five this is a regular meeting of the Town Council uh the open meeting law allows us to hold meetings remotely without a quorum of the council present in the room however there are in fact 12 of us
in the room and one other counselor on Zoom uh the meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom by phone and as a live broadcast on ammer media and a live stream given that we have a quorum of
the council present I'm calling the March 24th regular Town council meeting to order at 6:31 I'll call upon each counselor by the name that they have indicated they would like to be addressed and ask them to unmute their
mic and say present and then mute their mic again um does everybody have a mic okay got it Patti Angelus present Anna delin gothier present
councelor ete present Lyn grimer is present councelor hanii present Bob hegner present councelor Lord present uh Pam Rooney here councelor Ryan present Kathy
Shane I'm here Andy Steinberg pres Jennifer to here C Walker here okay there's no chat room if there's technical issues we'll deal with it as it arises um and at this time there is one
change in the order of the agenda unless we have to change something later immediately upon conclusion of the hearing which I promise will be brief um regarding a poll placement we are going to move that action item and then we
will go back to the rest of the meeting including public comment there is a public comment as part of the hearing please don't confuse that with general public comment okay uh very quickly some announcements um various meetings will
continue to be held our next scheduled Town council meeting is April 7th at 630 uh we will have a public forum on Appropriations outside the budget at that time um on Tuesday April 1st at 4:00 we will
be reading the proclamation for child abuse awareness and prevention month uh that will be in front of town hall on Saturday the 5th of April there is a global village
event on the common from 10 to five or six I believe and on Sunday the 6th we have the rubbish round up if you would like to help clean up our town please make sure you go to the website and find out how to sign
up okay we have an eversource petition I would like um the people from eversource to come forward okay and also Guilford you're on at this point right so
um let me just mention that there's a process for hearings and we'll be going through that process um so first of all is the petitioner's presentation so would you please introduce yourself hi I'm uh Ryan morch I'm representing ever
Source uh for the bull petition today for the jca over at 742 Main Street in ammer okay can you is the green light on yes I might I just wasn't close sorry thanks um okay uh Guilford would
you like to comment Alicia you have your hand up uh sorry I put that up earlier because I was wondering I had a question about the order of the agenda um and I know we are going to have action on this item later but is
there any reason we can't have the presentation also after public comment it the presentation is brief we're going to take action immediately after it and and then we will move to public comment that was in the order of items I sent out to all counselors back on
Friday I do understand and I did see that but just considering the amount of families and people with children who wanted to public comment tonight I was seeing if there was any way we could have public comment first I'm sorry hearing was noticed for a specific time thank you the hearing was noticed
for a Time specific and so that's when we have to hold the hearing okay thank you okay thank you for that um all right so the petition is for the polls as you see them on this
map on Main Street is there anything else you would like to say about it at this so it's it's for one midspan poll between two existing polls um if you go to the next page I kind of Drew what it would look like in between between those two existing
polls um it's it's the same size as the other polls it's to bring power to the back of the jca building for their solar project and to feed the service for their for their building great thank you Guilford
did you have anything you want to add uh only that the public works department recommends approval um because of the way the polls are set up you have to have a mpan poll here there's no room on the ex existing two polls to put the new service for the
solar facility so you do need a new poll there are no utilities in the way of this poll it'll be and there are no trees that need to be trimmed are there any people in the audience who have a question a comment regarding this
item either on Zoom or in person seeing none are there counselors with questions see none um so if there's no counselor questions
there's no questions from the audience then our motion is to close the hearing I'll second thank you it's and we'll move immediately to a vote on a Devin gothier I councelor ete I ly
grimer is and I councelor hanii I Bob hegner I councelor Lord hi piam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy steinford hi Jennifer to yes councelor Walker
yes Pat Angeles hi okay and with that we are actually going to take up item 8A which is in fact the following motion to approve the order for joint or identical pole locations to install a
one jointly owned 45t midspan pole along Main Street as indicated on the plan marked 18851 304 is there a second second thank you okay any further discussion or
comments thank you moving then to uh the vote councelor ET I Lyn grimer and I councelor hanii hi Bob hegner hi councelor Lord hi Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy
Steinberg hi Jennifer to yes councel Walker yes Patti Angelus hi Ana Devin goth here I thank you that action item is over thank you for joining us thank you y
we will now move to public comment if you are in the room and you want to make public comment you will go back and make sure you've signed up over here where Athena who has a white shirt on is
holding up her hand okay if you are in the audience and you would like to make public comment on Zoom please raise your hand hand at this time okay there are 10 people in the audience
and I'm in on zoom and I'm going to keep it at 10: how many people are in the room that would like to make a public comment 19 thank you we will begin with the room when you come forward please state your name and where you live I
have to finish the following public comment will be restricted to two minutes and I also want to make sure we thank all of the people who submitted public comment online and been in touch with your counselors over the last several weeks um
public comments is on matters within the jurisdiction of the Town Council residents are welcome to express their views for up to two minutes the council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment public comments are not
reflective of the opinions of the council please make sure that you note the clock Thea where is the clock thank you and finally I want to just remind you the first amendment broadly protects individual rights to address the
government to speak and to express themselves including their right to say hateful and offensive things I am generally unable to shut those commenters down under the First Amendment to the US Constitution unless their level of speech Falls within an
exception articulated by the courts such as fighting words true threat true threats to a particular individual harassment of a particular individual or incitement of imminent Lawless activity
if a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging in unprotected speech I must refer to the principles of the freedom of speech we'll start again with the audience please call the first person up Athena Sarah Johnson
hello again my name is Sarah Johnson I have lived in District 3 for five years and have two kids at Crocker Farm Elementary I am also a first grade teacher at Wildwood Elementary I'm deeply dedicated and concerned for the ammer community and the budget crisis affecting the ammer public schools after
all the best investment you can make in a town is in its school system that's why the reputation of a school system is almost always the first thing that is considered by a home buyer the reputation of ammer public schools is the reason my family moved here we thought that the small class sizes and
diverse opportunities like the Elementary music program were worth the high property taxes today I want to share a conversation that I have with my amazing first graders every year you see problems sometimes arise when one student has the option of using a wobble
stool and another doesn't there are two wobble stools in my classroom so when a child doesn't get that opportunity they might say that's not fair I always respond with fair is not equal and there's always some part of our community that doesn't seem to understand what that means so I explain
it further if a child has a cut and they need a Band-Aid I give them one I do not give everyone a Band-Aid that would be ridiculous equal would be giving everyone a Band-Aid fair is giving the child in need a Band-Aid the Mantra in my classroom has become everyone gets
what they need even with my limited resources of wobble stools the children that need them get them and the children that want them might be able to use them later only the child with a cut gets a Band-Aid ammer ammer public schools are cut and bleeding ammer Public Schools
need more funding everyone should get what they need fair is not equal thank you for listening thank you for joining us I I'm going to remind you that all of the time you take up demonstrating your acceptance or whatever is taken
from speakers so I'm going to ask you to please Main maintain quiet in the room just the way people were asked today at the hearing for Ways and Means Committee okay uh we're going to go on to the next speaker in this case it's Jennifer sha
she is on Zoom please enter the room state your name and where you live hi my name is Jennifer sha and I live in ammer I'm a member of the ammer school committee and the regional school committee but my comments tonight are my own and do not represent the school committees my kiddo is in her 11th year
as a student in the ammer and ammer P Regional School Districts when she was in fourth grade she one day said to me out of the blue hey Mom did you know that equality and Equity are different things and I replied oh really tell me more about that and she said equality is
the same and Equity is fair we high-fived and then I asked her where she learned that and she said the librarian at school she was referring to miss Santiago who was then and is still now the librarian at Crocker Farm Elementary School I mean no dises respect when I say that when it comes to
the operating budget perhaps some Town Council Members and some nonvoting finance committee members and the town manager might want to go back to fourth grade or kindergarten as the previous speaker said or at least spend some time in a fourth grade classroom or at a library
specialist section session excuse me to learn what our students already know which is that giving the same to all is equality is not Equity Equity would be allocating your resources so
that everyone gets what they need and in a case where resources are so limited that it's impossible to give everyone what they need than to allocate resources in a way that is thoughtful and reasoned and reflects the community's values without artificial restrictions thank you thank you for
joining us come back to the audience oh I like this very good thank you so much Laura Ivon Steinman hello um good evening my name is Lori Von Steinman and I'm the art teacher at Wildwood I also co- facilitate the
lgbtqia art Club um currently wild wor serves over 320 students a third of those students are on IEPs or have 504 plans these are legal documents ments to
follow speaking with other Specialists and special education teachers it is currently challenging to meet the needs of everyone's plans it will be that much more challenging and harder when there
are cuts that should not happen these plans directly impact students ability to learn and all Educators should follow them if specialist positions are cut to a
point n in reality that would mean the same workload actually more work and less time please listen to the students the caregivers and the Educators we are the
experts we are the experts and we know what is needed read your emails listen to voicemails read the paper really take in what is being said tonight and fund our
schools thank you for joining us I'd like the people who have the sign to not hold it up so that people behind you can't see we love your signs though thank you for all of these up front um now we will go back to Jeff Lee please
enter the room state your name and where you live hi hey I'm Jeff Lee District 5 the renovation expansion plan for the Jones library that you will discuss tonight should never have progressed Beyond its state Grant feasibility study
the $46 million proposal or 55 million when you factor in interest payments would have us one increase the size of the building by 30% when annual visitors have fallen to less than half of what they were 20 years ago two demolish a
15,000 foot addition built only 30 years ago largely for the stated reason that its Atrium roof has occasionally leaked how many homeowners would rebuild their houses if their roofs spring a leak three create a new climate controlled special collections facility at the
estimated cost of $4.5 million that reportedly attracts 600 visits per year or fewer than two per day I'm all for preserving historical artifacts but this should be done the way the library leaders have always done it through private not public contributions and
four it spends at least $1.25 million per year of property tax revenues for the next 20 years when the need for investing this money in higher priorities is becoming painfully apparent a couple powerful Town leaders would have you believe that this project
is on track to succeed and that abandoning it will cost more than proceeding both claims are untrue The Joint Capital planning process has worked well to ensure that the library received necessary maintenance in balance with the rest of the town needs that was until 2014 when Board of
Trustees president Austin sret and director Sharon Sherry began their push for multi-million doll mblc construction Grant we have since learned that the mblc acts more like a state sponsored lobber lobbying group for bigger libraries that their Grant is no bargain
as it comes with all kinds of strings attached receiving it will cost the town or cause the town to kick in at least $25 million with another 79 million in private donations needed from the Friends of the Jones Library it also requires destroying much of the downtown
icons you need to finish with this sentence thank you I ask you to do the right thing and halt this project before it wastes any more of the town's time and money thank you thank you for your comment we'll come back to the room Ellen
bushe hello uh my name is Ellen Boucher and I'm a resident of District 1 I know that the budgeting process is complicated and nuanced and I sincerely appreciate the time and care that you have given to this process and to serving our community I will say that
the proposed cuts to the public schools are severe and they will be devastating in the short and long term an equal percentage increase um does not seem just and fair when it requires one div division to make massive Cuts while
leaving other divisions unscathed our conservative budgeting processes that enable setting aside funds for future Capital needs while gutting our schools also does not seem just and fair the urgent need is now and it's in our schools I'm the parent of two children
at Wildwood one of whom will be entering the middle school next year the cuts to the region in particular have me worried I can't imagine how we can lose five Core teaching positions as well as counselors and special Educators without dramatically changing the culture of the institution and lowering pedagogical
standards if these Cuts go through we'll continue to lose growing numbers of families to Charter Schools and to private schools which will diminish our school budget even further we'll also risk being unable to meet the legally required Provisions for our special education students which makes us liable
to being sued so these cuts are not Equitable and they aren't just and they also don't make long-term fiscal sense so I urge you to do whatever you can to meet the budgetary needs of our schools both at the region and at the elementary
level thanks thank you for joining us we'll go back to zoom IR roads please enter the room state your name and where you live hello uh good evening my name is IR rhs you need to speak up Irv uh can you
hear me yes we can now right my name is Irv rhods I am a resident of ammer I'm also a member of the ammer school committee and the Regional School committee and tonight I'm just speaking on my own uh in terms of some things
that I would like to bring forward um you know the the physical challenges of this Regional school committee not alone the uh elementary schools has been a continuing issue
for all of us in this town and it's an urgent priority in past years the town has set budget guidelines for all departments but these somehow have consistently failed to meet the Regional
School committee's needs each year the regional school committee proposes budgets that address student require requirements but exceed the guidelines with thus resulting in significant in deficits this has been a recurring issue
including for FY 26 while the regional school committee committee acknowledges these deficits some in the town often insists that the regional school committee operate within its means means ultimately under pressure from the school committee and parents the town
has historically but reluctantly granted additional funds this cycle needs to end Stak stakeholders must come together as outlin mind and a motion that I'm bringing before the regional school committee council members should have already received this motion
additionally tonight's agenda titled long range fiscal impacts task force aims to tackle these challenges however I must express my frustration that the creators of this agenda item did not inform me for their
intention despite knowing I had already I'm sorry we need you to finish and anyway I'm I would like to urge the Town Council and the regional school committee to consider looking at both proposals and taking what is in best
what's Best in both of them and coming up with something to move forward with a good plan that represents both the regional and and uh elementary schools thank you thank you we're going back to the audience Deb Leonard
hi um my name is Deb Leonard I live in District 5 I'm speaking on behalf of myself and nobody else um I'm here to have make my statement um want to talk about democracy and the nature of it um
in in many people's minds democracy is not an efficient process it's noisy it's messy it's timec consuming and sometimes inefficient and sometimes the timing is not convenient but it is not static it
changes it evolves and as we learn more as a people and as individuals if you could write down roles in stone and not reexamine them then what's the point of discussions public comment hearings
elections the appeal process district meetings Anna brought a new idea to fin Finance committee on Tuesday please listen to the recording what I heard was that equal percentages is the way it's always been done and if you change that
now you will get no peace until the end of your days this local government is six years old you haven't figured out everything yet you wouldn't even be here if there
was an advocacy for Change and growth and rethinking the way things always have been done if you really can't see your way through to looking at something with fresh eyes then it's just time to stop and
step away it is really striking to me that your agenda item the district assessment method is up for discussion in that it applies equal
percentages to all the towns and somehow that is egregious but it is considered written in stone when it comes to the Departments of the town thank you thank you for joining us uh
Mickey Rathburn please enter the room state your name and where you live audio now unmuted hi Mickey Rathburn uh District 5 um I have a two comments um on the subject of the
school funding I entirely support Anna's proposal I think it makes so much sense um and I really urge the council to think about it um now I have a a comment slash question about the library project
um specifics um from what I've heard it sounds like people were generally unhappy with colle performance is OPM so I'm asking whether it's advisable to rehire cers for this
project um also relating to the Collier's question when the town ended its contract with kers I wonder whether the parties agreed that cers would be hired back at some future point in time
because if it was a contract termination rather than some sort of suspension that was agreed upon at the time I wonder whether the town is allowed to Simply rehire cers without
having the OPM contract sent out for a rebid thank you very much thank you for your comments we're going back to the room Sharon Ralph and Lucille bashai did you want to come
together okay I guess we've run out of chairs yeah hi my name is Sharon Ruth and this is my daughter Lucille and tonight we're speaking on behalf of CPAC the special education parents advisory Council for the ammer schools as parents of kids
receiving special education services we are all too familiar with the equality versus Equity discussion in our families mom why does my brother get to use his computer to type his homework and I have to write Mine by hand well your brother's hands and brain have a hard time working together to write
because of his disability but your brain and your hands don't struggle as much Mom that's not fair Equity is not the same as equality Equity means that everybody gets what everyone needs to have a Level Playing Field I still wish I could use the
computer for my homework we understand that town departments have long list of what they need and they're probably all wanting the equivalent of using computers for their homework work but the reality of budgeting is that we can't provide everything for everyone we have to
invest wisely to meet future needs what message are we sending about our values as a town and our role as a welcoming Humane place to live if we say a shiny new building or a theoretical credit rating that saves a few ten of a percent in interest are more important than our
most vulnerable children what message are we sending when we say we would rather Force cuts on equipping our children for the future than risk a little bit of discomfort how do we encourage families to move here improving our tax base supporting our local restaurants and Merchants and
boosting our property values if our message is that schools aren't worth a small sacrifice school budget cuts mean that education plans for students with disabilities and learning differences will most likely not be able to be fully implemented due to limited Staffing putting the district in Jeopardy of
being out of legal compliance with the federal law families could sue the district costing costing the district a great deal of time money and bad publicity last year 40% of proposed budget cuts affected kids in special education this year it's 70% of proposed
Cuts please w we need our special education teachers and staff thank you both for joining us Richard McLean please enter the room state your name and where you
live hello uh I'm Richard mlan uh I'm an amorist District 2 Resident and parent of two Fort River students uh I'd like to say that equal percentage increase of town Department budgets is an overly rigid operating principal ill suited to a town of our size a Town Council with a full-time
Town manager should be capable of more complex budgeting adhering to the equal increase model leaves the town unable to respond to unequal challenges across divisions and creates artificial budget crises I urge the council to listen to councelor gothier FY 26 budget
guidelines revisions large Cuts toward education budgets will lead to even more families abandoning Amor school districts for choice and Charter Schools increasing cost to the town these Cuts will threaten legally mandated special education programs aside from failing to serve the children
of this town not properly funding these programs is short-sighted budgeting and could also open the district and town to legal action the districts have communicated what they need to properly educate our children let's please listen thank you thank you for joining us back
to the room Nina manin hi my name is Nina manin I'm in district one and I want to thank you all for all your hard work and I think most of us in this room really do appreciate all that you do um my family has lived
in this community for nearly six decades when my uh brother went through this school system we were the second in the state um we have been held that that place as a as a great School District until really the last 10 years there are
many reasons why that has changed we're now fighting to be in the middle of that and I am really looking for us as a community to have a vision that includes excellence in our schools and that does
not see that as one thing in among different departments it is all of our um all of our goal and all of our that the necessity for our community is to raise the quality of our education back
to where it's excellent once more if you ask any real estate agent why people move to a town they will tell you that it's for the quality of the schools and I will add for the quality of their libraries because I believe that's very important
um to Silo the to Silo our departments into different departments is is um the wrong concept around how we can support our community and I do not believe that equal percentages keeps that siloing
from happening I believe that looking at needs of the schools is looking at needs of our entire community and that our vision needs to be to raise that level of our education back to where it is once again excellent and that that will
in fact support our entire community so we're looking for you to have Vision Beyond this moment here and if there is not a time to change what we've been doing for your last sentence please then this has to be the moment to do that
thank you thank you for joining us Luke Hanover please enter the room state your name and where you live my name is Lou Conover I live in district one on Pulpit Hill Road I find
it I find it difficult to understand why we're still talking about the library the point is that this has been this project has been going on for far too long it has run into far too many um
difficulties it is out of compliance with far too many state and federal regulations it's going to cost far too much and the costs are only going up and in fact given the the um situation in the world right now especially with the economy and with our international
relations and tariffs it's going to go up even more the point is if we spend money on the schools where are we spend where are we getting the resource from it's people we're spending money on the people here and that is not something
that's affected by tariffs an investment in our schools is a far better and less expensive investment in something that is going to make far more of a difference to the people in the
town I find it difficult to understand why we're still chasing around after the library after it's running to so many difficulties and it is really it's really questionable whether it's ever going to succeed
and even if it does the costs are going to just continue to rise putting more pressure on the schools and the streets and everything else that the town needs to do thank you thank you for joining
us Angelica Bernal I knew you were someplace good evening everyone Angelica Bernal District 2 read so I'm seating my time today to my daughter
um hi my name is Siri pronoun and I go to Fort River School coming on this program and I like my teachers and there's a new thing where we get to go to kindergarten and in fourth grade where we get to do Orchestra and when I heard about the
budget cuts I was mad and sad because they're going to cut up practices and specials and that means no more going to kindergarten and that makes me mad so don't be afraid to stand for me and the other kids thank you thank you and I
have one you for joining us thank you and I just wanted to add that I was really happy and proud to see all of you at UMass um for the joint means and ways committee and I simply wanted to remind you some words that um both the inspiration of seeing all of our
students it was something like I'd never seen before it filled me with so much pride and I hope you were also inspired by the words of that day and I'm thinking here of the words of Joe cumerford who said that we're about healing stabilizing and transform and I
know that you all heard that and I hope that we can go over that crisis that we're facing in our schools and really invest in our kids because not doing anything about that crisis is going to come at a really high price and these are the kiddos that have to pay for that price so thank you thanks for joining
us we have someone who is listed as an iPhone but if you enter the room you need to state your name and where you live hi my name is Kate Wester can you hear me okay yes fantastic sorry I'm also in the middle of putting my three-year-old bed so it might get noisy
um I'm Kate Wester I live in District 3 I'm a mom of two Crocker Farm Elementary School students I've worked for the district for the past seven years at Fort Riv Elementary School and currently at Wildwood Elementary School um I'm not going to say anything genius or novel
that 10 other people in this room haven't already said but what I've been reflecting on beyond the obvious Equity challenges are just what a town serves to do and and and what the collective work of the town is built to Foster and
all I can really think of is it's built to build the next generation of students or next generation of people and to meet the needs of the people living in the town we moved to ammer for the schools my sister moved her family across the state to grow up in community with us
but also for the schools people stay in our town and our town grows because of the reputation of the schools working within the schools there is no redundancy there is no extra people hanging out just making the world slightly better everyone there is there
by necessity by law and in many cases and to meet the needs of the Learners if we cut any of that out we cut out access and we cut out knowledge and we make our schools that much poorer people with Choice may choose to leave and that
makes the town that much poorer for the rest of us um I urge the town councils to complete whatever magic you guys have to continue to fund the schools and prioritize the Next Generation and the needs of our current generation thanks so much
thanks for joining us uh go back to the audience Kathleen Mitchell hi good evening um my name is Kathleen Mitchell I'm a District 5 resident and um a parent of two kids in our schools I'm here tonight to advocate for more money for both the regional and
