Okay, thank you. Please go ahead. Thank you, Athena. And I guess I'll call the meeting to order. And um let's have a sort of roll call. Who's here? Bernie present.
Andy here. Julian. Still having technical issues. Raphael here. And Ken here. and I am here. Um,
okay. So, we have a full agenda, I see. And there were some minutes to approve. I think only one of them was in the packet if I'm not mistaken. Um,
I think uh Meg had the other two, but she had a health issue tonight. And so I'm not sure if we're prepared to approve the July 24th
or not. How do people feel if they had a chance to review that one? I didn't see them. Uh, this was a delayed minutes that were put in the packet back in August. So, I
don't know that they ever resurfaced. Yeah. Since then. Yeah. I didn't have a chance to. Yeah. There. So, I'm I'm going to say let's defer this unless people would like to do otherwise because the July 24th ones are are in a packet from
mid August. So, we need to maybe bring everything forward back into the packet for if we want to vote on them. Yeah, that would be helpful. Okay. Um, next on the agenda is public comment.
And I see we have someone in the um attending the meeting besides us. And so I'll open it up for public comment if anyone would like to speak. No public comment. Okay. Um, the next on the agenda is outreach
subcommittee update, which is me and also the feedback subcommittee update. Now, I imagine they're related. Raphael, you have your hand up. Who's on minutes tonight? That is a good question. I don't Julian, I don't know if you can hear us, but I don't have the list. Okay.
Or minute taking. All right. Unfortunately, go around. I don't know who's up. Okay. I suspect we'll find out soon. In general, we get the transcript and we can build whoever whoever it is can build it from there, but Okay. All right.
Yeah. Thanks for asking. I was skimming past it. Um, so outreach committee update. Um, we met and focused on two items. um with
some other with some other discussion. But our two items that we're focus we were focused on is preparations for after the initial report is complete and having a draft letter to send out to a lot of
different organizations and individuals uh in town with an approach to broaden the scope and even um give a repeat opportunity for people to engage with our process who maybe
haven't before uh or who would have something specific to respond to in the report. And so that's going to happen by means of uh a full a full contact list that we're building out of many different organizations in town.
um uh civic, business, social organizations, nonprofits, um publications, blogs, uh residential organizations, lots of lots of things that we're building a
list together. Meg initiated it and we're all contributing to it. and also the draft letter uh which I think is feeling pretty close based on the most recent draft that Meg sent me that we all kind of contributed
to editing. It's fairly straightforward. I'm happy to share it on screen. I feel conscious of how much we need to pack into tonight's meeting. So, I'm open to suggestion if you'd like me to share what we've got drafted. Um
it is an introduction to what the report uh a sort of summary of our activities as a committee and an invitation to participate and it will it will ultimately direct uh the readers to
the um version of the initial report which will be on the town website as well as on our website and will give opportunities to again link to additional opportunities for written comment. ways to engage with us, ways to attend our meetings, um to write to us, etc.
So, um that is the the general sense. Uh this will be in the packet for people to review after tonight's meeting, but if if you'd like me to share it right now, I'm happy to. Ken.
Um I'm I I you gave a nice summary right there. What's in there? I don't think we need to go through it. Um happy to look at it later. Okay. Uh so that was the one work product. The other was the contact list like I said that we've been building out and
everyone is contributing to emails of um a whole bunch of different approaches to again the idea is widen the opportunity at this moment between the initial report and the preliminary report. This is not the same
as what we're going to do with a public forum which is remains to be discussed for after the preliminary report. That's part of our charge. These this these are ways to sort of expand awareness and participation engagement of whatever kind with our initial report. So that's
the bulk of the activity from the outreach subcommittee. Um anybody have questions or comments? Raphael and so that the public or others are aware it's also an opportunity to give feedback on init the initial report.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, if I didn't say that clearly, thank you. That it's that's the whole idea is have we gave lots of opportunities initially for open feedback kind of open uh open feedback on town government, the charter,
everything and this is now a different kind of opportunity given that we have something to respond to. So, thank you Raphael, Andy. Yeah, I just um I see we also have a couple of items in the in
the uh packet that there's a work plan for the initial report and there's a proposal for the initial report contents and I believe is that something that you folks also worked on and those that's a separate agenda item. Those are uh independent of the committee. I submitted two proposals
having to do with how to move forward on our work plan for the initial report and its contents. Okay. And I'm bring I'll I can bring those up when they come up in the agenda. They're not part of the outreach subcommittee. That's just something that I'm proposing to the group.
Great. And Ken, um I apologize since I missed a recent meeting um if this has been covered already, but in terms of keeping the uh uh the comments coming in the online form, um
I know that any sort of uh publicity of the initial report will probably motivate some people to go, "Oh, I never sent my comment in." Um I imagine we will get a few. Um, but I guess ultimately my question is do we have we
discussed when we'll close that window of of taking public comment? We have not as a group discussed when we're closing that window. We you know um I'm not suggesting that we have that conversation now. I was just curious um
to make sure I don't it's important but I my my initial feeling just off the cuff is that we have we have a um semi-scheduled public forum to be held after preliminary and
before final and that that might be uh that might I would want to keep things open at least through that. Um, Andy, yeah, I would expect we would get a lot of public comment once people can see
something concrete. And so I don't know if we use the same I guess the same the same form could be available to the public and we would just append that to all of our maybe we'd have a separate tab or something for post initial um report comments or something like
that or responses to the initial report. But um yeah. Yeah, I think that that's when we're going to hear at least as much as we've heard. Well, maybe not as much, but quite a bit given that people can see something real. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, and that's embedded in the letter.
