyllis Ler I believe. Perfect. Excellent. Um maybe iPad is Adrian. No. Okay, we have
everybody. Excellent. Thank you. Um that's perfect. Um I'll allow you to share your screen if you'd like to share your screen. Okay, let's see. See the
screen. That's not it. Sorry. Sorry. That's okay. Not doing a good job of this. Um, and I'm having trouble at my end. I'm sorry, too. If you want to just screen share the
tab, that's perfect. That was I just had to Let's see. Oh, put Google Slides in present mode. That might help. It says like slideshow or whatever. I'm having a hard time getting my video
in and I need it. So, let's see what's going on here. We can hear you. So, honestly, it's okay if you can't get the video in. Darcy, that looks great. Just click slideshow on it um to like enlarge it because we still see your like
Gmail. See where it says slideshow? Yep, there you go. It hasn't happened before, so I'm very surprised. Okay, we we actually don't need this until um I'm just going to
minimize it because we don't need it until Adrian speaks. Okay, go ahead. Um Okay, so Oh dear. Do you see my introduction on the page?
Oh, yes. Okay. Well, I guess you will be looking at that while I'm reading it. Um, good afternoon. Come here. Look. How do I It's okay. Geez. I'm sorry. Oh, I see what the problem is. You can also just stop
sharing and reshare again afterwards when you're ready. Just click on your on the CRC slideshow. Um, I turned mine off. How do I You heard them say iPad.
Just click CRC slideshow and then on the bottom of the Zoom screen, it should say stop sharing. Um, yeah. And while and Julian and others. While Darcy is working that out, is there something going on at your end
that's not enabling me to get my video? Doesn't No, it just says no camera. Um, the two possibilities are on your computer, it might in the settings have a uh camera blocker type thing on it or
you might have a camera blocker app um that's that's causing that. Um, it doesn't look like it's an actual like thumb over the camera. It's not that. So, uh, those are the two things, but we can hear you just fine. If you're off camera, that isn't really an issue for
us. Okay. Are we ready? Good afternoon. The League of Women Voters Charter Review Task Force thanks the members of this committee for volunteering your time to review the Emerst Home Rule Charter. Uh, as a
member of the league, uh, I served on both the first and second task forces and learned a lot both about our charter and about charters of other Massachusetts cities and towns. The task force members represented a spectrum of views and didn't always agree on
recommendations. The task force winnowed their final recommendations down to 18. Then league members met on June 2, 20204 and reduced the number further coming to consensus on the 12
recommendations they made to this committee. In our first year, the task force was chaired by Phyllis Slayer. Members included Jay McGowan, Elaine Berger, and myself. In the second year, the committee consisted of Mara Jate, Janet Pesach, Julian Hines, and myself.
Adviserss to the committee included Adrienne Terizy and Joan Rabbin. The task force also hired a UMass grad student to conduct a survey of the 11 other municipalities in Massachusetts that have a council manager form of
government. He provided information on how many amendments they have made to their charters, the number of councelor seats, counselor term lengths, whether they had term limits, and the length of their lame duck periods. The presenters
today are Phyllis Lair and Adrien Terzi. Phyllis is a former chair of the League of League Charter Review Task Force and Adrienne Terzi served on the 2016 2017 League of Women Voters Charter Review
Committee and has been adviser to the current task force. Phyllis. Hi, I'm Phyllis Larer, a member of the Amoris League of Women Voters and a member of the League's Charter Review Task Force. The League is a grassroots nonpartisan
policy organization of women and men that works for informed participation in government. The League influences public policy through education and advocacy. It operates on a local, state, and national level. The league voted in 2022
to conduct a review of the Amoris 12 world charter in relation to the League of Women Voters good government principles in anticipation of the town's required review in 2024. A charter review task force was formed. The task
force conducted a resident survey guided by the league principles and published the results. The league's good government principles. Let me share them with you. widespread and inclusive participation. Diversity in the
community reflected in government. Openness and full disclosure. Uh checks and balances of power among the executive, legislative and administrative branches of government and the electorate. Honesty and
non-corruptability in all decision-making. efficiency based on professional management and timely decisionmaking, accountability for political and fiscal decisions. The task force focus was to examine the town council form of
government in relation to the league's principles of good government. The task force studied the homeown charter articles and resources about municipal and government and best practices. We met with current and former council members. We held public meetings. We
reviewed the 11 other communities that share Amoris's form of government, conducted a survey, and handled consensus meetings of our findings. We elicited opinions from respondents to help inform our work. Each question related to one of the good government
principles. The task force survey concluded that many survey respondents were not fully satisfied with how Ammersttown government is functioning. Our research also found that among the 12 Massachusetts municipalities that use Ammeris form of
government that is a council and manager, it is common to periodically amend or change home rule charters by using a variety of processes established under state law. The link to the survey, the results, as well as the comments can
be found on the town websites and the league websites. the league shares its recommendations for your consideration and thank you for listening. Okay, now I'm going to share the slideshow again and let's
see we see it. can see it, but we uh click on slideshow so it's like actually visible, not like half your screen. Okay, let's see. Here we go. Now, what we're we're starting on. Is it I don't see it yet,
Darcy. It's like very small. Oh. Um try clicking on it again. This is just if not maybe zoom in. It's just very small.
Is it small to everyone? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a fraction of the screen. I can read it, but some folks Yeah. not have 19-year-old eyes. control and then make it bigger. Will the down arrow by the slideshow do
anything? That one right there. Right there. Oh, yeah. There is that. Yeah. Start slideshow. Click start slideshow. Perfect. Nice.
Excellent. Okay. Um, so we're starting on this slide, Adrian. Adrian, you might be muted. It does say still loading. Okay. So, hello everybody from um I'm some from some
remote location down in South Ammeris. Anyway, I'm Adrien Terizy and I'm going to be presenting the task force amendments tonight. Um, now I've been in town a long time, uh, but not as long as the Amoris League of Women Voters, which
was founded in 1993 when there were more cows in Amoris than people. Now, we've since studied a range of public policy issues and with member consensus. We have official local
positions on housing. We've run many forums on that and perhaps you were at one of ours, education in our schools, energy and the environment, business and economic development in Amoris, libraries, healthcare, and our local
government, which we have studied since the late 1940s when the town budget was creeping towards $1 million and the need for professional town management became very real and a very hot topic.
Perhaps a few of you might know that a few years later, Alan Tory was hired as the first town manager. Now, involvement in local government issues has been a core effort over our past 86 years, including in all town charter
commissions in which we studied and participated, 1994, 2001, again in 2003, and 2016. and the league simultaneously reviewed and updated our own positions
on the structures and functions of what we as residents should expect of good government. So now we're ready for that slide uh on good government principles. The amendments which I'll present are
based on the concepts, principles, and practices of our current good government position, adopted in 2019 and reapproved at every annual membership meeting since. Those principles were mentioned a
little earlier uh by Phyllis. I hope they're on the screen. They are. Okay. I'm unable to see, but please follow along with me. I I can't see them either. I I'm not
seeing them. Oh, it just says loading like a browser screen that just says loading here. Yeah. Um do you Oh, also just out of curiosity, when was the league founded?
19 1993. 1939. I'm sorry. 1939. Okay. I was going to say 199. Did I say 93? Yeah, I meant 1939. I'm getting all my dates mixed up
here. Thank you for the correction uh on that. 1939. And yes, it is a bonafide. I was going to say if it was 1993, there'd be a lot of cows in the neighborhood. No. And we couldn't be 86 years old, could we? So, let me get on with those
good government uh principles, practices, and concepts. Are they up yet? There we go. So, follow along with me. Uh the League of Women Voters of Ammeris believe that good local government should maximize the following.
widespread and inclusive participation and that diversity of the community be reflected in local government in order to affect understanding, ownership and decision making. Number three, because I combined
those two, openness and full disclosure of the decision making process, believing that residents have the rights to expect early and open access to the process. checks and balances of
power. Checks and balances among the executive, legislative and administrative branches and the electorate and certainly the balance of power of shared responsibility. Number five, the
expectation of honesty in all decision making and avoidance of undue influence of special interest by town officials and appointees. Number six, efficiency based on professional management and timely decision making. Balancing maximum
efficiency in making decisions with informed deliberation and citizen participation. Again, believing that citizen petitions and requests should be acted upon in a timely manner. Finally, the last position is that
government must be accountable for political and fiscal decisions with clear rationale and processes and full disclosure during our deliberations. So, we can take that
slide away, Darcy, and let's go on to the next several slides. These are our recommendations based on the league's good government positions for improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and transparency in the executive and
legislative branches in the current Ammerst home rule charter. Uh Darcy, I don't see the good. I I don't see Yes, I do. Sorry. So, as as the slides
Yeah, we're good. So, it's been mentioned that the league by Darcy that the league reached consensus on 12 charter amendments at our June 2024 member onlyly meeting. Two others were referred for further study
to the Amoris League and another two were referred to the state for advocacy. I'll go through these in the next slides. So, we can go to the next slide and hold on to your questions, which we'll be happy to get to as soon as we
complete those slides. There aren't many, so come along with me. The lead task force recommends a charter preamble. I was pleased to see it on your agenda tonight. So we recommend that any change to a charter
include a preamble with a mission and values statement together with the goals for an Ammeris town government. Can we get up article two? Darcy, we're going to be talking about the recommendations which we have
several for the legislative branch of town government. I don't see it moving. It's there. It should be on article two now. I only see good government principles on good government.
You don't see article two town council? No. No. I'm glad I'm not the only one. America any difference? No. Nope. We can wait a few minutes this because I think it's important to see the slide on this. It's
right there. Julian, do you have any idea about why this is advancing for us but not Darthy? Are you um sharing the application or the screen? It does say
your screen sharing is paused. It says paused. I don't know why I still have you having full screen sharing. Um maybe maybe email it to Julian and he can put it up. Yeah, I actually that is a smart idea. I will do. That's a great idea.
You should already have it, right? Yeah. Yes, I do. I have it in my email. Just give me 30 seconds. I don't know why it's paused. The gremlin. Um, the gremlin did
it at my house. presentation. Julian, Bernie has his hand up. Yeah, go ahead, Bernie. Just give me a minute here. Trying to get this up. Turns out it's still difficult for me. Bernie, you're muted.
Bernie, you're muted. Julian, maybe you can unmute Bernie. I cannot. No, typically people are trying to mute me, not unmute me. I was just simply going to ask if any of this uh these slides are materially different from
what's already been submitted to the uh to the committee because the league did do a submission and the league also has a pretty um thorough presentation on their website. So um just as alternatives to
looking at this what slide should I be on Darcy two article two okay so I'm on the right I'm in the right place you all can see that excellent I'm going to mute and get my
camera off so you guys can actually pay attention and not have me in the way. Uh can we have Bernie's question answered though? I don't know the answer. Darcy. Yeah. No, there's there is other material that Adrienne is covering in
her present. Actually, all three of us did add other information about the leaks process. So, yeah, these are our recommendations, but um we wanted to present them in case you had questions
about them. Okay. I just want to I if if this slide deck is different from what's already been sent to us, please send us a slide deck. Otherwise, I'll just continue to pay attention to the presentation.
Slide deck. Just let me know when to ready for the next slide. It is different. It's abbreviated from what you already have on your website. Adrien,
I'm I'm waiting for some consensus as to how to continue of what is the will of the group because essentially I'm going to be either going through the next several articles or if
Darcy and Phyllis agree, I can go to the referred uh the recommend commendations um on the transitions and the four referred articles, the two to the state and two to to the league.
Why don't you just continue Adrian? This is a very short presentation. I think we've taken more time by discussing this. All right, go ahead. Just continue and let me know when to say next. Say next when you're ready for me to train. We'll we'll go through these quickly. I know it's uh very difficult to be talked
at. Read along with me, please, and we can move through it together. As you see, there are several several items under article 2, the legislative branch and town council to shorten the current period between election and inauguration of counselors to be no more than 3
weeks. To lengthen and stagger terms for elected offices. Provide each town counselor with an equal opportunity for voice and vote on standing council committees. provide the town council with the power to hire its own legal
counsel or analyst and require a second in order for counselor to postpone discussion under section 21. Let's go to the slide on uh slide article three please. Executive branch the town manager we have two
recommendations. We recommend a clean delineation of the town manager's powers. That's section 32. And certainly for committee and board applications overseen by a town manager to be made public, but with the
consent of the applicant. Julian, can you advance the slide, please? Great. Okay, we're on article five. Very good. So certainly article five you're familiar with. It's the financial policies and procedures of the home rule
charter. And we support the task force has sent the support with consensus of the league members for an amendment that resident members have the right to vote on committee decisions. Full right of uh those three resident
members. The next article eight of the home rule charter as you know is public participation mechanisms. Can you advance uh Julian? There it is. Now what you obviously see if we've
we've gone through the charter article by article statement by statement. So this is what we bring to you. Uh I am looking at article 8 billion. What? Thank you. Uh article 8 uh public
participation to provide at a minimum public comment at the beginning of all regular town council standing council committees and multiple member bodies. There are additions there, but when we get to the question and answer, I'm sure we'll have a few around those. It might
be a good idea to have your charter booklet available because I've got some numbers for you to um identify if you need them. Okay, we're ready for article 10. These are the transition provisions and we also have several
recommendations and sections of this article. Julian, can you advance it please? Thank you. Here, we're going to recommend a recommmitment to the five programs
originally in the home rule charter, but we're suggesting robust state legislative advocacy for those uh items, those programs that are going to require state legislation, uh state legislative advocacy. You will recall that rank
choice voting, participatory budgeting, creating a coordinated position for Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as permitting noncitizens to vote in town elections and to hold town public uh town uh elective office. Finally,
lowering the voting age for town elections. Those are all recommended from our study. So now that concludes the amendments that we are bringing to you. However, uh our next slide includes
recommendations for either new or renewed state advocacy and this is charter 10.8. First that local elections in even numbered years coincide with national elections.
Secondly, continued hybrid council and virtual council committee meetings and to allow and advocate for electronic signatures on all types of resident petitions. No, the two task force recommendations
that we referred to the Amoris League of Women Voters for Study that we felt we really wanted to share with you include the following. These are topics for additional study. A change to a council
mayor form of government with or without a manager in order to have an elected executive. Now, if the town pursues this change, the League of Women Voters Charter Review Task Force also recommends a study of reducing the town council
size. Those are the recommendations for topics to study following our own study of the home rule charter that we sent on to the League of Women Voters Steering Committee. The second point that we
recommend that a voter veto resident position should require the same affirmative vote percentage as the original council vote being challenged in order for the measure to pass. That's in section 8. Um,
okay. Scratch that. No, sorry. I have it down as 84. I hope I can read my hand handwriting on that. Uh that's in section 8.4. Now, this concludes my portion and I thank you for
your time. Uh and hope that our work and these recommendations will be informative to your own and we wish you the very uh best in the coming months ahead. I'm going to toss it back to Darcy uh who will take us through the question and answer period. We're going to be
here to answer your questions. So, thank you for your time. Yeah, we just um thought that if you have any questions about these at this time, uh we'll try to field them.