the elementary schools today I got to see our students and Educators marching to UMass in an effort to save their schools and their own educations it was very emotional to see and should bring home to all of us that our schools are facing a devastating crisis what our school leadership is asking ammer for
right now is only a fraction of what our schools truly need and our children deserve I want to address two of the potential barriers to increasing school funding the first is the issue of equal percentages this is just not something that other communities do because instead they create operating budgets
based on need Equity rather than equality in amest we don't insist on equal allocation of resources in other aspects of budgeting departments within the municipal budget don't receive the same percentage increases because allocations are based on need we also
don't insist on equal division of resources in the annual Capital Improvement plan with certain departments receiving millions of dollars each year and others including the schools receiving very little again this is presumably based on need the second issue I want to mention is that is is somehow too late to discuss
changes to the financial guidelines we have all known since September that the schools would face huge deficits in FY 26 District leadership Educators and parents have been raising the alarm about this for many months since long before the budget guidelines were
written that this information was not considered before now isn't the fault of our children many of us are wondering when was the appropriate time to talk about what our kids need and while I understand that some of you are asking questions about next year and
the one after for those of us who have children in the schools right now we would take even one more year of quality education for our kids one more year makes a huge difference in the life of a child thank you thank you for joining us
um Maria keki please enter the room thank you Maria kapiki South amorist I'm commenting about the library project uh I sent you a very long message I hope you have read it um I'm going to stay
high level for right now the answers that you have received are completely inadequate and I hope that tonight maybe finally the town councilors will demand genuine honest full explanations and
documentation the truth of the matter is that this project is not going to cost 46 million that's a figure from 6 months ago really a year and a half ago and that was before the world completely went sideways after January
so um and we have not completed a section 106 process we have not completed an environmental review we have not done rebidding on parts of this and we haven't I mean it's just ludicrous it's not going to be 46 million I think a lot of you know that
and you need to be honest about this it's not going to be 15.8 million for the town because you are on a good day a very very good day and we don't we're not going to have this $7 million short
now if this goes forward the it's not who's going to pick up the difference because the town will have already committed and paid for all the money and when it goes over Fontaine Brothers is
not going to eat the overage the town would so it's not even going to be 7 million over it's going to be 9 or 11 or who knows how much over so please Town Council we're counting on
you to get honest discussion and full documentation to happen now before a really bad decision is made thank you very much thanks for joining us Athena Eli Meyer
hello I'm Ellie mayair from district one um I have two kids in the ammer schools one in Wildwood and one in the Middle School um uh first I'd like to just thank you all I don't think anyone here EnV your job of trying to it's a lot
more fun to be in those positions when budgets are going up than when budgets are going down so thank you for your work um I would like to say that my kids really enjoy the emmer schools they they are doing well and they want to go to
school they're um they're excited to go to school and I would like it to stay that way um I've been thinking about this whole Equity versus equality thing that people have been talking about with a
analogy if I have um a budget for my car every year and out of that budget I have to get uh I I have to get um uh coolant and I have to get oil and I have to get gas and next year the
coolant and the oil stays the same price and the gas doubles in price that doesn't mean that I then decide to just buy half the amount of gas and the same amount of coolant and the same amount of oil I would then not be getting the maximum
value out of my car so I would go back and I would look at how much I'm buying of all three and come up with a new uh a new amount for all three to get the maximum value and I think the same thing
applies to budgets when they're going when they're stressed in the town and I would hope that we can find a way to maximize the value that we all as residents are getting out of our town and not just caught the one thing that's
sticking out thank you very much thank you for joining us Arley please enter the room state your name and where you live um hi arle Gould South ammer um the ammer charter says the Town
Council may require the town manager to appear before it at any time to provide specific information on the conduct of any aspect of the business of the Town It also says that the council has to give at least 5 days notice and provide
questions in writing to the town manager so the document that you have in your packet seems to be the questions submitted by the council and the town manager's responses in reading it over it did not seem spe specific it was
vague it kept saying that the contingency monies would cover the expenses that were being asked about and at the end it asked who would be respons posible if the library couldn't meet its financial obligation all that was
presented was a list of the different sources of funding for the project the question wasn't answered so I hope the presentation and discussion on the agenda about the Jones that you will be having will provide some clarity and specific information for the council and
the public thank you thank you for joining us Athena Alex Lopez you can hear me from here no you have to come on am is there's actually in
thews says need split cus third but we are I'm Alex Lopez I live on pot wine Lane um I think in a lot of these conversations we talk about preventing
harm um keeping the peace as if things are going well I think we need to acknowledge the harm that has been done by this body year after year after year after year and I would hope that this body would have the decency not only to fund the
schools but to apologize to the school children that it is harm because that piece has been kept by the student who shrugs off a ceiling tile and continues along their day when the Middle School roof collapses on them that peace is
kept by all of the children and family members of Paras who look at them and say this is all you make what do you mean we can't afford it we have Paras who are filling out food stamps while they work here and we are
saying that we are doing a good job the budget that is being considered right now relies on there only being a 1% increase in negotiations with our Educators in a year where the cost of
living is guaranteed to exceed that and so before we move on to rectify the future I think it is important that we realize we are doing harm now and what is in front of you is
making it worse this is not a sustainable future because it has not been sustainable all along the way the only thing that has been sustaining this is the suffering and pain of students and staff and our
schools so that you don't have to deal with it thank you for joining us uh the next person is identified as an iPad when you enter the room please state your name and where you live is that me because I got a signal
to unmute it is you okay then I'm Hill the green B on district one on monu Road um you've heard all the reasons and all of the people and all of the causes that need money in this
town and to me if we don't fund the schools you're not going to have people that are going to pay whatever the Jones library is going to cost it'd be absolutely Folly to sign a contract to build a new John's
Library when we don't have the money to pay for the things that are really important we don't have school good schools then we won't have a middle class that we've lost already in the schools I have as big but if we don't have money for the schools we'll have
less people to pick up the overage that we know we're going to get from get signing a contract for Jones library now and I think it would be just irresponsible to take a position of continuing this project when we don't
know where the money is going to come from and I had a lot of things to say why I don't think we should build the library now but you've heard it all and nobody's listening so I'm just saying just kill it and spend the money on the
schools so at least we might have a population here to pay whatever the library is going to cost in the long R thank you for joining us Hilda Vincent o Conor Vincent oconor 1333 Summer Street
130 175 Summer Street and to the counselor from PR from district one who says he hasn't gotten any comments from from his constituents um unlike the situation when we had a town meeting where 300 and
some odd 200 and some odd people listed their addresses and phone numbers there is no document that lists the phone numbers of any and addresses of any member of this Council so we have heard from uh
district one uh residents tonight and I intend to say something about what has always been done what has always been done until we had this Council was that the manager's budget was presented in
late January not May 1st creating a situation on by presenting the budget on May 1st where by the time the public hearings have happened and people have decided that the school budgets are inadequate what has to happen is the
money that needs to be put in those budget has to be taken out of someplace else completely wrong second the ma what has not always been done is to have the regional school budget in the manager's budget that is not what has always been
done the regional school budget has been presented by the regional school committee to town meeting directly the school committee has actually voted on the budget that they spent a year uh uh formulating and the manager's budget has
been adjusted by the vote for the school budget by the town meeting at the end of the town meeting so that's so that's what has always been done and what we have now is
for the last few years false and misleading statements about the budget by the town manager that needs to be your closing statement about the state of the town's fiscal that is what should not be done anymore thank you for your
comments Katie Dixon Gordon please enter the room state your name and where you live hello can you take her potty sorry guys uh it's bedtime and my three-year-old is uh needing to go to
the restroom so I will begin now um my name is Katie Dixon Gordon I'm a resident of District 5 and uh parent of two kids one current and one future Crocker Farm uh attendee and I also want to
acknowledge and thank the counselors um for facing this tremendous task of funding our town with increasing costs and limited resources and I really appreciate the work that several of the Town counselors have done and trying to Marshall additional resources at the
state level I bought a house in ammer and pay property taxes on the order of what a tuition at private school would be because I believe in public schools and because I wanted to live in a place that had a diverse student body and a
strong school system so I just want to Echo the sentiment that many others have shared more articulately than me um equal is not Equitable I support Anna's proposal um many other towns have different budget
guidelines and um and I think it's more important for a town to maybe work out the the difficulties among different jurisdictions than to polarize with it residents I ple that the Town Council
listens to the residents when we are asking for a more flexible and responsive budget that addresses our schooling needs our Town's future rests in maintaining and in fact strengthening our schools including at the regional level I worry about my ability to
maintain property value of our reputation tanks I worry about our ability to retain special instructor specials instructors that will leave if they need second jobs and frankly I realize this is a difficult task but um we're facing a dire moment in history and it's time to invest in what will
keep our town and democracy strong and if we care about literacy we care about literacy might I say that we should be investing in Reading Specialists and not a library that a decreasing minority of population will be able to
use thank you for joining us algra Clark hi I'm algra Clark District 2 um I wanted to just thank all the parents who are here tonight um as you just saw it's potty time it's bedtime and it's dinner time and we're all here because we care
about our kids um I just wanted to talk a little bit more about Equity from a different lens um over the past couple of years as our budgets for schools have gone down down our populations have gone up in certain areas we've had an
increase in special education students English language Learners and non-white students um the ammer school district percentage of white students is 45% black or African-American students
10% Hispanic or Latino students 24.5% Asian students 12% and multi-race 6.9% um that's the elementary level and the regional level is 57.5 white 7.8
black um 17.6 Hispanic or Latino and 9.6 Asian when um that is not a reflection of the population of the town as a whole it's actually a larger percentage in our school district of um non-white students so I want us to think about Equity from
that perspective and I also just want to share where the impacts of previous budget cuts have already been um I reached out to the Wildwood librarian this past week to let her know that a local author was offering inperson author visits um as a result of trying
to combat some of the racial bullying that's been going on in town and in our schools um and she said she's so stretched thin because she lost her par educator two years ago and she can't even make you know it's hard to find the
time to set something like that up as much as she would love to create that opportunity for our students she's just so stretch thin and if she goes down to a0 n from a full-time employee there's not going to be the opportunities for our kids to have things like that coming in so please think about that when you think about
our budgets thanks for joining us algra Rebecca please enter the room state your name and where you live you need to unmute hi uh my name is Becca Watkins I live in District 2 and have two kids at
Fort River um pretty sure you already know what I'm going to say and what I'm going to ask for and that you're all tired of hearing the same thing but we're all pretty tired of asking for the same thing but we don't know what else to do you as a Town Council Council and
you Mr bucklan as our manager make the decisions that impact our town today tomorrow and years down the line as your constituents we are begging you to prioritize our schools support councelor gothier proposal it seems like many of
you no longer have children in the schools here but please make choices like it's your children or your grandchildren that do attend these schools without strong schools there is no strong future for our town um and as a side note I'd like to highlight what
others several others have said that students will Choice out of our schools or choose Charter Schools this is not anecdotal this happened in my daughter's class at Fort River 20 5% of students choiced out
25% I myself looked into choicing out after only one year here this is embarrassing and it should be something we actively try to keep from happening Colin do you want to speak my uh my eight-year-old would like to speak too I
was really looking forward to playing a trombone in banned at school but if there's not enough money I won't be able to and that wouldn't be very fun so lece fund our schools so I just
likeed the um the Town Council to give the schools enough money to keep that going good thank you thanks for joining us Leila [Music] MHC hi my name is leam shck uh I live in
District 1 um you have very much heard from me before uh I have my 5-year-old and my 8-year-old with me here today uh in part because I didn't expect to have to be here yet again to State the obvious that it's unacceptable that our schools are in crisis for lack of adequate funding but I also brought them
here to remind you that my children are your constituents too you have a duty to the members of our community that are too young to vote as well as to those of us that can in the last three months my second grader has had three different main teachers Fort River Elementary has
lost its principle of 20 years Midway through the school year we Face losing our cherished specialist teachers and the essential and legally mandated support for our most vulnerable students admit an already precarious political climate for these communities well before the Trump Administration
threatened the Department of Education School leadership raised the alarm that without these modest and frankly still really inadequate funding demands our schools will crumble and with them our town I'm here to remind you that the families of the over 2,000 children currently in amoris public schools are
the lifeblood of this town we get to know our neighbors at school Gatherings and soccer games we own or shop in the town's businesses we participate in all in town events we pay and we pay higher than average taxes to live here specifically because amist has a school district that prioritizes
Equity education and Community even those members of the community whose children are grown or with the means and choice to educate them privately will be impacted if you allow our schools to deteriorate further we are an Engaged and informed and organized constituency
thanks to the great work of SOS ammer and uh you know the leadership of our schools and the commitment that this issue inspires we've shown up time and time again to communicate the needs of this town and councelor delin gotier has proposed a well- researched path forward
if you fail to hear us today if you fail to act on the overwhelming consensus of the town you were elected to represent whose interests are you serving and why if this town ends you need to finish thank you if this town ends the year with a surplus and yet fails to fund the
basic needs of our community how are we better than our leader our national leaders who are defunding our needs thank you for joining us uh Janet Keller please enter the room hi my name is Janet Keller I live in
District 1 um in November 21 um 3700 out of 16,000 eligible voters voted for the original $36 million Jones
demolition Expansion Project the proposed project and cost has been changed upwards many times in the past three years years um the current de Demolition and Expansion Project Bears
little resemblance to the original proposal many of those who voted for it in 2021 say they would not vote for yes today but there has been no opportunity for citizens to vote on the current
project since the November 20121 vote um changes in the world economic conditions are likely to have a severe um and adverse impact on the cost of most items
in the aners budget um I too um want pass the vote for the schools over this project thank you thank you for joining us Amber Kano Martin good evening uh my name is Amber
cono Martin uh from District 2 um want to start the evening by thanking the Educators who are with us tonight the teachers the parent Educators uh raise your hand if your life was ever Changed by a teacher thank you for being here teachers when you work so hard for our kids day in and day out and you're
spending your free time having to be here and I can imagine how hard it is to work when you think that your position might be cut or it might be cut down to 0. n and you still would have to do the same work um I will o want to thank the regional school committee for voting a
higher budget of 5.13% increase um thank you for listening to our advocacy and restoring some positions and I want to thank the ammer school committee as well for considering higher increases and voting a budget that is a compromise between what is actually needed and the money that is available currently and
finally thank you to Anna deling gothier for your proposal um to change the FY 26 budget guidelines um in order to give the schools a higher percentage in pursuit of of equity as many have mentioned tonight so I want to thank you and I hope that everybody here will vote
for that um just want to speak about education and why it's a priority when something is a priority like for example when your roof caves in would you replace half the roof and let the other half continue to leak into your living space you wouldn't because a roof is a
priority just like schools are a priority for our town so they need to be fully funded not half funed and the money needs to be found to do that um I brought my children here tonight because I want them to understand who it is that makes the decisions about what is and
isn't a priority in our town um Injustice is a choice not prioritizing their education is a choice and the people who make those choices have names and faces I hope you will do the right thing but if you don't I want my children to know why everything needs to
change thank you thank you for joining us Je um I'm sorry um Jeff Maser I'm sorry please enter the room were we unable to bring Jeff in oh there he is thank you go ahead Jeff oh
yes um I I've heard a lot of these comments first I do want to appreciate the work of the the council I know it's it's not enviable position and I I've spoken a lot with Kathy and Mandy Joe via email I've looked over the budget
and it looks like there's been a lot of surpluses over the past years I know some of that is due to interest income but the budget from what I can see is based on the previous year budget not based on previous year actuals and in my
meeting with the cathia district one and and PR it sounds like they're not necessarily looking at what the um actuals will be through the end of March that the the decisions going to be made by May
1st and when I asked Kathy is there a possibility to look at the actuals to see if we have a sense of revenues it seemed like that was unlikely and that was really disturbing to me I've done a lot of budgets and you want to do your budgets based on the latest and greatest
information you have and the 2025 budget is not our latest and greatest information and if if you look at the comparison of the revenues you know they're significantly lower than in the previous than the previous few years and I think that there's a pattern of that
and that is a good portion of what is driving multiple years in a row of having a surplus so if we can get better information I think we should use that to be able to see what decisions do we actually have to make here because it
feels to me that that the pattern of having so much surpluses is going to fund capital projects it's not going back into operations and we could potentially put some of that money back into the school and have different levels of funding like others have
mentioned in the past so I really hope that that um the opportunity of being able to look at the March 31st actuals is taken and using that as a baseline for projections for the year not just saying not just basing it on the fiscal
year 25 budget thank you thank you thank you for your comments Lynette Arnold good evening thank you all um my name is please speak to the mic my name is Lynette Arnold um I am a resident in District Four where I've lived for five years um I have a child in the coming
NES program at Fort River um I asked my child for advice on what to say to you today and to her it was really clear the schools need more money they are doing important work for the future of our community she sees her
teachers working hard but also every year since kindergarten we have had to come out and fight tooth and nail to keep crucial student facing positions from being cut this is what an 8-year-old who just turned nine can see as a parent it is clear to me that
our schools are in crisis we cannot not continue with business as usual our schools have faced Cuts year after year and are at a Breaking Point this year again only schools have been asked to make devastating Cuts I know that we can
meet the basic needs of our town in other areas while also acknowledging as a community that our schools have more urgent and long unmet needs a crisis in our schools is a crisis that impacts the future of our community as a whole I also want to remind you that our
town master plan enumerates a commitment to quote support highquality schools that are adequately staffed and properly equipped and the Town Council has an obligation to this commitment councelor Anna Go's proposal should be taken seriously as it lays out
important steps you can take to meet this obligation please listen to the children families and educators of this town we've been raising alarm about the crisis in our schools for years find a way to give the schools what money they need invest in the future of our community
thank you thank you for joining us um I think it's Matthew what Co how's it going Town Council my name is Matthew Watkins I live on Heatherstone Road I'm here to lend my support to the parents and Educators who have spoken more eloquently before me on this topic I think it's pretty OB vious
that equal percentage increases to the budget across the board is fairly boneheaded I think there's a better path forward here and I think everyone knows it we shouldn't look to the past and do what we've done before I think I've sat and I've listened to the Town Council
meetings and the finance meetings and what I hear is that it's difficult to put a budget together it's difficult to give different percentages across the board I understand that I think the work of a Town Council is difficult I think the work of a budget that works for everyone is difficult I think that if
this Council does not find a way to do that difficult work I think the electorate will find a board that will do that work in the next election thank you Ariel Templeton hello again um my name is Ariel Templeton I'm a resident of
District 5 I have lived on Southeast Street for the past 20 years um and we chose to buy our house in ammer largely because of the reputation of the schools even though we didn't have kids yet but we wanted to
eventually um we are the parents now of a 13-year-old and an 11year old and um I am the band teacher at the elementary schools um my position is one of the positions that will be reduced um if the
cuts go through that are proposed um and it's the second year that I'm back here talking to you all and talking to the school committee at all the meetings because this is not the first time our program has faced cuts and I sadly fear that it might not be
the last um it is really disheartening to be in this position year after year and um see our schools go through this in a community like ammer that Prides itself on the value of education and has the college Coles and the amazing
reputation of our schools but we can't ride that reputation anymore um it's we're now at a Crossroads and we are working on a deficit already in the schools if we have these Cuts go through
it's not going to be good for our children and that is the most important thing to put our money into in this town is our children that's the future of this town those are the kids that are going to be going to the library and the community center that you're renovating the bangs Community Center and I don't
understand why we're pouring money into those Renovations when we won't have a community to enjoy those spaces if the schools keep operating on a deficit um I can tell you that these small little cuts the 0.9 reductions to specials and
music might not seem like much but I can tell you personally for our program the instrumental program it means no more fourth grade probably next year which is just heartbreaking um please fund our schools please finish thank you do you want to take the zoom
person um yes Ira brick please enter the room you had your hand up earlier and then I lost it so I didn't call on you Ira please go ahead thank you Ira brick District 4 um I just did the math I've been here 32 years and I have to say
when I moved here 32 years ago with a first grade child um somebody told me that the Amor schools then were resting on their Laurel so this is not a quick decline this is a long slide and I support uh everything that the teacher
said tonight and I did used to teach elementary school just so you know um I also want to just talk about how it's also a symptom that we are doing everything we can to destroy the 12-month economy in this town and that we are uh so mishandled Ling student
housing in this town not insisting on dorms on campus and so on that that's one more reason why families are not moving here um I want to make another point though that I remember when they built the first archipelago five-story dorm downtown everybody was bragging how it's
going to bring in a million dollars in taxes and I thought well that's one million out of an $82 million budget at the time now I think it's well over aund million budget and so a million sounds like a small amount of money to an $82
million budget and I think that the $7 million shortage that they're talking about for the library that's seven years of that million dooll archipelago building just to point out a million dollar is a million dollars and $7 million is not a rounding error when it
comes to the library that's seven years of taxes from one of those five-story buildings thanks so much thanks for joining us Jason Dorney hello everybody I uh am Jason
Dorney I'm in District Two I just want to remind everyone that as a town we voted to build aund million do school and now we're being told that we need to cut positions I think that we have all said that we value education and we're
looking to all of you to reallocate funding I Echo everything that everybody else here has said uh the schools are the economic engine of our town and they bring families in those families pay taxes and if we want to have long-term
fiscal responsibility we need to make our schools great so that we can have families move in and we can have a good educated uh population here good town have good schools and good schools make good towns please reallocate funding for
the schools I don't want to take up any more time but I do want to say I don't want our schools to look like our roads please don't kick the can down the road any further make the decision tonight reallocate the funding for school thank
you thank you for joining us Jill brevik hi Jill brevik she her Sam my kiddo with me uh we're in District One um Sam and Sam sibling are at Fort River in first