Um, so those details are there. Okay. Thanks. It's whoever we email this out to this letter that I'm talking about will contain links to both the report itself. The report itself we're hoping to embed a direct link to the public, you know,
public comment. So, okay. Um Okay, I'm going to move us to um feedback subcommittee. Um, before I do that, I just have a question
about the agenda. I know that we received a memo from the Collins Center that responds to some of the things we sent them, and I don't Is that on the agenda tonight for us to discuss, or is that something we're going to Is that a topic not anticipated that we would discuss at that point, or are we going
to put that off to another meeting? In fact, I don't see it on the agenda. So, I don't know if um maybe when Julian joins can speak to that. Uh, okay. Because that that could take some time maybe, but um
yeah. All right. Well, I I'll just go ahead with the feedback uh subcommittee. Um um so the subcommittee met yesterday and we
looked at basically the you know what at our last meeting we had this multiple tab spreadsheet that had sort of all of the votes and the green ones and the red ones and the the unresolved ones which were the white ones the white list. And at the end of that meeting, we sent the
we adjusted the green list and then we sent that to the Collins Center to get their response. And so far, we've heard it back from them about part part of that and they're going to continue to work on it. So, um we also received a
couple more um town counselor replies to the survey since we voted. And so those were potentially uh you know those were um suggestions that had not been responded to although some of them
duplicated other uh suggestions that we had already uh voted on. So we looked through those and added the ones that had not that were not duplicative to the white list which I can share on my screen if that's
helpful. um just to give a sense of what we're talking about. Um so this uh is the as the just as a reminder that we have all votes. Um we
have the votes ranked. We had all the ones that were green and this has been updated to reflect what we sent to the Colin Center. We have the ones that were the red list uh which we did not forward. And then we have this list of the white lists which is the ones that
were we were there was not a majority or we had flagged or and now we've added the ones that have not been voted on that had come in after our voting sessions. So in this um in this version the first
column is the ones that are new are indicated with an NV for not voted. Um so there are you know a fair amount in in article 2 and article 3,
article five and then a few in section in article 8. Um so our sense is this is you know we were basically just making sure that we were everything was being considered and and
uh so we now have this list that's unresolved that the committee um you know we would suggest the committee needs to um review and and probably have and probably vote on the ones that have not been voted on before. So that might
be we might want to have a separate meeting to do that. I don't think we're prepared to do that tonight or I would I I would doubt that we're prepared to do that tonight. And a number of our members are missing or several of our members are missing. So um but that's there you all have a copy of it. It's
it's also the the one in the packet is actually the previous version. So um this one is dated 10125. I looked at the one in the packet and that one's dated 9:18. So that was the one we talked we
used to discuss at our last meeting. So I don't um probably want to uh replace that with this one or add this one to it to the packet. Um but this this this is the latest one from from our collection of stuff. We
also added all of the new or the the new non-duplicative items to the overall um spreadsheet that has that has tabs for town counselor survey, employee survey, um other
committee survey, um public comment and public input and uh forums. So, so those are in there as well to so that we have the full record of what's been um submitted and and uh what we've been discussing. That's
basically it. We think this is the most updated uh list of what still remains to be determined. Uh this white list. Okay. So, thanks Andy. your your um suggestion is that we have the
discussion about these the the new item newly added items in the next meeting. I mean we could do it. We're missing now but we're missing people and I think I think we actually need to vote on them. So I think people should be able to come to a meeting. Yeah. With list of votes like we did last time
and then we can discuss whatever ones need discussion at that point. But maybe we're unanimous on some of them or whatever. It it would be my suggestion that we take and hopefully we'll get more stuff back from the Collins Center
that we take the uh this remaining list in the common center report and make that the focus of the next meeting. um that'll occupy that'll occupy some time and I I think by that point too when we get to
the the the piece about the uh program uh writing the initial report I think we're going to have we'd have that in too. So next the next meeting would be would be busy. Yes. I'm just I'm just wondering if we want to schedule a separate meeting to for
the for voting um so that we can that's another meet next week or something. I I I'm worried that we're going to let time go by before we can write the initial report. Uh yeah, you're proposing maybe next week having a meeting just on this
subject. I I think so. I mean, I I'm not really eager to to have more meetings, but I think we need it. Yeah. I I reluctantly, Andy, I'm agreeing with you. Yeah, I'm I'm in the same boat. I'm
absolutely in the same boat. We I'm hesitant to do it, but I don't want to take up another meeting that probably needs a lot more other business being taken care of. So, we need an extra meeting. It's my vote. Okay. Is this something we want to vote on?
We should. I'm I'm happy to make a motion that we meet. Hi. Hi, Julian. We're Well, we're just just to catch you up. Just to catch you off, Julian, what we're discussing is that uh Andy just
did the feedback subcommittee update and talked us through the fact that the spreadsheet now contains some additional um some additional feedback that we received through the survey from two additional town counselors. And so that
needs to be incorporated and voted on. And um Andy is proposing motioning that we meet next week to work through um and vote on those additional items
and so that it doesn't um take up additional space in the following week's meeting which may be quite busy. That's the motion. Is that right Andy? Yes. To meet next Thursday. Just to clarify, have we done roll call
minutes, public comment and outreach subcommittee update? Yes. Excellent. Thank you. Um, I can I can take over the meeting from here, but I really appreciate it, Erica. Thank you. Um, I just got a new computer,
which is good. Um, yes. Um, I guess my only question, um, was anyone in the middle of asking questions? Did I interrupt anyone? Okay. Um, reviewing that sheet, it seemed like a lot of it was still um
counselor showing feedback uh and some like rewarded suggestions that we had heard in the past. What who was the new counselor who submitted feedback and could you point me to where that might be on the sheet? Uh, all of the Can I just answer that?
All of the material that was on the the spreadsheet as we received it to vote on contained feedback from all the all the public feedback, all of the counselor feedback from the sur staff feedback from the surveys, etc. All of it
anonymized. So, none of the counselor or other elected officials, you know, staff, whatever, none of it was identified specifically. So what I took results from the survey as they came in anonymized and sent to Andy and the
feedback subcommittee who incorporated into their various spreadsheets. So that's where we're at. We have two additional town counselor submitted feedback that was sent to Andy that's been incorporated into the spreadsheet. That's what we're talking about. I don't I have many questions but I
don't want to hold us up. So, I'll let us continue. Um, does the motion have a second? Second. Second. Okay, I'll give that to Bernie. Um, discussion on the motion or have we already discussed it?
We have not. The motion is to meet next week. So, Oh, okay. To meet with the intent of using that meeting to review this feedback and vote. Yeah. Okay. Um, any hands for discussion?
Raphael. So, so if I'm clear about this, like the pushes for us to vote based on the counselor feedback that came in or are we also considering like Colin
center feedback? [Music] Annie, go ahead. We won't have Colin center feedback on the white list because we only sent them the green list. Okay. Okay. So, but but I think that it would probably make sense to go
through the entire list and, you know, review our votes and see see if anybody, you know, some of these votes are like eight flags, you know. So, um it's I mean it's I'm trying to see how many
there are. Yeah, I mean there's somewhere around 40 items uh you know a number of which we've already uh referred to this list because we didn't come up with a consensus.
So um but but all of those ones that we voted on we we still need to resolve. So I think in some ways we need to go through each of them if we voted but it was like in some cases there were only seven votes. In some cases, they were flagged because we wanted to do more
research. Um, I think we may need to just sort of take another vote on them and and and decide what what flagging mean. you know, it may maybe have a a some sort of template that says, you know,
we're voting on this one and we're flagging it to send it to Collins because we can't decide or um we're voting to up or down on it, you know, something like that so that we can because we need to resolve all of all of the ones that we flagged before or that
were on this list before. And then we should also, you know, our sense is that we should also give consideration to to these ones that have come in from counselors since then, you know, since they're dealing with the charter on a
fairly intensive way. Raphael, you want to respond to that and then Erica and then I have a question myself. Yeah, I think for me like in terms of what was flagged, like some of the flags were we need to find out more. We're not clear about whether or not this is
charter worthy or not. Having that resolve will be helpful in moving forward with the initial report. While some might be feel pressed to include town counselor sort of commentary in this report,
I feel like those folks have an opportunity to include that commentary in preliminary report. I think what's pressing now is let's figure out those flags. So, it's not a big deal if we weave in
the counselor commentary, but I think the flagged element like let's be clear about whether or not this is charter worthy is crucial. And I don't know where we are with that in terms of Collins support.
Yeah. Thank you, Raphael. Eric and then Andy. Um there's different buckets or categories of things that could use additional attention. Mhm. One is there were some remaining undecideds. Okay.
And there were uh there's also going to be um this week's and whatever additional Collins feedback will be will be kind of coming back for us to digest and process. That's another bucket. And then there's some new items which have come
in. So it's not I don't think it's a separate meeting. I don't think of it as just a separate meeting just for the two additional items uh that surveys that have come in, but that there's there's enough there's
enough um to to discuss and work through clearing up those flags or clear, you know, absorbing the Collins feedback and deciding if it alters in whatever way we want to say about those items. That's what I think would justify uh a meeting.