Could we take down the screen, the slide maybe? Thank you. Okay, great. So, folks have questions, please raise your hand and I'll call on you and Darcy will answer them. Um, I think we're all here to we're going to
feel them. Yeah. Um, Andy and it looks like one other person, they've raised their hand, Andy, go ahead and then Marcus. Um, yeah. on the voter veto petition requiring the same percentage as the
vote being challenged. Is that I just want to make sure I understand that if a if the council passed something by a vote of uh 8 to five then the voter veto would need to
what to have an 8 to5 proportion. I'm I'm not quite sure what that means. It it just means that if by law or rule the the amount the percentage that's required by the
council like some votes require a majority vote some votes require a 2/3 vote and if it requires one or the other that would be the amount that would be required
um under a voter veto petition also for the veto to pass, right? Okay. Thank you, Marcus. Yeah, sorry. Thank you. Um, going back to Can you go back to the slides,
Julian? Sorry. Uh, I think it was article two, your point three. I'm just curious what you mean by by each town council opportunity. Yeah, that's a good one.
Like I mean don't they have an opportunity to voice a vote? That's why I'm I'm just kind of if you could just explain that point, please. Yeah, let me kick that one off. Um, with
each of these amendments, we have linked them with the positions within our good government principles. So, let me say that certainly this one have that speaks for an equal voice in vote and I hope it answers your question. If not, Darcy and
and Phyllis will jump in. But you know that we have four standing committees at this point in time. uh our good government principles, participation and diversity operate here. And we feel that the charter should include the process
by which seats on these committees and chairmanships be filled with the goal of providing all councils with the opportunities to hold these roles in order in order to have participation and diversity within the the four um
standing committees. So Adrien, I think Marcus is asking, is that not already the case? Yeah, good. Darcy has Take it away, Darcy. Uh yeah, I think that there is
um um a somewhat in some of the committees and inequality in that um certain counselors have uh um positions on two committees and some have positions on one committee. So
that just means that they have twice as much voice as a committee member than those who are only on one committee. So um that is just something that we think
needs to be looked at um to try to equalize that because the the committees are pretty powerful. uh they have five members and when they you know their their recommendations are
are are usually respected by the full council. So can I ask a question about that now that you've got me this is me. I'll just I think people might be wondering is this also saying that a town counselor
who's not on a committee would have an equal opportunity to vote on a committee? No. Right. just to be a member of it. Yes. No, you have a vote on a committee. There are five votes, right? So, and
they make recommendations back to the full council. Um, so if you are on two committees, you get two votes on major
issues. If you are on one, you get one vote. So another way of stating this would be to say provide each town counselor with equal participation on standing council committees.
Well, yeah. It's not just voting on it and speaking at it. It's being a a member of it, right? Yeah. Yes. All of those things. Erica, um, two questions. the I think this this issue relates to the issue
that you I think brought up in a public comment a couple of weeks ago, Darcy, if I'm not mistaken, uh regarding a kind of equal representation of counselors on committees. Um I think that I I'm relating that to
the issue that you brought in public comment. I'm not sure if that's Yeah, I think I I think I made a public comment on the same thing. Yeah. Um and my other question was whether number two here in article two lengthen and stagger terms
for elected offices if you see that in any kind of conflict with the the recommendation that comes later about um syncing up local elections in uh even
numbered years to sync up with um larger national elections. Yes, it conflicts. And does one of those take take a kind of precedence in your thinking? I'm just curious because I can see a rationale for either one, but they seem to be in
conflict. Um, unless there's a lot of a lot of staggering. So, yeah, Marcus. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Uh, yeah. Sorry. I going back to three. There's an odd
number of counselors, correct? And you mentioned an even number of committees. It's not possible to have equal representation until you artificially create an odd number of
committees, right? [Music] No. Um I think that there are various remedies that people have put forward. Um, uh, councelor Brewer put forward a
proposal to have three member committees and if you it we don't have to work this all out among but that there are different ways that it can be done to give an equal voice to okay
thank you. Other questions for the league, comments, etc. Raise your hand. Maybe you could take down the screen. Yep. I don't see any other hands. Um,
last call. No, I guess. Oh, okay. So just for transparency, I'm a member of the league and I participated in the ending consensus process. Just to transparency, I was involved in the
whole thing. So uh that's totally fine. That's why I turned my camera off and didn't say anything so it didn't seem as if I had a a new influence. Um I didn't want to, but um yeah. Okay. Thank you everybody. Um, and how thank you for
your time and we appreciate your efforts and what you're trying to do to make our town a better place. It's a lot of work. We know, but thank you. Thank you for doing it and taking the time. And I would just add that um if you haven't
already looked at the feedback links on your website, there's a lot of different links that we that uh show our our presentations. We um you know we had different presentations on the different
articles and where we went through all the ration. We didn't go through the ration tonight uh because we do have it on your website but we hope that you'll take the time to look at each one of the recommendations and look at the ration look at all the
presentations and because we put a lot of time into it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Good night. Have a nice night. Bye bye. Excellent. Can we move them back to the
Yeah, thank you. attention and Adrien. See if she's there. Yep. Great. All righty. Thank you, Athena.
Um, we will now uh move on. We have to the Colin Center work plan. Um, and I will ask Patricia to Pat to come in and speak to this. And then we will work on the
charter outline and article one review um followed by uh reviewing feedback and a charter preamble draft discussion um if we have time. If not, we will uh end
it um on probably the preamble draft or the reviewing feedback. Um all right, Pat, go ahead. That was a very good discussion. Um I am going to start by saying, you know, I
started to take a look at creating a work plan and I roughed out a very rough schedule. However, that will all change and will need to be changed. Um, partially because I want to make sure that the dates you have down for the
meetings, which right now go through July 31st, are still the dates that you intend. Um, and that's number one. And secondly, I had included the dates of the public participation sessions as originally
looked at, and it looks like those have all changed, too. Um, so what I'm going to share is just for an example. It is not in any way set in stone as to how we're going to go through this, but I'm definitely going to be changing it
around once we have our dates. Um, let's me make sure that I have can find it. Let's see. Think if I Hold on. I'm going to cancel that. I have far too many things open. So, I'm not going to
um actually I'm not going to share the the draft work plan that I have right now right now unless I can find it on here. Here we go. Okay. Tell me if you see something that says meeting dates on it. Yes. Yep.
Wonderful. Perfect. Nice and big. So um this is what I had sketched out and it's more for an example as to an understanding um that we don't have a lot of time and we have a lot of chapters to go through a lot of articles to go through um and I had included the
um the listening sessions and the other sessions in it that I saw from one of the memos that um were online as an attachment to your meeting. Um, but those are obviously changing. For example, I noticed that your next
meeting is supposed to be May 22nd, but the original um, listening session was May 22nd as well. So, my question for the committee is, were you planning on having one of your listening sessions being during a regular meeting or was
that just an oversight that the original date was May 22nd, the same as a regular meeting? over oversight, but it's not happening now anyway. So, we're we're a little bit off schedule because uh we we
we had one meeting that came after a week as opposed to two. So, our rhythm is off and on top of that, we moved the May 22nd to May 29th. So, it's not entirely oversight. It's a couple of things moved. Yeah. Okay. your um the
listening session was moved or your regular meeting has been moved. When is your next meeting? Two weeks from tonight. So May 22nd. May 22nd. Yes. Okay. Great. Not the session. Okay. And then afterwards you you have a document on
your website that lists your next meeting. So that's what I incorporated. Those are the ones in white. Um and they may have changed. I'm not sure. Um, for example, you have the 5th of June and then you go to the 26th
of June, which I think is might be more than two weeks, but um, and then July 3rd, 17th, and 31. Um, I have those as your next meeting. So, the listening sessions will move. Um, and
pardon me, I don't know if you want to hear what the they two of them are confirmed. Oh, great. Um, yeah, you gave them to me earlier. I just haven't updated that. That's okay. Yeah. Um, but I think that
you said that May 2 Well, May 22nd is going to be the 29th. Yeah, you don't have to worry about it now unless it's helpful. And but it is I mean it's just this is just a visual for you to see how much material you have to get through if you're hoping to get through by the end
of the July to come up with some recommendations for your first report. Um obviously you may decide that you need more time to go through these and I don't expect you to get through these as quickly as I put them on here. Um I just laid them out for you know best case
scenario if you go through very quickly this is where you this is what you have to do to get through all the articles. Great. Um, and you know, as I said, it'll likely take longer than this. Um, and as we heard tonight, there are already a
number of ideas that you're going to want to discuss in each um that that have already been identified. So, um, you may go through this and identify some areas for discussion. Um, however, it may take more than one meeting for you to you to accomplish. to that. Um,
so there's going to be some overlap and I anticipated to either take a little longer, um, which you can, you know, put an extra meeting in here and there, which would be really tough for you over the summer given all of your listening sessions as well. Um, but we'll we'll
talk about this, you know, the the end dates in in October. This will get spread out a little bit more, but um, given the meetings you have on the calendar, I just want you to understand it. you'd have to work pretty aggressively to get through the whole charter. Um, but it's it's just a start.
We're going to change this and it will be a moving target. So, I'm going to stop sharing that. Um, great. Uh, so that's where we're at as far as a work plan, but I I'd love to hear from you. Um, we are going to be
going back and forth. Um, now that we have some, you know, we've talked about some of the feedback that you had from the League of Women Voters. Um, I'm wondering if you would like me to specifically insert their issues and their
suggestions into your into the conversations of each section um along with the public comment. Um, or if you are, you know, want to continue to if if you know now that those are things that you're going to consider. um or if you'd
like to just go through and um as we discuss it, decide, you know, what you want to talk about. Um Bernie. Yeah. Um hi Patricia, it's good to meet you. Um I was absent at the last meeting, so my apologies for that.
uh the the comments that the league made are included in the uh definitive list of comments that Meg and Andy assembled and that we had chat gtp sort into themes. So um they're in there already.
There's no need to ex to add them in. And um um you know I think um for me at least I want I'd want to debate some of the discussion that the the league presented because some of it
is off base uh in my humble opinion. So, we we've already taken into account their uh their their recommendations and a minority statement by one of their members who had a couple of disagreements with the consensus presses. Meg,
can't hear you, Meg. We cannot hear you, but you're not muted, so something else is going on. I'll come back to you. Um, Raphael, can you hear me now? That's better. Go ahead. Um, Patricia, you said something that I want to It's a very important I
want to clarify. We've talked about going through the charter and to me it hasn't been clear whether we're going through in order to say in the next meeting it's all spelled out in the calendar that you just showed us what we each think or are we going to use those discussions of each article to talk
about the comments that the public has already made of which there are I think 84 comments as of a month ago and I feel for us to be reach the end of July and not have been seriously discussing and debating the feedback and hearing You
know, I'm eager to hear what Bernie thinks and about the feedback, not what we think, but what we're hearing. Uh, I feel strongly that we need to use that process of going through each um Raphael. Yeah. Following that,
commenting on list sessions, people think we're hearing I'm gonna Yeah. Um, go ahead. Following point, I think surfacing that perhaps it would be great to have a subcommittee who's attending
to feedback and perhaps coupling that with review of charter. Um I also want to note like and in the spirit of what the League of Women Voters just shared, I think it's really important to have widespread participation. Um I wonder
yes they did an enormous amount of work but but I think that widespread participation in terms of voices in town matters. Um so I just want us to be cognizant of that. In addition to that I don't know what the process is in terms of we kind of had a listening session
with them tonight. Um can other orgs take our time in that way? And I get it, they've done a lot of work, but I think like we also have a lot of work to do connected to additional feedback that might come in. We have what they've
shared and are sort of grappling with feedback against parts of the charter. So you just want to raise that. So I don't know if folks want to have some sort of plan in place where people are attending to maybe new comments that are
coming in or new sort of response from Andy Andy you're muted. You're muted. Still muted. Andy, you got to turn your mic on. Um, I like the idea of having a feed a subcommittee that could be focused on the feedback and continuously
summarizing and collecting and and you know, uh, organizing it so that we can consider it. And I'd be happy to be part of that. Um I um I was thinking that we were going to go through a couple of articles each
meeting to just familiarize ourselves with what's in the charter, but I think uh I I take Meg's point that we're that that's that's a lot of time. So maybe in each of these meetings where we're talking about two articles, we first summarize what's in it and then we look
at what the feedback has been on on each article that that we've just summarized. So um you know but we would need to have then suggestions that are boiled down to which article they're relevant to and some of them might not be relevant to
any particular article. They might be relevant to multiple ones but um I think that'd be a challenge that that could be resolved. Yeah. Um, I'd be h I mean the the work that Megan and I did just it's basically just going through and summarizing you know every single bullet
point that somebody sent in. You get like a hundred of them and then Bernie takes it and feeds it into chat GPT and you get themes and then we look at it and say are those themes right? But I mean we can look at the full list and we can look at the themes and I think you know if we have a process by which we're
like okay we're tonight we're looking at I mean two and three is going to be pretty meaty because those are two of the biggest ones but if we're looking at one or two per meeting and we summarize it quickly and then we say what have we heard about that article I think that'll be productive. Sounds good. Erica,
I just wanted to second or third the idea of having a kind of uh a subcommittee that's that's in charge of rounding up and organizing the feedback that's coming in and making it correspond to the article review that
we're doing in that particular week and having that pattern kind of continue over the course of the summer sounds really constructive to me. Um, and I also wanted to kind of second what Raphael brought up, which is the idea of um, the League of Women Voters has a
particular role and a particular place in the work that they did, but there may be other sort of civic groups or third things that are not the general public and are not the town staff, but are like a kind of um, in the space of a civic group of some kind or other that we
could consider inviting in to this conversation in a different way that isn't a poll or a general listening and I just wanted to put that out there. I think it has a real value because what's different in what the League of Women Voters generated than the general
comments that we're going to get or the general survey that we're going to do is the the depth of the rationale behind every one of those recommendations. Um, I'm not saying that people are making comments without rationale, but that but having a group that is focused around
making recommendations and have had their own discussions or thought process behind it has a different has carries a different kind of weight. Um, I'm just going to add in my comment and then I'll go to Marcus and Bernie.
Um, which is to answer your question, Erica, I think pretty soon, possibly even at the next meeting, if not in the future, we will be having in folks from the I'm not sure ex I think it's called
the Save Our Schools Coalition. Um, and they're like an activist group, a town um sort of committee of different residents, parents, kids, etc. who have a lot of concerns about school budget, article 5, that sort of stuff and they'll come and present at our meeting
um you all probably have gotten an email from them um slightly more informally but similarly to what the legal women voters did. So that's how I'm trying to reach out to some other groups in the community as well. Marcus, sorry, trying to find the button on my
speaker thingy. Um, yeah, I I was just uh I'm good with I like the idea of a, you know, subcommittee to sort through the comments and get it all sorted out. I certainly like the volunteer on that one. Um, because I think yeah, I agree.