and third grade um I am here to speak up in support of all of the dedicated the the dedicated group of parents caregivers youth School staff administrators and others who've been fighting with everything that they have
and they don't have a lot of free time uh but they do have some incredible organizing power that I've seen incredible intellect strategic thinking problem solving skills um who've been fighting against the harmful budgeting practices that officials in this town
seem to be dedicated to upholding year after year it should be clear at this point that you have people who are willing to show up again and again and again to tell you things that you should already know um we all understand and acknowledge the complexities here and I
know it will be more work for counselors but come on you've got this they got this right they got this we think you've got this we think you can do it we know you can synthesize the information that parent leaders teachers administrators and a few really great folks on the
council like Anna have so clearly laid out for you the large number of residents who believe in public education and the basic rights of our children are watching and we also believe in representative democracy and we are planning our votes thank you so
much thank you Julie Hadad hi I'm Julie Hadad I live at 114 State Street and I'm here to Echo Echo support for a higher allocation of the budget to the schools um I'm a special educator at Crocker farm so my property
taxes are 20% of my take-home pay right and um I'm also the primary provider for my three kids one's at Wildwood and two will follow right behind them so as a stakeholder I started looking into the issue of equal percentages and where
more funding could come from and the first thing that came to my mind is the police surely they over resource look at the trucks they drive time they have to follow black people around town who are linked to no crime that's that's the experience of my children's father um
but he's not alone but that's qualitative right like what about the numbers so after seeing the document our school administrators were tasked with putting together stating how our schools could move forward with the proposed Cuts I was trying to imagine myself in
your position um and hoping to see what type of cuts the other departments and services were facing um with the 4% increase but the documents laying out how they would proceed with their Cuts those weren't obvious to me or the
knowledgeable folks that I asked the appearance of course is that those departments aren't being put in the same position of of spending hours and hours trying to figure out how to make it work with less and less year after year like our administrators do um but that that
can't be right right I can't it uh so I guess my first request is that the public kind of can easily see and compare the cuts um all the Departments are being asked to make um just for the sake of comparison um and finally I want to say
as parents we know that we give our kids everything we have and then we find some more and I go to work and I watch my colleagues give kids everything they have and then find some more so my second request is to find
everything our schools need and some more thank you for joining us Olivia and Arya hi my name is Arya Moore and I'm from District 5 I'm here because I play the trumpet and I'm in fifth grade and I
really like playing it and with the cuts it would make me not have such a big band and it wouldn't be as fun for me to play um I'm also going to soon be going in the middle school and I know that they're cutting a whole team off and
then there wouldn't be many teachers for me to like get good education and stuff um and so I don't know like if I would even go there with with teachers not being there for me to teach me and stuff I would just go to a private school
school and I wouldn't go there cuz I really want good teachers but with this budget cut I wouldn't have teachers to do this or to get good education for me and um I really want that in the
future hi my name is Olivia Moore I live in District Five District 5 have you guys ever tried to Imagine A Place With No Education from the Littest things of not being able to read a stop sign which would create really big problems to
people not doing their job that creates a cycle no one doing their job no more people get their education which um which creates complete chaos um and that's what's going to happen if these
Cuts go through thank you thank you both for joining us that's the end of the includes public comment before we take a break which we will do I also want to recognize the many people who put forward the effort
today to bring uh students parents and teachers to the hearing over at the um um university uh it was an amazing experience to see so many students show
up on their behalf and it was noticed by the many many people there my count is there were seven counselors in the room at different times and we also want to thank one of our school committee members for testifying thank
you very much with that we're going to take a break and we will reconvene at 5: after 8 e e okay no discuss no
reason but I don't I e e e e e e e we're going to reconvene so if you are
um in the room and you would like to continue your conversations we'd like you to step outside and uh if you're in the council please turn your video back on I heard that thank you okay Jennifer Andy Pam
councelor Walker are you back yes I am thank you councelor okay um okay on the consent agenda um um in the interest of trying to uh save a little
time down the road and remembering that there we always allow for questions or conversation uh when we get to that agenda item anyway unless there is objection from the council I would like
to add to the consent agenda 8B the charter review committee's appropriation request and intergovernmental agreement 8 C Charter Review Committee extension request and 8e contract authorization
public education transportation services yes councelor hanck um I would object to adding 8 e so if you added it i' would just pull off e Transportation all right Kathy um as I understanded the first two get referred to committees the
way they're set up is that correct that one of them one get referred to committee one is there's there's actually three votes with regard to the Charter commission Charter committee one is a referral to finance because of
their money that they want one is for us to improve what's called an inter agency service agreement and that's it's a state agreement it's between two state agencies if you will and the other one is to extend their time so there's only really one referral and the referral for
funds to the finance committee the other referral was the one Mandy just asked to have removed it's bus leave that's not a referral that's that would have been a referral okay thank no actually it's not a referral I
think a motion to to authorize oh because I thought it was going to get referred to finance no motion to authorize okay okay all right so with that I'm going to uh read the motion and include the two that I have suggested okay um the following items were
selected and I've added to them to move the following items in the printed motions thereunder and approve those items as a single unit 6A adoption of child abuse awareness and prevention Proclamation 6B adoption of amris global
village Festival day Proclamation 6 C adoption of 2024 Arbor month Proclamation 6D adoption of 202 five Arbor month Proclamation 8B Charter Review Committee
appropriation request and intergovernmental agreement 8C Charter Review Committee extension request and then 11 a to c approval of
minutes February 10th uh 2025 public forum on Appropriations outside the budget February 10th 2025 regular meeting March March 10 2025 regular meeting councelor hanii you have your hand up I apologize but I'm going to
remove 6 C 6 C the 2024 haror mon Proclamation C thank you I apologize to the council in advance is there anybody is there anything else anybody wants removed okay the motion then includes all that I've listed
earlier except for 6C adoption of the 2024 Arbor month acclamation okay with that we'll move to a vote we begin in this second I'm sorry thank you we needed a second thank you
um we move to a vote uh Lyn grimer is an i councelor hanii i Bob hegner I councelor Lord hi Pam Rooney yes choun Ryan I Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi
Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Pat Angeles I Anna Devin gothier i councelor e i it's unanimous uh with that we're going to move to um a brief uh the last
couple uh paragraph or so for child awareness uh abuse awareness prevention month uh councelor hanii one of the sponsors um yes so it will come in in the now there for Claus but there is a flag raising on April 1st at 4M in front
of town hall um and this is now therefore we the town the ammer town council do hereby proclaim the month of April 2025 to be child abuse awareness and prevention month and further recognize this Proclamation by raising the Child Abuse
Prevention flag from April 1st to April 30th 2025 to help cultivate awareness for all residents of ammer thank you we're going to now move to the same uh process for the Amis Global Village Festival day councelor Hannah
thank you this is on um April 5th 5th theth April 5th most of the day um I'm not sure exactly when we're reading the proclamation yet but the festival is basically all day um now therefore we
the ammer toown council do hereby Proclaim April 5th 2025 AS ammer Global Village Festival day and encourage all residents to participate in this special day of celebration education and cultural exchange from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on the ammer town common and
be it further proclaimed that through the ammer global village Festival day we honor the diversity that strengthens our community and seeks to inspire all residents to continue fostering understanding and respect across cultures may this day serve as a
reminder of the beauty of our shared humanity and our Collective responsibility to build a more united world thank you and I want to thank both the Dei department and councelor hanaki for the significant um work that was put
into this um we're going to now the 2024 Arbor month Proclamation was pulled from the consent agenda councelor hanii I don't expect a debate as I said I apologize this is for a this is proclaiming a month that happened 11
months ago and I can just not vote Yes to something like that so I had to pull it to vote no um onor gothier can you give us a report from go I can and I apologize that there's no written report I was
writing other long memos sorry um so this was sent to us by our tree Warden and our shade tree committee this is uh passing a proclamation in recognition of Arbor de Arbor month every year is part of the requirements for maintaining our
status as uh a tree City USA um City and they had not submitted one to us last year and we didn't catch it and they didn't catch it until now so we um got the 20125 one and the 2024 one once they realized that so uh this body I'm
sure is not comfortable with the practice and doesn't want to get into the practice of retroactively proclaiming months but there's nothing necessarily prohibiting that uh and this would allow us to maintain that status and not have to start the process over from the
beginning okay are there any questions or comments oh sorry and this was voted unanimously uh clear consistent and actionable by go thank you as were all of the other with one absent as were all of the other proclamations and resolutions thank you uh seeing no
comments or questions I'm going to move to a vote on this we need a motion please I'm sorry we do it's to adopt the 2024 Arbor month Pro Proclamation as presented right second thank you any other questions or
comments seeing none uh councelor hanii no Bob hegner I councelor Lord I Pam roone yes councelor Ryan I Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer toab yes
councel Walker yes Pat dangeles I Anna Devon gothier I councelor ete I Lyn grimer is an i and it is 12 in favor one proposed and now we'll move on to the final one which is the 2025 Arbor month
Proclamation uh on a Devin goth here please I'm going to read the final whereas as well as the now there for whereas the public shade tree committee is sponsoring tree planting and educational events throughout April 2025 including a tree planting and pollinator
Garden installation at the North Common on Saturday April 12th a tree planting event on the North amers Common on Arbor Day which is April 25th and is participating in this town sustainability Festival providing free saplings on April 26th now therefore we
the ammer Town Council do hereby proclaim the month of April 2025 as Arbor month in the town of ammer and we urge all residents to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and to support our Town's urban forestry
program thank you um we're going to move on to presentations and discussions the library building project is first in your packet is a set series of questions I asked each counselor if they had questions that they would like to ask
four counselors had submitted questions those in turn were given to the town manager and he along with other people have provided those written responses are there any questions on the responses Jennifer
top um yes some some of what I'm going to say was said in the public comments but um I was my takeaway from the responses is that uh any overage will be
covered by the contingency and um if the capital campaign isn't able to achieve its goal they'll take out a loan um and that was not re assuring to me
um again I'm repeating what's been said multiple times in public comment but the the world has changed um a great deal since well since at least when we voted on the um to extend the borrowing
authorization in December of 2023 and it doesn't feel credible to me that a bid that was submitted uh last October that there had that the contractors could hold their bids for
going on six months and the contingency is not there so that we so my question is before a contract is signed there will be the will be a conversation I
imagine the town manager will have with the contractor and regarding whether the bid still holds after almost 6 months and if the subcontractor bids have remained the same and I didn't feel like that was answered
adequately I'm not clear on whether the town manager would come back to us if it turn if in fact the contractor needs to increase the cost um you know it's all we read in the paper with the tariffs and the changing economic Outlook that
there was a recent New York Times article that said developers in New York yor are actually experiencing contractors who will only hold their bids for two weeks because that's how that is the fluctuations they're seeing
in the cost of materials so I it I it just doesn't um again feel credible to me that we're talking that we feel comfortable that there's the contractors are able to hold their quotes um you
know with the capital campaign um in you know in ammer the our greatest demographic is college and university students who were unlikely to be contributing we're not expecting them to contribute to the Capitol campaign
but our next largest demographic are those of us who were 55 and older and as we see um retirement accounts losing their value almost daily I I question
whether many of the pledges that have been made over the last you know two to three even within the last year which are many of those are probably from our 55 and older community how many of those you know thousand $5,000 pledges um will
be able to people will be able to hold to those pledges at the at the amounts that they have so I this all feels very fungible to me um we're talking about a well I'm getting off of the questions but we have a school deficit and we're
talking about servicing a loan to you know $1.5 million doar a year so I feel like the world has changed since we voted in December of 23 and that we're just sort of moving along as though
everything's just going according to plan we are using clock and so I do want to ask counselors to stick by it I had not mention that before we started and so please we will stick by it Paul did you want to address that question now sure and I know Bob parent is uh in the
audience if he wants to join I'm not sure if he's able or not um those are very very valid concerns and they're on our minds as well in terms of the um holding the quote that applies to the school building project that that still hasn't been delivered if it goes through
the Canadian border that tariff will be hit them but you know that's you know that ones I think feel more comfortable with because we have a larger contingency this contingency is 10% which is where we would like to be with a contingency um but you there are
a lot of there continue to be uncertainties uh which is why we do not have a signed contract and you mentioned the two biggest ones the first is um are people going to hold their quotes and from what the conversations Bob parin has had with um the general contractor
it seems to be um that they're willing to but we never know that until it really comes time to sign a contract the the the willingness of the of the vendor to sign a contract to build the building for this fixed sum is going to be the Telltale time so that that's point one
and then there there are subcontractors and some you know whether they hold their bids as well and there's a provision if they don't to for to seek another uh bid uh for that subcontracting work all in all we have a budgeted amount that we have to stick with the $46 million and then that's the
number we have we don't have a dime l than that available to us the second piece of it so if we can get this project credibly with a with a credible contract signed that will meet that budgeted amount that we have approved then we will move forward the other
pieces that you have concerns about is whether the library trustees can meet their side of the bargain in essence but they have said you know we we have been pretty clear the council members have been individually clear that about 15.8 million is what the town can contribute
and the remainder is with the mblc Grant and I tried to lay this out in the in the document and with the fund the private fundraising you express concern about can they meet that fundraising goal and that is a question that um that's really that's the and the
trustees have said we will meet our side of the bargain that's what our Mo MOA says we will be produce the side the money that we have promised you and what if you can't raise it and they they have had contingency which I they talk about with either a bank loan or mass development loan or
something like that where they have their endowment to pledge as a as collateral Kathy Shane um I want to I want to just build on Jennifer um
Paul I think it's highly unusual to not have the contracts in hand when we go to sign them and say we'll just eat into contingency so really we have to rebid the roof and my understanding was originally we were going to rebid the
roof to see what the slate roof installation not just the cost of slatewood before we went to a contract so eating into it before we start building and planning to eat into it afterwards not adjusting to these
underneath and the answer said some of the subcontract appeared willing to hold on to it and we could always go to the second lowest it's not clear to me that the second lowest will hold this many months later and in some cases the second lowest was quite a bit higher so
again getting to an Ever slender margin is not a good idea for all the reasons you just mentioned and on this when it comes to the school we have a price for steel that's not the problem it's the Tariff that might or might not appear when it gets in custom so we bought the
steel we just haven't the transport thing so Barry Roberts just redesigned a building because the price of Spiel has gone up so much since he originally conceived it so we don't even know whether this deals so I worry about that so the second one
is the answer on OPM my perception from watching what happened over the first few years was that we didn't have a good solid OPM team working for us and I think very wisely you stop paying them at the point
we didn't have that anything for them to do because we were waiting to Fig to rebid and do some other pieces so I can't understand why you would go back to the same OPM I I don't understand that at all I mean it it seems super risky they should have caught some
things way back when if anything I would have called them negligent um so those are the big ones on going forward and then the ne and HUD I think those were positive answers we had on them do a does the grant still
exist have they have they been targeted or not and when would we get them I would like more Assurance on that and it seems to me we're still not at the end of six section 106 you I wish it it's been started three years ago but we won't get everything said contingent on
the final piece so the big one is not going into sign contracts without sign contracts for dollars that eat into we we had we had a wedge called the contingency and we were general contractor had a piece of it but the
Assurance was they had now come in at the targeted amount because we still had the contingency so I don't think it's smart to go into this eating into contingencies um I don't yeah Bob did you want to weigh in on any of these things or you want to hold
off sure I can jump in um to Kathy's question I don't imagine the town would sign a contract until we know how the filed sub bids are going to play out we have an ongoing discussion with the probably eight to 10 files to bid
category several of them as you indicated have agreed to hold their price once we're ready to move forward assuming we're ready to move forward uh we would then sort that out and the good thing is that Mass General law provides for what happens if you have a low
bidder that uh does not want to extend their bid it allows for you to go to the number two bidder I don't imagine that we would sign a contract with the general contractor until we had all of that sorted out because I would agree with you it we really need to know what the total project cost is uh before
contract for that total project cost assigned and in terms of the OPM Kathy um you know I just first I want to give credit and thanks to Bob parent he he's um who has been doing the duties that we needed to get done during the course of
the last year roughly um and we haven't missed a beat and so just credit to Bob for carrying on making sure that that we kept moving forward um in terms of uh moving forward with this OPM or a different OPM that'll be our decision to determine what is the best path forward
on that there are pluses and minuses uh Bob has had extensive conversations with the principles at um cers in terms of the people who are on our project it's a very large company and so and so I I we don't I don't disagree with you with your assessment of the previous um work
that was done by cers you know but in terms of moving this project forward you know we have we are having those discussions about the future of the OPM callers is is basically the best path forward the easiest path forward I'll say the the smoothest path because they've already ramped up on the project
they're familiar with it we've already done the procurement for their services anything else on that bombb yeah let's go to Pam Rooney thank you um mine has to do with contingencies and I'm asking if the
contingency is going to be because that's about 3 million is that going to be tagged to cover all of these change orders including um the difference in price for the Slate Roofing the uh section 106
modifications for pre preservation or redistribution bution of mahogany paneling um for which of course there's some design work uh required and is this is the design work cost going to have to
also come out of the contingency and as somebody mentioned that we have some but not all of the subcontractors quotes do any of the ones that that float to a new level um also have to get covered by this same contingency
Paul did you want to address that I think Bob's prepared I can respond to that the yes the the purpose for the contingency is to cover items that the uncertainties the things that are not known um we have no more funding we have
$ 46.1 million if the project moves forward we have to complete the project within that budget so the purpose of the contingencies would be to allow us to stay on track with the overall appropriation that uh the Town Council has made in the
past this is this is putting quite a burden on that contingency I'm sorry okay um was that a question okay thank you councelor hanii my question's essentially now a followup to Pam's question because it
was basically the same but um it sounds like at this point before contracts are signed the contingency is doing double fold taking in increased costs that we know are
there above what the original um bids we expected to sign six months ago were um and reducing the contingency by that amount um and by any amount for any
changes for whatever ends up with the section 106 review um but then whatever is left if the contracts are signed is the contingency for the rest of the project and that includes even if
um the general the low general contractor bidder agrees to sign a contract there but costs go up um and so I guess one of my main questions is how much contingency once all of
these sort of known uses of contingency are factored in is a contingency you believe would be sufficient to get this project to completion within the borrowing
authorization that has already been authorized by this Council um because you know I have been a and still am a supporter of this project but one of the big Reasons I'm a supporter of it is because it's supposed to be cheaper
than the alternative um but if this project starts and cannot come in under the authorized borrowing amount we can't leave it
undone and I worry that the contingency of 3 million sounds 10% sounds fine until you count that we've waited six months to sign and we might already know we have to go with not the low biders
that eats into that number because we haven't recalculated it that we know there's bids out there that need to be done and so I guess one thing I'm asking Beyond at what number percentage left is a is a satisfactory
percentage for you to believe to sign a contract um is also what is your thinking on what Comfort level you need that this project will come in under this borrowing authorization for
you to actually sign that contract okay Paul yeah so so it has to be under the appropriation obviously that's the that's there's no wiggle room there for us um and your what your question is if I understand it is like
if a 10% contingency is good now what if it's is it is 9% good 5% 3% what is the contingency that I'm comfortable with signing I think for us um it'll be it'll be it'll be where did the money go the uh the money the project go what like
did it take away some unknowns um and I just have to talk with Bob about what we think the situation is in terms of um where we think the contingency might be needed in the future um you know I think I think we felt comfortable with the contingency
where it is we don't know how much um leeway the general contractor has put into their pricing um and how much how much how hungry they are for this project at this we're seeing a lot of projects Fall by the Wayside they may be very hungry for this job we just don't
know so but we have a bid price um we have the we have to we we really want to get through the 106 review and see where that winds up um and timing is of the is is crucial here because the mlc has the April 30th deadline so those are all the
factors that we're taking in into consideration I don't have a hard number Bob do you have a number where you say we don't it's a drop dead number I don't don't either you a higher number is always better than a lower number I can I can say that without a doubt um I
think again once this is real and I can call up Fontaine and say we're ready to sign a contract and they can engage with their subcontractors and um we'll we'll see how all the numbers work out at that point and I as I said before I expect to have then a total number in front of us
before the contract gets signed Bob hegner yeah I'm I don't know a lot about building uh libraries but I do know something about fixed price contracts
and if I took this contract to my boss when I was in the private sector he would laugh at me and say go back and do it again because this is very risky very risky contract uh I really can't emphasize what a risk it is
to the town to do this now I understand the alternative is also risky and we have to balance the Alternatives but this particular contract from where I sit is is Way Beyond a risk I'm comfortable
with Kathy I was at that point Bob a year ago and then I got my arms Twisted to vote Yes in 2023 because I actually thought there were historic tax credits out there I didn't know we weren't going to get them so that lowered some of it but
I think it is very risky and Paul when I pushed on Colliers I was in the room with cers in finance when it was the $36 million project and I said and Lynn actually asked in that 36 million this is three years or four years after we
did it how can it still be at 36 and they said oh cuz we don't need as much contingency anymore because we're at a certain design phase and they hadn't even done schematic design and it turned out it was a 46 million doll project you know it was just they they said 2% at
that time was fine and the answer was no you needed a big design contingency and a big separate contingency which we had with the school as the design firmed up so I don't trust them is I guess way back when because I felt they were
negligent um now I'm even more worried because we don't have one and we need a tough one to be out there monitoring what's going on because this is very tricky we're unlike the school we're building where we're building something
new we're tearing something old apart and no one can know for sure what we're going to find everyone's done their best so we need a contingency there so I I think we're ever more at risk and the library showed us what their draw down
is on Endowment for the operating budget if they have to take as much as 7 million out of their 9 million endowment they don't have a draw down of a quarter of a million a year and there goes the operating budget for the library so I just so you know I know we're not in the
driver's seat right now other than a vote to resend and I know that would stop it um and I don't know whether the council is there yet on a vote to resend but it is in our operating budget on the capital side about a a little over a
million dollars a year of debt service that is one of the reasons we are at the level of capital needs we have so it is sitting there and I know the alternative needs to be worked out but I don't ever I never believed it would be more