That's my opinion. Okay, great. Thank you. Um Andy, go ahead and then I have a a question. Yeah, I mean I think we could go through the list and clarify the flags. And so
maybe we have some C maybe we should have some categories agreed upon in advance where we say you know for for the ones we've already voted on it's like is the vote unclear or is it flagged for because we need you know we
should put it in the Collins bucket or is it just that we didn't have a majority either way and we need to sort of figure out are we are we gonna put it forward you know are we gonna push it forward or not. So, so those those ones I think we can clear up fairly easy
easily because well maybe I think with some clear buckets for putting stuff in. It's like, is this one we just want to send to the Collins Center because we don't know enough or is this one that having thought about it some more, we can actually, you know, have a vote that
pushes it one way or the other. And then, but I I really think that it's important to consider the the new ones, many of which are technical, some of which have answers for some of the more general proposals that have been given, such as extending time limits for
signatures or whatever. So, um, you know, I I think we I think we should resolve those as well be before we've sent out the initial um report because I think that a number of them are technical and fairly easy to say yes or
no to for one thing and another some of them are more specific than some of the general ones that we've been wrestling with. So, great. Yeah, thank you. Um, I I think I agree with Raphael mostly. Um, I'll be honest,
I joined the meeting a little late, so I'll probably end up abstaining just because I have a few sort of questions understanding what's going on. But um the first thing that sort of struck me as interesting was why
like what we had counselor showing do we have two individuals from the town council submitting feedback on top of that or just one and if so who are those two or one individual given that we've
made public counselor showing's feedback counselor Kanaki's feedback former counselor for Deont's feedback. I don't see why we wouldn't make public these additional one or two people. And then my other question is, I don't know,
maybe you could screen share, Andy. I'm not sure, but I just saw mostly counselor showing feedback and a few rewarded suggestions that we already heard. So, I'm not sure where in the spreadsheet the new feedback is. Um,
also considering all of this feedback was submitted past our deadline and we're going to have a preliminary feedback review relatively soon anyway. So, I don't know if those questions are answerable. If they are, that would be
great. Um, but that's sort of where I'm at. Um, Andy, then Erica, I'm just trying to uh pull it up. Yeah, go ahead. Um, and then Bernie.
So, I don't I don't I don't think it matters who who who submitted it. I mean, I know who it is, but I don't know that we're that we need to focus on that. We we got
what we have right now is a um just because we got we've gotten memos from several of the counselors. Those are those are public because they are put into the into the um you know the the materials received um
you know bucket. um this what you know several other counselors have um have submitted responses through the survey and I don't believe they've been publicly identified. There's nothing unoured about any of them submitting.
They're all different people and um they're you know but I think we should consider all of their comments. Um the ones that were submitted most recently largely um reiterated points that were made u by
other people um in that were in our list already. Um so you know the majority of these are um from the memo that was received from um councelor Shane. I don't think that that
should be should prejudice our consideration of it or should give it undue um extra consideration but they are specific. They are thoughtful and they are answering some things that have been raised more generally about how the
finance committee does its work, about how we uh clarify the power of the president versus the council to make appointments, um about how the uh finance uh you know the the budget process should work, what
the BCG should do. And there's specific language that's offered that would make that that that I, you know, I think is worth considering. So I I would hate to see us, you know, for, you know, arbitrarily leave out
specific comments and suggestions from a counselor that's been deeply involved in both the finance and the, you know, the operations of of the charter in the council. So we've got plenty of suggestions that came from one person.
um throughout this list. And so I I I think it's really important to consider these um as informed and useful potentially technical but um you know very germanine to the to the actual
language of the of of the charter. So, this you can see it here. The ones that have been added are listed as Envy and they're ones that have not been voted on. And um I'm trying to remember if any any of
them um you know some of them were some some of them were shared like the the the public participation me uh measures extent they were more generally spoken in one and then they were specifically spoken it by another. I I have Kathy's
feedback right next to me and I don't see anything new from just that. This is new for since we voted. That's what I'm saying. We didn't we voted we voted se several weeks ago
actually almost a month ago and now we've gotten additional feedback and and we're what we're proposing is that we consider it. But I only see Kathy's feedback. I don't see any other feedback here. Where's the other counselor's feedback?
Uh, if you look through it, um, it's already reflected in our list. That's what I'm doing. I'm look, I have on one tab counselor showing feedback from the former document. And I have one
all of the feedback has been incorporated into the sheet that Andy has shared with us and is also on screen. I just don't see any feedback besides what was previously feedback that came from the other counselor reinforced some of the questions that were asked previously and
thus is already in our list. Erica, uh I wanted to speak to two two things that that came up in your question, Julian. One is about the deadline. Um the survey was left open. We decided that as a group and so these these
uh two counselors responded after the initial deadline but after the initial deadline passed we agreed as a group to leave the survey open so that shouldn't be an issue and as far as the anonymity of everyone who participated in the
survey was offered and so that's how we transferred um all responses to the survey to the feedback subcommittee. They were identified by role. Uh they were identified by whether they were town council
uh or um a elected official of some other kind or a town staff. And so that that informed how we incorporated them into the larger lists, but no one was brought in from the survey with name attached. If people chose to respond via
the public forum, they could choose to attach their name. Bernie and then Raphael. Um the bottom line for me is uh we have this list. These are all items that need to be
disposed of. We need to discuss them. And I think is just echo what I think Raphael said earlier. we need to discuss them. We need to identify whether we want to go further with them, whether we need some expert expert uh advice um or whether we're just going to set
them aside. But for whatever reason, when we first voted on this list, regardless of who contributed to, we had some indecision, and indecision is a terrible thing. So, let's resolve it. And the best way to do that in my humble
opinion with Andy is that we have a separate meeting. We go through this list. We mark stuff up. We vote it up and down. We mark it up as we've done with the the the first larger section
and then move on. Um, if we're lucky, um, and I'm not sure we will be, we might have some additional information from the Collins Center and we can incorporate that into the discussion because it may answer some of these, uh, some of the questions or some resolve
some of the issues that are on that that last page, Raphael. And then I'm going to try to move us along just because this came out of the feedback subcommittee update. So technically voting on this isn't even really on the
agenda. Raphael, so I I'll say something that we should really think about is just methodology. Um yes, we could shift but we had a process. We had a plan. We weren't clear about our methodology to be honest in
terms of like timeline matters. We left because of emergency. But I thought like this approach was initial report drawn from initial feedback. Let's figure that out. Um we're shifting a bit. I'm fine with that. But I think we need to make
sure we're documenting and clear about what our methodology is cuz it just helps with this process in terms of here was the plan. Um let's follow through with that and folks can like sort of engage after the
initial report. I would say, but let's just be clear about what our methods have been and make sure that's documented. I don't think it's a huge issue, but I think in terms of what we said we were going to do, it's tweaked a bit in terms of our
process. Thanks, Raphael. Andy. Um, I think our process was that we were going to try to produce an initial report that had everything we had to so that people could respond to it and that we would then
I I think adding additional items that have not been to the to the to the mix after we do the initial report means that people can't react to those till after the preliminary report. And I really think it would be best if we get an initial report out that has
everything in it that we've got and that we've, you know, that we should decide on everything that we've received so that then people can react to everything that's in the initial report. And then the preliminary report is our response to that and then hopefully it's mostly just copy editing after that rather than
trying to come up with a whole another wave of suggestions um in the preliminary report that people haven't seen. And then we're still wrestling with comments on new things for the public. So my interest would be to try to get all of these things
resolved now so that we don't have to move the goalposts again in the preliminary report and give new things that haven't been exposed to the public before then. So that that's why I think it's important to resolve these things now.