The earlier we can get to them, the better, you know. So, yeah, Bernie. Yeah, I um will be happy to volunteer to work on any committee that goes through and uh looks at the comments we're getting back and trying
to sort the feedback out and and organize organize the feedback. We're going to have a couple of different layers of discussion. Um, we're going to have one layer of discussion that I'll characterize is by the the remark we need to clarify the powers of the time
administrator or the time manager, which is a pretty broad-ranging thing and gets us in some ways into what the statutes rely. And then we have another piece that um is more in the weeds. um you know the
uh uh should one counselor be able to postpone a vote for uh for one meeting and and why? And and so so we also we also need to take a look at the rules that the council has set for itself because uh those are based
on uh the charter. And in in some cases, you know, if you're going to argue about equity in committees, the committees aren't listed other than the finance committee. Um they're creations of the uh of the the council and based on the council's rules. So we're going to have
to look at that. I would caution about having advocacy groups coming before the committee in using our time during formal meetings. We need all the time we can get to get into the to begin to
discuss some some uh perspective changes in the charter and to look at uh the nuts and bolts of the charter. that is not well served in my opinion by having people coming in and arguing
about the school budget which is a thing that's independent of the charter. So um I I I would be you know folks want to have those they want to show up at one of the feedback meetings and and do presentations there all power
to them. They're welcome to do that. People are always welcome and I thank the league for this along with a number of other uh commentators uh for submitting stuff in detail in writing that we have something substantive to look at and think about and and and
peruse. So I I'm I'm going to volunteer to be on whatever committee is formed to organize feedback. And again, my caution is that our time is precious and we're losing time every time we have an advocacy group come in to promote a
cause as opposed to substantive changes in the charter that will help you will benefit the town. 10. I like the idea of the subcommittee. I also think that that subcommittee would
probably be on tap then after um our public input meetings to coalate all those comments as well. Um we haven't talked about specifics about how we're going to go out go out and do that. Maybe we're going to look at at recordings or something. But just just be careful. That's that's I would
imagine that's part of that. I would imagine that subcommittee will be handling those as well. I'm I'm interested in being on that subcommittee as well, but just want to be clear that that that's gonna probably fall on us. I'm hearing a lot about a subcommittee and I think it's a great idea. Does
someone want to make a motion to create that committee or um who to appoint for it or do we want to wait for next meeting for that? I I think do it now. I I I going to say I think
it's I'm struggling if it falls in the you know within 48 hours or whatever. Doesn't matter. We're meeting true Erica. Um, I wanted to suggest that the
um the idea of having um having other having other groups advocacy or really I was thinking more of civic uh organizations that might have something to say um that is structurally different than what the general public says that
that could be um I don't want to give away any of our meeting time because I feel the same. It's important that we retain this time for our our business. But for instance, we could structure a a a virtual like a
virtual session with um kind of scheduled times with three different organizations um in one evening. for instance, with the 20 minutes that we spent with the league, for instance, do something similar where we spend um 90 minutes
with a series of invited civic groups. But I did want to clarify, you mentioned that the um the schools organization, Julian, that's coming. Is are are we are are you soliciting um groups to come? Are you are you are people asking to come and you're saying you're scheduling
them? How is that working? So, this is good question. So, I've heard from some of our committee members that we want people to come in and give presentations and so on and so forth. Then folks email me and say, "Hey, we'd like to come in
and give a presentation." Um, or even some of honestly both Darcy and the Save Our Schools group, I just saw them both in town and happened to know folks who lead them and they said to me, "How's your charter committee going? We'd like to come and speak with you all." and I
say, "Okay, here's a way we can organize this and formalize it and get some of the public feedback because I know we're creating avenues and all this other stuff for public feedback and that's important, but I figured let's actually get feedback from the public and from
these groups that have already done a bunch of research into the topic and are sort of experts in some of these areas in the meantime." Um, so that that's sort of the answer to your question, Meg. Um, I'm happy to propose the committee,
but I want to make a couple of comments. So, I don't know if I can do that and propose the committee, but I strongly support it. The second quickly, um, there's a whole lot more information on the town website than the content from the league. I know myself at least four or five people have come to me and said,
"Hey, why don't you say this at your, you know, sent me long emails of what they wanted me to bring up and I've said, you need to submit that yourself. Here's the link to the website." That happened just today. So, it's there's a lot there that's way beyond what the league said. I want to emphasize
something Bernie said, which is there's feedback we're getting that isn't about the charter. It's about management and practice, how things happen, transpar, you know, and a lot of the transparency suggestions are not about things in the charter, but they're about how the town
various people have decided to do things. Um, and I agree uh with Erica that that we don't want people to come in and lobby for the school budget, but there are some groups that have thought a lot
about particular issues and how the town deals with them that might be legitimate. It I don't know. I re I appreciate what Bernie said, but there might be some screen we could think of that would identify the groups that are that it's appropriate to have in give a brief presentation, not necessarily 20
minutes. There's some place in the middle there. Certainly, we don't want people to come in lobby for, you know, the school budget or policy. I'm going to interrupt you, Meg, and say that I understand the concern, but I some of
the folks on the committee aren't aware of this. I have met with these folks and emailed these folks, legal women voters, other groups I'm inviting and have directly sat down with them with the charter in front of us and said, "Please
make your suggestions charter specific and look at this document and do your research and come to us with suggestions in writing related to the charter." So, I'm not just bringing in people I like to say something that they don't really
know what they're talking about. I am meeting with them beforehand and pointing them to the charter and saying, "Look in this document. Where do you want to make these changes and working with them beforehand so that they can come to this committee with an educated perspective and filter it specifically
for what this committee deals with. Um, so I understand your concern. I just wanted to inform you folks that that's that's what's happening beforehand. That's sort of the behind thescenes work that's going into it that you all might not see.
Julian, I had my hand up. Yeah, go ahead. I I want to circle back to what Bernie said about a work to be done and circle back work plan and if you look at what's there, there's a lot of work for us to do. Um, I think it would be great
if your work that you're doing, it's great outreach surfaced to the whole committee and I think we want to be really careful about surfacing that and who we are engaging with. Um, I think if we're bringing folks perhaps there should be a
process. I don't think we should. I think if we want to include other sessions where organizations want to check in with this committee, I think that's fine. But I think these meeting these meetings if we look at the work plan there's a lot to do and I think
like that's the work that I think we should focus on here. We don't have to do all that outreach connecting with orgs here alone. Um but I think what you're doing Julian great but I think we want to be clear like um or I would like to be clear like
we're making sure that there's equity in some ways. I think you could frame the League of Women Voters invitation in a particular way. They did all this work so we invited them. But there but might be others who say like League of Women Voters got a platform. Why don't I have
the same? And I think we want to be sort of careful about that. Um so again, I think maybe we do that in another space, but doing it here is just tricky. Um, if you think about what we were charged with doing tonight, we won't get to
that. So, I think we really need to be cognizant of time, Bernie. Yeah. I I think if uh any group um any group and there probably several in town uh want to submit to this
committee u a written statement showing us how the charter is affecting their particular issue and how their particular issue might be better
addressed by changes in the charter. then they should send us that. And if it's compelling enough that we as a majority of the committee feel we should interview them because they've gotten some insight here that we haven't seen before, then then we invite them in. Or
as Raphael suggested and others have suggested, we have another time for people to come who want to lobby us about a particular cause. But our meetings here, the meetings that are on that work plan are meetings to get stuff
done to finish the reports and to to to make some reasonable recommendations about tweaks in the chart. Um, so you know to um I appreciate the fact that people are out you're out
Julian and others are out soliciting feedback but that feedback should come to the committee in writing and then the committee should be able to decide who's whose arguments or whose concerns are compelling enough that we need to bring them in and meet with them during one of
our working meetings. Otherwise, let's set up some time and if we're going to have a feedback committee, I mean, I can be on I volunteer to be on the feedback committee. Maybe that feedback committee could hear from some of these groups. But, you know, off the top of my head, uh, having sat on the finance
committee now for five years, um, there's no connection between the charter and the budget debate around the regional school. So I'm not sure what people want to do. If they have a unique perspective that
will, you know, create some new information, send it to us in writing. And in the future, if a group feels that they want to address the committee, uh we should either arrange for a time to do that or get committee consensus about having
them come before the committee and and take up our working time um on this. I I you know we're scheduled folks the outreach committee's done a great job of of outlining public information
sessions and those are open to anyone who want to show up uh and we will take that information and we will make the best use of it. So let's keep that in mind and let's use that as a mechanism for having other
groups come in um in and communicate. Andy muted the League of Women Voters uh feedback just as an example was they had already submitted it and it was already in the
summary that we had put together. So um I've already seen it. Um, I didn't gain anything new tonight from hearing them read it to us. Um, and I think we can be very faithful in
um transmitting whatever people will send us in writing um that that or or in in the sessions that we'll have that are that are designed for public input. And I think we can design public input session for organizations that want to
speak to us. But um I think you know I think that this time that we have together is for deliberation and and learning together and and coming up with with um recommendations. So I I guess I'm supporting what what I heard from
Raphael and from Bernie and several others. I mean, if somebody could approaches us with a question about what, you know, is this relevant to charter review, we could forward that to the Collins Center and they can give us
answers on is this, you know, is if it's a legal question or a question about what's appropriate to a charter, we can get their feedback. But I don't think we should be spending our meeting time listening to people read to us what they could send us in writing.
I think we've gotten far we've gotten a little bit over time and far off of our agenda item. Um, and I will I will respond quickly. Um, which is that I would say with both
these groups, you have gotten things in writing um, submitted through the proper channels already. And then um the other thing I would say is that it is all of our jobs to go through that and read that and educate ourselves and it is my
job as chair to have that discretion in the agenda setting um and to say okay here's feedback that I'd like to invite that we should bring in that we should discuss that we should get more information on talk to the Colin center
about etc. and I go through all that feedback and make those decisions. I totally respect that the committee wants input and I give you all input. You all can email me at any time to add things to the agenda, to subtract things from the agenda, etc. And I usually listen to
you all, but it is the chair's discretion as to what goes on the agenda. And I take some of the stuff from public comments to put on the agenda just as I take from you all. And I think not giving the public that opportunity is limiting our outreach in
scope in my opinion. But I'm going to try to move us along. We can discuss the next agenda item. We can adjourn given that we're over time. But I think this is at this point beyond the scope of the committee directing me as chair and also beyond the scope of the agenda item that
was actually proposed to be discussed. Meg, I prep I hope this is welcome. If not, you can say no. Move that we create a committee to review the and organize not interpret but just in view and organize the feedback and I suggest you
know I make that motion. I'll second that motion. Seconded. Thank you, Meg. Um discussion on that motion, Andy and then Raphael. Uh I I support
that same I would call that thirded. Um well no let's finish with this first I have something else. Um any other discussion on this
issue? No. Meg, you still have your hand up? No, I'm just walking because the better I'll move to vote for that um subcommittee. I'm an I. Meg. Yes. Raphael, yes. Ken, yes. Bernie, yes.
Uh, Andy, yes. Erica, yes. Marcus, yes. Unanimously approved. Um, I'll take nominations for that committee next. Uh, can you please raise your hand on Zoom, not in person, if you would like to serve on that committee?
Excellent. I see I see. Okay. I see four folks. Um I'm not How did you specify in your motion how large of a committee we wanted? Nope. Great guys. Have at
it. Um I don't see problem it quite frankly not a quorum of the committee. Do you just want to let speak for the record who is Raphael has hand up? I didn't have my
I did not I didn't have my hand up there. Bernie Kubak, uh Ken Leand, and Andy Churchill would like to serve on the committee. I will nominate them. Um if they're Sorry, that's okay.
Sorry, Raphael. No worries. Sorry. Thought you had you had your hand up before before. Exactly. Um, okay. Uh, Marcus, do you still have a comment or is your hand just up?
Uh, Raphael, go ahead with your comment. I I heard you in your role as a chair. I appreciate your outreach. It's great that you're engaging with folks, but I think your process for me, it would be great if you surface it in terms of just your decision-making approach.
Yeah, I hear you. Agree. Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. I'm happy to share more with the committee about that in the future. Andy? Yeah, just along those lines, I I I think, you know, having been a chair, I think it's important that that you're
facilitating the will of the group and that [Music] um you know, it's it's a it's a tough role and it's a servant role and I and I think um I liked some of what Bernie was saying about that if we're collecting input and we've and the group feels that
we should talk to particular groups or individuals who have particular input that we we should vote to do that rather RA than just um you know leave that burden on you. So yeah Raphael I'll say
I add to that as a footnote as someone who's chaired that will of the group and engagement with the group is important. So I hope you think about that moving forward. I appreciate all your work though for sure. Yeah. Um, other
comments, questions? Uh, would we all like to leave or would we like to approach the next agenda item? Pat, um, just in case you vote to leave, um, if I could just, um, I just wanted
to mention that, um, I will not be able to be at the May 22nd meeting. um we will be figuring out as a team um whether one of one of us is going to out is going to come or if we're going to set up a series of action items for you
to go through and talk about and make a decision on. Um and we'll talk to that I'll talk to Julian at our planning meeting. But um one thing was mentioned the Collins Center would love to hear you know in advance what you when you're
going through your public feedback. We'd love to hear um through Julian what issues are you going to be really considering for discussion because we like to do our own research. Um we have a whole team of people who have worked
on so many charters and it's so helpful if it in advance of the meeting um I can go and ask them you know about their experiences with these different issues. Um so anything you can give us in advance um because you are going to get
hundreds and hundreds of comments publicly and you cannot possibly deal with every single one. Some of them will rise to the top as something that you need to take a serious look at. Um and so we would love to know what those issues are and those are usually
filtered through the chair and that's usually um however you know we we may want to now that you have a public um you have an public outreach subcommittee and you'll have a public um input um subcommittee um maybe I can you know
either through Julian or in some other way hear from you about what's going on. So, for example, if you have dates, that's really helpful for me to know as I'm going forward with your work plan. So, um I would just love more input from you. Um and usually we do it through the
chair, but maybe we'll work out something where you know you can send someone to our planning meeting or something like that so that we know what the issues are going to be, what the important dates are, etc. um in between our meetings so that when we do come to you with materials, we're really
prepared to talk about the issues. So that's all I I'll I'll say. I just didn't want you to adjourn without talking to you. Hey Jillian, so much Pat Bernie. Yeah. Um the last meeting folks got a chance
to introduce themselves to uh to Pat and Ken and Marcus and I didn't have that opportunity and I was wondering if you could take it. Sure. Go right ahead. Marcus, you want to start? I mean,
no, you asked for the opportunity. I'm sharing I'm sharing the I'm sharing the wealth here. No, I'm Marcus Smith, member of the committee. That's it. Thank you. Yeah,
we we talked we talked last time about why we were why we wanted to be part why we chose to be part of the committee. So Oh, okay. Um yeah, I really wanted to kind of get a look into it. It's been, you know, this is the first time to take a look
and see what's going on. I think uh I'd like to continue the way the progression that you know the town thought well the pe the vote has thought about and how we can get it a little you know if there's any room to get it better. So
Erica um I was here last time so I I didn't introduce myself. Um I wasn't sure if that was why you had your hand up. No, different issue. Bernie. Yeah, I'm Bernie Kubak. I'm the
um uh the the local government nerd. Um I've been a selectman and uh finance committee member in two different towns. I've managed three towns. Um worked for was a commissioner.