expensive I think it might be about as much as the 15 million and there's money out there that could support it but I just think we're heading toward asked the question of and I think you were right Mandy is 3% enough is 5% you
know I mean what are we talking about here when we cover the Gans and the known are several things we still have to do to make changes and we don't have an answer yet and that's it's it keeps months keep going by is what's worrying me that we're not
making a decision that maybe we hit the stop button Jennifer can I just respond to that please so three things one is I just want to make it very clear that the town is not accusing colar of negligence or any kind of malfeasance or misfeasance or anything like that that's
not the position of the town of ammer um the um you know I think this you have the same you have you're expressing the same concerns we have just all the counselors that same kinds of thing we're very we're very cognizant of those concerns and are taking them very
seriously um so I I think that um you know we don't want to take something on if if if it's going to fail or put the town in an unfeasible um financial position that being said when I look at
it on a fiscally responsible level it's basically a two two for one match on our every dollar the town puts in we get about $2 for that bang for the buck um we have a 15.8 whatever it is Million Dollar Grant from the mblc plus a pledge of raising a similar amount from the
private sector that's nothing to sneeze at you're you know I think people say there's others who would donate to a renovation and lastly our commitment is you know it's it's one of the Town council's goals is to build this building but we have to do it with
fiscally responsible way you'll hear me say pretty much the exact same thing with the school budget I hope everybody has that same kind of concern about putting the town into Jeopardy down the road because it's the we have the same concern on both ends we're looking deep down into the um the future of the
financial success of the town and you know I have no intention of signing a contract if it's going to put the uh Town's finances in Jeopardy in the future Jennifer um I have a question but I did first want to respond to what Paul just said about feeling I I do not have the
same Comfort level you know with all due respect to how hard um everyone's working on the capital campaign I think it was it was a really heavy lift before our current you know Financial setback but I I am not I really am not feeling
confident that that $7 million um can be raised with the save level of confidence of even a year ago and if the federal grants we don't actually get those in hand I hope that we will but I know we were concerned
about clawbacks with the arpa funds so I think until they're in hand we can't um breathe a sigh of relief um could be $9 million that the capital campaign has to raise and I just that doesn't seem realistic I also and I I am concerned
that if when you say the contractor may be hungry um that makes me nervous that will they you know will will they stick to their bid knowing that there will have to be change orders because they don't you know want to lose the project but I also did want to ask with the roof
I just wanted to make sure I was clear on this the they will be rebidding the or bidding the slate roof after the contract is signed could you clarify that please look to Bob for that Bob yes the game
plan would be to remove the scope of the old roof the the replacement of the old roof that was originally going to be synthetic slate I remove that from the scope of the roofing sub bitter and then bid out
um instead of synthetic build out bid out natural slate um and yes that would happen after the general contract was executed so did you just say after did you say after
correct so how is that cost accounted for in the contingency that is correct Andy yeah I have several things that I've because I've been thinking about that too I mean obviously we may have to make a hard
decision I don't as think that we're at that point yet um Bob might be able to respond to the first point that I'm going to make and that is about the contractor that we have the benefit of a contractor having um been the law bidder
who's also a very wellknown contractor within the region who's rep um reputation is very important to them and they have had a good success rate in
working with other uh projects and uh they they're not um one of these contractors that has a reputation of coming in with low bids to lure people
in that they um that they have a good um rating and as I said Bob might be able to comment on that the other thing that um I've been uh wanting to respond to again is you know the the cost of repair or plan
b or whatever you want to call it um I think that uh you know having taken a tour recently of the library and my prior experience that building is in far worse shape than people look at because
everybody comes into the building and they kind of go to the public areas that are most commonly visited um the worst thing that they see frequently is the atrium if they buckets up because it's raining that day but it is pouring in
when it's raining that day it's not a small issue it's a big issue and that's an expensive uh repair to make um other things that we know about is that uh the
HVAC system and uh the the risks of uh what we're going to find in the building when we start to repair it if that's the option that we have to go to are really much greater than I think that uh people
realize uh and the other thing is that um the handicapped accessibility u in a lot of that Library U is just really um Beyond an easy
solution and um once we delve into it we are going to be required to deal with the handicapped access issues U and for all of those reasons um I think that the cost of
repair estimates that were made by riddle based upon the Western Builder assessment it it just shows that we need to recognize that it is going to cost more thank you councelor
Walker um thank you Lyn um I share a lot of the concerns that were already voiced um particularly concerned about what would happen if the fundraising doesn't meet its goals or if construction or material costs go up or if bids climb um
or once we implement the change orders what the actual ual cost of the project will be and if that will exceed what our expectations were after a contract is signed I think that is like for me personally one of the biggest concerns and I know um Paul you talked about some
of the um sort of things that we have in place to protect us in that um case um collateral to offset those possibilities but I think a lot of those options also have long-term financial implications for both the town and the library and so
they don't feel very uh comforting for lack of a better word but you did say something that felt really important to me um something along the lines of that you will not sign a contract that will put the town in financial Jeopardy in the future um and I think that that's at
the heart of many of the concerns that are shared right now and so if you cannot say for certain what contingency you'll be looking for to make that determination how are you going to assess that so we don't have the full picture
yet once we get the full picture and uh we know what is going on on the building side the cost side that's that's the information we can assess most accurately I think the fundraising side is a more speculative judgment and that
is you know not on the town it's on the library trustees and then it's really the confidence in that elected body to me meet the the terms of the agreement that they have signed so I think that um you know we want to see how the how they've done a good job of getting
federal grants those they seem to be holding quite honestly I know people asked about the uh the new Administration they seem to be solid but you never know right that thing in two weeks things can change but we're monitoring that and also the FI private fundraising efforts we you know the um
trustees will have to assure us that they feel confident and the back stop for them is they're they have the endowment and they can they can utilize that endowment to secure a long-term loan um they're and they they have to
look at the ramifications on their operations based on what they have been contributing to the libraries operations um from that trust from that trust that they have um thank you Paul and just a follow-up comment um I understand that
the endowment can be used sort of as a safety net yeah and I know that you're saying that that would be the library's responsibility to deal with the consequences if that were the case in terms of their operating budget but that still has an effect on the town and how
we're investing our monies if it's being invested into a building that then cannot sustain its operating funds um and like what does that mean for how we are and are we being fiscally responsible if that is the outcome of the situation um and so I I don't think
that necessarily needs the response but just that I still have a lot of these concerns sure I I think I'm glad you're articulating them um but I think we also have to recognize that trustees are elected officials just like you have the best interest of the town in the library
and they don't want to put the they they're they're the fiscal stewards for the um Library as well so I think you there's has to be a certain amount of confidence and Trust in that they're going to be doing their job as well um just like we we trust all the elected
officials Town Council school committee Etc so um yeah it's a complex project things have changed in different ways over the course of the last two years it's been delayed it's you know been lawsuits all kinds of things happening with this project
Anna thank you so we heard a couple of comments tonight about how we should um the commenter said stop the library project and give the money to the schools and I think we have got a bit a responsibility to be very clear with the
public about this particular topic so my and I'm seeking confirmation of my understanding or explanations as to why I'm wrong um so my understanding is that one the library has deferred Capital requests they haven't made any uh for a
while because of the anticipated renovation and Expansion Project and that we don't have updated costs for the necessary Renovations Beyond estimates due to inflation um and and general well increases in
cost for building supplies Etc but all prior estimates have had those Renovations costing the town more money than the expansion renovation project and so I looked at we we got a we've gotten a couple emails suggesting what the priority items might be and while I
take issue with those emails that don't come from folks who have actually examined the building uh I looked at the the old report and I looked at averages for um cost increases and and um even doing their minimum suggestions which
were not the initial minimum suggestions for repairs when you factor in the increases uh when you factor in inflation it still trips that ADA requirement which I think we as a town have an obligation to to to make we should make our town spaces accessible
and that drives up the cost further so I'd like to know that's my first point about the the Renovations only ultimately costing the town more money um and then we also don't get anything from the state and then second is that the funds that we are using as a
town for the library couldn't be reallocated in the way that's being suggest suggested given the type of funds that they are borrowing CPA grants Etc could you confirm if what I said is still true uh to your to the best of your understanding and provide a bit of
an explanation more eloquently worded than what I can do uh as to whether or not this is a potential funding source for other areas if this project did not go forward my understanding is that it is not and I'd like to confirm that so I think you
actually answered your questions accurately and pretty succinctly so I just I will confirm um if we don't if this project doesn't move forward for for whatever reason um the library in the course of this development of this project said we will not submit any
Capital requests over the last I for if it's two or three years and they didn't they honored that pledge so they have not asked for any improvements to the building there are built up needs for that building that are significant significant and they will we would anticipate that they would
come in pretty quickly with their needs to the um Town seeking funding to do all the work that needs to be done and it's inevitable that the ADA requirements will be triggered it's just too much work that needs to be done in that in that in that building um you know I
think the um you this will the work will need to extend out multiple years the money that's being allocated is a um is capital money and the CPA money um which are are borrowings that's not how we
fund our operating budget so um I think it's not a stop the library project give the money to the schools that money will clear and more will need to go into the library just to keep the building operational I want to add to um Hest statement and
be very clear the money for the library hasn't been borrowed it's not real money it's not sitting in some bank account it has to be borrowed and so it's not like it's available for some other
spending it it yeah if I can add one other thing we actually have received the first payment from the mass Board of Library commissioners of two plus million the first thing we would have to do is to return that money with interest so that would be a much larger request initially and that before we spend a
dime on the building we'd have to be returning that money to the mlc right uh Jennifer did you have another question uh yes I understand that the $15.8 million isn't sitting in a bank that could be allocated but you know
someplace else but the million and a half to $1.6 million that would be spending to service the debt each year that would be money that wouldn't have to be allocate you know that could be otherwise spent is that correct right
but that would be money that would be under the capital side of the budget most likely and in fact we would also need to repay the as I just said the mblc the money the two plus million dollars that we owe them initially so I think if you wanted to look at this long term and reduce the amount of capital that's that you that the town's putting
into Capital like three or four down years down the road that's something that you could look at now but that two point the the first installment from the mblc we have most of that I mean we have the entire first installment yes so we'd have to so we have so the money's there
to return it's the no we've been spending that money on this project we haven't we haven't been spending Town money on this project you haven't been spending Town money we've been spending out of the grant right but could the capital campaign I
mean if it didn't go forward would the so none of that would come from the library it would all there's no expectation it would come from the library seeing no other hands I'm I'm going to suggest we move on to the next topic uh the next topic is uh was
requested uh it's a brief uh dis presentation on what is a prop 2 and a half override and I'm calling on Paul and I think Athena to do this yeah and I I think if Melissa's here she can jump in too so oh I'm sorry
Melissa is here as well thank you if you want put the slides up this is a very short presentation and the concept of this is like is um what what is a proper two and a half override I'm not not going to get into the advisability or what or anything
about it it's just to give a very a very very brief introduction to what it is so you can go to the next slide um yeah and and there's additional technical information at the end that this is this presentation is in the Town Council packet so you if you want more
information there's a lot of information that the State Department of Revenue has um so first slide next slide so what prop two prop two and a half is a law that was enacted in 1980 which um followed up on the California
Prop 13 um initiative which limited the amount of taxes that um could be raised by a municipality to two and a half% per year um overall that's the amount of money that we can bring through property taxes and and and put a limit on uh
excise taxes as well and um it capped how much your total tax could be but really the thing that drives us is the 2 and a half% in increase plus any new growth and what is New Growth New Growth is those apartment buildings that we see downtown it's if you put on a put a
swimming pool in or a new deck on your house and increases the value of your house that is all considered new growth and we can tax that in addition to the two and a half percent um the um so that that money is
added to the prior years's Levy and then until we reach the levy limit so um you can tax more than that 2 and a half% if the voters approve it at an election of the voters next slide so an override is uh there are two
types of over there's multiple types of overrides one is a general um override which is what we're talking about tonight but the town has done a debt exclusion override which is what we did for the elementary school and that's where the voters said yes to um taking
the debt that we were going to pay for that um the elementary school building and put that outside the limits of prop 2 and A2 so that doesn't have to come out of our 2 and 1 12% the voters have said yes I'll I'll pay more out of my pocket once that debt is paid over the
next 30 Years that tax goes away so it's not a permanent increase but it is for the life of the of the debt what we're talking about tonight is a general override which increases the amount of taxes that people pay um from you know
Day One Forever it's a permanent increase in the ability to tax and there people call these prop two and a half override General override operating override Levy limit override they're all the same thing it means a a permanent increase in the taxing authority of the
town next slide so I just talked about the debt exclusion um and that's what this is where it just covers the debt that we have taken on for the school and again that will go away uh but and just for our for the purposes of tonight that
debt exclusion is starting to hit tax bills but the real debt won't be incurred until the summer when the actual construction starts to take on and then we'll have to borrow additional funds this this summer to pay off to um pay for that construction and then that
debt to pay off those F those uh bonds will happen in the next two or next year or two and then will stay for 30 years so um when you if you want to do an override it will you identify the purpose that you want to raise the money
for and that it will continue to uh the funds will need to be will continue to be brought into the town as part of our operating budget again permanent increase in taxing Authority next
slide so the that you the Town Council are the are is the body that can place a a question on the ballot uh on it it it can't be done by any other means only the Town Council can put an override question on the ballot it can be on a regular election ballot
like we have in November you can call a special election to put it on and the question that goes on is is prescribed by the state law and the Department of Revenue it would be um written helped with the assistance of have the town attorney and it says very it tries to be
as simple as possible shall the town of ambest be allowed to assess an additional specific dollar amount and real estate and personal property taxes for the purposes of General um you know funds for the town or whatever it is or or schools or whatever
it is or to to pay for four firefighters whatever it is that you'd like to do and be and when will it begin so it's it's very specific um in terms of what people are voting for next slide and this these are the resources
so um I I didn't want to get into like does it make sense well what's the strategy for doing it and all that kind of stuff so I think that that's really a political discussion and as well as a fiscal discussion and just say Athena or
Melissa if you anything that you want to add to this Athena or Melissa anything no okay Athena all right uh Kathy you have your hand up let's take the screen down thank you yes so on one of the
first slides Paul I think the wording my understanding is maybe it wasn't correct it's not that we automatically go up by two and a half a year but we can go off by two and a half a year um towns don't have to right I know emmer
it's just become we always go off by two and a half and then we also have new growth what happens if a town has not gone up by two and a half so this this Segways over to a discussion we're going to have later on Regional so if towns
have not been increasing by 2 and A2 can they increase by more than 2 and A2 without going out for an override it it I think I phrase that the way you know they they have they only went up by 2% last year or one and a half or something they didn't go up by
two and a half so they can they can increase up up to their um their tax levy limit and I think Melissa is she here I don't see did you wi away on this on this Melissa I think what you're asking about
Kathy is excess Levy capacity and so the town of hamers typically does not have a ton of excess Lobby capacity we have less than 1% I think we looked at it earlier today it was in 2025 it was 0
0.23% of excess Levy capacity which is $157,000 which is typically what happens when we generate the tax bill there's roundings of pennies and you can't tax to the full 2 and a half% some communities make decisions to
um to hold down that increase um to the benefit of the community because they can afford to operate their their operations in their Community without taxing to the full 2 and a half% increase um ammer has not been able to
do that in recent years and I looked back as far as the department of um Department of Revenue has data statistics and going back to 2007 um we have always been under 1%
with the exception of 2011 I think we are 1.1 I I I asked it just I asked it so everyone hear and the public could hear it too because there are towns in our regional agreement who haven't
gone up by 2 and a half% so they're not facing a limit they don't have to put an override they have they have a budget called an excess limit out there that's was my understanding and I know we don't we we've I can't remember ever going up
by less than two and a half so even it's amazing that we have anything in a budget called excess so that answers it's not an automatic two and a half you decide whether you need two and a half or whether you could live with two or something less corre you're correct on
that okay uh councelor hanii so I'm going to go the opposite direction than Kathy did so um just giving some hypotheticals here just for ease of numbers um if say we went for an
override because we were thinking you know at aund million budget and the the 5% that the budget increases because of everything that we had oh our services our Municipal our schools our library services are facing deficits and so we
want to make that up with an override and we they're facing deficits for the next year of say three million or five million and so we ask for a five million override that's then it's just 2 and a half% on that new number and so if the next year the budget goes up 5% but
everyone's deficit really sort of needs to see an operating budget go up Seven or eight% you you don't add 10 million the next year you just add five so if you want this to last three four five years you can't just ask for the deficit you're facing in year one if your
budgets are regularly increasing by 7% but your your your expenses are increasing by seven or eight% but your revenues are only increasing by three or four you have to sort of ask for more than that that difference if you want it to not be in fiscal crisis for multiple
years in a row if you want it to sort of cover multiple years without those crises popping up so you'd be looking at not necessarily two or three but you might be looking at 10 or 11 yes yes that's a choice to be made yes yeah okay thanks and I'm sorry Pam
Ry mine was similar I and I'm not sure I understood the answer so I'll ask it again in a way that I may be able to understand um once there has been an in increase let let's say we increase by five five million the same question year at if we did
nothing else would we then revert to that becomes the new base and each year it would increase by 2 and a half% is that correct unless we unless we ask for much more over a longer period of time right so if our Levy limit is I'll just
pick a number $70 million that's I me if that's if that's how what our what we get get every year and the and the voters vote a $5 million increase it suddenly is $75 million and then two and a half gets applied to the 75 but it doesn't add another 5 million
every new five million every year but the five million doesn't go away it adds to the base just like this year with the regional school budget we added the two% and then the schools asked us to
keep that to the base even though we initially said not to the base okay yeah George so what this conversation says to me and perhaps only to me is that if you're only looking at the revenue side of the story this is what
you're going to get you also have to look at the expense side yeah okay this is certainly not meant to be a concluding conversation but we but we wanted to make sure and councelor hanii
had asked that we at least least introduce the topic for the discussion today okay all right uh so I'm going to just mention uh Julian uh we actually voted all your
requests uh nice of you to join us you can go back to the university and study um and uh so the next thing we're doing is going to the proposed University oh are there any questions on those items
we did vote for the charter um Review Committee no we look forward to Future conversations uh proposed University Drive overlay uh this is a first reading we're going to have a brief presentation
a brief few reports did I miss something you're looking at me puzzled oh okay um um and we are joined uh I think I still is Doug Marshall still in the audience
he is yes he is oh my God hi Doug sorry good even I told I warned you when I gave you the timing of the agenda that you shouldn't believe it it was fiction um okay so we're going to start with a very brief um presentation about two
minutes worth with David and do we have Nate Malloy David we're checking why don't you go ahead with Doug I think we should just go ahead with Doug um so this is something that
the um planning board proposed through staff and then the planning board held their hearing ings CRC held their hearings and it went through um go as well so let's just begin with uh Doug
Marshall who is chair of the planning board okay um let's see did I think I just froze there but uh okay um I was not expecting to make a presentation tonight I'm here to represent the board if there are
questions about the board's uh deliberation I guess I will say that we started working on this I think it was late last spring uh and we spent most of the summer working on it uh before it was
referred to council and then uh we've had a number of hearings during this past fall so it's been the better part of a year trying to get here uh we thought that this area was uh an area that would be least
controversial for the town in terms of allowing greater density and uh that it was an ideal for place for more housing in that it has good bus service to the university it has uh the grocery store
and the post office and um it's a it's a place where if you were going to be carfree in ammer this might be one of the best places to be so it's not geared specifically at students but we are
absolutely con um willing to be for it to be majority students um and the thing the thought was that if the students are in that area they're not trying to push people out of their single family houses so I'll stop
there I see that Nate's joined us so David did you have anything you wanted to say to be to introduce Nate and or just have Nate give us a very very brief um and perhaps you would like us to show the map sure I I I guess I'll I'll jump if I
can share my screen I'll show the map Nate maloya planner with the town the this is an overlay District so it you know essentially as the name implies it it floats over um what is the base zoning district
and so what the existing uh Office Park and limited business remains and this is a voluntary District where if someone was proposing a mixed use building uh along University Drive between Amity Street in route n they would need to follow the overlay it has
its own definition for what's mixed use dimensional standards design guidelines and open space guidelines and so that's you know that that's kind of it in a nutshell um you know it the planning board and CRC held concurrent hearings
they went through as the same document and so there's two versions in the packet tonight and there's only minor changes between the two uh the planning board in article two which is where a district is described uh there's a a paragraph that describes it and says for
emphasis including undergraduate housing so you know the overlay is meant to expand economic opportunities and housing and the planning board like the phrase including undergraduate housing the CRC removed that in article two it's also removed moved in the purpose
section that's what the CRC recommended and the only other change is um how parking would be screened from adjacent Residential Properties down in the design guidelin so essentially the overlay language between the planning board and CRC which was recommended to
council is the same except for those three minor changes uh and so that you know they were all in agreement with what they were looking at so in terms of the overlay if this is visible for everyone Amity street is on the North here on the
top of the screen here's University Drive it's approximately you know about half a mile in length here's Northampton Road and it's the office Park and limited business areas on either side of University Drive and so while the
planning board and CRC had their hearings and discussions this was the preliminary boundary it hasn't changed any uh there was discussions about increasing it but it remained the same most of the discussion was on the standards and you know what could be modified to take into account public
comment in terms of setbacks or reducing height along Charles Lane so there's some Provisions there the area near Big Y is now 100% ground floor retail or non-residential space and so that wasn't originally proposed but that's now in the overlay so everything south of the
post office if it was redeveloped on the western quadrant here would be 100% ground floor non non-residential and that's an idea to try to incentivize having larger commercial and Retail spaces uh it does allow six stories so
it's it's something where uh you know the planning board felt that it was an appropriate area to have this height there's flexible parking regulations uh because there's not many neighborhoods nearby where someone could park and walk and so really it's up to the developer to propose what's the right parking