And I think I I agree that we didn't have a methodology. Uh we when we were voting, we didn't we didn't know what flagging meant and we didn't, you know, we we had one, two, and three, but it sort of meant different things to different people and um perhaps. But um I think we muddled through, but now we
have some things that we haven't resolved. And I'd just assume get everything resolved before we do the initial report so that we don't have to come back with um unresolved things for the preliminary report. I don't want to long here. I don't want
to stay too long. I don't want to stay too long here. But go ahead, Raphael. In terms of like process, documentation of process, there was some discussion around what flag meant. Um, and my only
questioning of this is for us to be really cognizant of like our process. We need to be really clear like if someone were to put put forth more feedback now. Should we include that tonight? Should we include it in our sort of voting next
week? And I'm just sort of playing around with us needing to be more We need to be like really clear about our process. Um and a new wave could still come in, Andy, after preliminary report for the preliminary report. Folks still have a
chance to share more. Yes, but I mean they should be responding to what we've seen, what we what we've gotten rather than they could say, "This is missing. Why didn't you put that in?" And we we would take that, but I mean to not to not have people uh review
specific suggestions that have come in. I mean, I agree that we should probably say as of now, we're not taking anything new because we're going to start voting for the initial for the initial and we should we should stop taking new things now beyond what we have already. and we should start
working on the report. Um, but I think what we have now includes useful things that should be exposed to the public. Um, and I so and I just also wanted to respond to to uh Julian's questions. The
things that came up in the other uh counselor's report included term limits for counselors and term limits for the council president, which we already have in our list. um consider making the planning board and ZBA elected positions which we also have in our list. And then
um uh what is this one? Um it was uh about um council appointments to boards, commissions and committees which also is uh is meant is uh listed
in our in our uh in in the in the items we've already voted on. So this other counselor who shall not be named feedback is none of the counselors are named. Well, none of the counselors are named in our
spreadsheet. Say who this counselor is, which we haven't done for the past. I haven't named any of the counselors is my point. I'm not singling out anyone special. I'm speaking. So, let me finish and then
I'll call on you. It's the third time you've made a you've characterized the process incorrectly. That's why I was interrupting. I'm characterizing I don't know who the other counselor is and we've suddenly are saying so I'm saying the counselor
who shall not be named because we don't know who they are and we've named everyone else who submitted feedback. No, we have not. We have not. Yes, we as a as who are town counselors. Yes, I believe so. No, we have not. Who who else have we not? Let's make
that public too in the name of transparency. Let's make it all public. If the if the counselor has elected to submit their comments through the public forum, they chose to name themselves and that name can be attached. If they responded
to our survey, they had the option to respond anonymously. And not only that, they we anonymized everyone who responded to the town official and staff survey was anonymized. Everyone
correct. But the public deserves to know who of town counselors what their town counselors are standing for and advocating for. That's different than a town worker or a member of the public. Their town counselors are elected positions and it's appropriate that we
as a committee make known what they believe and are submitting to us. That's seems like transparency. We offered them the option to not list their names. we can probably figure out who they are, but that would be going against what we said we would that that
they could respond, you know, with their name or without it. So, as Erica says, if people chose to submit a memo, that was public. If they chose to vote in the survey, they're not named. And it doesn't really matter. I mean, the these were the these it's not one wing of the
council or another. There's there's a variety of perspectives and they're all trying sincerely to say here's what's working and what's not. So I'm I even you know it doesn't matter who they are. If it's a good idea it's a good idea. If it's not it's not and you know we should
take all of them under consideration. I agree we should take all of them under consideration but the public know what their counselors stand for. And I can't vote for something the public doesn't know what their counselors are actually advocating for. That's not
that may be your particular stance. I I'm advocating We're we're what we're proposing is a process here to get all of the feedback into a form that we can vote on and dispose of it one way or another, which is our charge. So, I think we should um you know, figure out
what we're doing next. I agree. And so, I'll call I'll finish my comment as I was interrupted and then I'll call on Bernie and Erica. Um, so I guess that's my first concern about the
process since it seems like that whoever that counselor is, who I don't know who they are, but whoever it is, it their feedback has already been discussed and incorporated in some way. So, we're really just discussing
counselor show's feedback here. Um, why does that matter? because we already decided or discussed, not decided, excuse me, discussed as a committee to say that we had some time
to consider her suggestions and now we're moving along. the process has ended and I understand some folks on this committee for whatever reason would like to specifically include counselor showing feedback but I don't think it's appropriate where the time in the
process for that has passed and now we're on to the next step I would think by at this point the chair would notice that he's lost the argument that we shouldn't include uh additional comments that we received from counselors whether it's Shan or someone
else who I don't know either and I don't care. Um, we have to dispose of in the way we've managed all the other discussions this last set these so-cal so-called
white sheets um have to be resolved. We need to be able to say why you know we what our understanding was it was flagged and we flagged it. why were we concerned and move through it and move
on. We're going to use this this piece this last piece of paper to um to either send off to the common center or not pieces of it and it's going to go into the preliminary agreement report. So I think we just need to stop dancing
around the the the committee the motion on the floor the committee the the members of the committee are free at any point in time to make any relevant motion whether it's on the agenda or not the motion that's on the floor is that we meet next week
to resolve discuss and resolve the items on this list and I'm going to call a question. Sounds good. Let's vote on it. Um, I will start with you, Bernie. I vote.
Okay. Myself, I'm a no. I personally cannot make the meeting anyway. Erica, yes. Andy, yes. Raphael, yes. Ken.
Okay, I'm taking that as a yes. Um let's move on to our next agenda item. Um which we have to we have to figure out time for the meeting. Huh?
We need to pick a date and time for the meeting. Oh, okay. I thought I thought it was proposed to next week. Now, we can do this as a ministerial thing and send emails all over the place or doodle poll or we can just say right
now in the next couple of minutes who's available when. Sure, let's do that. I thought that we had already proposed doing it next Thursday, but maybe that was inferred. Um, do we want to go around and say what
times work for people? I am busy on Thursday. I could do a different day. I can do any day other than Friday probably. Bernie, um I'm available pretty much through the week. Okay, Erica,
Wednesday night an option. Um possibly I could do I could probably do Wednesday. Um, yeah, I could do Thursday at 6:30 or I I
can't do Wednesday. Um, I could also do Tuesday at 6:30. Okay. Um, I have a meeting on Tuesday at 6:30. Um, can I share something? Julian, please. Um,
we have to figure out the flagged element. So, hopefully you're in a mix. a lot of discussion about council members additional input, but that piece of it, let's figure out the flagged elements is crucial. I agree. The timing and that's why I said yes, we need to
get that work done. Yep. I agree. The flag needs to be done. I agree, Ken. Uh Thursday, not Wednesday. Okay. Um so, correct me if I'm wrong on six o'clock on Thursday.
I can't I can't do six. accepted. Um, is Tuesday a possibility or no for everybody? It might be for other people. I'm I have a public shade tree committee meeting Tuesday. Um, so how how who do we have? We're we're missing just for the record
Meg and Marcus right now. So maybe also we need to consult Athena. Correct. How do how do folks feel about doing I wouldn't personally be able to make
it. I have a meeting. Um but how do folks feel about doing 7 o'clock on Thursday? That that works for me. That also makes gives us plenty of time to post the meeting. worry about time frames
6:30 7 what whatever it doesn't you know we we don't have she's she's present or she's gone off to to confirm that that's an available time we need the technology
also need go ahead Andy we need to find out about Marcus and Meg too can we just do a show of hands if it were to be Thursday 7 who could make it. Okay. Um Rafael, did you still have a
question? I don't know if this is plausible, but in terms of meeting time and resolving, I think the Collins Center support around flagged items matters. So, I don't know if we'll have to meet again to resolve. I don't know what that
element that that part of this I don't know where that is. Andy has his Could we invite the Collins Center to come to that meeting? Sure. To give us help resolving on the fly.