I worked for the the late unlemented Hampshire Council of Governments. um got a masters in public policy from UMass and Mike Ward will deny it but long ago far away he actually interviewed me and recommended me as a
interim town administrator. Um so I'm I'm here because I really cherish local government. Um it's close to the people, things happen quickly. Um the idea is I've worked a long time
in human services and the idea is to produce the best most effective government we can uh for the 40,000 plus souls that call Everest home. Awesome. Thank you. Um thank you.
Y um so I'm Ken Leblonde. I have lived in Amoris for about 12 years. I have a masters in public administration, have served uh have worked in at all levels of government my career. Currently work for University of Massachusetts. Um I have always wanted
to to join a town committee and frankly none of the committees sounded that interesting until this one popped up. Um, and this was like a jack-of alltrades committee, I think, because we're looking at everything. And I I I like that broad um that broad view as as
sort of daunting as it can be, but that's that's what makes me most interested in it. Ken, you're unmuted. Yeah, they Sorry, Andy. And then Erica. I think Erica was had her hand up first. Go ahead, Erica. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to um
request I guess an agenda item for our next meeting which will be a week before we have our first listening session. Um I feel after after the last couple of meetings that we need to review and revise our schedule of upcoming
meetings. um especially having seen what's landing with the work plan um the listening sessions the pattern of work that we need to do over the summer that we should really uh have another look at it and make sure it still makes sense and whether the the the twoe cadence
makes sense all the way through and just really kind of study it a little bit and come up with a new plan. Okay, go ahead Andy. Um yeah, I just wanted to suggest that maybe the feedback uh subcommittee
should um meet at the same time as the um outreach subcommittee in the off Thursdays um you know that when we're not meeting as a as a whole group and we should plan to to post that meeting uh for you know
next when do you folks outreach you meet 6:00 to 8 or something on on the or do you do 7 to 8? I don't know what you do exactly, but we have done the alternate Thursdays at 6:30 and then when we have not been able to meet on a Thursday for
whatever reason, we have done a late meeting on a Wednesday from time to time. Okay. So, I mean, should we should we plan to meet next Thursday at 6:30, the four of us?
It also depends on Athena's uh meeting. We can do this outside the meeting. We can we can email to um speaking about the next it doesn't need to be figured out right now. Okay, good idea. Um Athena, will you email us or do you want
me to email the group? Why don't you email the group to kick things off, Andy? Thank you. Thank you, Athena. Um, other questions, comments before we adjourn. Oh, sorry. I was just going to if since
we were flashing around our uh educational prowess um in our introductions and I forgot to completely do that myself. Sorry. I have a completely I'm I have a PhD from Georgia Tech out of in aerospace engineering.
So, got nothing to do what we're doing here. Uh but I do work for a federally funded research and development corporation. So I work dayto-day with the government and uh Good luck. Yeah, exactly. It's been a ride.
We we really have a rocket scientist. Yeah, I was gonna Yeah, I'm so sorry. It's all good. Sorry, this isn't rocket science. I apologize. Um All right. Um, I move to ajourn on
that. Second. Okay. Andy. Uh, yes. I'm an I. Uh, Raphael. Yes. Ken, yes. Me, yes.
Bernie. Um, Marcus, yes. Erica, yes. And thank you Pat and Athena for sticking with us with the craziness. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Part: 2
Thank you. Good afternoon. It is May 8th. Uh this is a regular meeting of the community resources committee of the town council and pursuant to chapter 2 of the acts of 2025 which extends through June 30 of
2027 the ability of public bodies to meet in a remote or hybrid manner without a quorum of members in person. 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 is possible, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. We have a quorum and I'm going to go around to see if people can be heard.
Um, councelor Hani present. Jennifer Ta. Yes, I'm here. Pam Rooney is here. And we'll keep an eye out for Kathy Shane. Let's see if there are
any interesting. I'm not able to Oh, here we go. Here we go. There are there is no one in attendance. If we have people join us later, I may um want to open up public comment period at that point. probably after we talk about the solar
bylaw, but at this point there is nobody in attendance. Um so we can move right to our action items and that includes um an update for upcoming or potential CRC
work items uh that may come from CRC or through the planning office. So, uh, Dave and Rob Mora, I'm looking to you for, um, some that information. Can we let Rob in?
There's Rob. That's Oh, go ahead. I think if Pam, maybe while I intro this, if Pam or um I think I made um Mandy co-host as well, but if you want to share that information. So, you know,
Rob is a temporary planning director for for the town and we've had a number of conversations u both with staff but also with some of our friends in the um uh in the development community and and
uh Rob was uh nice enough to put together kind of a preview of kind of projects or initiatives that we're currently working on, but also, you know, looking ahead to the months ahead and to 26 uh with regard to uh some
other zoning initiatives that um we are interested in pursuing. And of course, this will parallel our search also for a new planning director and economic development director uh combined position, but we didn't want to give the impression that, you know, things were
on hold or hiatus. and uh Rob wanted to outline some of those uh short-term kind of goals and things we'd like to bring before the council or to the council and planning board in the coming months and then maybe a preview looking into 26.
Great. Thank you. Does somebody have the set of slides that I sent? Oh, did you send something to us? I think Mandy is sharing them. Yes, this would have been the same set I think Mandy sharing them that was sent for the
meeting on the 24th that didn't happen. So there it is. Yeah, there it is. Okay. Thanks everyone. Rob Mora. Uh yeah, so I just want to talk about some of the things we're doing in the planning department uh that we expect um you know hopefully to move forward with
the rest of the year. There are um there is at least one item here that you're very familiar with. So I won't spend any time on that. But if um if you don't mind, we'll go into the right into the next slide. Um and I'll talk about each of the the items um and and then to the
next slide as well. Uh so first item, ADUs. Um planning board met again last night. They've been meeting for a couple of months on this. um you know, as we're uh responding to the state regulations that
were presented in February and more recently, we're starting to see some attorney general decisions come out in other communities that are helping the planning board see uh you know, how some of the final criteria might work in the bylaw that they have currently drafted.
Uh there were a couple uh changes made last night to to strike uh provisions that we believe are not consistent with the regulations and uh perhaps another meeting maybe to the planning board will be ready to deliver their recommendation
to the council. Uh in the meantime for interest we are getting applications. I have uh issued a couple ADU applications. um really doing the best I I can at the moment to uh balance you know my understanding of the state
regulations and what I know was you know maybe the strong um you know feeling of the planning board on certain criteria uh and in in fact even delayed an application uh till we have you know maybe some you know agreement on what
the final language language would be but there are applications proceeding and uh we'll continue to uh process those until the regulations are updated. Uh we can keep going uh and we pass right through
solar. I know all of you are very much aware of what's going on with that. Oh, by the way, this this discussion uh was also given as an update to the planning board last evening. Uh so it's uh served a couple of purposes here to have this uh kind of put together. Uh so going
right into the next item uh is the BN uh Main Street BN extension. Uh this uh some of you would not be aware of. Uh this has come up uh fairly recently and uh it affects just three properties in
in the idea here to take a uh piece of BN that is a spot-zoned uh location on upper Main Street and extend it to capture a couple additional properties that are currently in the general residence district. Uh if we go to the next slide, I'll show you the image on
the mapping. um the existing uh area here. Uh you can see all the way to the right there's a a BVC district that runs along Dickinson Street and this uh one BN parcel 319 321
uh Main Street would remain unchanged, but we would propose to extend the BN district all the way over to number 229. And that's shown outlined in the next image. If we can go right to that, there it is. Uh so 229 is an
existing uh owner occupied duplex. Uh it's a a nicely sized parcel. It's 20,000 square ft. Uh it's in the RG district. So uh it exists there uh by um pre-existing non-conforming status and
with a special permit for a couple of accessory structures. Uh as you know the RG district could accommodate uh apartments as well for another uh residential use uh and that can also be permitted in the BN district. The
difference the big difference is uh between RG and BN for residential purposes is that the the additional lot area does not apply uh when calculating the for the number of units. So, that's a property that although there's absolutely no, you know, uh, intention
or thought at this point or or conversations about anything going on for potential development, it's an owner occupied, very nice, uh, property. Uh, there is the potential uh, with this change for modest addition and perhaps even room for off- streetet parking uh,
if a future owner would ever uh, look to take advantage of what the BN would have to offer. Uh so moving uh down the street number 257. Uh this is the Ammeris Inn and this is really the property that uh is kind of focused to
this conversation and uh driving force behind even looking at this and kind of bringing it up on the list of priorities. Uh this this property exists as an accessory use in to an owner
occupied property with a limit of four occupants. guests at any time in addition to the owner. Uh this is a very large building. Uh I had the opportunity to tour it a couple of weeks ago and
have seen what the owners have done over the last 2530 years restoring rooms uh and and turning it into the place that it is. There are eight guest rooms and there's a potential for one more uh should the owner choose to uh renovate a
space that is currently not occupied uh within the within the structure. Uh but with eight eight guest rooms uh the zoning does not allow those to be rented all at the same time. Uh the uh idea here would be in the BN
district, the owner would have the opportunity to apply for site plan review to turn the accessory use in into a principal use in which is not permitted in the RG district but
permitted in the R in the BN district. Uh they uh the owners uh have no interest or not looking to expand the building. they're not uh looking to ex expand and or alter the site in any way. Uh there could perhaps be some
accessibility improvements needed and we know that there will be uh fire safety systems that will need to be upgraded in the building and we're talking about that with the owner now and they are very interested in in you know having the opportunity to do that. So, um, we've asked the town manager to kind of
sponsor this proposal and send it to the council once we have it, uh, fully drafted and, uh, you know, really looking to have this, uh, support and and ensure that this business, uh, remains, uh, remains where it is and
operating as an end. The last parcel 285, I'll just mention there's not, you know, there really isn't anything um that would be expected to ever occur on this property. It was uh recently rebuilt uh probably about four or five
years ago following a fire. Uh there's been substantial renovation and rebuild of the entire structure, all new systems. Uh there's a a large parking area that can accommodate 18 or so cars, I believe. uh fully maxed out on coverage, fully maxed out on building
footprint. Uh there's six dwelling units. Uh there's really no opportunity to to do anything with it. And since it was just rebuilt, uh you know, I suspect there would never be uh anything changed there. Uh so that, you know, that is the
basic summary of um what that proposal will be. Um we'll uh continue of course interested in questions or comments on that at some point, but you know we'll continue to work on that and um expect that we'll have the town manager send that uh that proposal through the
council for consideration uh hopefully soon so we can keep going. Are there any any questions from anybody on that particular topic? Mandy, I apologize. I cannot um I have questions on ADU too, but you asked
about this Main Street BN and I can't raise my hand when I'm sharing a screen. Um I'm curious why you're choosing BN and not choosing to just extend the BVC to all four of those properties. Um BN has a larger minimum lot size requirement
than BVC does. Oh, well then then RG does, but it matches RG's minimum lot size of 12,000 square feet matches the BVC minimum lot size of 12,000 square ft. I I haven't had time to figure out what those lot sizes are right now, but
do they meet the 15,000? Do each of these meet the 15,000 BN minimum lot size? particularly it looks like 285 might be kind of tiny. Um but yeah
why BN instead of BVC? Sure. Um so 285 is non-conforming by use and dimensional standards and you know currently and will be into the future. Uh the other two properties would you know have the lot area uh necessary for uh either
district uh BN or BBC. Uh BVC uh does not permit um ins by special by site plan review. It' be by special permit. Um so that was one main reason. Uh the BN is uh you know district that is not often used. There's not a lot of
it around. Um but by definition it's designed to be that transition from the business district to the residential district that we're surrounded by uh in this area. uh and it is designed to provide uh moderate density um not you
know not high density uh like some of the other districts. So uh having BN there uh it seemed like a very good uh opportunity to um you know put it into that uh that classification rather than BVC. Uh we did look at that. Well, we
did consider that. Um but thought with the transition from business with the residential right behind a lot of owner occupied properties nearby, we thought the BN was the the best uh you know way forward. Thank you. Thank you. I've got a
question too on if you could remind us what the zoning is to the to the east of Dickinson. Is that BN also or is that BBC? There is a That's BBC right there. Yeah. Where the where the where the cursor is,
that's BBC right along Dickinson Street. Yeah. So, my question would have been similar to uh Councelor Hankey's. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions on that? Um, do you do you want to uh
Mandy, do you want to ask your question about ADUs or do you want to do that at the end? I can do that at the end. Okay, thanks. Okay, so if we move along to the next one, fratern, we need go right by that. Fraternities and sororities. Uh, so this
has come up recently in discussions both with the university and others interested uh in this topic. Um and this has to do with um what happens when a fraternity or sorority uh disaffiliates with the university or the college. Um
and this could be either by uh disciplinary action of the of the educational institution or it could be by choice of the uh of the organization which uh we understand is is in fact happening across the country in
locations. Uh and uh what we have on our current in our current bylaw is one use classification that captures fraternities, sororities, so social dormitories or similar uses. Um and although the the classification
describes um the use being somewhat somehow affiliated with uh the college or uh a college or the university. uh the structure of our bylaw is such that whatever the use is it needs to be
put into the use classification that it most closely relates to. So in this situation where a affiliated organization becomes unaffiliated uh it actually stays in the same use classification. So by for zoning purposes it doesn't constitute a change
of use. There's no review by a land use board. uh it just happens uh you know and and we've have we have two cases uh in town of this happening and they were asked to confirm that they are still a fraternity and not just you know now a
boarding house. Uh so that's important for us to determine but um if they are you know still operating under their national organizations's uh missions and goals and performing um activities as a fraternity or sor sorority would they
would they would stay in the youth classification and continue to operate. So the idea here is to consider um breaking the category up a little bit and uh building in some opportunity to
uh have a review if uh if this situation occurs. Uh so we'll uh the plan is to work on some language and kind of move it around between the boards and uh discuss it a little bit and decide if it's something we want to move forward
with and and find somebody that actually wants to uh take it and propose it to the council. I got a I've got a quick question on that. If we could go back to that list. Sorry. Um the third item was the social dormatory or similar use. Uh as it
stands today, I think we have several buildings that have been um classified as that, including the one behind Hastings that was described as a social dormatory or similar use, which in most
cases would be like a primarily student dorm. Um, do those should those be restricted to uh fraternity RF zones? It it sounds like we've already stepped outside of a of a
RF district. I don't think we have um the the social dormatory is only permitted in the RF districts and the uh the two most recent uh developments uh one under
construction at 47 Mather Drive and the other one on Olympia right next door. So two olymp I guess it's Olympia 1 and Olympia 2 according to the developer. um you know those are uh permitted as social dormitories in the RF district.