ratios they have to provide a parking study uh parking management plan and so it would you know everything's by site plan review just mixed use buildings uh and a lot of this would be discussed through the permanent process with the planning board um I'm going to go next to CRC uh
Pam Rooney thanks and I think um both Doug and Nate have covered the bulk of what we all discussed um I think the CRC uh contribution to this is that we in fact did want to uh note that this was going
to be a a very good area to encourage growth of housing that would induce students to move to that area instead of moving into stable neighborhoods um but we took out the words that it was housing specifically
for for undergraduate students um one of the things that CRC added that was fairly important was the set increased setback from existing residential given that these are six could be six-story buildings that um
needed a little more of a buffer between existing residential and the potential six story buildings um Nate discussed the 100% use of uh of the ground floor
um for commercial uses in the South End of the of the uh District which includes the grow groceries the CVS the post office the health care services that are really critical we did not want to um
somehow entice an existing um Service uh to demolish their buildings and build uh the very more much more lucrative um residential offerings uh so we kept it as 100% commercial use uh in
that area to discourage um I think that kind of sums up the bulk of the conversations that we had and um I would support obviously moving forward on this thank you great thank
you Anna go thank you to Nate for joining us at go for our conversation uh much appreciated go voted this clear consistent and actionable four in favor none opposed one absent okay are there any questions or
comments and let me just note that this will come before the council for a final vote on April 7th so if there's anything people need cleared up between now and then this is when you need to ask for it
Bob yeah I'd like to know what um efforts are going to be made to encourage senior housing or um Workforce housing development in this area um I I
I understand that the um from what I've read um it's largely just going to be designed for student housing which means that most of the stores are going to be there to serve the students and not to serve the
town residents um uh my wife actually was interested in one of the uh new buildings in town I won't mention which one and asked if she could see the apartments there and the
person uh representing the um the uh landlord said oh no you don't want to live there that's student housing so she was discouraged from even attempting to go in and look at the apartments so I I
have a great concern that this is just going to become another set of student housing and it's not going to benefit the town um other than some you know hope of reducing the number of llc's that are
purchasing homes somewhere in in amrest okay Andy oh I'm sorry Doug did you want to address that yeah I guess I I thought I would take a stab at answering that um
this overlay does not prescribe the demographic that the housing will be designed for it simply uh sets out the potent the possible uh uses and mixed use can have
any any any human can occupy a mixed use residential area um so there is no slanting within the bylaw uh toward students or toward seniors or toward any other
demographic um each if this gets used and there's no guarantee it will um each developer will uh assess the market and decide who they want to build for and or they may
just do what they consider to be generic uh layouts of units and see who shows up um so I don't think that it's fair to say that this is going to or intended to only
uh cater to students I I hear what you said but it's not what you write in your reports well I can't speak for the reports um Andy I'll follow up on that one but then
I want to get to a different issue actually but the followup is that I think that the question ultimately is going to depend partly on the the design of the apartment units that are provided within the
area that if there are large if it's if the building is dominated by multiple bedroom apartments then it's more likely to be um attractive and marketed to
students if they're two-bedroom apartments with substantial um living space then it would be more likely that um a family that had been in a house and is looking to stay in ammer
would be more likely to look for it and there's nothing that I could see that tends to favor that it's sort of left to uh whatever is proposed but my uh issue that I had
originally raised my hand about is um I was a little bit confused by the CRC report answer that we re our report that we received uh and that has to do with retail because it was my
understanding that uh the uh retail that is uh U including everything um all the way down to uh University uh from on University drive
all the way down to College Street is uh now a part of the proposed district and that would include then the Big Y property and if it includes the Big Y property then it seems that potentially
the retail is going to be limited by essentially the space that's on the first floor of any building that's built um minus whatever is needed for um servicing entry to the apartment
buildings and that it would be unlikely that you would ever again see a retail establishment with the scope of services that are provided in a large Supermarket
such as exists on the property now um and I I guess that is that really what community wants councelor hanii did you raise your hand because you wanted to address this all right
Kathy I would like to build on what Andy said I I was a newcomer to CRC but I did get to vote on this and I raised the concern and I actually say can we carve out can we have the overlay stop short
of the boundary that that is the big why and um basically everyone else on the committee said no because that restricts it and that carves it up um you know this is at the option of a developer the also other response is the Big Y has a
20year lease I think leases can be broken and I worry that the backside of the Big Y is Goodwill which is if supermarkets are low margin Goodwills are even lower margin um for what they are so I did question whether we
couldn't do the overlay at and stop it at the border and the answer was apparently that's too restrictive so I and the other point I wanted to make um in response to Bob I or a question my
understanding is if it would these were called apartment buildings rather than mixed juice we'd have some mix of the units with the mixed juice building in the apartment side could they all be efficiencies or do they have to be On's
twos threes do they have to have a mix of the type of units like the Spring Street is mainly efficiencies with a few one-bedrooms so and the one all of them are small so you're not going to get someone moving out of their house to get
to a very small efficiency um so what on the mixed use side of the residential is there a requirement that be it be a mix of size of units I just I just don't know the law on mixed juuse well enough to know how that works David you have
your hand up yeah thanks Lenn I just want to make a couple of comments um and and first thank you know Nate and the planning staff um certainly the planning board for bringing this for through the process through
CRC um just a couple of comments one is you know I think all recognize the state the region the town we're in a housing crisis here and um this is just one effort of many that is needed we have to keep moving forward I guess I'm I'm
hoping that we we not um kind of hyperfocus on this one initiative that the planning board has been and other boards and committees have been working on for for many many months it has taken us a long time to get to this point um I know right now the staff and the Housing
Trust are completing the housing production plan that will give us more information to Bob's point about kind of what what is needed in terms of Market um because of course you know as as um Doug mentioned um this is not
prescriptive it doesn't say what kind of housing really the market determines what kind of housing so the more we can offer opportunities for Creative developers to come to hemmer and and work with our our planning staff and and with boards and committees the more
opportunity we'll have for all different kinds of Housing and then lastly you know I think we all just need to work together roll up our sleeves we need to look at more of these creative options around town and I think we've we've had those conversations certainly the planning board is is looking creatively
at lower Main Street we've talked about some creative options for additional downtown density but this is just one of many that we need to move forward on and I think the planning board and and staff and CRC have heard a lot of you know
good comments they've made adjustments where where needed and and I hope we'll move this forward and then get get started right away on the next one we we we need to keep looking creatively our zoning doesn't by and large encourage
more growth in the places that we want it to be which is typically in our village centers and University Drive although not officially a v Village Center as Doug said it is a a very appropriate place I think we all agree
for more density in terms of Housing and mixed use so um thank you councelor hanii um I agree with everything our assistant Town manager just said um this Council has talked a lot
about wanting to create housing and ensure that there is housing available for all mixed use of a mixed variety of Ages of family sizes of income
levels and then we seem to get in our own way by getting too concerned about what some zoning change might do and then we don't do anything and then we continue to talk this I will say I would love to see this go even farther it
doesn't go as far I I pushed hard at CRC to against the residential buffering setbacks that were added in um yet it does some of what we need it to do and
we have to look at it in some sense as a compromise in a place that we should be looking at building more mixed use buildings I believe the compromise that we focused a lot on and the planning board focused a lot on at the Big Y
Plaza and the CVS Plaza we've heard we listened and we did what we thought was right to write into this proposal what will protect the major retail that is down there we cannot guarantee that it will because there is no guarantee of anything but I also want to remind
people a mixed use building isn't just one floor of retail and has to be the rest residential a mixed use building can just have one residential unit in it and the whole rest of the thing can be commercial so we don't know what 10
years down the line this might look like and what's needed but we need to do something and this is a very good start in a location that is right for walkability and where people could want to live because of what it is near
including the grocery stores and other shopping and I do want to push back one other thing um that um a prior counselor said tonight of student house does not benefit the town and I or housing that houses students and that this is focused on
students would not benefit the town I'm not wording it the way it was worded um but I think it's a wrong thing to say that a certain type of person living in our town is not a benefit to our town um
and that we should not be characterizing residents as certain residents as not being beneficial if they're living in certain areas of town that that we should be more welcoming as a town and that all of our residents as a
University Town um and as a town that attracts retirees have a benefit and do benefit our entire Community Jennifer uh yes I guess in response um I uh to Bob's
question I think when the planning board and when CRC was creating this we did you know we saw it because of the proximity to the university for all the reasons people said it was there would probably be student interest in living there but we hoped that other people
would live there as well and I think how successful we are in that as Andy said as each project comes before the planning board or the zba that maybe they can work with the developers to have I mean I think having three and four bedroom units are
terrific for families but if they're priced at $1,000 or $1,200 per bedroom no family is going to be able to live there so it's trying to strike that balance I know with the right Sunset fearing townhouse development in conversations with the developer they
did scale back the number of four bedrooms because they shared how much what the price range would be for those and it would be prohibitive for anybody except people sharing the rent so you know the hope is that there will be a mix of residents here but again it's whether
the the the families and the workforce priced out because the price Point's just too high Pat d' Angeles thank you also addressing Bob's concern if you look at North Square um the development there uh it's
mixed use buildings they are one two and three bedroom uh units that range from 650 square feet to 1,110 Square ft there is a playground there coffee shops there's restaurants there's a gym there's do
you there's a general store uh an art gallery and other things so I think that we do a lot of fear-mongering um but what I see there and I hated that development when it started to go in I must admit um I don't
think it's beautiful but it's working for families and students and single people of all stripes and it does include affordable units um councel Walker um thank you I just have a couple
of comments and I do want to say that generally overall I do support this initiative because I do think if we want to think about addressing the housing crisis there's going to be a number of things that we have to do um and I think kind of like what Mandy Joe said this is just one of them um and I do though have
some concerns about um what kind of requirements we can put on or like how we can work with developers If This Were passed and we are moving forward into building new housing units and how we make sure that those units are available for families and I just wanted to speak
for a a minute about what the actual experience of renting a property in this town is because I think that seems to be very a Miss in this conversation it is extremely challenging for a family to find somewhere to rent in this town um
and I've had similar experiences myself like Bob mentioned where I have looked at places that are two three-bedroom apartments that say we are not going to rent to you because there's too many students here and you have kids um but they're not apartments that are supposed to only be for students but you know
they're looking out for me because they don't want me to be around people who are partying all the time or the Riverside apartments behind uh CES and North amest will tell you you can't rent there if you're an undergrad and so even though I'm a resident when I was an underground they wouldn't allow me to rent there because I was simply an undergrad so there are so many obstacles
that people in this town have to jump through defined housing that I do think it is important to consider who we are building the housing for and with this specific initiative what part of the housing crisis we're trying to address if this is just simply increasing
housing stock then that's simple but if we're looking at like housing inequity or any of those other kinds of issues that exist within the housing crisis then there needs to be other measures also implemented with this initiative like in terms of housing caps uh bedroom
availability affordability and all of those other things uh councelor Ryan so we have a housing crisis and we have a revenue crisis and this proposal addresses both I'd like to Echo what the assistant
Town manager said and what councelor hanii said and address my comments to the planning board I hope this is the first of a number of future proposals that will will continue to look in places in amest where this kind of
development can take place and we can continue to address the housing crisis and the revenue crisis thank you Bob yeah I just wanted to state that I'm not opposed to this development I think
it's good for the town I just want to make sure that we consider the types to try to encourage um seniors and Workforce uh members to live there that's all um I I
wasn't suggesting we shouldn't do it and I think it's a good place for this kind of development actually um but um I my concern is that we make sure it's available for
everyone there any other questions or comments well return to this on April 7th for the second vote which allows us to make sure that it's done within the 90day period at the close of the hearings um so uh we're going to go on
to the contract authorization public education transportation services there's a memo in your packet it explains that this is an effort to Electrify um some of our school buses and it requires a 10year lease and the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts requires that if you go for any lease uh past 3 years that the Town Council has to approve it so uh I'm going to make a motion and seek a second and then we'll go to
questions um the motion is to authorize the superintendent of schools to sign a contract for up to 10 years for public education transportation services is there a second second Rooney okay questions councelor
hanii so I have some that are kind of basic and others that are a little more involved the first one is it seems like this is for an elementary school leasing agreement um but our superintendent of schools is a superintendent of three different districts um is our motion
clear enough to reference which district we are authorizing which superintendent we are AU authorizing to sign a lease of up to 10 years um and then uh questions on would these
buses also be used for regional transportation for Regional District transportation and and not just Elementary dis transportation and if so what is the intergovernmental budget transfer for those costs looking like or are there agreements with that and then my third question relates to the
regional agreement document itself and I know this is Elementary but I'm going to read the SEC on Transportation that I have questions about because the regional agreement on Transportation in section 10A says the district Regional District
shall provide transportation for pupils attending the regional district schools as well as pupils attending the elementary schools of member towns and in further accordance with the policy of the regional school committee in providing such Transportation the district May contract with one or more
of the participating towns for the provision of such Transportation once daily to and from the regional district schools for the pupils residing in such town and entitled to such Transportation the costs of providing transportation for pupils attending the regional district schools shall be included in
the district operating costs the costs of providing transportation for pupils attending the elementary schools of member towns shall be built separately to each member Town annually so I guess my question is how does that doc that paragraph in the
Regional School agreement relate to the elementary school superintendent signing a 10-year lease for elementary Transportation when it seems like there needs to be an agreement between the regional school and the elementary school districts for the elementary
school discide or something like I I guess I'm trying to figure out the scope of that Regional agreement and how it relates to this request for authorization and how all that's been
working um I'm going to call on Paul bamman but I also want to note that our superintendent of schools is with us tonight as well as the um interim Finance director for the schools Paul but it it really should be uh Shannon or Dr Z who would answer but the
contract that I saw is between the elementary schools and the bus company so it was coming to the council because it's an elementary school contract but um Dr Z or Shannon if you want to answer the other questions that the counselor
had yep um so our uh the buses that we have for Amherst or for for all of the schools have been purchased um through uh Amherst and uh what we do come end of the year is we have these Bill back
entries that we do that proportion the cost between the three districts and that's how we've been managing this process um it's a pretty intense spreadsheet um but we and that's been historically what has been done uh it's not something that I started an
initiative of I'm just following the what we've done in the past Dr Z did you want to comment no Shannon did a great job explaining the process thank you Bob heg
down yeah my understanding from I guess it was jcpc was that this this bus would well all the buses are owned by the elementary school and this bus would only stay in Amber because it doesn't have the rang to go beyond that so I
mean if you're transporting people for the Regional Schools or if you're going to a sporting event you can't use an electric bus because it just doesn't have the range please councelor hanck so does that mean that when that bus is used for
Regional student Regional District transportation even though these are ammer students that the region is buil for that cost and essentially there's an intergovernmental transfer between the budget at the region to the elementary
school budget for those costs um am am I accurate yes yeah yes it's not a it's not the budget that's moved it's the expense that's um buil to the other
districts okay are there any further questions um yes does the motion need changeed to clarify because it just says the superintendent of schools for up to 10 years do we need to change it is that clear enough that it's for our
elementary school was one of my questions um Paul did you have any question on that or any advice yeah I'm I mean I wrote the motion so I think I I think it's pretty clear but if you want to add words to make it clear that's fine and
did you want to amend it or friendly Amendment so I just I mean the superintendent is the signer of the agreement all you know legally um so that's who you're and that and you're letting the district enter into a
10-year lease contct contract it just does not verify the lease document it does not say uh procurement follow or anything was followed we don't get into that level of detail it's just like if they want to go in this direction have they do they have the authority to move in this
direction would it be proper to say the superintendent of the ammer schools or the ammer elementary school I I don't it's the ammer school district right it in the Meemo it says ammer school district and we're we're all supposed to
know that is the elementary school as opposed to the regional yeah the motion doesn't say that though so I was wondering if the motion should say superintendent of ammer schools to authorize the superintendent of the ammer schools or ammer elementary
schools what's the formal name of the ammer district ammer it doesn't say Elementary just the emmer school district all right so the the uh friendly amendment is as follows to authorized the superintendent of the ammer schools to sign a contract
for up to 10 years for public educational transportation services I made the motion that's fine with me who was the second Pam thank you fine yes all right any other questions or
comments moving on we're going to move to a vote Bob hegner I um Hello Lord hi uh Pam roone yes George Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg
hi Jennifer toab yes councelor H Walker yes Patti Angeles hi Anna Devin goth hi Anna H councel hi Lyn grimer and I counselor hanck I it's unanimous thank you um
and good luck with all those electric school buses um we are now going to move on to the amest pelum Regional School District assessment method and um I'm going
to just Begin by saying first of all I want to thank the regional school committee for voting a budget and assessment method and officially sending that information to the town manager before the required date
um as a as was explained to the finance committee this was done based upon a conversation with the regional school committee chair and acting Finance director prior to their vote on Friday March 14th and with that I'm going to call on
Paul Bachman to speak to the memo thank you Lynn um so there are three things that the school committee voted and that that actual motion is in your packet as uh think it's attachment for I think something like that so the
the typically the um Regional School District votes an operating budget and I I usually think of this as the size of the pi the size of the budget the assessment method which is how that Pi gets divided up in money comes from the four different towns and then they have
a request for borrowing for Capital um and so those three actions were forwarded to to me and I am passing along to you the assessment method and the reason for that is that the operating budget needs three of the four member communities to approve it so that
there is an if if three of the four member communities approve the budget they have a budget the assessment method is a assessment method that's different than what's in the Regional School District agreement and all four communities have to approve
it amest is more flexible in its timing and um the request from the district was if you are going please consider this early in this process us let us know if you're going to approve it or not because we have three town meetings coming up at the end of April and early
May and those dates Can't Be Moved very easily by those the three other communities so um the request to you was to look at the assessment method um when we have looked at the assessment method it it that was voted by the regional
school committee it asks for a 6.5% increase from the town of ammer this is well above what the the financial guidelines have provided for in your the and the guidelines that the
council voted so I'm asking you to reject this alternative method because it's outside the guidelines um and the other reason is that if we were to if you were to say yes to a 6.5% increase it would have an very dramatic impact on
the libraries the schools and the elementary schools in terms of how much we could afford to provide to our other three components of our town budget so um the um and so one of the things we asked the uh District to do was to what
if we took the actual um budget that the that the school committee voted the 37 point and you can see it on uh um attachment one they voted a a budget of 37 m771
se1 and what if you just applied the current Regional assessment method to that that would make if and that's if you look at attachment two that would mean ammer share instead of going up 6.5% would go up 4.81% and that's a number actually we
could work to get to I think we would we're at 4% now and we could work to get to meet the budget request of the Regional School District um but if if this Regional if this assessment method is adopted it really um just makes it
very very difficult for me to give you a balanced budget for the entire town um and it's not the regional assessment method means um it's it's really subsidizing the other three towns is not more money going to the schools or not
it's about how that P is divided up it's about how much of the of the budget that the school committee voted is coming from each town and my recommendation to you is that the town shouldn't pay more than its Fair share every town should pay its fair
share I hope that is clear I'm you have also recommended to us a motion and the motion is to reject the following Amendment to the Regional School District agreement replace
section J as follows for fiscal year 2026 only the assessment shall be allocated to the member towns in accordance with a perable method found found on Section Roman numeral 6E of the amoris pelum Regional School District
agreement if any member Town's assessment based on the regional agreement method increases or decreases more than 6.55% from their fiscal year 2025 assessment the fiscal year 2026 assessment shall be limited to a 6%
change provided that the requirements of the minimum local contribution are still met or take any other action relative there too other comments Kathy Shan I'll second that motion if you were making a motion I was I'll second it's now been
seconded Kathy have you have you made the motion Lynn we have and was it seconded yes okay um I want to speak in favor of the motion um I think the Regional School
assessment method is a good agreement and it is the agreement among the four towns so I'm just talking talking about the assessment method and as Paul has just said if that assessment method was applied you would have the the division
of the budget be different among the towns than what was proposed and voted on by the Regional School the impact of moving it away as they proposed would shift money onto amoris taxpayers and off other Town's taxpayers as we move
away from the assessment method and just just it's a complicated method but if you think of it its core is it the number of students each of us has in the school system drives this then there are a bunch of other factors so if we're
about 79% of the kids we pay about 79% and I'm simplifying it and that's the way the other pieces work so staying with that assessment method um could if it was applied to a a different budget
still yield more for the schools the regional school system if all towns PID it according to the assessment method and I've just worked out a variety of numbers on the flip side what was proposed to us would leave almost no money for the elementary school increase
and I think we that's coming down the budget the the line on it so it it would squeeze it's a substantial increase so in the $500,000 range um so it's not small so staying in within the range we
were talking about might be a bit more but I think we can afford it so I think the regional rejecting the proposed shift and asking the school Regional school committee to come back to us is the appropriate thing to do which is
what the town manager has recommended councelor hanck so as we discuss this we cannot forget that the ammer school committee has not yet voted its budget but on Thursday night of last week asked the superintendent to bring back only budgets that had year-over-year
increases of over 5 and a half% or 6% I think it was 5.59% whereas our guidelines right now stand at 4% year over-year for them um I'm going to say what Kathy just said a slightly different way the
$32,000 difference between using the regional agreement method in other words reject ing this requested Amendment or accepting it rejecting it would would lower the potentially lower the assessment without lowering the regional school budget by
32 it would lower ammer assessment by about 320,000 that difference essentially if we do not reject the modification directly reduces the property taxes in pelum Leverett and
shutesbury on the backs of ammer taxpayers if we reject the amendment it might allow us to use that money to increase the elementary and or Municipal budgets but if