I mean, it might be that we say, "Hey, is this something we can hand off to you?" And they would say, "Sure." Or they would say, "Well, here's, you know, I don't know. I mean, it might help clarify things to have them there if if what we're trying to do is resolve some things that puzzled us
without them. Yeah, Raphael. Ideally, it would be good for them to sort of do the work before, not in the moment, but guide us, tell us. Um, but I don't know about their timeline. Um, but
I think that's something that we said we were going to try to figure out for the initial report. So, we might have to meet again to make our final whatever without their feedback. If they don't give us the feedback, I think there's still flagged items out
there. Go ahead. Right now, we have they have the green list that they're working their way through. Okay. Um, so we could te we could say stop working on that and send them the white list and say this is what we're going to be talking about next week.
Are there items on that that you could advise us on? Or would you like to prep for a meeting that you would attend to help us think through some of these things to see that you know if we sent that to them, you know, tonight or
tomorrow morning, they would have a week to or four days or whatever to um at least prepare to advise us on some of the ones that have been sticky for us. Okay. America.
Um, alternatively, they have responded to articles one and two so far on the on the initial list and they're working they're working through the rest of the material that we sent them which may in fact come back before a meeting that
would be held next week. And so those those materials could be worked through in our committee meeting next week. The flagged items in fact
might benefit from an additional pass or filtering from us before we package them up and send them to Collins because there were there was some vagueness around why people flagged certain things. Was it for additional
discussion among ourselves? Was it for additional consultation from Collins? Or was it some third thing? So like a lack of clarity. So it might benefit from putting time on that meeting. Mhm. To discuss the things that have come
back from Collins, the things that we green lit, right? And then also process some of the flagged things before they go to Collins so that we're super clear and concise about what it is we're asking for as opposed to just dumping a bunch of stuff
on them saying, "Please help." So, I think there's like work to be done in both categories that doesn't negate the the good work that could be done in a meeting next week on both counts. Mhm.
Andy, so just building on that, um would we start with um clarifying the ones that we were unclear on on the wait list at the beginning of the meeting so we make sure we get through those and we could then
send those to Collins after that meeting and then we would move in whatever time we had left to start reviewing what they've said about one and two, articles one and two. Yeah, sounds appropriate to me. I think it would be important to to list
as soon as possible the agenda because we've said many different things that could be on that agenda for next week is to list what categories of things we're going to try to get through in that time. You want to propose an agenda? We could
write it down now. Um while it's the working through the Collins feedback, working through um the additional uh suggestions that have come into this
spreadsheet before October 10th, October 1st, excuse me, and doing some additional definition or filtering on the flagged items. before they can be sent off to Collins
for additional feedback. Those are the three things I heard and I I heard sorry. Yeah, going for ahead. I heard them in that that maybe they we could attack them in reverse order. So the flagged items that we've already
flagged that we need clarification. So to make sure that we understand why we've flagged them and what we want from them and then uh the additional suggestions that have come in before October 1st and then the the column feedback on the stuff that
we've already voted on that we sent them. Um that that makes sense to me. I think um as long as we also have a section we have four more things in section 8 just we need to clarify on if we're including
or not. So as long as those get included I think I think that makes sense to me. So initial flag initial you know already flagged items init additional suggestions and then the feedback memo that we've received so far and they may send more by next week.
Great. Yep. Just to review, uh we're gonna five people here said they could come Thursday, but that's you. We're still don't know about two and Julian can't attend. So, are we
proposing that date and time to Athena to see if it's available or are we still looking for a consensus time? I I we could try going to the next week and and you know ear like a Tuesday and the following week if that would help more
people attend. I don't know. Tuesday the following week works perfectly well for me. And we could meet Tuesday and Thursday or something. Yep. That's probably what it would be. But it works for me. Um, I don't want to exclude anybody from this process, but I'm really concerned
about our timeline and how, you know, keep in mind this process in part is to prepare things to send to Collins for feedback, waiting for feedback, incorporating feedback, and writing report are still
pending. So, it's a it's it ends up being a lost week. I don't want to exclude anybody from anything, but I'm sure what Eric is saying. I would agree. I would rather you all just meet is there.
I would I would say let's go through Thursday. Hopefully Marcus and Me can join in. Um but as it is, we have a quorum and we can move forward on this. You know, going back over this list, um
you know, there's there's some stuff that I think we can just toss out. There's some stuff we're going to have to debate and there's some stuff that is in uh great need of clarification. You know, we have more counselors or few
counselors. Is that something we even want to argue? Uh so you know that might take some time. Um but let's let's try for Thursday. I'm fine with trying for Thursday. I'll
see if I can move my schedule around to attend. I'm not sure if I can, but even if it's part of the meeting. Julian, would you like me to reach out to Athena? I'm happy to. Okay. Yep. and then Meg and and uh Marcus.
Sure. Yeah, I can reach out to them. Um I'll send a sort of all blast email to the committee. Great. Before we move to the next agenda item, I just have two quick questions, Julian. One is we meant to ask you when you when you got back online at the beginning of
the meeting, but we're unclear on who's taking minutes. Oh, for today it is I believe it was Marcus's day. So, who would be next is
Bernie. Okay. Thanks. Right. No problem. The other thing was just a um a sort of housekeeping thing. Um, the recording of the retreat
was discussed at a previous time and I wanted to ask you about it because in that in that retreat we took a lot of time discussing each item, voting on each item and we did uh voice votes. In other
words, we were called on individually to record our votes and that got recorded. but the recording didn't make it to be uploaded and I wanted to just follow up about that. Correct. I have a recording on my phone and Marcus has one on his um whatever
that's called. Uh and basically it's just too large a file to send out. So I need to talk to some technology person to get it actually out there. Um, but once I'm
able to do that, uh, I'll send it hopefully to Athena to be posted on the town website. Great. Just wanted to clarify that that exists. Yes, it exists. Yes, it does. The problem is it exists on my phone and it needs to be
totally understood. No, Rafael. Along the same lines, we also talked about the minutes for that meeting. Plan, approach, thoughts. We were supposed to split it. Where are
we with that? Yeah, the recording was going to be split so that uh because it was several hours, it was going to be split up among several members to record, but we haven't got the we have to sounds like we have to figure out a technological
piece about the recording and then we can do minutes based on it. Yeah. But we talked about like sharing the Yes. minute. Yeah. So to be determined, I guess.
I think so. Yeah. All right. Great. Excellent. Would we like to move to the next agenda item? Yes. Great. Um, so we we did all the minutes, Erica.