The building you mentioned on South Pleasant Street is a mixeduse building by its principal use classification. And I'm completely aware of the conversations that occurred in the the you know the the feelings about the the
use of the entire residential portion for um for an educational institution, but it wasn't permitted as a social dormatory for a principal use. So it's permitted as a mixeduse building and our
mixeduse building standards and by definition can include any residential use and you know that that's a determination that's a decision that the land use uh board made uh to acknowledge
I believe is how it might have been addressed in the decision amendment that it could also include housing for the students in its entirety. And that was a decision that they made. I don't think it is a binding interpretation of
anything or um change in classification or use uh outside the RF district. Uh but I think that's a little bit different uh from what we're talking about. Thank you, Jennifer. Yeah, for the record, I think we have to say that that
mixeduse building was approved as a mixeduse building before the the planning board had any awareness it was going to be used by an educational institution. And then it Yeah. So, my personal interpretation is
that they were tricked. Then the applicant came back and asked for there to be a change in the electrical boxes and they approved that and at that point they learned why that request was made. But hopefully we will be savvier going
forward. Just a little bit of editorializing there but I couldn't resist. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions on this one? Okay. So that'll take us to temporary uses. Uh
some of you might remember we talked a little bit about this uh quite a few years ago and even had uh an opportunity to to uh sample it a little bit during COVID with some temporary zoning. Uh you know and definitely you know I think we had some success with it. found that it
worked well and uh you know following up on that experience we we were were the recipient of a grant that uh you know gave us some time with the PVPC to draft a regulation uh which we did do and you
know it just kind of sat uh since so we'd like to bring that back um you know we think it's important uh we get a lot of requests for uh either seasonal or temporary activities use of of areas or
properties for one day. This is private property, so it's not, you know, public space. Um either one-day events or, you know, a handful of of dates that um you know, we never have a process to actually uh permit it or authorize it.
Uh you know, we advise against it in some cases. uh in others we you know kind of make some suggestions and say hope for the best and you know if if you know it gets out of hand or noisy and police are called you know this is what you would expect to happen. Uh so you
know we've kind of dealt with it a number of different ways but uh you know whether it's a you know a maze on in an agricultural property or uh you know we often had been asked to uh have a you know a caterer team up with a farming uh
institution to you know put together a dinner you know under a tent or something like that. Uh, as you know, food trucks are incredibly uh popular right now and there's always requests on uh where where they can go and what events they could be a part of. Uh, so,
you know, we we would like to uh, you know, finish this one up and circulate it for uh, consideration and uh, like I said, we are very close on that and uh, could pretty easily uh, get that into a condition to um, start talking more
about it. Great. I look forward to that one. Could that include um seasonal things like seasonal farm stands that otherwise have to go through a fairly elaborate um permitting process otherwise it could
absolutely. Yep. So any type of event, activity, business use or you know we we can we can widen that scope and you know just kind of as I talked earlier the the the basic uh structure of our bylaw is to be inclusive and and find a way to
permit something and I think by having some set of uh criteria for you know good good safe and and uh uh use of the property and make sure there's some uh protections in place uh and appropriate
location. I think that would give us, you know, a better uh be in a better place for considering more and more of those types of requests. Great. Uh Manny, oops, Manny, thanks. Um, I I absolutely support this, but can
you just explain further if people ever watch this video because I'm not sure anyone's even in the audience right now, but um explain further in preparation for this potentially coming to the council to to get better explanations for the council why something like a
maze built out of, you know, a corn field, corn is an agricultural use done on an agricultural farmland, that is a yes in the bylaw. law is not would need a separate permit like why that isn't considered part of the
agricultural use of the land. Can you just explain why some of these temporary uses don't fit into the principal use of the land as a business or as an agricultural use or things like that farm stand it doesn't fit into the
principal use of the the land things like that right and certainly they can't. So there there are instances where the activity or the event that wants to you know happen could be connected to the use of the property and
uh you know we're we're usually pretty lenient on that to try to make that connection. Uh if it's somehow supporting uh the agricultural use in some way we're we're pretty much open to it. But then, you know, no doubt there's, you know, another vendor that
serves ice cream that wants to be there for those events or, you know, there's um uh go-karts that want to come and set up a track. And so, you want to make it a destination for the family and do more than just have the maze. And when you
start adding uh those additional um operators that are not connected with the agricultural land or activity um it starts to get you know a little difficult to find a way to permit them when they're asking for the permission.
And um I think my uh the the earlier example of either a restaurant or a caterer coming you know and and you know whether they're leasing the space or partnering with the uh the farm. Uh you know that's another one that you know
would require not only a temporary use zoning permit but also a temporary use food permit. Uh so just kind of connecting all of those uh pieces and and what we're finding is that um you know the the more experienced op vendors and operators are coming to us asking
for this because it's available in other communities and we don't have it. So um you know I think there's multiple reasons to uh to consider it. Thanks. Great. Increased additional lot area. This is
um otherwise known as footnote M. Um some of you will remember that a few not too many years ago the planning department actually was going in a different direction with this and looking to slightly reduce the uh additional lot area uh needed when
building uh multifamily residential units. Uh the proposal here which was uh um voted and approved by the planning board to send to council back in February would propose to increase the
additional lot area from 4,000 square feet per unit up to 6,000 square ft uh for apartments and town houses. Uh in their report uh you'll see that they talk about um how this was the original standard back in 1993.
uh it was changed I believe it was 2006 or 2007 it was reduced to 4,000 square feet and the planning board is recommending uh that it be uh put back to where it was. Uh I think there's uh there's been a lot of uh study done in
the uh RG district uh from a few years ago from the planning department that shows the the kind of the the scope of uh potential with adding additional units with the current footnote m uh so
I think there's a lot of information available to see the effect that this change would have. Um there certainly would still be uh plenty of opportunity in the district and um like I said the planning board felt strongly about this and
uh not in not unanimously uh but there you know they did vote to approve it and send it to council and I believe that is a memo uh being delivered currently to the council so it should be coming up soon.
Mandy, this proposal is frankly quite disappointing to me. Um, and seems to be out of touch with the town, the states and the town's housing crisis. Um there was a recent
report from the unlocking housing production commission that was a state level commission regarding unlocking housing production in our commonwealth that indicated large minimum this is a quote from the report large minimum lot size requirements significantly hinder
housing affordability contribute to exclusionary zoning practices and encourage sprawl increasing automobile dependency and inefficient land consumption. By requiring excessive amounts of land per home, these regulations inflate housing costs, limit the availability of
buildable land, and reduce housing diversity. And so then we get a proposal here that does exactly that. Increases our lot size requirements per apartment, per home, per per unit in our what is
supposedly to be the most dense part of our housing part of town. Um, so I I feel like and I'll say this at the council that this is going against everything
our council has said about our housing goals of decreasing um housing, you know, increasing housing affordability instead of hindering it. um decreasing exclusionary zoning practices, decreasing sprawl, um
decreasing automobile dependency, and increasing efficient land consumption is what our goals for our town manager seem to be. And this seems to go against every single one of them. So, help me understand
why we would make a proposal that seems to be against all of our town manager goals. So I think it'd probably more be more appropriate since this is coming out of the housing subcommittee and the planning board to let them respond to
that question. Uh they are presenting it. This isn't a you know something like the others that I mentioned that staff are preparing and um you know recommending and I think it'd be best to let the planning board respond to that.
I know that they are intending to be there uh when it's delivered to the council and the memo was just drafted and uh I believe forwarded to council staff to uh circulate Jennifer. Thank you. Yeah, I mean I'm
not on the planning board, but I would say that even at 6,000 square feet per house, um that is it would still be the RG by far the densest uh you know lead zone the most densely zoned residential
area in town. I mean when I hear sprawl automobile dependency, exclusionary zoning, you know, Ammerst Woods comes to mind, Ammerst Hills, but not the RG districts. Um and I think with the pressure I mean there's there's
pressures on neighborhoods where it takes neighborhoods to the breaking point. Um as Rob mentioned that there's already ADU applications and now there can be ADUs by right in addition there's the protected use ADUs and the ADUs that
the town allows with our existing bylaw. I know there's already an ADU that's in the process of being permitted um on Fearing and Lincoln Avenue. It's a there's already a student house there and it's going to go on that lot. Very tiny lot, really no room for infill, but
that's allowed to happen. So, um as our year-round population is now, according to statistics that the housing subcommittee obtained from UMass, we're now down to about 13,000 non- studentent residents. And I think that we need to
make an effort to ensure that neighborhoods where year-round residents and students are already living together on small lots that there's a very that they do not we don't need to lose any more of our year-round residents,
particularly as we're building a 63,000t library. We need students to go to our schools and patrons to go to our library. So, I don't see how um this proposal would add sprawl, automobile dependency, or that
exclusionary zoning would apply, but I can think of a number certainly a handful of areas in town where that description would would very much apply. Um, council Hani. Yeah, I just have to corre correct the
statement. If this proposal passes, RVC would become more dense than RG within at at that level of three town houses. Okay. Well, that would be fine because it's RVC. RVC is not meant to be denser than RG, though. And RG and RN would basically be the same density once
multiple units are built. And RN doesn't even allow multiple units. Um, at this point in time, they don't allow apartments and all, but the additional lot area in an RN is 6,000 square ft, which is supposed to be neighborhood. And this proposal brings RG's additional
lot family area to that same number. Um, so the only difference between RN and RG in terms of density would be the initial basic minimum lot area. Jennifer Do you did you have your hand up or did you Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't unmute. No, but I said that the
difference in that initial unit uh dwelling is quite substantial. It's only 12,000 in the RG and 20,000 in the RN. So, that's a huge difference. and you know dealing with the facts on the
ground there are going to be way more pressure for ADUs in the RG than certainly in some neighborhoods in the RN and we're already you know we're already seeing that a and when they well again when they when the the ADU that's
already um you know received um a certificate of appropriateness from the local historic district commission because that was the first stop um the current the primary unit has four students and the owner said there will be three students in the second. So
they're not you know they're not sort of even presenting that the ADUs will be for you know the workforce or for families. So on that particular lot which is very small you can come look at it. It's on the uh southoutheast corner
of Lincoln and Fearing there will be uh seven students on a tiny lot. Let's let's keep going. Thank you. So um so that wraps up where we were and and again you know this discussion was intended to just you know update everybody on what the staff is
working on committed to and hoping to accomplish but also invite you know other ideas or council priorities. uh you know and and be clear that you know we're we're here for support uh whenever requested and um you know that we look
forward to um working on these these items. We we have a list that you know we were putting together for what's next. Um, you know, and some of this does depend on um uh budget, you know, um final budget decisions and uh capital
requests, but uh we we believe East Village is our next um location that we should be studying in great depth. We're going to need some outside consulting help with that. Uh and we've asked for uh money in the capital plan to move
ahead with that. Um we understand that there may be uh you know a desire to move ahead with uh battery storage standalone battery storage bylaw. Um the planning board has uh expressed uh interest in moving
forward with um further exploring the the north their north what they're calling north Ammerst overlay. uh they haven't gotten into any, you know, writing anything yet. Uh but has asked staff to begin to do that. Uh and
that's uh you know, something that'll be working on later this year. Uh we expect that design standards to uh be finalized with some recommendations that we'll consider. We don't know what they are entirely yet. Uh and then we are also
expecting uh at least one small inclusionary zoning change uh that might be proposed by the um e either the planning board, housing subcommittee or housing trust. um maybe a combination uh but in particular they're looking at
changing the formula for the payment in Lu option uh that had been recently used u and and perhaps other changes as well as they discussed that. Uh so that's that's where we are currently and and what we're looking forward to uh at this
time. I'd also, you know, wanted to mention that, you know, whenever appropriate, it doesn't have to be today. Um, you know, we would, uh, welcome a discussion about just general process. Uh, you know, we talked about it years ago. Uh, and and when we
started off, uh, working on zoning amendments following the establishment of a council, uh, I think we saw some really, you know, good examples of it, uh, you know, zoning bylaw amendments. And then uh we see some that are, you know, maybe less efficient than they
could be. Uh we're often wondering when do we reach out to the CRC? Can we reach out to the CRC and bring you the ideas or show you things before they're referred so we're not uh you know, maybe so much back and forth like what happened with the UD drive overlay where
we're really, you know, doing too much development in public hearing setting. uh maybe there's a different opportunity, maybe there isn't, but you know, we just want you wanted to let you know that we uh we welcome that discussion and open to uh process and uh you know, I think sharing what we're
working on is perhaps the start of that. Appreciate it, Rob. Uh Jennifer, and then Council Hanek. No, I just wanted to say, yeah, it um we do appreciate you bringing, you know, items to us. Like I would have no way of knowing that was a
concern or what could be done to improve, you know, the the BN area. So, um I mean that just would never be on my radar. So, I appreciate that. Councelor Hani, you're muted. A couple of
questions and then a comment on process. Um, East Village. Yes, let's let's reszone. I don't want an overlay. Let's reszone it. Um, let's think about a comprehensive reszoning of it to unlock
housing, but also unlock commercial. Um, and do it right for a walkable village center. Um, that makes sense in what our residents are saying they want. Um and our residents include not just
non-ol students but college students too but also um what we're facing in terms of retail and non- retail in the current day and age um North Ammerst overlay. Um I'm not a big fan of overlays and I'm
just going to say it. Yes, I voted for U drive. What I what I would have rather preferred though is a complete reszone of U drive or just a new zoning district. Um there are studies out there that show that every additional regulation adopted no matter what that
regulation is whether it's a zoning regulation or a conservation regulation or just a application regulation increases the costs to develop any type of land and particularly housing. and an overlay versus an actual new zone is an
extra regulation because there's the underlying regulation and the overlay regulation. Um, so I'm going to just I I'm just going to say my preference for reszoning instead of overlays. Um,
whether that be create a new zone, but don't have an underlying zoning and an overlay on top. let's figure out what we want to do with that area and then create a zone that hopefully would do that. Um my question with my comment with process
um is the council form of government has been one of its goals was to ensure that staff time particularly with zoning is used
more efficiently that staff and the planning board and all don't spend a lot of time on things that don't have a chance of passing because you know who your 13 votes are. Um and you can come to them regularly um to ask, hey, are you in support of
something? Um, I think you drive is a potential example of one where the support was there, but a lot of the development happened because there was not an outreach before it was referred to the
council on what are the council's concerns with this resoning um or the overlay as it were. It wasn't really a resoning. Um, I I'm not going to blame the staff on that. I don't put blame I I don't know where the issue is because
frankly, we have to remember that the planning board voted that to go to council unanimously and then didn't really support what they sent to the council and themselves during hearing extensively wanted
modifications. And so it wasn't just that the council was asking new questions or anything, but but the planning board who supported it 100% unanimously then came back with, oh, but maybe not. So yes, we need a better
process, but I think that process is maybe putting this what's going on here in front of either CRC or the council earlier and more frequently to understand.