we and without reduction in the regional budget from what they had passed potentially as long as the other three towns step up and use their excess Levy capacity to fund the region at the level the regional school committee passed their budget ad
and the agreement that we all as four towns agreed to says the share of the P should be split at that number that the budget has been passed by the regional school committee it would require approximately 150,000 and using the assessment the
regional agreed assessment method not the amended meth method would require about 150,000 above what our current budget guidelines say I'm prefacing or preaging a conversation a little later
tonight but we can probably get there based on other conversations and other proposals that have been there I don't see how we go up another $320,000 without severe above that 150 with
and and still be able to consider meeting what is expected to be passed at tomorrow night's ammer committee meeting without basically level funding Municipal services not level services not anything no increase year-over-year
at all because the entire 4% increase that we're looking at in our current projections for the municipal is about a million dollars and between the two requests at what I'm I'm guessing the region this ammer school committee might vote tomorrow night and what they voted
and asked us to amend a regional agreement to do is about a million dollar so I am going to vote to reject the amendment Andy yeah I guess I'll start just by um
asking a simple question just to make sure that um where I think we are and that is that the um scenario requested and that's shown in attachment
to is a strict application the excuse me of what's in the regional agreement now and if that is true then I have to go back to the multiple years of
committees that I sat on that had to do with negotiating what the U assessment method would be and you know it was not ammer that was the one that thought the change
to what was agreed but um we did in the end U say okay and uh then the thought was to put
a cap on that would be the um a way of making sure that the increase did not hit an unconscionable level for any single town in a single year but it was
not with the thought that we were going to come up with equal amounts across the board and it seems that there's been a um a change in the way that the
uh that the Caps have been applied that has effectively gotten us to this equal funding per town and that was not what we were talking about back when we adopted the method so I'm in a a favor
of this I'm a little bit U you know concerned because it doesn't uh I think we need to go back and get into the question of what is fair to a town that's being asked to pay
a very high increase to for example hel and Leverett but and uh I think we we need to talk about that as a four as four towns and not come in just automatically to an even
amount Anna your hand is up Len you can go first no please go ahead oh I'll I'll drop mine that's fine go ahead my head down okay I just want to go back last year last year
as this year we will have three votes one vote is the assessment method one vote is the budget and one vote is capital the only question before us tonight is the assessment method and the assessment method that has been put
before us continues to perpetuate the fact that the taxpayers of ammer subsidize the other contributing towns we're not trying to the school budget we're basically trying to make
sure we protect our taxpayers that's all so I am for this to reject it and I totally support the fact that at some point we may have to all
get together in another regional meeting which is fine because that's the body that should do that to talk about how we do this in the future but it is time for amorist to basically say we're not paying your
share that's all we're saying Anna um I I literally have not unmuted myself on my computer for 2 years it is 10:00 I'm so tired I'm sorry everybody uh I
usually so good okay I'm struggling to see how we can make this decision before seeing the full picture with the elementary schools and I would like some clarity on why we should be deciding this tonight versus in two weeks when we've got an actual picture of where we're going with schools and I'm willing to be swayed on that but I I would like
to know because I'm I don't see how we can make an informed decision on this tonight Paul yes so I the um I think it's to if the town of amor is going to reject it um in meeting with the um scho Regional
School District chair and um interim Finance director they said if you're going to reject it please do it sooner so the school the Regional School District committee can go back and come up with a different method or stick with the the the current method um so that
there's time for them to get something different in front of the other three towns before their town meeting so bringing this up now early which we appreciate it this Regional school committee voting so early and for this um superintendent to delivering it very
quickly like two days later it was in is they were they really wanted to get read from the ammer toown council as to what you were going to say about this um this assessment method and they can be separated I understand the concern um
but um we don't I can't give you the Regional School District budget not knowing what the assessment method is nor not knowing what the elementary schools what the impact will be on the ele elementary schools at Town in the library I'm going to excuse me I'm going to raise my hand quickly and add to what
I said and one of the things that this also accomplishes is to give us a little more flexibility on the elementary school side to bridge the gap of the transition to the new configuration of
the two new ele of the two elementary schools are there any other questions or comments Anna Mandy raised her okay I'm just honestly I'm just struggling to see why I shouldn't use my right to postpone for this I really don't see
how I get that this helps us to inform the elementary school budget but until we know what we're looking at broadly for schools I I I I have not been convinced yet um I understand that it makes life a bit easier for folks when
we give them more time I really that does make sense to me but I don't see why prior to one also prior to having a conversation that I would like to have later in this meeting hopefully after this and to prior to seeing the uh
request for elementary increase um that could shift how we look at this Regional agreement and I yeah I'm I I guess I'm I have not yet seen that um so I'd like to hear from other people councelor hanii
oh I'm sorry Paul you had your hand up so I'm G to yeah I think we do know what the school committee voted in terms of the budget you have that number in front of you um we do know this assessment method you know the capital um the key piece to for the town for the for me as Town
manager is the assessment method at this moment in time and I think it's a courtesy to the school committee and Dr Z can weigh in if you if you'd like to Dr Z obviously um Can Say if if time is of the essence um for
this Dr Z good evening everyone um and I'm I'm going to clarify which hat I'm holding at at the present moment right because um I know there's a conversation on both budgets that I'm aware of so I'll start off um with why I'm I was invited this evening as the regional
superintendent and say that timeliness is is of the essence here um the reason why we met and we asked Paul toing forward the assessments assessment method is because we are trying to avoid reaching June and hitting that 112
budget um we're trying to avoid and and we're also trying to make sure that we can plan adequately this impacts the livelihood of our regional employees our teachers um our par Educators our staff and so we need to know what our next steps are and so for this to move
forward we need the four towns to agree on the change in the assessment method if you are willing to to move forward with this then we need to know and plan accordingly so we can call forth a four towns meeting and have all four Towns come in and make the adequate decision
for our children at the end of the day that's what it calls for as a superintendent of at the ammer elementary school district I will say that on Wednesday evening we will be um presenting what the committee has asked
us to present which is um a 5.59 and a 6% option um again that that again puts forth for us to look at timeliness in terms of Staff in terms of the
programming for children so I understand what the council has in front of them but as a regional superintendent I am going to say that we are not trying to um destroy any budgets um what we are trying to do is put forth adequate
programming and continue to build on the lineage and history that Amis Regional public Amis palum Regional public school had for a very long time is just that as things have progressed we moved away from our assessment method without a plan as how to get back there and now we're in a place where we need all four
towns to commit to adequately funding our schools so that's that's my take on this thank you Dr Z uh councelor Walker I'm I didn't mean to skip over you earlier please go ahead it's okay I just raised my my handed I'm still almost
trying to compile my thoughts here because I also feel like I don't have enough information to make this decision right now um but I feel like if what we're talking about is the assessment
method and not the amount over that wouldn't the school committee be reasonably positioned to make reasonable recommendations to change the assessment method we we talk about committees being positioned to be experts in what they
are elected to do when we're talking about the library and so why are we not talking the same way about the school committee who I'm sure in good faith is trying to make the best decisions for the families and the children in our community and we just had hours of
public comment from families and taxpayers who said things like they came here and were willing to pay higher taxes for better schools so it feels Miss to say now we want to protect our taxpayers by doing X Y and Z when we
also haven't have they V you said they voted a budget but did they vote a budget is that tomorrow um so I just feel like I'm missing sort of pieces to the puzzle to make this decision right now and I understand time is of the essence so I'm hoping that Dr Z might be able to talk a
little bit more um to that Dr Z hi I just wanted to say that our school committee chair here is present in in the hall this evening to to speak as well so I would like to give her an opportunity to to answer um Council counselor Walker's questions around the
committee I've just invited her to come up okay thanks with a wave of the hand um this is Sarah best Kenny who's the chair of the regional school committee welcome Sarah best can you say question
again be real close snuggle in okay um councelor Walker can you please repeat your question um yeah I don't know if it was a very targeted question but I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit more to the actual assessment method and how we're we're coming to this
decision here like what is the plan right because I trust that the school committee are experts of in the needs of what our what our school children and building and Facilities need and so there's a reason we're here right like there's a reason why you all are
choosing to abandon the old assessment method and to come to this and so if you can speak a little bit more towards what those intentions are and what the goal is here um and I missed the meeting where you all voted on the budget so maybe connecting it to that might also be helpful just because I missed that
sure I will do my best so we looked at several budget scenarios um that over several days that um Shannon and Dr Z brought forward to us um when it came time to voting on uh a budget we looked
at three mostly um and we went with the one that we felt served our children to the best of our ability that also had the best potential of being passed by the four towns so we were doing the best for our kids
with the information we were provided um while still making you know very unfortunate and large cuts that are not in the best interest of our children because cuts are not not because we're not doing the best we can
councelor hanii I'm sorry councelor Walker did you have a followup sorry yeah just so really quick and so what would be the impact on the school committee budget process if this assessment method were rejected
so if the assessment method is rejected we have no budget um we need all four towns to agree on anything that is outside of the regional agreement method and we need three of the four towns to agree on the
number of the budget the dollars so if this um assessment method is rejected by the Town Council then we are back to square one Shannon bernachi has her hand up
Shannon is the interim uh Finance director for the schools I just wanted to add that if it was um if it's rejected by one town we then we have to go back to the drawing board
uh but what that means is the the other towns have their town meeting days um already scheduled and if we didn't have something to put forth to them a at those meetings the to my understanding is it's very difficult there's certain
time frames um and things that they have to do in order to host another town meeting um so we we want to be more proactive and less reactive um and if we get to June where we don't have this budget we would move to the
112th budget um which uses our prior Year's operating budget um and it's also has a lot to do with our cash flow um which could ultimately be detrimental and we'd be looking at even more serious
reductions if we weren't weren't able to have something passed by then and if we didn't have something passed by December um the a desie would then take over financially and and how how that part
works I'm not fully clear on but there are severe consequences that we would have to deal with if we did not get something approved by June 30th so we're trying to be more proactive in this situation so we don't end up in a
terrible reactive situation can I have a quick follow up to that yes please so another piece that happens if we end up at the 112 budget uh we have lots of um our contracts all
have dates in which teachers and pars and other Professionals in our district need to be notified by whether or not they have jobs right um so if we do not have a pass budget and we are at the 112
um situation then we will have to have far more Cuts we'll have to lay off and not have we will be we will be working on our budget from fy2 for our FY 26 so they'll Cuts will be
gigantic okay I'm going to call on Pam roone because she's not spoken yet uh the question I had U it was asked is what is the impact on the budget um I think I would word it a little differently what is the impact on the
dollar amount of the budget if amorist if we voted tonight to reject the proposed um assessment method Amendment what what does amist what is the difference in what amist would bring
to the table is my question there's nothing we have no budget so okay so it is all together there is not an assessment method we cannot I can't tell you what the final dollar figure is and I cannot tell you what the Amis
portion of that is because it has to go back to the school committee and they have to act again and what the reason this is coming before us now is to give them time to do
that uh let's see Paul you have your hand up yeah I think to just a little bit of clarification is that if the school committee did not does not recommend an alternative assessment method it reverts to the Regional School agreement and
that's what attachment to shows in the memo it shows what with the what the voted budget that this that the school committee voted if it if you applied the Regional School District agreement which we all have agreed to without an alternative assessment and so I think
that's a piece of information that um might be helpful for the council okay um Pat you had your hand up did you take it down was sitting here in my elderly befuddlement um it seemed to me that
there is a budget what we're talking about right now tonight and I really asking for clarification here I think Paul did it but um there is a budget it is what you're asking for and what we're saying as amorist is we don't want
to we want the other towns to I I'm assuming increase the amount that they're paying because they're paying less than we are um in essence so we want to change the assessment method we're not asking for a change in the
budget so I'm confused by this we have no budget if uh and it's it does so I am really confused by that um you have a budget and it will be presented to the towns and this alternate assessment
method would be or the old assessment method would be returned and this is what you would have to carry so it would be up to them to fulfill their portion of it is that not so the regional school committee
voted that assessment method that is presented which determines how much a town is paying so it the with the dollars yes spild out but the budget doesn't change what you're saying is it's going to cost this much to run the
regional school system in FY 26 is that correct that's what the budget is and what we're saying basically is we we want to change the amount of our assessment and share it more with the other towns because they have more
flexib ility right now so if those if the towns want to destroy the budget they can but that's not what we're asking them to do and I don't I I don't I don't get the SK I
don't I'm sorry I think I'm correct you know the school committee voted the assessment method that has the dollar figures attached so if that is all it it it's all together so if the Town Council
rejects the assessment method jannon please correct me if I am wrong uh if if the Town Council rejects the assessment method then because of the way the budget is and the assessment method are tied together we we're back to square one sounds with the other we
have to come to an agreement about an assessment method but it doesn't change the amount of money that the budget is been shown to need right so the uh if right now the the assessment method if
if that is not agreed upon um you're right the budget hasn't officially been voted down for what the total operating budget is that we put forth but if we if the assessment method is rejected and we
have to go back to the drawing board it could change the budget depending on what what number they do the other towns do well not really what the other towns do I guess it it would mean what level of reductions the
district takes right and so if the other towns care about those reductions then they could step up I guess that's I don't know if I would have said it that way so I so all we're
looking at is the assessment method right now and I think that's the most important thing to do because then it gives the other towns and it gives ammer a realistic realistic figures to deal
with once the new assessment method is determined and here we're talking about ammer is trying to save money to use for its elementary schools so I'm trying for I don't know or have anything to do
with the ammer elementary school no I know but we do I I understand that but I I it does feel very unfortunate that it feels like the schools are pitted against each other I was an elementary school teacher I am not P it's intention I'm saying
that is how it feels and yucky yeah I'm gonna call on the superintendent again Dr Z I just want to make it clear um and and I I do understand the last comment that Sarah best made and it's kind of
it's it is does feel that way um it feels like the conversation where where we have to answer um to the impact to the elementary schools versus the region and for me that's why I wanted to always clarify what had I wear because I I wear
three um Mandy Jo spoke about that earlier when she said the superintendent of three districts but I want to be very clear this evening that the purpose of Us coming forward and asking you to to vote forth the assessment method is because of the timing of the Amorous meeting versus the timing of the other
towns and the fact that if all four towns have to agree on this assessment method for us to move forward if we know at this point that you are unwilling to move forward then we know what our next steps are we have the livelihood of at
the end of the day of children to think about and so where does that leave us and the reason why we are here as a regional team is to and to get a understanding of what our next steps are especially with the fact that we have a
time frame to submit our documentation to all four of the towns which we've worked to meet we have three of the towns who have their Town meetings before your final meeting and so that provides that that impacts what we can do and how we can move forward our job
here my job here as a superintendent is to make sure that that Regional School District can function I can't function without an opportunity to plan and I can't plan if I don't know what I'm planning for so that's that is why we are here this evening um that is why pul brought it forward that is why we were
invited and that is what we're asking you to to discuss so we are just asking as I ask everyone else give me give me the tools to do the job that I need to do what is this Council going to to do around the assessment method and then that guides us in our next
steps um I'm Andy have you spoken on this issue I didn't speak once okay then let me start back with councelor haniki so I think I'm going to try and say this a different way the school committee believes that if we reject the
assessment method that they are trying to amend because we want to follow the actual agreement that all four towns agreed to in the written document that was signed and amended creating this
District that the other towns will not actually pass the budget bottom line number that the regional school committee passed so that's why they're saying it would be rejected because they don't believe that three towns would actually
vote the bottom line number if ammer rejects the amendment that says ammer pay more than 350,000 320,000 more than the regional agreement method they don't think the other three towns will agree
to that they could and the regional school committee could say we're going to keep that bottom line number and we're going to go and say let's find another modified method that maybe ammer is willing to do a little bit of subsidies the last couple years with these guard
rails we have paid more than the regional agreement method would have called for last year it was approximately $140,000 more than the regional agreement method called for this year they're asking us to pay 320,000 more we're getting farther and farther
away from that the question tonight is is that farther and farther away acceptable to us and our taxpayers and is it good fiduciary duty to our taxpayers to say reduce the other towns' tax bills so we can pay more that
doesn't mean that the budget at the region has to go lower it doesn't mean that we're talking about what a what share should we pay what all four towns agreed to or something that charges amorist
more and reduces the property taxes of someone else now the regional school committee could go back if we reject this and say well let's try maybe a guardrail of 8 and a half or 9% with the same number or 12% with the same number that would still mean Amis pays more than what the regional agreement says
but it wouldn't be as high as 320,000 so the question that's in front of us now is is that kind of subsidy and this lock step everyone increases by the same amount for the second year in a row
something that we as a town believe serves our taxpayers the best and if we approve it do we think because my other assumption is if we approve it the assessment method the other three towns
will vote for it and will will be on the hook for that 6 and a half percent that doesn't mean but that's the Assumption I'm working on Anna and when you said that like it's not that we're deciding that budget number but I'm assuming if we approve this assessment method that budget is
passed and if we're concerned that we could not afford that we either take more time or we reject the assessment method Kathy I'll just be short but the way I see this this is leverage to say to Two
Towns step up to the the share that you agreed to and and the table Paul flashed quickly across the screen has amers paying more than 4% there was an increase in dollars in that um you know
so it's not that cut it's an increase in AR dollars just not what this shift away from the assessment method so there is an opportunity for the school committee to come up with a different distribution not the one that was proposed there were three options that
you were all voted on and there's something in between all those three options um I've been Mandy just played with one on what about no one goes up by more than 10% and everyone else is on the assessment method really you don't
go up the cryp or no more than 15% limiting the increase in some of the other towns because they when I asked earlier on 2 and a half% a few towns have not had to go up 2 and a half% and we are getting lots of complaints from
taxpayers about our taxes seniors mainly who can't who are saying I can barely live afford to live in town that the regular increase so this is we are a high tax town and so it's there is an opportunity to change that
distribution and then the other towns would see it and it's leverage against the other two towns so can I just also mention if if the council decides that they want
more time there is also the option of referring this to the finance committee for them to come back but they need to come back no later than the 7th we've heard both the superintendent and the chair of the regional school committee say the sooner
we know the better and they came to us right after their meeting to give us the maximum amount of time and uh councelor Walker um thanks I just have another question for clarification because I'm looking at the voted budget and the
percentage increases and so is not what's being suggested for all towns to increase their share I see an increase across the board so I I'm not understanding the claim that then we would be paying other people's property taxes I don't see where that is
reflected in this chart or in any of the information that we just received so I'm a little bit confused about that claim and so is ammer are we just saying ammer right like we can't make decisions for any other towns we're not willing to go to the 6.5% is that what we're saying here um
and then my second question to that would be how does this decision and this conversation impact our next conversation on the change or the amendment of the budget guidelines and are they connected in any way
um Paul did you want to address sure that thanks yeah so if I I don't know if you have the document in front of you but um so we have we included the actual vote that was given to us from the regional school committee which includes
the the um which is included as uh attachment 3A that so that that's what they voted and that includes a 6 and a half% inase for for each of the of the communities um that that applies guard rails of
6.5% on a budget of 37 m771 se1 now the um and that's what they that's what they have voted and they asked the town to consider now if you look at attachment
two the question to the to the to the schools was well what if the assessment method is doesn't pass and we default to the Regional agreement that we have in front that we already have in in place and what would that division of that
same number that same 37 m771 71 how does that get applied and that percentage is based on um enrollment and rolling averages a number of things that come into play on Transportation miles so things like that
um um so that's where the 4.8% for amoris 22.9% for pelum toward 14.10% for Leverett and 7.65% for shutesbury comes in it still gets the numbers the same 37077 37 million 77 it's it's the same
dollars it's just how it's divided up and I think what the counselors are saying is that if we go the 6.5 across the board amoris taxpayers are paying more um for the same Services versus what the regional agreement would would
apply it is hard to explain I hope you're understanding more in a way that's not proportional right because we already talked about our students being a higher proportion of the population so you're saying more than a proportional amount correct because we would expect for it to be more or no yeah so we we're
putting it the town of Amber is being asked to put in under the if we did if we just use the Regional School 19,7 44,000 pum is 1.3 million um you know 1.8 million down the down the road like
that uh councelor Walker if you look at the attachment to according to the formula that includes rolling averages and all kinds of other
things Amor's a proportion should only be the 4.81% it should not be the 6.5% and that is because and the reason the difference is if we're paying
6.5 that lets the other towns off the hook for paying what is really supposed to be their share for their average number of students over the formula they're not also being asked to
go to the 6.5 no they're they're being asked to go in different ways to 224 and seven because that truly reflects the number of students they bring into the school system okay can sorry and can we just
move on to my next question too about how this decision will impact the budget guidelines conversation uh that's the budget guidelines conversation which we don't want to we can't mix those two right now uh the budget guidelines conversation is
a conversation about where we finding any of this additional money right at this point we go went into this budget with a 4% we started earlier but we're now at 4% the budget guidelines conversation is how can we find more
than 4% to go either here or Regional or elementary schools or whatever we still need more money I know what the conversations are for but I'm asking how they impact each other like if we reject this can we still approve the other do they have implications on
each other yes you can still approve the other you can yeah while you're thinking about that I'm going to go to Andy oh yeah sorry I'm finished thank you yeah um I think been involved with this for probably uh 20 years now uh when I was
first on the original finance committee and uh from my experiences with uh being chair of the Regional School District planning committee that was trying to achieve a fourtown K12 District which
did never happen um you know I've read the statute a lot of times and there are two different sections one is about budget and one is about assessment method and the one about budget says
that it takes three towns to pass is the one about assessment method is an entirely different section of Massachusetts General law and what it currently says and there's a whole history and I'm going to
skip the history because that would really put you to sleep um but uh what it says is that uh each town in a regional district will use um