So the minutes were deferred because the July 24th minutes are the only ones that um were submitted out of those three. and it was in a it was still in a packet from August and so the committee members
didn't feel like they had access to it to vote. Uh and the other two were um coming from Meg uh who wasn't able to attend tonight and I think her submissions didn't make it to the packet in time. Okay. I thought she submitted one but
maybe she didn't submit the other. Um we'll do it next week. We're very behind but that's okay. Um and next we have work plan for the initial report. Um this is something you requested on the agenda. Erica,
yes, I submitted two proposals. Um one is for and this is not an outreach committee thing. This is just something I'm proposing. um a a sort of plan of work for how to complete the initial report and separately a proposal for
what the contents of the initial report should be. Neither of which we've discussed at great length. And so I I wanted to sort of put these in front of us for discussion and for vote. um
the they kind of go together and I think what we've just decided about our additional meeting and process will impact them. So just keeping that in mind but um maybe it makes sense to discuss the
contents of the initial report first. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Could I share my screen? Uh, go right ahead. I'm not as long as it has permission. So, this is in the packet. It's what
I've posted. Um, so there's we've had a general understanding that the initial report is going to be a version of the the the sort of the table that we've been working through, but I wanted to kind of specify put that in writing somehow and have us
agree uh because there may be some other descriptive parts that we want to include. And so this is my proposal for what this could include. Excuse me. If um we have a table of recommended changes,
it may be that we want to uh that we may want to stop at a certain point in order to deliver a report and then continue to add things uh in the preliminary report. And I just want to ask to people to hold that idea open
that it may be that our initial report is what we can get through at at a said deadline as opposed to ex extending that deadline until we've got every last thing because we have additional opportunities
to report out. Um the initial report can focus on modifications to the charter itself and we have relevant annotations as to why we're making those recommendations, how feasible they are, what it would take to get them done or or whatever
else we want to say, however else we want to annotate them. Um aside from that, which is the meat of the report, we have some opportunities to speak about our process and how we got here. And I think it's going to be important because we're
really pushing for, you know, public engagement at this point to describe how we came up with the recommendations that we did. So I think we could, for instance, include a description of how this initial report was created, who had input. In other words, what were
um you know, what entities or what individuals or what mechanisms were consulted? uh we could summarize the work of each subcommittee. Um
what things are still being considered? So if in the scenario that I was just describing where we stop at a certain point um and that we have certain set of suggestions that we're still considering, we could describe that
um and that if we decided that they they didn't make it to the very initial report because they didn't have sufficient votes, but we haven't decided how we're going to address those things which were um suggested but but didn't rise to the
level of a charter amendment, for example. We can describe that. We can describe the recommendations that we heard repeatedly, but don't aren't charter uh amendments or revisions, but there are other kinds of recommendations that
we want to make. Um, and we're still we can describe in this section that there's additional public feedback to come that will appear in future versions. Again, to Rafael's point earlier about process and methodology, and being super clear about all that, that's what these additional sections
would be for. And what happens next, describing next steps, what are the opportunities for additional feedback, participation, and a timeline, and letting people know that after the preliminary report, there will be a public forum and an opportunity to engage.
So, we can debate any of this, but this is my proposal for like what could be useful um content to respond to. Not just the um
the recommendations themselves, the table itself, but what could support that that uh content in the best way possible? Yeah, Bernie. Yeah, I I like the framework and thank
you Erica for taking the initiative to do this. Um the only thing I would suggest and I I you feel free to accuse me of nitpicking is that because this is the initial report where we have a table of recommended ch changes. We make that
clear that these are this is an initial effort. This is not the these are under consideration. Uh this is that this list will uh will be formed up for the final report. because we'll probably put things in there that we're going to want to take
out at some point or put, you know, or miss some nuance somewhere. So, I I just we feel better if we we said these are our our our initial recommended changes or our preliminary recommended changes. So, that gives us a little bit of wiggle
room to uh for the future reports, but overall the framework and the thought behind it is is solid and you know, I think we should go with it. Thanks Bernie
Raphael. Yeah, thanks for submitting this. Um, I think it'll be helpful. I think it's important for us to grapple with the rationale piece and be clear about what rationale was in this initial phase. So worth a
conversation. You mean the um rationale as in in the sense of what's in the table for specific changes? Yeah. How do we Sorry,
Ken. Oh. Um, is this a is is this initial report a place to include an addendum of all the all the submitted comments? I know that the proposed
changes. I'm I'm trying to like uh put myself in the place of somebody who submitted a a comment and I don't see my comment in in the proposed changes assuming that that was an actual charter comment and not a rules or values
statement. Um their reaction will be hey where's my comment? Um, uh, so maybe I'm asking two things, but I'm I'm curious. Is is the initial is the initial report a place to put the addendum of like the the white sheet or the master sheet, so to speak,
whatever we're calling the the the huge list of all of everything that came in. Is this is this a place for that or are we going to keep it shorter? I I would think we incorporate it by reference, have it on the website and
let people know that it's there. in that uh because we're going to get more comments once history report comes out we'll get more comments so it'll be more added to it. I think if we give people a place that they can go and refer to it and look at it and
that that should be sufficient. I don't think that we want to append um 40 some odd pages of comments to the initial report. I I think people will short out and not read it.
uh Raphael and then Andy. Yeah, I agree with Bernie access to but not here and wondering Erica others if it's worthwhile like noting the data set like number of responses maybe it's too much but I
think at some point we might have to grapple with that. It's important information to share for sure. Yeah, thanks Andy. Yeah, I I agree. Um that um I think that we have the the spreadsheet that has the
the five different tabs of all the input that we got. So that can be a reference that's on the website. People can see their information there. And if they don't see it, they can um tell us, but I I hope they would see it. Um
and we can count from that the number of responses. Um I had one question about in the what is still being considered section. Erica um when you're talking about additional recommend I understand recommendations that were heard repeatedly but do not necessarily
correspond to a specific article within the charter. So we've heard a lot about transparency or we've heard a lot about um uh I don't know that's the one that comes to mind. Yeah. um additional recommendations that did not receive sufficient votes. Um
so those are ones that were on our initial list but we did not choose to put them forward because a majority of the committee or a majority of the voting members did not support them. So, are we going to get are you suggesting that we
um list all of those two somehow or or address them or what is that what does the additional recommendations that did not receive sufficient votes mean? So, I think um what I was thinking there is that that remains to be fleshed out. In other
words, there there's a set of suggestions that didn't receive enough votes and therefore they they didn't they didn't move forward in this part of the process, but that we may want to we may want to have some descriptive language around why around what that
means. So that because voting wasn't necessarily part of the um inherently part of the work that we were going to do, we decided to to do voting as part of our process for winnowing down, but we should be descriptive about what that means in the
in our reporting out of our process. like we we voted based on XYZ criteria and we felt like these this set of suggestions while worthy didn't didn't get included because whatever we I just
mean we should attend to them and it doesn't have to be necessarily one by one because some some of the suggestions we received weren't substantive enough but some were and we had we each had reasons why we didn't vote to advance
them. And so I don't mean itemize necessarily, but that we should have some descriptive language about criteria. Thank you. Yeah, I I agree. This is a great proposal, Erica. So, thank you for your work on this. Okay. Um,
it kind of goes handinhand with the other part of my proposal, which is a timeline for how to get this done. Um, but I would like to I would like to uh vote on it just in whatever way. We
can vote on them separately or together. But I can I can talk through my timeline as well. Why not you talk through your timeline and we can vote on them together just for the sake of time. Yep. Okay. This is what I'm sharing as a
proposal for the writing work plan. Um it's it's kind of accelerated. Um so some of the dates might have to be revised based on what we were talking through earlier. Um but it is still
useful to talk through it as a plan. Um so this is starting with our meeting tonight. The idea was could we in order to not try to write this as eight people in a meeting which is hard
to do uh as an example nominate two people one person from each subcommittee as an example to be in a writing work group uh and that the committee would then have to also approve an outline of what would be included in the initial report. That's what we just went through. So, if
those two things are approved, like who's who's doing it and what's included, that we have ourselves a good start. Um, I'm imagining the this is pushed back, okay, because we've added an additional meeting next week to
discuss some additional items and to incorporate Colin's feedback and everything else. A writing workg group drafts an initial report um based on that outline and distributes a draft to the committee members in advance of a of a meeting. It's not
going to be the it's probably not going to be the October 16th meeting given everything, but um at that meeting if committee members have had an opportunity to review the draft initial report and its sort of sub, you know, subsections and descriptive
uh paragraphs. Um we could conceivably discuss and vote to accept or reject the draft with some amendments or recommendations for revisions. Um, following that in short order, I think
the writing work group could incorporate any last edits from that meeting and then submit the report. Again, if these dates change, they change. But I'm also proposing as part
of this that we could then if this was on this timeline and the idea was skip a meeting and add it to the following week and potentially invite counselors. This was part of the outreach subcommittee um outreach plan for postinitial report to
invite counselors to our committee meeting with a wider invitation to the public as well to make a big push to have people come um and uh have a conversation about it. Again, dates can change, but the that's the sequence that
I want to discuss. Excellent. This seems this seems good to me. Did you still plan to nominate someone tonight or um or would we want to do that at our ne at our meeting next week? I'd love to hear feedback from everybody
else about what you know cuz our meeting took a different turn given our our discussion about adding a meeting for next week. So I would but I would love to hear thoughts on this just as a plan in general.