Number one, does the council support some of what's being worked on? Do you think you can get to nine votes on the council with what's being worked on? Or if you come to the council and only three people are in favor of what's being worked on, maybe that's a time to
sit back, re-evaluate, and say, "Oh, that might not be the direction we want to go because there's not looking like it's going to pass." um versus something that says, "Look, everyone seems to be in favor of this, but they've got these three concerns. Let's address that before it comes to
the council for a formal hearing." Um so that that's my comment with regard to process. Thank you. I would I would perhaps uh if you're looking for input on this list, if I think about uh the North Amoris overlay
or I think of of other conversations that are happening, uh the definition of apartment has long been sort of a confusing one and um starts at three units and above. So I
think I think uh addressing that dilemma if we're trying to create a a housing type that is 3 to six units perhaps it is not called an apartment. Um that's just an idea that probably needs to get
fleshed out a little bit. Mandy, thank you. Um I I want to go back to my ADU questions. I haven't seen the recent draft. Um I've looked at prior drafts. I don't know how
much has changed since those prior drafts, but um I was in a webinar with the executive office of housing and livable communities and um it might have been Mass Massing Partnership, but it might have been the Middle Sex um thing, a
Middle Sex Council Planning Commission um where they were explaining the draft um standard um exemplar exemplar of a bylaw for the
ADU to implement the ADU regulations at the state. And one thing that was made clear to me in that um webinar was that there's a protected use ADU is a byite use whether or not there's a
nonprotected use ADU on the lot. um meaning that if there's already an ADU on the lot that is defined outside of the protected use ADU, you have to allow a protected use ADU on that lot. And I recognize that might be a
controversial opinion, but um especially in a town that has already limited ADUs to one per lot um and might try to continue to do so, but we already have a number of ADUs.
They indicated though at this webinar that the towns could potentially choose to define a protected use ADU wider and more inclusive than the state definition is uh particularly with
respect to size. Our size definition of any ADU that we have right now in our bylaw is a th00and the protected use ADU under state law and regulation is 900 square feet. I'm using that one as an example. Um, and that then if that
definition is slightly more comprehensive that the currently built ADUs would fall under protected use and therefore would not then trigger another protected use ADU as of right. So what I
took from that webinar was that they were what I interpreted as the EOHLC um as well as the the model bylaw group were essentially encouraging towns to
define their protected use ADU as close to the current town's ADU definition as possible in order to encompass as many currently built ADUs as possible. possible. Um, and so my question, this is a long- winded way of asking, does
the current bylaw intend to do that? It does not. Um, and you know, we will have a at least one more opportunity to discuss that with the planning board and we can try to frame it in the way you just did. Uh, right now the current
draft has the protected ADU. Um, I guess I would describe it as as close to uh the state, you know, requirements as possible and and not much more. Uh and there is a
uh uh suggest uh you know the b the draft includes a local ADU that provides a second um path to create a larger unit that comes with criteria that would not
be um available for the protected ad. So that's their approach right now. 900 square feet for protected as the state has defined it, 1,200 square feet in a local ADU with a bunch of criteria that they can apply in the other uh
situation. And that's that's what they're going to be discussing at their next meeting and coming to a decision on hopefully soon. Jennifer, um does the is the planning board because what um councelor Hani just
described she learned because she's you know a representative to a statewide entity if I'm understanding correctly. So is is the planning board aware of that interpretation? So it sounds like our current ADU bylaw
allows up to a thousand square feet. So, if the protected use in Ammeris, if we made that 1,000 square ft, I mean, I'm just wondering if the planning board's even aware of this. I believe they are because we've
discussed this um very early on, and that was my interpretation before all this even came out, and I think we even permitted one so far. Um, and you know, I think it might even be, you know, um, more complicated, you know, when an
owner of one of those priory permitted ADUs, even though it may, uh, you know, fit the criteria for a protected ADU, what happens if they choose to keep the owner occupancy deed
restriction on record and enforce it? you know, can they elect to do that and say that's my nonprotected ADU? I still want a protected ADU. So, you know, and I've asked town town attorney for some guidance on a couple of these things and
haven't gotten all the answers I need, but these are the types of decisions that are coming to me every day. Uh, so it's more than just a square footage measurement. You know, it's the way we measure it. you know, the the the 900 square feet in the local reg in the
state regulation is calculated differently than the way we measure the thousand square feet and have measured the thousand square feet historically. So to get all of those pieces to align is going to be some amazing effort, you
know, come come through, but we'll we'll keep working on it. So, I just have to say I think even people that are concerned about now that you can have the protected use ADU and the ADU that the town allows, even if there's a concern, I think my sense is everyone
knows that's what the law is. Like, like there isn't really room to contest that the law is clear that the protected use ADU is allowed even if there is a existing ADU. I believe that's been very clear, right?
It has been and I think people accept that. That's just the law. So, yeah. One final Go ahead. Sorry. No, I'm done. That's it. Um and and I wonder if it's possible to have a um a calculation
factor that allows us to compare apples and oranges with the square footage so that we know what our what our thousand square foot actually comprise comprises of. Yeah, we certainly can can go through those exercises. I think in the state
regulation the what what complicates it for me is the way they include uh non unhabitable spaces in baseline calculation. Uh which of course we never did. Uh and and creates a a really
interesting example with, you know, both creating um units that are larger than 900 square feet as a result and uh having units that are equal in size, you know, when finished. Uh which, you know,
it just it just isn't what we intended would ever happen. But, uh we're trying to work through that. We've actually in in our current draft we are suggesting that we calculate similar to the way we currently do using habitable space
uh as as the defining measure uh of the gross square footage. Uh we haven't we we did send that question to the AG's office. haven't gotten a response yet and we're just kind of watching what is happening in other places and you know maybe we'll get a response to that uh
before this uh ultimately voted on. Yeah, Jennifer, I have a question. It's um so in terms of that's habitable space versus I guess square footage. So in terms of occupancy because you're the state the protected
USADU you can't set an occupancy limit beyond what the state allows occupancy per square foot and the state says you need 125 square ft for the first occupant and 100 for each additional. So
in a 900 square foot protected use ADU you could legally have eight occupants. But if is that but if we if we have if we determine occupancy
versus we we we consider square footage by how much is inhabitable but the state does it just total square. I'm just wondering if there's any difference in terms of how we would get to the number of occupants in 900 square feet. Would that be different
than how the state would get to that? I don't know if I'm making clear. Yeah, probably not. I mean, you know, in my opinion, you know, you know, as this comes back to foreign related, I don't think it's going to be enforcable in an ADU. Uh, and we're going to be relying
on those square footage minimums that are in state sanitary code that you just referenced. um you know it it doesn't work out exactly the way you described it because you know a kitchen has to have a minimum amount of square footage, a bathroom has to have a minimum amount
of square footage and and when you start kind of breaking down the pieces whatever square footage is less then gets applied to your formula if privacy is provided between tenants and so on. So there's, you know, there's a a physical aspect to the layout of the
space to make it work. So it isn't just simply kind of crunching the number that way. Uh but, you know, it certainly could create a space that can accommodate more than four occupants with with a 900 square foot uh ADU. But
good to know they couldn't have eight. Not that they would, but that that's not so so it has to do with bedroom sizes, not just raw square footage. it's sleeping area, you know, which is typically in bedrooms, but it could be in one large open space as well. Uh, but, you know, then you get into privacy
between tenants, and it really depends on the the group of people living there on how that could work. Thank Thank you, Rob. Okay. Yep. That's all I have. Very, very helpful and it gives us a good sense of what's uh what's coming down the pike. Okay. Thanks for your
time. appreciate it. Thank you. Um, still looking to see if Kathy Shane will join us. I don't I don't believe it. I texted her and she said, "I wish I could join probably by 4 if that still works, which is soon. I'm going to get
back. I'll see what time the meeting starts and ends by." So, she's otherwise occupied. Um, our next item is solar bylaw. And I noticed there was one person in the audience earlier who missed our public
hearing by minutes. Um, but that person has left. So again, there are no attendees at this time. Um, Jennifer, I'm sorry. I know we're getting to solar bylaw, but um, we have a half hour. I just wanted to make sure
we would have some time to discuss yeah ZBA and planning board. Yeah, I think we if we're lucky we'll get through the hazmat section that that um Mandy and Pat worked on and hopefully hopefully a little beyond that. But um yeah, I want
to save at least 15 minutes at the end for um for talking about ZBA and planning board. Thank you Stephanie for joining us. Sorry to keep you on the hook for that long.
So where we left last left left off, we had a conversation on hazardous materials which uh were sort of scattered throughout the u the text and we had um a proposed uh hazardous
materials section itself without a number. And I wonder Mandy if you counselor Hanniki if you could give us just a quick overview of what you and Pat the approach that you
took to pulling that together. Sure. Um I'm going to there were some added definitions that I can talk about later of how we got to those definitions. Um but let me page down to wherever hazmat is. [Music]
Um we're getting there. There we go. Um, yeah, the the approach, um, basically Pat and I had a conversation. She asked what I was concerned with, um, and we worked out our concerns and worked through some language that would sort
of, um, address those concerns and hopefully be a little more clear um, as to what's going on. You know, she explained what she was trying to do. Um, and I explained where my concerns regarding the language were, not necessarily with what the goal was. We
did talk about certain paragraphs here to try and really figure out what the goal of that section was um in terms of what it's trying to prevent or regulate and what type of thing it was
trying to prevent or regulate or or you know concern it was it was going after. And then we basically tried to um clean up the section to do
that accomplish those goals in a manner that was cleaner, clearer and more consistent um with the use of language and terms. Hence a lot of new definitions in the definitional se
section and some questions regarding some other definitions that have been added um as we've talked about um protection of water supplies and hazardous waste and all. Um so so we made a clear um distinction between a
hazardous material and a hazardous waste. um those were in some sense trying to be used interchangeably and they are two different things. Um oh you know materials are not necessarily hazardous
waste. Um and and we can go back up to the definitions to to make that clear, but um and so so you'll sort of see we start with hazardous waste issues. Um and then we move to sort of hazardous materials.
Uh and this is some of this needs reordered. Um but we didn't want to we wanted to show the changes without the reordering. And once you start reordering, you lose sort of the track changes of of what you were doing to the original. Um, so so there's think about
hazardous waste, think about hazardous materials. Materials is sort of what's on site and being used or stored. Um, and hazardous waste is when you're done with something.
Um, what happens to it? um is is a a simple definition. When we go up to the definitions, it is. So, um yeah. Um how about we start with the the definitions then because that will establish our understanding of the conversation. Sure.
[Music] Um so, um discharge is the same thing as hazardous waste being discharged. It's not a hazardous materials. And so this is when
something that is Oh, this is supposed to be an of here. Sorry, not an or. Um, this is when hazardous waste is actually put onto or into land, surface
water, groundwater, atmosphere. This is not simply the secure storage of something. This is when it's actually moved out of its secure storage onto or into the environment almost. That's what the discharge is. Um, and
disposal is is not just the discharge side of that. That can be disposal is trying to get rid of it in, you know, a in a um secure manner almost. But but the
purposeful discharge can be accidental or intentional. Di disposal is sort of when you're done with using a hazardous material in a sense and it becomes waste. What do you do with it? What what's your plan to get rid of it at that point? Um so we had a definition of
drinking water supply um which it looks like you added. Yes. So, another one that we added. So discharge and disposal and drinking water supply all came from um something Pat already had regarding I
don't know I from a different bylaw and a different section but federal sort of definitions um and and this this place we added a drinking water supply because we were talking about it in the hazardous waste section um that talked
about sort of anywhere Um, and we had a question about this. We obviously didn't do anything. Is it possible to use this definition, which is slightly more broad than the surface water supply protection
area definition? Um, when we're talking about the surface water supply protection, we did not change anything related to that. We did add sort of this drinking water supply reference to some of the surface water supply protection area, but um you'll you'll see that drinking water supply is um ground or
surface water in use or which may reasonably be used but for public or private drinking water supply. So it it brings it all in and and is slightly more comprehensive than the surface water supply protection area definition.
Hazardous materials is a definition that in a sense is cobbled from a couple of different things. It is not hazardous waste was also pulled from um the materials Pat had that she was discussing and and had originally written, but hazardous materials was not
in there. But we felt we needed a definition that brought in what is a hazardous material versus hazardous waste. Um, and this definition I pulled from OSHA definitions of hazardous materials
and then added um there was a section in there that was added from um OSHA was a little less comprehensive and then I forget which government agency it was um that that added more of the
um the plant animal part um and in into the environment section um and all. So I I made it a little more comprehensive than the OSHA definition
um is, but it did come from a standard sort of definition. We didn't just think of this on our own. Um hazardous waste again. And so materials is sort of like as it sees any substance that has the potential to
cause cause harm if released. Um and hazardous waste is um slightly different in it. So hazardous materials um is I think a little bit more comprehensive because hazardous waste is waste side. It's not
just the material itself. Um so yeah those are the definitions we suggested adding. Um given those definitions we then go down to page 11 I think. So so just just a moment on the um on the
hazardous materials. So in in some of the bullets under the old well in in our section 17.10 10, which was our protection of drinking water supplies. There was um
there were several bullets that that have to do with with hazardous something, right? And one of them was um I'm not seeing it right here, but I highlighted
um it was like uh fertilizers. There's Kathy Shane. Kathy Shane joined us at 409. Thank you, Kathy. um the here that included included um pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers not
used appropriately and so I I don't know if that's the kind of thing that could be incorporated into your list. So it's just inappropriate use of such materials. So hazardous materials is more of is the
material h does the material have a potential to cause harm and so fertilizers do have a potential to cause harm, right? Um those would be uh toxic agents um damage to various things, right? Some
of them are flammable, oxid, you know, um water reactive, you know, um and all and and that's if you look at this definition. So, we tried to make sure it included everything that was in prior lists down below and all. Um and
this definition talks about um the this agent and the substance has it whether or not it's stored properly, right? just just the existence of the material is potentially hazardous, right? Whereas hazardous waste if you
look at it is um the waste that um can be hazardous when improperly treated, stored, transported, used or disposed of or otherwise managed. So the waste is sort of goes is a little bit slimmer of
its definition than the material. So, so if we want to think of it that way, the material is a broader definition and contains more things than a waste does. But we tried to make materials
ensure that it included everything as I get down to that section, everything that that section had already sort of delineated and listed out. The goal was to make sure it includes it all. Good. Good. So if we go down to that
uh so now we're talking about the the yeah the hazardous waste section itself. Yep. Yeah. Um so and can you can can you enlarge this as much as possible? I have it up on my screen. Yeah, that's much better. Thank you. Okay. Um so the first
section was just rewarded no hazardous waste shall be discharged on the site. And we talked about what was the point of that. Um and we got a little so this is one [Music]
um it's not referencing the site. Well, we have questions as to whether you need to reference the site, but but we talked about um what what is discharge? So we rewrote it to discharge, disposal or treatment of hazardous waste is prohibited um except as otherwise
provided in the section. And there's some some talk about cuz cuz disposal requires transport generally um and things like that. Um but but we tried to be a little more clear than just no hazardous waste shall be discharged on the site. Discharged is slightly
different than this disposed of. Um and so we just wanted to make sure things were a little clearer. There was a question as to whether um you need the phrase upon or within any land or water on the site or within the surface water supply protection
area. Um just sort of a semantic question um as to whether without that does that does that phrase add anything or actually contract from the other one?