and a method that it describes unless all four towns agree to an alternate method and uh for many many years the alternate method the alternate excuse me
the alternate method was solely based upon the number of students in each um Town um there was uh the uh assessment method that is in the
statute looks at also ability to pay which is defined by the average income in the town of residents and um the total amount of property that is
taxable which is sometimes called the eqv and uh what we ended up doing after going back and forth amongst the four towns for many years with to agree to
what is now in the regional agreement in replace of the old one and it is to use the statutory method but to average it out over fiveyear periods now the
statutory method has a um provision in it also and it that gets really complicated so it does involve a little bit of the number of students in the district but I think that they are two separate sections and that is why when
you look at a town meeting warrant or you look at what we do as votes in a c in a council you are voting on both proposals you are voting on the budget and you're voting on the assessment
method so if three towns pass the budget the budget passes but the question is what happens if all of the towns don't agree to the alternate method in which case you fall
back to the is my understanding and unless an attorney from uh who represents the the District of the Town tells me otherwise you fall back um on the um
statutory or or you fall back on the St straight statutory method um yeah or so I think that you you get into a very confusing situation as to what actually
occurs and U so I'm not sure that uh what we really don't need is Clarity from town attorneys and um if it's a statutory method knowing what the statutory method would do um I have a
suggestion which is that the Regional Schools convene a four towns meeting and um get the um attorney for the schools or we can ask KP law to
give us which is our town attorney U an an an opinion on what whether I am correct or what is the law that applies in the scenario we're talking about
and that we also uh then um do a calculation of what would be the requirement if the for each town if the method that is proposed in the um uh as the alternate
method is rejected uh and then with that information coming before for towns meeting that could could happen very quickly we would be able to have a
fourtown conversation which would be fully informed Anna all right I got one sheet but it's front and back um and sarus I feel like you are in a particular configuration
where all of this Fields just shot right at you um so know that while I'm looking at you and asking you I welcome responses from anyone also as previously warned it's after 10:00 a.m. so I'm getting
chippy it's also after 10: am. I'm not wrong all right double chippy now okay so um couple things first off my my slight bit of snark is can someone please make me a Schoolhouse Rock video on the assessment method because it's taken so
many Le lessons on this um I also want to just be very clear I don't think anyone's tax bills are getting lower I don't think anyone is suggesting that as the reality but I do understand what you're saying um I would like
to raise the question of how the budget guidelines might start factoring in how close towns are to their Levy limit uh and looking at that because it seems like it's something that has been kind of skirted around and now we're saying it Point Blank
um which I always appreciate that bluntness but I I think that we have talked about it but we're now rejecting assessment methods because of something that we haven't factored in to my knowledge um and so and and we can look back at those
prior years to look at those rolling averages of how close towns were to their Levy limit um I also want to just confirm my numbers here and sarus I do have questions for you if that's okay do you know the and I apologize I was looking quickly what the current percentage of
students from amest is in the region could you tell me off the top of my head off the top of your head or Dr Z if I couldn't tell you that off the top of my head I would need some time to pull that out so okay you can get we can definitely make note and get it sent to you tomorrow okay I what I've heard is
it's around 80 I if I was gonna guess it's gonna but that is a no worries lot of guessing no worries a lot of guessing no worries also after 10: a.m. yeah after 10 a.m. so so if I'm understanding this correctly the lower number for ammer would put us
at about 79. 8.9% of the total budget that high that higher number would put us around about 81% of that total budget and the difference in the two is 318,000 and change so I'm also curious
when you look at the current percentage from ammer I am also curious about the current percentage from ammer to charart or Choice out and the dollar amounts from amorist versus the other towns because that money is paid out from the school's budgets right the towns don't
individually pay for that is that correct not at the region yeah at the region so I think we're we're talking about $318,000 and I do think we should look at how much money the district is paying
for Amor students who do choose to leave comparatively and I might be off face so that's thing one I also think we need to be a bit okay I'm going back to my first page here because this is where I started flipping over all right so it doesn't
automatically rever or wait hang on all right your tutorial was very helpful and I'm still lost but okay so if we're looking at that other assessment method I don't understand how we can kid ourselves to say there's a world where
pelum is going to agree to over a 22% increase leverett's going to agree to a 14% And shsb is going to agree to a seven it's not like they don't have elementary schools that also need funding it's not like they don't also have yes maybe they have not gone up to the Limit they could with their property
taxes and I that's why I think that should be taken into account however I don't think that we can totally ignore the fact that these are other towns in our region uh and that they have their own budgetary needs and that there's no
chance that folks are going to be I mean just P them a a 23% budget increase that's I don't see a world where that happens um anyway these are my disjointed Post 10 a.m and PM thoughts but I my my concern here is that when
we're talking about this difference we're talking about enabling our other three communities to continue to participate I think we need to relook at that dang assessment method and make a Schoolhouse Rock video and uh we're talking about essentially
$319,000 and I know that we have so many budgetary needs I understand that are we really going to to sync the budget over that amount I'm not sure I'm ready to do that I have a little bit of information for your questions because
Deb is a wealth of can you speak please sorry so I have a little bit of information on your questions because Deb is a guru of all data driven things okay um and so um AER is responsible for
roughly 80 and a half% of the charter out of the region 88 sorry do you have a dollar amount associated with that I can do the math if you know the total amount of Charter it depends on which yeah
okay it's lovely people with all this meantime I'm going to go to holl Lord thank you I first wanted to thank all the staff administrators parents who helped facilitate and keep their children safe in their um civil action
today hundreds and hundreds of students kiddos as young as two banging pots and pans out here um playing instruments I just really want to and then most especially thanks all the youth and students who came out um really excited by that I'm a little not I don't want to
say okay I'm wondering why it it feels really rushed and so late and maybe it's because we needed to wait till there was a budget voted upon but since September our first four towns meeting I've felt this tension in the assessment method
I've I've heard that Amor pays more than it should and I just looking back I'm like oh I wish I should have I request that we spend an extra hour as the four towns and really talk about this and figure this out before rejecting it and then sending the
school H school team into more work or more you know stress having to try to figure it all out so I just wanted to voice that I've known this has been a tension and I'm just feeling really rushed now at the last minute but we also have to make a quick decision because then if we it's rejected you
know so it's feeling last minute and rushed even though I know many other people probably we saw this coming I just wish we could have found a way to talk about it before the end of March um so that's all and I really appreciate everything every been saying and I'm I'm
grateful thanks councelor hanii so we get really into the weeds and I'll get into the weeds a little bit more fairly quickly if the same total assessment from last year was done this year so that it was a level funded
budget because of how those percentages changed within the regional agreement methods um pelum would be facing at least a 7.3% year-over-year increase and that was if we followed the
regional agreement method last year and we didn't so they'd be facing even higher just because of the weeds I'm just to say that just because of the weeds but to get to another one of your points um what Andy said was if three towns
pass the budget it's the budget but if the fourth town the fourth Town doesn't have a choice on the overall number but if we voted fourth and the budget was already adopted by the other three towns that budget would be there if we then said no to the modified assessment
method pelum would face that 22% increase um according to what we have been told today because the budget would be the budget at $36 million that's what we're being told today and so you can look at being asked to talk about this
assessment method now in some sense could be seen as a courtesy to the other towns to say hey as you're looking at that total number we're not necessarily we're not going to say yes to that modifi that alternative modifying the legal
agreement we've all agreed to we might not say yes to that that's what rejecting it now is is giving them heads up that says hey if all three of you pass that number you're defaulting to the regional agreement and letting them know now it could be seen as a courtesy and that
would then give that would then give the regional school committee time to call another four towns to discuss it would give them time to say do we have to look at the budget differently and all of that so that's that's that's how I'm looking at
um why we are being asked to do the assessment method now than when we would normally do it which is in June after everyone has held their four towns meaning when essentially we're told that's the budget and we are picking
between an alternative assessment method or the regional agreement method um so another way of thinking about it um but the reason we're in these high percentage over year-over-year increases
for other towns is because they have been we've been courteous the last 3 to four years in saying you know we'll we'll go with these guard rails that lower their numbers below what the legal agreement says they should be and we've
cooperated with that for three or four years now and that means it just gets worse year after year after year and at least for me one of the things we urged at the four towns meeting was get us back
closer get us closer and what we're being asked what the regional school committee has asked us to approve this year as a modification to that legal agreement gets us even farther and that's where I I have a
problem Two Towns were saying get us closer it wasn't just ammer it was ammeron shsy saying get us closer to that legal agreement method and instead the regional school committee got us farther as is asking us to go even farther away
and no matter what that number in the bottom line budget is at this point I can't in for me I can't say that that is good for our taxpayers no matter what the bottom line budget number is getting
farther away from the legally agreed upon method I can't say that benefits our taxpayers anymore Jennifer um if I could Deb raised her hand to could can we ask her because it might provide information that would be useful
no but we want to we're here we would like to get the information what is the question in when councelor hanii was speaking you had some to provide a piece of
information or is to give your opinion on something the assessment method as I understand it okay is okay the budget is I understand it there's the pieces there's the
assessment method right and there's the amount that gets sent to each town a town gets assessed a certain amount it's not a percentage of the total so if you're going to go not
statutory then those numbers would be different I I think yeah the question's been called thank you we can have a whole evening on assessment methods and we still are not
going to have that qu the question's been called that does not require a second correct it does it does two vote okay is the question but I don't know if you
do Pat call the question is there a second Ryan second okay point of order please explain which votes are for what purpose right now all we're voting on is calling the question okay that requires
the 2third of us have have to agree that we're calling the question okay does that help okay we're going to start in this case with Hall Lord
I Pam Rooney yes George Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer to yes Alicia Walker no Patti Angeles I Anna Devin gothier no
councelor ET I Lyn grimer is and I councelor hanii I Bob hegner I okay the question's been called that it's that motion passed 11 in favor two
opposed we're going to move to the immediate vote and the immediate vote in this case is to reject the following Amendment to the Regional School District just point of please no an i is to vote to reject that is correct an i
is a vote to reject any questions okay Pam Rooney I George Ryan I Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi
Jennifer Tod no uh councelor Walker no Patti Angeles I Anna Devin gothier no councelor ech I L grimer is an i councelor hanii i Bob
hegner I councelor Lord nay it passes with uh nine in favor and four opposed my seven next year excuse
me excuse me it's roughly two million real okay um a there's two more items under um
actions I'm sorry if you'll wait a moment yeah yeah I just I okay the first is a proposed amendment to the FY 26 budget guidelines
this was proposed by uh Anna Devon gothier she will make a presentation and I gathered there is some motion she plans to make it's not a secret that I graduated from the emmer pelum public schools and
a lot of you are probably sick of me reminding you that I did but I feel the need to mention it often because I want to honor what I learned there about Equity democracy community and creativity which is what I'm holding front of Mind in making the proposal
that's in your packet today when I was in middle and high school I got to take some incredibly absolutely incredible classes some even taught by teachers who were on faculty at local colleges like American society and film with Mr gersin which taught me to study and respect
history and our past but to learn from it in order to create positive change in the areas we need it most our constitutional law with Mr fra which L of sparken me about the importance of political engagement and understanding and taught me the importance of creating change to serve the needs of the people
and some lessons were less about the content more about the care with which I was taught my algebra honors teacher was June Wilby I struggled in her class not with the math concepts which I actually really loved but with Focus Miss Wilby sat with my parents and with me and we
came up with a plan where I would see her once a week every week after school to talk through what I was working on in class and discuss questions that I had Miss Wilby was giving up her time to teach me the quadratic formula which I can still recite to this day and I will
not because it's 10:59 at night for me Miss Wilby looked for a pathway to success instead of doing what she could have done which is to give me a barely earned sea and dust off her hands she worked with me finding a new strategy that allowed me to succeed and if I
remember correctly I got an A this will be for some godforsaken reason you are watching this please do not write me and tell me I'm wrong because I'm pretty sure I got an A my point here isn't just to thank Miss wilby and my other teachers but it's to highlight the way that our Educators look at a situation
in front of them and instead of stating here's why we can't asking how might we this approach is not exclusive to Educators by any means but it's more prevalent there than anywhere else I've seen the field of education has gotten better at meeting student needs every
year this trend is through in any industry right we always get better at what we do it's the evolution of practice but Educators don't have the option to Simply treat students like we did when we didn't know any better once they know better they have to do better it's legally required nor should they
have to not do better even if it were not legally mandated and meeting those needs is expensive today at the state budget Ways and Means Committee hearing we heard one of our school committee members discuss how our enrollment decline is outpaced by teacher cuts by 20% this is not a matter of doing less
with less we have done that we can't drop further what I am proposing today is a reflection of much of my learning and what you see is my attempt to start the conversation of how might we I ask my fellow counselors to think like an
educator please take a moment take a breath try to leave aside a mindset that the way we've always done it is the best way please check your internal biases about which areas of a municipality you're familiar with or the assumption that they all function the same or that
they have the same needs please let go of frustrations with past elected bodies or processes our responsibility is to the town and the town includes our schools I'm asking you to join me in figuring out how might we lessen the
damage to all of these sectors without disproportionately harming some I know that what I've proposed is painful for many areas of our municipality and I want to stress that it is in no way a reflection of the quality or importance of the work that they are doing we cannot cut budgets and
expect the same results I'm asking you to join me in this challenging conversation not to say well they should have or this is keeping us equal and peaceful it isn't and if they should have and didn't we can't change the past the proposal that I put
in front of you has three main elements and I outlined them in my memo the first which will address last because of order is a Joint Task Force on addressing long-term projections on the financial needs of our community the charge for this task force was co-created by myself
along with the chairs of the ammer pelum and ammer school committees so thank you Jennifer and Sarah Bess for your help on that the second which I imagine we will spend the bulk of our time discussing is an adjustment to the recommended percentage splits of the FY 26 budget I
recognize that we are in extremely Challen in an extremely challenging year and facing deficits in both the Municipal and school areas however when we look at the changing landscape for both of these areas I believe that division should be adjusted the third is a bridge gift to the amorist elementary
schools intended to support their needs in FY 26 before s savings are realized in the consolidation of Fort River and wildwood elementaries because we don't know those numbers yet the motion will be a request for information we have a lot of brain power
in this room I also going to ask all of you please don't let a concept die because it isn't phrased in the perfect way or you want you haven't figured out exactly how to do it please work with me work with each other and ultimately you don't have to vote for it but let's at
least craft something we can vote on versus just looking for reasons why not so with that I move to amend the FY already I haven't even made my motion yet uh with that I move to amend the FY 26 Town Council budget guidelines as
voted by the Town Council on December 16th 2024 as indicated in the document titled adg proposed amendments to the FY 26 Council budget guidelines second second that okay it the motion's been made and
seconded the floor is open for discussion councelor hanaki so Anna knows these are coming because I warned her and Athena I have a three motions um I know I'm going to
make two of them but my goal in these motions is to try to get me to be able to vote for these modifications um the first I'm going to make the first motion and Athena I'm going to do it as the alternative the motion to revert instead of the motion
to divide um and it's a mo I move to revert all revisions to section five capital budget recommendations and comments and the change to 10% from 10 and a half% on page two under the capital budget to the original um
hopefully there'll be a second and then I can explain what that one is Brian second so this one is to try and say I all of the comments we've heard recently so Anna's proposal reduces
capital in the guidelines from 10 and a half to 10% and then says will go up next year um back up to 10 and a half percent that that down and then up instead of always keeping it level um challenges the operating budgets in the year you have to then
increase above your whatever and but beyond that the comments even from those we've heard regarding the schools have been not just about operating but Capital the two things we've been hearing most about for the last couple
of months are schools operating budgets and school capital and other capit capital and so I feel it's wrong I I cannot support reducing our Capital expenditures to increase the operating at this time when our Capital
expenditures absolutely need more we can we can discuss where that Capital money goes but I don't think it's appropriate to reduce it because we should be spending it on Capital because our buildings and our school buildings Our
Town buildings our roads our everything we just heard from TSO the backlog on roads is actually kind of worse in terms of the great the condition of the roads than it was four years ago on average like we might not I know Kathy said in
jcpc maybe if we don't do some stuff there's money to reduce but I'd rather if there's that money there because we don't have to do those particular projects find other projects that we can speed up and get done um so this motion is mainly to say keep Capital at 10 and
a half% okay the motion's been made and seconded it's an amendment to the original motion questions councelor hanii I'm going to move on to councelor Walker I'm just wondering do we have a copy of
these suggestions in our packet somewhere or can we put them on the screen because I know Mandy Joe spoke to the 10 versus 10 and a half but I think there was also a mention of restoring another entire section and I'm just trying to visualize what exactly that
languages can you increase the size please so my motion on this screen would restore the 0. five under the capital budget line here it doesn't deal with anything above that in blue just the 10 and
the I do not know why but I don't see it uh she hasn't it to the screen yet to go on sorry uh we're getting there there you go you see in other words it would not make the changes it would not make that
change and then once you see that Athena could page potentially down to page four I think it is section five oh there that Section Five Capital there's
the the first paragraph change and the second sentence would revert back to the original that is currently in the document not those changes not the blue underlined yeah no that would that would disappear all the blue would go back to
if it's crossed out it would reappear and any underlined would disappear okay thank you this motion okay counc Lord um thank you it's a budgetary
question around Capital so when we do the budget and you have a capital budget does does that come from the capital stabilization fund and if it doesn't we have a bunch of money in there and I'm wondering if we could take that 05% from
the capitalization fund so that that 05% could go to the schools I know you know I don't understand some of these things so that's why I'm just kind of lift them up with some suggestions um I'm going to ask if uh the town manager wants to address that those are two different
questions so to take funds out of the capital stabilization fund is a um uh two-thirds vote of the Town Council and that can be used for any kind of capital project and but the TW the
10.5% is what we have in our annual budget for Capital correct okay so that's already in the annual budget the capital stabilization fund was created by the council about 2 or 3 years ago
and we put in additional um free cash to that in hopes of saving for the larger capital projects like the fire station so they're actually twoo different the the
10.5% is in every Year's budget okay the capital stabilization fund is a savings account over here usually thought thought to be for the larger Pro projects so it's you your first question
was where does the 10.5 come from it's in the annual budget ly yes Kathy does that help Melissa I just wanted to say also that
the excuse me um the capital stabilization is for the years that we're going to exceed the 10 a half% and we don't want that to impact our oper operating budget so we're saving for the future years when we have large debt payments that would eat up all of our
capital and we would will end up H spending more on Capital in those years and we don't want those future years operating budgets to be incap impacted by the primarily the four major building projects so it's it's essentially used
for us to stabilize that um borrowing okay does that help you okay Kathy um I liked this part of Hest proposal a lot because it frees up
$320,000 and I don't think there is really a problem of going back up I actually understood holl's question to be could we if we wanted to to take a piece out of capital stabilization fund to keep it at 10.5 um and the answer is yes we could
but there are reasons why we might not want to do that in this case I'm chair of jcpc and the list of projects we had this year I can see some that aren't urgent may not need to be done and I could see coming in with a
recommendation that's at around 10% so not throwing something out that we don't want um and if I'm looking at next year there aren't a lot of projects that could easily be moved to this year you know so Mandy saying well pick another
one that's high priority so I did like this piece because I think if we want to go up on schools we have to find the money to do it and so one pace to look is could we go lower on the 10.5 Now it
only gets us one year I mean that's the other thing you know Anna you're you know we're going to be in the same place next year because I just want everyone even worse because the entire High increase this year for the town is 3.5
million total in revenues that's it so if a million goes here health insurance took about 1.5 of it 500 in each of the big budgets 500 Municipal 500 Regional 500 schools so everything else every
salary increase um staff people there's just that's what we're talking about when increases so this year we might be able to re configure a bit to hold down on one but Capital was the one place I
saw that we could do this year without saying we don't want to hire four firefighters you know in terms of the Mina budget because the municipal budget is trying to figure out how to live within four so if we go to three and a half we have to give the municipal
budget of what gives and Anna talked about some vacancies in one Department that the council added 10 person Department that hasn't been functioning the way we had hoped it to and it has vacancies so if the town froze those that frees up some money to live with
something less but Anna was trying to balance it and I thought an appropriate way so unless Mandy has another place to find the money I think going down to 10 makes sense if we're going to revisit the
guidelines pameron uh I hearing what Kathy just said I'm I'm feeling somewhat comfortable about that kind of a change what what I'm finding difficult in this is that I don't really want to bring bring apart break apart
each and every one of these suggestions because I could feel good about the the 10 and a half to 10% but I don't see I want to see all these pieces and how it affects the entire picture and I'm G to get these one at a time and that's going
to be tough for me to deal with so I I can't I so far I haven't seen the whole picture councelor um a lot of the conversation that I get
from um residents is in the district and also from outside district one speak about um some of the structures that we have the capital projects that we
have I worry that moving from 10.5 to 10 w't be a oneyear thing because I have to ask myself what happens if next year if we are at the same position you know the 0.5 is an amount
that when it disappears it's hard to know what its effect is in the town and so I think it's we should pay more attention to um our capital projects in the town and so I am in
favor of keeping it at 10.5 um uh Jennifer um this is really a question as if we decide this that we're going to not fill two positions or we're going to
go down for a year from 10.5% in capital to 10% are we just recommending I mean can how can we ensure that that goes to the schools and how does that happen can I oh sure I don't actually have that
dollar amount going to the schools in my proposal so my proposal has the drop to 10% the freezing of the positions all uh equating to cost savings that would stay in the municipal Services budget to try
to mitigate some of the challenges that dropping to 3% would pose there um so it's uh the estimate that I had Pam to get to your question was a minimum of $450,000 that would stay that would be kind of reallocated within that
municipality with within the municipal Services budget per Paul's discretion um it's it's it's a lot of moving pieces but it that dollar amount isn't directly translated you're right actually but we know that we it will put us in a
position to be able to increase our percentage to the schools that is my belief yes so do do we have to I guess what I'm saying did we vote that if we change um the budget
guidelines that certain pieces go to the certain savings go to the school guidelines are guidelines at the same time the conversation basically is like the Congressional Record and that basically
suggests and here's how we want it to go we want okay that's as far as can go that's my always been my analogy about guidelines and discussions uh Pat and Angeles thank you and thank you Anna and Barry best and
the people who worked on this it's uh there's a lot about it that I'm interested in and certainly like a collaborative beginning I'm going to sit with a 10.5 because I feel similar to counselor at that.