Yeah, again it makes you know it makes good sense the way way things unfold. Um the the devil is always is in detail and um uh but I think you know this is again in
terms of phases and process this is fine. Excellent, Raphael. And then did you have a question? Yeah, thanks again Erica. Looks great. I think in terms of like who
capacity and comfort matter. So just keeping that in mind. Yeah. Part of this process. I'm also mindful that we don't have like I like I said earlier two members are not here. So
yeah. Andy. Yeah, I like this a lot. I think, you know, we can sh we can shift the dates as needed, but um I think it would be great. I think it would if we could identify um a writing work group, then those
people could be looking at what we already have, reviewing what's come back from Collins, and then they'd be they'd probably want to wait until after next week's meeting to to really dig in. But I think um to know who to know who those
people were and to have them know who they are might be helpful. Yeah, I think this is a great plan. Um Ken, um I would um suggest maybe it's nothing that needs to
be formalized at the moment, but um with this setup of one person from each subcommittee, which I'm I'm totally fine with, um maybe a third person um that could sit obviously is going to sit on one of those committees, but um can be a third person who looks at a draft and
just as acts as a copy editor. or a proofreader um in case something's been missed just out of the um out of the creation process. It's just something I do at work. I always send my work off to somebody else who doesn't necessarily hasn't been in the in the trenches with
me and they catch things all the time. So, um that's just a suggestion as part of the part of the work group. I think Andy used that word. I I completely agree. Um, I think that it would be appropriate to
have uh to have maybe two people on the workg group and then one person who reviews it. Um, I is it do folks feel comfortable nominating tonight and voting or Raphael?
Yeah, I'd like to start with folks volunteering maybe if that's okay. But I don't know in terms of like the writing that will be a part of this group if perhaps yes I know somebody said or we talked about one person sort of doing the
editing. Maybe that could be more than one just to have people in the mix from early on collaborating on the writing and more folks involved. Sure, Erica.
Um, part of part of why I thought um and it may not work out this way is the committee is basically the the proofreading.
Okay. is the in other words in an ideal world like the committee is where the discussion and um approval or or not is going to happen and so um makes sense
I mean it of course it's just harder to do copy editing in large group but but I I think as a group I trust us to catch if we have it in advance of a meeting and not like the night before to catch
things that could be said better or that could be clarified or that could be emphasized or deemphasized in whatever way. Okay, I hear that. I'll make the motion to approve both of these um both the document you just shared as
well as our timeline. Um do I have a second? Second. Great. Um, can we vote on it or do we have additional discussion? Ken, I saw your hand up for a minute. My only Oh, sorry, Ken. Go ahead.
Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Um, I don't feel that strongly about this, Erica, but I I think it's going to be a big time consuming mess really to have a full committee try to copy it copy out of this thing. and and and as a copy editor
or a proofreader, I certainly am not suggesting that they're gonna they have like committee empowerment to say no, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. More like, hey, just be just be sure you guys thought about this or there might be
something missing here. What do you think? Not this is the way it's going to go. More of just feedback. Um I the proof reader should not take any sort of place whatsoever of the committee. Um not even remotely of that
level of of um of power or responsibility. And I I totally welcome Raphael's comment about the having a couple more people, you know, having a couple people be proof readers in this. And this doesn't have to be a formal part of the process. We don't have to I don't think we have to um
change the change the um the plan that that you've you know that that we're voting on. Um it doesn't have to be quite that formal. So we can we can move ahead with the vote. I think long long and short um the committee is going to have to vote to
accept the report to send it. So um the the more refined it gets before it gets to the committee, but all as all that would be that would be better. I have no objection to that. Neither do I. Um other comments before
we vote. one quick comment which is the need to potentially adjust dates. Um if we're going to motion and vote to approve these just to be super clear, the dates may have to be uh revised after the after the vote.
That's fine. Um myself, I'm an I. Uh Bernie, I Raphael. Yes. Erica, yes. Andy, yes. And Ken, yes. Excellent. Um, all right. Uh, I guess we
can move on to our discussion on articles 8 through 10. Um, are we going to see if anyone wants to volunteer? Oh, yes. Sorry. Yes. Um, do we have any volunteers for filling these two uh
seats? Just raise your hand on Zoom or on with your hand. I just know that I can't do it. That's fine. No problem. I I would nominate Ken. I would second that nomination.
Ken's a communication guy and he's uh Are you willing to Ken? I committ reverse right now. Sorry. He suddenly went dark. Sorry, I'm I'm not turning my uh my my cabin light on while I drive. It's going to be distracting. Absolutely.
So, I am here. You might see my glasses. You see my You see my glasses? I think so. I am here. He's in the dark. All right. Yeah, I am in the dark. It's I'm better off in the dark. Um Um Thanks. That's my son giving me some
light. Um um we actually like Is it okay for people to think about it? Sure. I think that's appropriate that can get home safely without uh us interfering. I mean, it's like having
kids. If you thought about it, you know, it might not happen. Speak for yourself, Andy. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How are you, Andy? Oh, it's good. No, it's good. Um, I appreciate you all bringing some
humor to my night. Um, all right. Uh, uh, so let's move along. Yeah. Do we have anybody from the communication? Oh, we don't. Yeah. Anybody from the communication I mean the outreach side? Let's think about it.
Well, unless Erica wants to volunteer. Sounds like Raphael's considering Erica. Erica has her hand up. Erica though there's an awkwardness to uh semivolunteering for a process that I
just proposed. But um as as far as this goes towards the initial report, I would be willing to be part of this writing workg group if the committee wants that. I'm I would feel your sounds good.
All light in Erica's all All in favor? Okay. Well, we have to we have to get kind of fall off the fence. Um, and then we can we can go forward with this, I think. But I I really do
appreciate all the work that's gone into this and that I've seen some stuff that Ken has done and some Eric has made some significant contributions and I think those two folks would be great to start this off. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I
think I mean Ken brought us the framework that the Framingham framework that's gonna shape a lot of the report. So Ken's here. I would like to motion I would like Ken to be safely at home before he
volunteers or is volunttoled to do it. Yeah, that's what it feels like a voluntto situation. Thank you, Erica. I agree. Well, he's he's driving. He may just keep going and not stop. Oh, you don't you don't know if I'm driving towards Ammerst or away from Yeah. said, "Let us know how
Pennsylvania is is speeding away from the committee." We need to put a little tracker on his car. Okay. Um I'm strongly considering it just just for the record. Oh, that's good because I can't I can't do it alone. That much I know.
I may reach out to you, Erica, just to just to bounce something off you. That sounds great. Okay. Um, so let's I guess consider our next uh agenda item, articles um 8 through 10. I believe there's just
three things to quickly clarify if we want to include or not. Um would we mind screen sharing? Uh I don't have it up. Would someone mind? What are we what are we considering? Uh just the three things that we didn't that we were in the middle of but didn't
get to vote on last night. last time. Um, in article eight and maybe one thing in article 10. What were we working from? Uh, your spreadsheet. Not the most recent one. The one the one from the
or that with the white. It should be in the packet. Yeah, it is. Somebody want to share it or Yeah, that's what I was asking. I don't have access to share it. Uh let's see.