Does it go one way or the other? um if you get rid of it, is the statement broader and do we want it broader? If you keep it, is it broader or not? So, so it was just a question that so we left it in for now, but left that comment of do we need that phrase? Do we
want that phrase? Um and and the surface water supply protection area may be, and maybe Stephanie can address this, it may be a specific line on the on on the earth. Um but in our subsequent sections
we talk about no disturbance zones of 400 feet or 200 feet or 100 ft. Um is that what we're talking about? Are we actually talking about anything out within within a an
exclusion zone? Yeah, if that makes sense. Are you asking me Pam? Uh yeah, if you had any thought on that. Um well, my reaction to that would be that if
you're applying these and they would apply to those areas that are defined as no disturbance or um the regulated the regulated area. So a defined regulated distance is what I would say that would apply to. That would be my
understanding. So if we were 500 feet from a well and there was 400 feet of no disturbed area, then in fact you would be you'd be okay in that situation because it would be outside of that
regulated distance. That would be my interpretation. If it's outside a regula regulated defined area then outside of jurisdiction. Great. Thank you, Kathy. I just I'm I'm waiting till that
conversation is done. And I have one comment on the sentence that starts emergency response procedures following um I my suggestion would to following an accidental discharge of hazardous waste
because up above we say you can't discharge it. So this would be an accidental. So it's just the adjective accidental. So I think it's fine to remove spill of oil, hazardous cleansers. So that those all
imply you didn't intend on doing it. Um so because otherwise we've set up above it's prohibited unless we provide for it and we're not providing for it. We're just saying you've got to have a
response to it if it happens. Um, so accidental may not be the best word, but I'm trying to reconcile it that you can't do it with Yeah, thank you. Uh, councelor Hani. Well, I I can respond to that if we want
to jump to that one. So, discharge of hazardous waste is accidental or intentional. Um, it it it can be both under the definition, I believe. If I I don't want to scroll because you see my scrolling. Um but discharge of hazardous waste is a defined term. Um and and we
wrote it this way because um there is an except otherwise provided in this section. Um so discharge of hazardous waste. So, so what we wanted here was an
assurance that there's a possibility um hazardous waste discharge I believe can include this is where I should pardon me as I scroll back up to the definitions. Um is accidental or
intentional spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, all of that or dumping on into or any on any land. um pouring emitting, you know, and so yeah, we don't want any of that done.
I'm not right. Oh, wait. I want I'm not insistent on this word, Mandy. I just thought we we don't No. So, so it includes both. Um and and we took a discharge of hazardous waste needing no
matter whether it was accidental or intentional. Um because it can be intentional and still be prohibited, right? Um you can prohibit the discharge and someone can still do it intentionally. Um because it can be expensive to discharge to dispose of
hazardous waste, right? I withdraw my suggestion. Yeah, we wanted to make sure it included it all. Um, and that there were response procedures for all of it. Um, so I I actually have a comment on that and on that same paragraph in that
um I I would personally want and I want to make sure that we have in our submittal requirements is an emergency response procedure established in collaboration with the t with the
fire chief um in place before something happened. And so the word following a spill um set me in the mindset that that you mean we only do this after after the fact. I would I would rather have it a
submitt requirement to begin with and that you have something in hand when something accidentally happens. Does that make sense that that this might go to section 1704 and we may already have that
requirement but I want to make double sure. Yeah. So the intention was the following a discharge was not you create the procedures after a discharge but that those are created in case there is a discharge. Um, so exactly what you're
talking about was the intention of this, not because you have to have something in place. So, so there could potentially be some rewarding here of if emergency I if hazardous materials are stored on site emergency, you know, we might be able to reward it regarding hazardous
materials, emergency response procedures, figure out some wording, but reference hazardous materials on site that if you're going to store them on site, um, store or use or there's there's other words, stored, used,
um, that that you have to submit an emergency response. procedure that is developed in collaboration with the fire chief. Although we had a question about this of is it developed in collaboration with the fire chief or should it be approved by the fire chief? Um who who
should approve it and is there a need to approve it um versus just develop it in collaboration with was another question we had. I'm I'm going to take a quick break here. Um we said we would stop at quarter after that. We've hardly touched
the subject. So, I really apologize. We are we are trying to uh do too many things at once. Um this is really good work. Uh it looks pretty darn good. I c I I I want to
switch gears so that we can address uh upcoming ZBA appointments and discussion. if we if we could hold on this um I appreciate everyone's time including councelor Hanaki's and Stephanie's um but we really need to take do a
check-in on on what's coming next month uh Jennifer you put together a list of the number of active calfs that we have in hand for both the planning board I just
have a Pam. I'm I'm fine. As you know, I missed an hour of this and it's because it somehow never got on my calendar, but that's okay. No, no, it's that's my fault because it got deleted when the time changed and I But can you make sure
Mandy that you give us the word this version in Word in some way? I guess you put you normally put them in SharePoint. It is. It is in shareoint and it is version 13A in SharePoint except what I typed in today. Okay. So I just want to
you know I said before I would try to catch up but it's watching the side comments and then things you've already discussed seem to be you're returning to discuss them again. So I'm trying to understand where there was any uh people
weren't agreeing or it was an unfinished discussion. So, I will print it and mark it up myself just on this is but it's I'm I'm finding right from the get-go I'm finding this very difficult because the the documents impossible to read and
I can't just I can't just accept changes the way I normally would. So, I'm going to try to read it with a knowledge that some and I and as my understanding is as we've gone through and said yes to something we've accepted the change. So, but there were little red marks here of
Pam Pam Rooney added some things. So, that's that needs to get we have to go back to that. We need to go back to that. So, so in anyway, my request is I will just red mark them. Did we already address what you said because it's it's confusing for me as a reader coming in
not having heard the discussions several months ago. So, if if I may, Kathy, yeah. Um there are some of the comments say start here at next meeting. Um generally that comment will tell you what we've been through except for the
red marks and comments above those parts are sort of unfinished discussions almost or we we had to go back and stuff. Um, so, so you can use some of those comments that are marked start here, you know, from this,
start here, from this, start here that that sort of show what we've been through. I've been trying to delete comments as we get through stuff. So many of the comments in the first and the place for me to look is SharePoint, correct? Yes. Yes. And I
made a mistake on the agenda because I referenced um version 13. I should have referenced 13A. Um, but that is the that is the only one that is the one in the uh packet. It's okay because I can look at the date that the something was and when
Mandy puts this in, it will have today's date. Right. Right. So, I I apologize just given the timing on this that we um I didn't think the the first section was going to be an hour long. My only request to try to and I will get this
back on the schedule. My schedule. Okay. Okay. Um, sorry. So, tangent Jennifer, um, can you bring us up to date on the number of calfs that we have in hand? Yes. So, we have four calves for the ZBA
and for the planning board in hand. So, for the ZBA, we have vacancies pending for two full-time positions. And then there's always four associates, which are just year-long positions. So every associate position is opened every year
and then on the planning board we have three vacancies and we have four calves received. Um I reached out to everyone from to whom we had received a calf for either or both the planning board and
the ZBA in the last two years and a number of those people a couple responded that they were not going to be pursuing and then others I just didn't hear from but so there's four calves received for both um in SharePoint you
can see who those individuals are we don't make them public at at this point. That's correct, right? Yeah. Yeah. But you can see um so and one um reason I was you well we need to discuss this but
I am hoping I don't know if you would agree but my suggestion would be because I remember in past years it is so difficult when you send out the doodle calendar request and you're trying to have you know 12 to 14 people find a mutually um convenient date that if if
the applicants are available during our regularly scheduled meetings the CR RC meetings in June. That would be June 12th and June 26th. If we picked one for planning board and one for ZBA and the applicants could join us then, that would save a lot of scheduling
headaches. So, I'm I guess part of what I would like if it was possible at this meeting or certainly the next, but I'd prefer it now if I could reach out to the those who have submitted calves and just ask if they could pencil in dates for the
interviews even if we're not declaring the pool sufficient. Any thoughts on that? Any any issues with choosing those two dates as the primary interview periods?
Can you repeat? Yeah, we have um CRC meets on June 12th and June 26th. And if we did ZBA interviews at one, planning board at the other, we could have our recommendations for the council, the
council could act on our recommendations at the meeting on June 30th and then we would actually make the July 1, you know, our target to have the vacancies filled because the terms of the current members whose terms are
coming up for renewal end on June 30th. Now, we've had it happen before where we need to ask those whose terms have ended if they would just participate at the next planning or ZBA meeting or two, but our goal would be to have the new
members appointed by July 1st. Yeah. Councelor Hanni. So, that would give us, if I'm looking at a calendar, um, a June 12th interview would require everything be posted by June 5th, which
is exactly four weeks from today. Um, which means statements of interest have to be in before that. And we need to vote pools sufficient either today or May 22nd for whatever
interviews would be happening on the 12th. Yeah. Or we would just agree that we'll be going into July. We can't make or I would say no, we could have the the interviews at another um uh if I could clarify though, we
would we would need to have statements of interest by call it the 2nd or 3rd of June for one interview round and then and then um by the 16th or 17th for the second batch, whichever comes first,
planning board or EBA, right? Yeah, maybe a little earlier um given potential need for whoever's reviewing those statements of interest to ensure that they comply with our guidelines um
in terms of length and stuff. Um, and to get the entire packet to staff to post because you cannot it's polite to give staff more than two hours to post stuff before a meeting when it needs
done a day or two, you know. So, it would need to be posted by June 3rd for an interview on June 12th. Um, June 5th. It I I believe it's seven days in advance. seven days. Okay. Um, so we got to staff by June. So we could
we we could have statements of interest due June 2nd and June 16th for instance, depending on whoever's compiling it schedule, right? Yeah. Yeah. That would make it. But if we had if we got it in
this June 2nd for the June 12th meeting, that would give who'sever posting it two or three days to do it. Yeah. And it's just a depending on does the person who's compiling it to get to staff have time to compile it between whenever you set the deadline and when it needs
emailed to staff. Yeah. Yeah. Um it would it would happen. I I should also add that one of the candidates so it's not we actually have seven candidates for eight positions because one candidate checked off ZBA and
planning board right for for nine positions including the associates and ZBA and three planning board um I I mean,
four applicants for three positions. We've never declared I know I know um ever um four candidates for six positions, right? We've never really declared a
sufficient pool. Um I was sort of thinking and partially because you know we've we've tried in the past to say well but then we'll potentially only fill the fulls um and all but then it frankly gets
awkward when there are other potential vacancies there and you're going to say actually we're not going to make recommendations on those vacancies and make you go through the process again. You know it just gets awkward.
Um, so I would be hesitant to even say something like, "Oh, but we'll only be filling the fulls at ZBA so we can declare the pool sufficient." Even though that meets our bare minimum of twice the number of
candidates for openings cuz we've hit some awkward situations when that's been the case. Um, in terms of the Z, I'm talking there about the ZBA in particular because of that associate situation.
Um, I I hate this part. Um, personally, um, our candidate pools have get gotten smaller and smaller over my seven years on the council. Um, and that to me is a real problem.
Um, just in general, um, ignore all of the disputes we've had as three counselors. Kathy's never been in this situation before, but the three of us have been here now four cycles of this. Um, in terms of just who. Um, the
fact that no one really wants to be on these committees makes me wonder why. Um, and I don't know whether whether this town manager has similar issues recruiting and getting candidates for other committees or not, or whether
this is simply a result of the public process that we make candidates go through. [Music] Um, so I yet we can't leave these positions. No, it's our
responsibility to get these boards. They're regular boards. Um, it's a problem if there's vacancies. Um, Jennifer, Jennifer, and then we'll come back. Yeah. All of the above. When I do
outreach, which I do, you know, I I kind of stop people on the street. Um, I don't, but I haven't heard anyone respond about the process. I think it's just they'll usually say it's just they
don't have the time. I mean some people I think just don't feel that they're um you know have the expertise particularly for planning board and ZBA and I'm sure that's true for finance as well but it's it's more that feeling like they they may not have the skills and then it's
just such a time commitment but yeah it it is concerning. Could could I ask Dave if he knows whether the manager has similar issues with candidate pools in terms of numbers just in general with
the town side of this of board things? Yeah, I think Angela may be a better source of information than I am on this, but I think listening to your conversation, I think in in general I think a lot of it does have to do with
the time commitment and and historically kind of the intensity of whether it's ZBA or or planning board and the amount of time it takes, you know, both in the meetings but also prep
time, etc. So um yeah overall though I would say we're we're challenged recruiting across the board. So it's not you know so unique to these to planning borders EBA but um you know it's just a challenge
people's busy lives professionally and personally and it's hard to commit. I guess I would have the same question pre-consel did. Was this also an experience with ZBA and planning? I mean, I think these are both difficult
boards to be on if you anticipate there's a lot of activity. They're easy to be on if no one no one is proposing zoning changes and no one wants to build anything. So, we had a period of time where there weren't any big buildings being proposed. Um but as soon as
there's activity so Pam you you know from Yeah I have an answer I have an answer to that. Um preconsel if someone submitted a calf and expressed interest in being on a particular board. Um there
was in fact well this this is going back a while. there was hardly a an interview process and it was really the reflection of you know somebody's qualifications or background
that that prompted their their appointment. Uh I never had an interview. I was recommended. So I was le asking less about process and more that if there were two vacancies, did you get six people wanting to be on it and then someone Oh, I don't know. I
see. You never you never knew actually put their name in. No, you never knew. Okay. Council Han and we still don't. So, when the council first started appointing, which was a couple
months into um our terms, um we had, you know, for for the first set of appointments, we had to do the whole boards again because we the ZBA went up
from three to five members and the planning board went down from 9 to seven. Um, and so there was a whole redo, but I I simply remember that one of the reasons we have this the you have to redo the calfs and you have to
re sort of apply and all is because in some of the first sets of app of appointments we were doing, I was communicating with upwards of 20 or 30 people um, in terms of interest that had been
expressed over the prior three years of calfs. Um, which we don't have those numbers of calfs anymore. Um, there's been discussion as to why that might be. Um, since the
council has been in place, the calf system has been split in half. There is a calf for everything but council appointments and there is a calf for council appointments. And there has been some speculation as to whether that
split has reduced the number of people expressing interest in planning board and ZBA because you know there's the other things on ARAF are the charter review the redistricting there's a couple of other things on it
but we don't ever get the someone that's like oh I want to volunteer and then starts checking things off because that big one is the one that the manager gets and doesn't have ZBA and planning board on it. And so that might be
speculatively potentially contributing to the smaller pools that we see. Um because you don't get someone that's just wants to volunteer, they find the manager ones and our two committees aren't on that list. No. And I think
that's just based on a sort of a brief conversation I had down at Ammeris Coffee. Someone said, "I saw the list of committees thinking which would I want to go on." And I said, "But you don't even have the whole list because there's there's the finance." I was trying to
recruit this person to be on finance. Um, and it I had a longer conversation about that would have been perfect said no. But I realized that those three and what the public document the public was seeing and it was going out in people's
newsletters and everything didn't include those. Um and so you know that's I I think speculating about that is correct because uh the bandwidth for checking multiple places for I want to
volunteer where should I look is probably pretty narrow. looking in one place would be a good a good thing. Even if it branched off in a different direction, you know, it computer-wise it would be easy to trigger this one goes over here and it
could be invisible to the person checking the boxes. So that's an interesting speculation because at least my experience I said you know planning and ZBA and then someone else was conservation but you know on what the person's background was they would have
been good for several um so I'll just that that I'm just seconding that it may not be as easy to find even if Jennifer's talking to everyone she knows it may not be as easy to find as going down a list and checking every box of
something I might be interested in. Yeah. So, all that said, um, we have we still may want to make a decision on the sufficiency of a pool. And I'm thinking
I'm just looking at these numbers directly. If there are if there are four calfs and three planning board vacancies, if the three vacancies are filled, one person doesn't get it. One
person may then be interested or or acknowledge that they might also be interested in the ZBA. that would give us um five people to to talk about for the ZBA.