five% I keep thinking about school roof that are leaking I keep thinking about U um repairs to other buildings in town and things like that so that 300 and whatever it was
um seems to me it needs to be there but we actually have to do the work uh in in terms of then repairing buildings and stuff like that which um I don't want to digress into that but so that doesn't
feel like a place where it would it it just feels like ah we we have too much that we haven't maintained that we need to repair um so I'm stuck there a little bit okay councelor
Ryan so I I'm sympathetic to what Anna is trying to do um I guess I see it as trying to build a bridge um in this year to something that will be sustainable in years going
forward the challenge is that it's hard to see what we're building this bridge toward um the immediate need is is clear we've heard many voices speaking about it the reasons for this are many and we've also heard something about that
certain things haven't been discussed about the reasons and I think we'll leave those perhaps to the side but this is tough because the capital need is real and the half a percent seems like chump change to some people but it's not
um and so it's it's really difficult decision um trying to build something in the guidelines that would give us an ability to help the schools in this year that still doesn't do serious damage
to our larger goals as a town we're not just schools we have many many other very pressing needs so I don't know where I stand on this at the moment I I thought I I wanted to hear the argument that's why I seconded
Andy's motion M's motion um yeah um I also feel that there a lot of moving Parts here and it's difficult to see how at 11:30 at night or whenever we finally end this discussion we'll be able to have any clear sense of what
we're building um so we might also think about whether this is going to have to be looked at um in more detail by by say the finance committee or somebody um but I am sympathetic to what you're trying to do I'm really struggling with how to do it in a way that isn't going to cause
serious damage to other parts of our budget Bob heg Yeah Anna I don't want to say uh we can't do this but I I do want to point out that we have $10 million in
uh Capital requests for buildings for maintenance of buildings that we own um the town engineer gave us a presentation that said if we continue to only fund
uh the roads at um half a million or a million above what we get from the state they're going to deteriorate even further than than they they are now over 10 years in order to keep them up and actually improve
them it'll take a town infusion of $5 million a year so you know I I don't know how we're going to do that and then on top of that um we have um a proposal from the B DPW
superintendent to put $6 million into Southeast Street to redo the traffic routes for the school so we have TR I don't know how we're going to fund these things anyway uh even with without anything changes in I don't know how
we're going to do it um but we have to we have to figure out how to do this um otherwise we're gonna as as George has said we're going to wind up with with you know with people not being able to to
use the town the way we want to use the town so just bear that in mind Andy excuse me uh this is very painful because I understand the concern about
school funding I've been always a supporter of schools even though some people sometimes ask how is that so my kids had a wonderful experience and a great experience in the schools and the increases that have been coming on an
annual basis in the School budgets that are greater than the revenue increases are not because of PR mismanagement of schools at all because they're things that are happening all
over the state and they're happening because of the loss of state revenue and they're happening because of exceptional things that occur because of schools we heard a lot of people talking about special education and special education
number of students are at asking for it is increasing and the cost of providing that assistance is increasing so nobody made bad decisions that got us into this but we are where we are um just as we
look at the capital I guess I have two things that I just want to point out um that are going to be painful as we go forward into future years one is that the 10 a half% of capital includes cludes anything that's related to
Capital including repayment of bonds and payment of Assessments from the regional schools for um their um requests uh for um re for Capital so you
know as we look to the Middle School roof for example or even the just the request that we received for this year that's coming out of the repayment of that or the payment of that is coming out of the
10.5% too so you need to remember that um the 10.5% covers everything including education and um education includes Regional Schools and the last thing that
I want to point out is that um we are going to if we when we if we do what you suggest on and this isn't an opinion as to whether we should or shouldn't it's just a statement of observation fact in
fact and that is we're going to get into the same discussion that we got into with the regional School this year when it comes to next year what is the base of an increase next year and the base is
going to be where we are this year in 27 will be what we're discussing for 27 where do we build above that so just remember that as we think about it councelor
Walker um I mean I just think the reality of our situation is that there are so many unmet needs in the town right um but we can't keep using that as an excuse to not act on things right we we're not going to invest $5 million
into our roads in one year like that is just not going to happen even though it would be great in an Ideal World we could right and so we need to start prioritizing things because there are so many things that we are not addressing and we can't just keep saying well we
don't want to because maybe we need more money for the schools and maybe we need to repair the roof for the middle school because we're not actually we don't have plans to actually do any of these things that we're using excuses for so I think we need to prioritize something which
for myself personally and I think for a lot of the people in this town who came to speak tonight I know and who have written to us the schools are a priority this is something that we should prioritize addressing and I think Anna has put forward a very thoughtful um
alternative like this is something we could do that would have the impact that we would like to see and it it does not have a huge negative impact on other areas of our budget I do understand that
05% can be a large number but again in reality like are we going to need that 0.5% in the next year because we're never going to spend down our capital budget all the way that's not how we function and I think Hala brought up another point is that if we do meet
unforeseen circumstances we have other options like we do have a capital stabilization fund and I know that that's supposed to be something we're saving for the fire station and we don't want to touch it but it is a rainy day fund there are other things we have money that falls to free cash like there are other things that we can use to
mitigate that in the long run and I think for me personally I just want to vote for Anna's proposal as is Jennifer to um yeah I just think we we have to meet this moment with the
schools uh you know we are where we are but where we are is we we just can't allow the schools to go off a cliff so I think we have to um and even you know if we're we
are the now where we're probably just looking you know for the next year because once we go off that Cliff we don't get back up and I think you know a part of Anna's proposal is that we a committee is formed to do some long
range planning which I think is you know long long overdue but I think we have to do whatever we can that I agree with Alyssa that we have a lot of priorities but the school is a top priority because of all the implications
I mean for the students of course and all the implications it has for our town to be a viable town I mean we talk about we need to have family stay here and move here and the the one you know refrain that we
keep hearing is people move here and stay here for the schools so um and I you know as chair of jcpc I do trust Kathy's assessment that at least for the next year we can probably um go down
from 10.5% in our Capital to 10% but I think we need to do everything we can responsibly and possibly do to save our schools so the motion that's on the floor is to
um not go down to 10 uh Bob hegner uh yeah I just wanted to mention about the the long-term the uh task force um first of all I think we need to include please we it's a different
motion well okay but it's in this it's in this motion it's not an amendment to the guideline it was discussed in the um memo but not Amendment to the guidelines
sorry um all right Bob did you have anything on the guidelines on the issue that's before us which is the capital no okay Kathy okay I just Anna you can check my math but if we were
trying to get closer to 5% for the region and closer to 5% for elementary we need for $450,000 or 458 somewhere in that neighborhood so that's why I said going
from 10.5 to 10 I'm trying to find money that allows us to do that and I am willing to talk about the other parts you found money by going lower on Municipal than four going lower on Library than four and there's something
between four and three it's three and a half um so I'm trying to literally just add up up to that amount of money and I can find it but I can't find it without going from 10.5 to 10 so that's why Mandy I said
that amendment I think completely undermines what Anna's overall intent was unless you have another $320,000 and I I did also like the other piece on a bridge for elementary
under we'll have some surplus funds and make them first up foret that amount of money as a bridge as a bridge As I understood it but that wasn't part of the guideline piece other than writing those words in so that's why I said
Mandy if you take that out I don't see where the money is George I mean sorry councelor Ryan so Kathy um I want to address this directly to her she doesn't have to answer but I for me what I'm struggling with is is something I think you're thinking about
too you've spoken about it so what happens next year what happens the year after that so I want to build this bridge you like I looking for ways that we can make it work I agree that the capital loow the capital by half a percent would put a substantial contribution and maybe is going to be
necessary to build a bridge what happens next year and the year after that what what do we say that next year is a mess I mean I I really I mean just if the state doesn't what we heard today if the state doesn't move on the charter formula doesn't work move on Chapter 70
doesn't move on another it becomes even worse because we just had the state and desie side say okay to a charter expansion where they actually made a public comment we don't have to worry about it happens to the other schools and I think that's a misreading of the charter law they're supposed to be
seeing the same distribution of kids we are so I don't know whether we can appeal it so I was looking for a way of appealing that but that's more money coming out of what would have been education money the state doesn't fix those it gets each year Well Kathy
you're right and and hopefully the state will do something at some point but we can't control that we today yester whenever people have spoken do you feel like I do that that that I'm looking for something coming from the schools as well I'm looking for if I'm building a bridge towards
something I'd like to feel like there's something coming towards me as well and I don't get that sense um maybe you're saying that that that's not needed it's it's up to the state to build looking at the budgets that they put together and at 4 and A2 or 5% they are still
reducing staff so this is not this is not a maintaining staff so I did hear some things in Regional that I think there could be more to coordinate middle school and high school so you can take kids can walk across the driveway and take courses and each and there might be
some savings there they weren't we need to stick with the but so I'm just saying the schools have moved quite a bit to get these budgets under more control I'm not sure they can move the extra step right now so if this is one year the one
year is breathing room George did you have a further comment councelor Lord I I don't want to be out of line if we're just supposed to be talking about the 10 10.5 the motion that's on the floor is about the 10 yes and I'm going
to make us go back to that okay and later I'll give my answer to George's question okay about all right the motion on the floor is to um move to revert all revisions in section five capital budget
recommendations and comments and the change to 10% from 10.5% on page two under Capital budgets to the original is that correct okay that motion's been made and seconded is there any further comment on
that motion then we'll move to a vote on that motion that Amendment excuse me I'm sorry a yes vote takes it back to 10 10.5% a no vote keeps it at 10% as
written in the proposal right so a yes vote keep moves it back to the 10.5 a no vote keeps it at 10 okay um can you I'm confused now yes equals
10 10 and a half% you vote Yes on this motion to amend if you liked the 10% on a proposed you vote no on the motion to amend okay okay all right we're
starting starting with councelor Ryan I vote I Kathy Shane no Andy Steinberg I Jennifer toab no
Alicia Walker no Patti Angeles no Anna Devin gothier no councelor hi ly Grier's an i councelor hanii
hi Bob hegner no councel Lord no uh Pam Rooney no the motion fails and goes there I want to make a
suggestion and that is that we refer this to the finance committee and have the finance committee review it in a manner that's consistent with the fact that they set the guidelines to begin with and they come
back to us on April 7th with any changes that I just think we're g to be here to two o'clock which was my guess anyway Anna uh I'm I would like to know
the procedure for because we do have another motion on the floor um right so you made a suggestion and if you'd like to make a maybe that supersedes the the motion on the floor I'm seeing Mandy nod okay but um again
just as a reminder for the council the finance committee drafts the budget guidelines they are a council document I would not support this going to finance committee I think we need to have this discussion as a full Council Kathy the just so everyone knows
the Motions I didn't all I'm GNA say is the finance committee does meet tomorrow unless we cancel the meeting we held it for this possibility if this gets referred I as chair would say we've just voted on the 10 and a half going to 10 so we're not
going to revisit that issue we would focus on the other parts of on US changing the guidelines we wouldn't focus on that because I feel like the whole town Council just voted in on this one so if it gets referred I would just have the focus of
the discussion be on the rest I'm not saying it should get referred I'm just saying if it does we meet tomorrow and uh there will be a report out as fast as I can write it councelor Walker um I just I don't want to send this back to the finance
committee because I think with the original budget guidelines it already went through the process and this is an amending that document that already came from Finance went through Council okay fine I haven't made the motion okay councelor hanii so I have another motion I'd like
to make um I'm going to speak about it because the words are really confusing so then I'll read the words um so that people understand what's going on Anna's document Anna's proposal
um seeks to keep the municipal and library Half at 3% or reduce it or keep it at three and any excess be distributed to the school side of operating um if I summarizeed that in
brief um that's the summary and um my motion when I make it and then I can explain why I'm making it but I figured I'd explain what the motion does since it sounds weird um is to keep in all those places where it says Municipal and
life library in Those portions and then says ammer schools and Regional Schools I move the library from the municipal and Library side to the school side so that Municipal would stay at three and library and schools would be going up um
so that's that's what the words mean um when I read this motion um and I have specific reasons I'm making the motion but I'm not supposed to speak to those reasons until it gets a second so I'm trying to by that but but I'll make the motion
hopefully it will get a second so it's mve to amend as follows on page two in the first amended paragraph ad library before ammer pelum Regional and before ammer Regional on page four third paragraph in
section four expense projections add library before both references to Regional and delete and libraries after Municipal and on page four the last
bulleted paragraph delete and library branches after Municipal services and add library before both instances of ammer pelum regional I'd like the clerk to please put this
up on the screen and let's review them one by one I've asked the clerk to put it on the screen one on page two and two on page four may I second that motion thank
you may I speak to it yes please speak to it um and then we'll so and then we'll go back and look there are four op operating large operating sides of the budget the the elementary
school the Regional Schools the library and the municipal side three of those four need to present to the manager by April 1 today is still March 24th um their budgets I haven't been following the
library closely on their votes but they may have already voted their budget I'm not sure um we really only deal with the needs of the of any of the four once we see the budget in May and the libraries as well
as the schools have known for a month now that the guidance as it stands is 4% not 3% um when the budget comes to us as a council the schools have a general law that allows us to increase their
number on request of the schools from whatever the manager might propose the libraries do not have that same allowance the libraries just like the municipal side can only be reduced from what the
manager proposes under state law and our Charter there is no exception to that and so my thinking at this point is because we have not the only thing we've heard from the libraries about their budget is theirs is just as bad and it's in deficit and we've heard that at BCG
um I'm not saying we shouldn't think about a lower number for the library I'm saying it's premature to and we need to leave the option open and so we should leave that number at the 4% that we've given them
the guidance for now when the budget comes to us in may we can propose potentially when we've asked them what their budget looks like and we've seen where all the other operating budgets are we can potentially reduce that
number if thinking about adding numbers to other to the schools at that point because we have the ability to add to the schools and we have to reduce some other line to do that legally but we could not if when the library came to us in May at a 3% and they said we just
can't do it on that and we're firing X number of people because we can't do it we have no ability to to rectify that none um because we cannot increase their number so I see this as
as controlling the municipal side of sort of where we want that guideline to be and then leaving the guidelines at a minimum sort of where they were before tonight for the
other T other three parts of the operating budget and leaving us some options for the library that might still achieve what Anna was going for on the library side later but not doing it at a
point when we haven't had any discussions with the library elected trustees about their budget the constraints they have and all of that um we just haven't and so I think it would I I cannot support something that
reduces their line it's 23,000 out of a 9 thou $90,000 4% increase that you're trying to reduce by 23,000 with what it was originally drafted so I I want to put the library in with the schools as if we keep the town at 3%
they also get some above 3% with this amendment can you show us the various places that councelor hanii is suggesting Athena so it was the first amended paragraph on page two so it was that blue that I didn't know how to define that bullet
point there um it would be distribute remaining funds to the library comma ammer pelum Regional and ammer elementary schools unless remaining is more than total um year-over-year increase to the library
and Regional and ammer Elementary School at which point consult the finance and budget coordinating so it would be adding the word library to those two groups okay in that paragraph and then on page four in the third paragraph of section
four is that where we are um it would be given the current challenges facing our Library Regional and elementary schools we recommend dividing up increases to each area differently with 3% being allocated to Municipal services and the remainder
being allocated to the library Regional and elementary schools in that one and then the last bullet right down would basically read the same thing in 3% increase to Municipal services but not library branches and then distribute remaining
to Library ammer pelum Regional and emmer Elementary School um Pam Rooney okay Mandy councelor Han did you have anything
else councelor Ryan so this this isn't a very large amount but I think given what the library does given the the community it serves given the services it provides um I think it should be excluded from this um I understand and accept the the
decree from 4% to 3% for the general fund but I think the library um really from an equity point of view from just a an education point of view from the job that it does um while this isn't a large amount um we should respect that and so
I hope that we would agree to at least at this point not decrease their amount and uh it would have a small effect on the overall impact that honest seeking but it really isn't that much and I think it's an important uh symbolic Act Andy yeah I hate to do this but I'm
going to actually under rule 7.1 make a motion to adjourn I feel like we cannot continue to be productive and Rule 3.2 said that meetings
aim by 10m sorry Andy can you press your mic thank you is there a second to the motion I'll second okay motion's been made and seconded to
adjourn is there any further discussion it's not debatable it's not debatable thank you uh we begin with Kathy Shane can I can I just get do does that mean we continue this discussion at the next
council meeting it doesn't go to finance it means it we continue so I just need to take it it's on the finance agenda for tomorrow so I'm taking it off the me we continue to discuss it on the 7th okay and um I guess I am tired so I'll
say yes but I will also say I'm not going to be at the next council meeting so I apologize okay Andy yes Jennifer no
Alicia no Pat I Anna no councelor I when grimer and I councelor
hanii no Bob hegner yes councelor Lord no cam Rooney yes George Ryan no we continue the discussion that was a 76 vote that
passed I'm sorry yeah that motion passed it was 76 no it's a majority and how many said yes seven oh right I'll switch my vote to a no yeah you can't do
that no you know I don't have that same I have six eyes and seven Nays okay I had seven six seven eyes six n and d'angeles was an i ET was an I grimer was an
I hegner was an i Shane was an i Steinberg was an i and Pam roon was an i oh I'm sorry Pam roon was an i you're right okay we continue the conversation
on the seventh I'm probably going to leave