Okay. Um I think I can share. Thanks so much. Um so we'll discuss that and then that'll probably round out our night. Um,
this was all right. What What is It was white. Um, I believe. All right. So, eight. Eight. Yes. Um, and it was a few things that we had.
Yeah, it was we were going to I believe it was in your all whites column on the spreadsheet um that we were debating whether to send to Collins or not. Um there was one about translation,
two about voter veto signatures, and I believe one more about uh I'm sorry, let me let me find the That's okay. The one that and then there was the transition provision at the end. There was one there. So total of probably five things.
Uh well there's if we look at the sheet that we're going to be considering the next meeting, we have simultaneous translation add to measures ineligible for voter veto. Delete exception of voter veto provision. Delete section on
on u measures ineligible for vote uh voter veto. and then voter veto timelines and process. So, so if we're that that's what we've got tagged as unresolved for our next meeting.
I can bring up the white. Yeah, we have nothing under article 9, nothing under article 10. Great. Great. So, here it is. Uh, we'll take So, we we could take this up now or we
could take it up next week. I think it's better. It's on the agenda anyway to take it up now and it's the last of that group of feedback. So, so this is the section 8 you're saying? Yep. I believe it's right here. Um, and
if there's Bernie just said there's nothing under 9 and 10. So, that's perfect, right? Great. Um so I guess we will we can discuss and
revote. Um so I will first I will make the motion actually just for the sake of time to include all of these in what we send to Collins. So to send all four of
these to Collins. Um do I have a second? Second. Great. Um and let's uh any discussion on the motion? Um yeah, go ahead. Why
we have so on what basis are we sending these on because they are m they received a majority of the people vote of the non-abstensions? Is that it? Correct. That's my rationale. I do also would just add that this just means
putting them in the green column and Collins hasn't reviewed uh section 8 yet at all. So, this would just be adding four things when they go through it. Um it looks like the second and the third ones in section 8 are
Oh, let's see. They're different. Okay. Yeah. Well, the the question would be around um the voter veto stuff is uh are there is there any um
what would it take to change those? Is there any rationale for changing those for one and and is there u and what would it take to change it? Would it take legislation? Would it take just a council vote? Would there be um
you do we need a special legislation or you know that's these are all areas that I'm the voter ve I'm all I'm not familiar with it at all so I I can't offer uh comments the u yes or no the simultaneous translation of all official
meetings um that strikes me as something that's not necessarily part of should can be added to the chart. I think that's something that we would in we would have to endeavor to do
uh either as a policy u or as you know change the council rules. I did some research and and this the the the uh technology right now that's available
for this is hit or miss and uh Westfield I know West got mentioned Westfield doesn't have simultaneous translation at least not they don't they don't talk about on their website they
talk about the services they offer for hearing impaired um but nothing about simultaneous uh translation. So that's that's a technology issue and a professional practice issue, not a
charter issue. So I would be feel comfortable sending the voter veto stuff to Collins asking them to comment on it. The simultaneous translation is a great idea, but to me it doesn't um it doesn't
isn't the kind of a matter that would be included in the u in the charter. Are there comments, questions? Andy, um the the last two of these are the same thing. deleting the exceptions to
the voter vehicle the voter veto provision and deleting the section on measures ineligible. Those are actually exactly the same. I was just going to say that. Um, other questions, comments, Erica,
I remember having an extensive conversation about the translation issue and I don't remember if we were just using it as an example and never arrived at a conclusion or why it's come up again because I remember we talked about it at length.
Well, right now it looks like the votes are are four yes and three no. So, correct. And we never had made a decision. Um, we discussed it as an example, but we never made a decision. Ken,
um, I recall that in the maybe it was the library the retreat that somebody thought that Westfield did it and then it was reviewed and actually Westfield doesn't do it. So, this seems like it's somewhat um somewhat of the precedent that we'd be setting.
I did call it West I did say that. I believe it was South, not Westfield that did it. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I I we could just be researching the wrong town or I could be incorrect. That's my geographic. I'll bet you five bucks South doesn't do that. Um
I mean I know the moderator in Southwick the Southwick town meeting. They don't do that. Um so uh you know it's right the the imperative right now is to be able to have um uh
translation for the hearing impaired u and that's you know that that I think is embedded in the law um translation or just amplification. No, it's you should be able to get somebody to sign.
Uh but that that that you know I think that's not a matter of the charter. That's a matter of uh either practice or general law. I'm not sure which. And I think the simultaneous translation of all official meetings
um at least to Spanish, you know, if you look at the demographics of town, it would would probably be Chinese. Um, Mandarin would be the one I just used language. Um,
I don't see that as a I don't see that as a charter issue. I see that as a constituent service issue that's technology dependent and it's a goal. Erica, um, I don't see this as a charter issue
either. However, I I feel like we went around this circle before and if it's a matter of asking of sending it on to Collins in order to get a get clarity on uh is this some is this somewhere else?
Is there some precedent for it or not? And is it is there some way to phrase it so that it is charter appropriate? Then I would just say let's just move it on. I don't think we need to debate it anymore right now. There's a big question as to whether it fits into a
charter or not. We have a difference of opinion. I personally think it does. I understand some people think it doesn't. Um, other questions before we vote. You want to take your hand down, Erica, unless you have another.
Great. Um, okay. I don't see anything else. Um, I will start with um Raphael. Yes. Um, Andy, sure. Um, Erica, yes.
Uh, myself, I'm an I. Bernie. Yes. Ken, yes. Excellent. These will all be sent to Collins. Um, sounds good. Uh, so just the pro just a process question. Are we then going to move these to the
green list or to an additional green list kind of thing? Exactly. Yep. Okay. So, um great. Thank you. Um okay, so uh we are now moving on to community
feedback on initial report. um you sort of sorry just one more clarification before we do that because the last two are dup duplicative I'm suggesting that we would just do the first three delete the exceptions would be the one for the voter for the
so just say delete exceptions once not remove it but just say it once absolutely okay um okay uh I'm just for the sake of clarity I'm skipping over the open meeting law reminder um and uh The last
item on our agenda is community feedback on the initial report. Um Erica, you discussed this a little in the outreach update. Um if this agenda item is about uh what we're going to be doing with the initial report, then yes, we did discuss it.
Exactly. Great. Perfect. Um topics not anticipated and future agenda planning. I know I already sent an email to Meg um and Marcus asking if next Thursday at 7:00 p.m. works. Um and I've asked Athena if she will be able to post that
or not. Um and I'll let you all know when uh they all get back to me and I'll post the meeting um if that works and other we know what will be on that agenda. So other topics um before we adjourn
no new topics if you could just follow up somehow about if you if you do get in touch with the tech support that's required for the the Absolutely. I have some free time tomorrow so I'll head to Staples and maybe something will happen.
You may want to talk to our IT director. Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Um I can do that as well. uh he's got a number of tricks up his sleeve. Um just to go back to the open meeting reminder, it would be interesting. It's you may be interested
in reading through that because of among other things, it defines what a public body is. Yes. Um I just figured include it. It might be helpful. Um do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion.
Second. Great. Um, myself, I'm an I. Uh, Bernie, yes. Raphael, yes. Andy, yes. Erica, yes. Hen, yes. All right, have a great night, everybody. Thank you. Bye.
Bye. Bye. Five.