But Jennifer said no, Jennifer said one of the one of these is is applying for both. So we don't Oh yeah, that's right. We don't have we don't have eight here. We have seven. That's right. That's right. Seven. So So two things. one is I
would be happy to reach out to again and Jennifer has done a really good job of you know are you interested will you send in a new calf are you interested but you're going to be you're going to be away for a little bit so um if we were to follow up at all it's going to
fall on on me to do that um I can still do I I can do emails no problem okay okay um and maybe just those people that haven't responded yet but whose calf is sitting there two years old. Um, but no,
they've been reached out. They've been contacted. Yeah, they have. Yeah. And they haven't replied. I mean, two a few maybe two or three people responded that they weren't going to be submitting and they gave the reason. One person's now on ECAC. Um, but the others I just
haven't heard from and I wouldn't want to bother them again. Yeah. Yeah. Jennifer, I mean, uh, Council Hani. So, have we I'm trying to remember if the press release for the town managers ones including PL included planning
board in ZBA. And if it didn't, can we reach out to the manager to ask if our communications director um communications officer uh can create essentially the same press release, but
instead say the town council instead of submit, you know, change town manager to town council, change all those openings to just planning board, ZBA, add finance in there. Finance might be just as bad at this point. I don't know. And
resubmit that, put it on the the web page, send it out to the general press release group. Can have we done that? And if not, can we do that before we vote this at all? So short answer is Pam did that because she saw that really
nice press release from Samantha and she wrote back and said, "Hey, would it be possible to do this for the following d I got my wrist slapped because I did not ask permission from the town manager to do that and that it was going to take
staff time so that if anything happens then I need to craft the message then I can send it to Paul Bachelman. and and ask him to ask Sam to kindly post the message. So, the short answer is yes.
Pam hasn't done it, but um I tried that and got my wrist slap. Jennifer, can we can we ask Dave if he can? I was going to say, Pam, why don't you and I work on that? If you craft a message, send it my way and I will work
with Sam who sits 20 feet away from me. Okay. I actually threw the away threw away the one that I've been keeping for reference. So I'll have to we just look at the ones for the that the town manager sends and just it's kind of easy the town manager one change the words
and we've got we either have two or we have three depending on what do says finances you know if they don't have enough for finance and fix the link so it goes to the right path. Yeah and send that my way Pam and I'll work on I will do that.
I have just a question. If if there are four for ZBA and they're two full-time, do these two need to be tied together or could you go ahead and do the ZBA and wait to try to get more for planning or is there a strong preference for doing
them together? It's it's a question, not a not a preference. So, there are six for ZBA, two full and four associate. Have we ever had have we ever had the full complement of people? the very the
very first council Pam there were people said we don't normally fill all the associates but this time we have so many people we're putting everyone on it was when Evan was you know I'm just remembering the very first round we filled lots of slots thinking some of
them would be there long enough to and and a few who were there went on another board went off didn't didn't stay on ZBA but they did get an appetite for for serving. Um I think the current fiscal year is the first fiscal year since the council
started that all of the associate positions have not been full. We've been at least at some point during the year. Certainly the council has ended up in a situation where an associate has resigned um and it did not reopen the
position before the new because there were still three others and we got assurances that it was doing fine that the board was operating fine with those three. Um but but for many years we've been able to fill all six slots. Um, we've also had a
situation this year where on both boards there's been some members that have left during the year and again and in each case they cited the time commitment. So I guess maybe we have to be a little clear on what the time commitment is. Um
my other question my other question um is are any of the pe I assume either some or all of the people are going off have already served two three-year terms. Are there times when
we would consider another term if there was interest in staying on? And and I know you would normally if we have enough applicants, we would normally not be suggesting to someone, are you willing? And I know the the one
one of the town manager's regular appointments he's kept someone on because of the expertise and it's um on human resources that the person's been there an employee employee benefits advisor but it's an internal advisory.
So have we ever done that? Would we ever consider that? Or is it better just to stick with six years and you're not asked whether you might be interested in staying on? That's my question.
I think it depends. Yeah, I believe the current of the Go on. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, go. I mean, is the current planning board chair I think he's he might be on this third term. I know. I don't think we've ever said somebody can't, but what we had a short he had a
short first one. So he he might be end up over six years at the end of his term, but his he was he was an interim Yeah. appointment for I know there have been instances of that where they weren't for a full three years for for whatever the reasons were. You know, we
had two people at least one one or two people this time who could have served again but said that they can't for other commitments. So, what I'm saying is there's people on that that haven't timed out, but they've taken themselves out of the running. Okay. So, so we need to wrap up this
conversation. So, our next meeting is the 22nd. Maybe we have a little bit different feedback by then and maybe by the 22nd we could hopefully uh declare a sufficient pool. I'm hoping
and that would give us uh roughly a week plus to announce the the uh requirement of a statement of interest. So that gives us again it gives us a little bit of time. So we won't make the decision
today because we don't feel comfortable that we have a sufficient pool, but we'll try to refocus on the 22nd. Jennifer, are you going to be able to be at that meeting on the 22nd? Yes, I should be able to, but even if I
couldn't, I could still. So, this is what I have two questions. So, then I should not alert anybody who submitted a calf to put anything on their calendar. I mean, I was just hoping even if we have to change it, it I just don't want to ask
people a week to two before to schedule something that seems like it's pushing it. I think it's logical to say we're trying to put the interviews on this date. Please keep it open. Yeah. But we're not guaranteeing
they'll happen, you know, but ask if we wanted right now target one for ZBA and one like we we're looking at June 12th and June 26. I personally would feel better if you asked them to keep both open. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. That works, too. Okay. Thank you. I'll do that. Okay. And then we'll get a little we'll get a little maybe you'll have it posted on the Samantha will be able to post it
publicly again hopefully. So you So Pam and Dave will see if we can get a a press thing out and we can and that that will stimulate intense interest, all kinds of activity. Okay, enough of that
topic. Thank you everybody and again Mandy, sorry to cut the hazardous waste conversation short. Um Dave, thank you for working with Rob to put that information together though for looking forward because that is something we
need to do. There are no minutes available. Mandy, you have your hand up. Sorry. Uh my hand is about minutes. Um can we get a list of all the outstanding minutes for this council term that have not been passed? Well, that would be most of them. How
about how about how about we list the ones that we have that we have reviewed, which is about three. Well, I think we need a list of those that haven't. So, it might require just basically saying here have been all of our meetings and which ones don't have
minutes or which ones have minutes. Thanks. I can try to put that together. Yeah. And here's here's a thought, but it's not like we're adhering to it in finance. Mandy, I don't even know whether there are any minutes that have been taken for 2025. So that it's not like I we haven't reviewed them, but I
don't know whether they exist. 2024, too. I'm talking about the whole term. No, but no, but but what we did in finance because of the huge backlog, but again, I'm not sure it's happened is two people took the responsibility to say I will review them and to the extent I
don't have good notes, I'll look at them against the zoom and I will make any edits and that we we delegated approval rather than spent time in the committee and in JCPC I have taken on the role as chair
is the reviewer and uh people but so people get to see the minutes. So it was a way of not getting to this backlog and um in JCPC we have to do it because we have such a short window of of meeting
that and it's useful to people. So, I don't know whether that would ever be considered. Um, and it was someone especially because of the big backlog and and Mandy, it's both Bob and Andy. Andy was going to do Bob was going to do 2024 and andy was going to do 2023.
We're talking about a really big backlog because it never made it on for the same thing you're facing here that the finance committee meetings got to be too intense to look at eight sets of minutes. Um and no one was reading them.
So that was the other thing except for one or two people. No one was reading them. Um well we don't know we don't know who in the in the uh in the town wants to be reading them. Um I'm frankly worried that they're not
even they don't even exist that there's no drafty. Um no so that's what I'm saying. There isn't a draft at all. So on finance I know we have drafts for the two years even though you don't see them posted. So I'm going to see whether Athena just posts the drafts for finance
and then find out whether we also have drafts. I just haven't seen drafts other than the very first finance meeting where we elected officers. That was that was an easy one and um okay so I will I will take the responsibility of making a
list of all the meeting minutes that we have or have not okay seen. Okay um next agenda preview solar bylaw hazardous hazardous material section. I would also like to go back through design re design
standards because it it personally felt like there were a lot of items in the um uh in the drinking water protection section that actually are really basic good design standards that apply to any
project not just those within drinking water system. Um, so those are at least the two topics that we want to hit as well as the little red marks and we'll start to make a really conscious effort to um come to a conclusion about something
and delete the the comment off to the side so we start to clean up our document better. So when I when I sorry my hand was up from before, but I'll ask my question. When I looked at one of these what I'll call markedup drafts, the very beginning
had a couple choices on how to frame what this bylaw was about. Um, and I had a preference a preference a slight preference for one versus the other, but wanted an edit on both of them because I thought both could be improved. So,
there's some other parts. it's not the what we're requiring, but I think the the more we can be clear about what this what the purpose of the bylaw is. Um, so we had uh Peter it was kind of written as Petersham and so I have read different versions of the way other
towns have started it and I think there's an improvement on them but but Pam to for me at some that would be helpful. No, for me at some point starting at the beginning going through what we've already done and saying what
we haven't done would be good. I'm not saying you have to do that next week, but I find it to have parts we in theory have looked at but we didn't make decisions on that. I find that difficult. I feel like we're circling back on things rather than moving
forward. So you just suggested going back to design standards and I thought we'd finish that. So I I just I would like to get to a point where we're actually circular. No, it's just too much. One thing reminds you of another because the other thing about this document is if it gets too big, too
unwieldy and has too much detail on it. It also won't be useful for the people who are trying to enforce it you know so or develop to you know to to whether it's the applicant you know that that we
we need to be uh aware of who the recipient is of the bylaw in terms of enacting it. So that's just my observation of Okay. So we'll we'll include th that section as well. And um but I'm probably going to put first on
the agenda ZBA and planning board as as 4A instead of 4C. That's that's fine. I'm just looking to be as efficient as possible with this solar bylaw and and getting near to a
final as we move through the pieces of it. Yeah. We haven't been through every piece even once yet, which is why those beginning pieces still have comments on them because we did each section. What we've been through, we've only talked about once and then we've moved on. And when we've gotten stuck, we've said,
"Well, here's three. We'll come back when we get through the whole thing." And so I would prefer that we still get through the whole thing before we circle back to the beginning. So that that No, that's fine. I'm not ask I'm not asking Mandy now to go back to the beginning.
I'm just saying that for me, I wouldn't mind go and I thought what we were doing was also a good use of Stephanie's time. We had this great memo from them and we were trying to at least decide where it sliced in and Stephanie's comments on where we're were inconsistent on what we
call something on heavy rain, light rain, lots of rain, you know, just resolve some of that. But yeah, you know, but but just I think that's important because the staff spent time thinking about this. Um, so it's just my it's for me, let me put it this way,
it's very unusual, man. Mandy, if we'd done the wage uh justice bylaw this way, I would have dropped out of the group because of not making decisions along, you know, just on a trying to make sure we we understood what we were doing and then
got quicker. So that's my only plea is that if we go through it, I don't mind going through the whole thing and then coming back, but just to be decisive as we're going through it rather than put more margin notes in on we're coming back to it. Um, believe it or not, we're
actually got a lot less than we have. The the ones that remain from what we've gone through have basically been there's been two different visions and since you can't present your language until you get to the meeting, y it's okay. There's two there. We can't do it. Let's come
back to it when we when we circle back. That's why a lot of it's there. We've been trying to make those decisions as we go through. Okay. That's just my plea as newcomer that I can't be very useful if I haven't heard the discussion. And you're going to fire me as chair because
we're 30 minutes overtime. And so we're going to do um announcements. The next CRC meeting is May 22. And I didn't anticipate anything ahead of the meeting. 48 hours. Pam, you just said we're 30 minutes over. So, what is the official time of this? I
thought we were 3 to 5. Oh. Oh my god. Okay. I have to tell you at the beginning I was thinking 4:32 because we used to start at 4:30. Anyway, but Oh my gosh. I just because I just updated my calendar and I thought I had it
correctly now. Okay. I I was sitting here being really anxious that we had gone way over our time budget. I'm sorry. Okay. No wonder I was so confused. We were like, we got to finish. I'm like, we got like 40 minutes left. Should have said something then. But we
took up all the time. We needed that time. Yeah, we did. It's okay. Now, now it's actually five o'clock. We could end on time. This is how you finish on time. You think you're running behind for all of us. Sorry about that everybody. No, no, no. It's perfect. I
would have spent more time on I wouldn't have been as brusque. It's okay. Okay, we're in good order. Shall I move to ajourn? Yes. But but with a caveat that that um to
take extra care to sort of go back and and do the editing that you want to edit, get your head around stuff that's coming up in the rest of the document and then hopefully we can plow through some of these in a more fil manner.
Okay. Motion to adjurnn. You you you've had you've already got it. You just have to take the vote. Um, uh, Council Hani, hi. Jennifer Tab, yes. Kathy Shane, yes. Pam Rooney, yes.
Thank you everybody. Thank you Dave. Bye everybody. Thank you. Bye. Bye.