##VIDEO ID:xZgO-EOZkUw## thank you we're recording please go ahead thank you uh good evening it's January 27th 2025 and this is a regular meeting of the Town Council the open meeting law allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at the meeting location while providing the public with adequate access to the meeting this meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom by by phone and as a live broadcast on amoris media channel 9 and live stream there are in fact 10 counselors in the room at the in town hall given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the January 27th regular Town council meeting to order at 6:31 I will call on each counselor by the name they have indicated they would like to be addressed and at that time please unmute your mic and say present and this will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us Patti Angelus present Anna Del goth present counselor ET present counselor ET you need to unmute present I can't hear you why don't you work on your sound and just wave and say and I'll agree your present okay thank you uh Lyn grimer is present councelor hanii present Bob hegner present councelor Lord is not present at this time Pam roone here councelor Ryan pres Kathy Shane here Andy Steinberg present Jennifer to here councelor Walker not present at this time there is no can we check in with councelor ET to make sure that we can hear him yes councelor have you figured out your sound yet can you hear me okay now can we let's take a moment and see if we can clue him in now T might have to go to the audio portion of the he's chosen to log in again yeah we had a problem with this the other day too all right since we'll come back to this before we move on but um there's no chat room for this meeting if you have technical issues please let Athena and me know to make a comment please use the ra raised hand button and if technical issues arise uh we will will figure out what to do at that time okay counselor ET can you hear us yes can you hear me you can hear us but can we hear you no okay um anybody want to yeah uh councelor please send me a message I can walk you through looking at your audio settings okay during the evening there will be one general public comment period the order order of the agenda is Al altered item seven the discussion item regarding the town manager's goals will take place after item nine and the executive session that was scheduled is has been postponed to another time um we'll just quickly look at the announcements and uh there may actually be some uh additional committee meetings that have been scheduled since this was published um first of all we meet as a council on the February 4th for a retreat at 6 o'clock in this room we meet with the um four towns on February 8th at the middle school at 9:00 and we meet in this room for Fe on February 10th for a regular Town Council meeting and public forum um CRC is continuing their hearing on University Drive on January 28th at 6:30 that will also be the reorganization of that committee uh where they elect a chair and vice chair finance committee is meeting on February 4th at 2 o' correctly correct okay um do we have a time for go yet no and do we have a time for TSL no I believe we just have CRC and finance committee right now okay thank you um there's no hearing um so we're going to move to directly to public comment anyone wishing to speak who is in the town room if you have not signed up please do so with Athena if you're on zoom and you would like to speak please raise your hand at this time Athena how many people have signed up for public comment three okay there are none in the audience on Zoom so let's proceed with the three people in the room and let me just mention that Public public comment are on matters within the jurisdiction of the Town Council residents are welcome to express their views for up to two three 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 count will'll recognize speakers in the order in which they signed up Athena first one um can we pause just a minute to see if we can resolve the issue with councelor ET councelor ET can you try to speak again yes can you hear me yes yes thank you fix it thank you thanks for your persistence okay okay Genie Horgan please come up good evening my name is Jean haran and I'm speak more into the mic just pull it closer to you good evening my name is Jean Horan and I'm a resident of Precinct 3 and the current chair the Council on Aging last year the town manager allocated $2.5 million of arpa money to be used to upgrade the bangs in the senior center my understanding is that most of this money will be spent on bringing the building up to code to make it safe for all if there are monies left over after contracts have been awarded I urge the Town Council and town manager to put those monies towards putting the senior services operation all on one floor with contiguous space it will make a huge difference to make the senior services more accessible easier to navigate and allow for greater engagement among participants and staff I think we're all in agreement that our current faciliity is inadequate it's not nearly big enough considering the number of seniors in town we lack in Basics such as exercise facility a Kitchen Cafe and dance studio among a host of other things we know that it'll be a long time before the town will be able to build a new senior center in the meantime we need to make the most of this once in a lifetime opportunity to get as many upgrades completed as possible construction costs are only going to go up please help Senior Services take a giant step forward by consolidating their space to one floor thank you on behalf of the seniors in town thank you for joining us Jean Don Ripley uh good evening respected members of the ammer Town Council and town government uh we really appreciate your public service is very much appreciated my name's Don rip point of information or personal privilege can you just speak closer to the mic thanks I could yell too if you like I really I'm good at that I'm currently I'm a resident of ammer residing in 11 wildfower drive and also a member of the Council on Aging I've come tonight asking you to increase the senior center funding to provide for a full-time driver for our uh silver shuttle program currently a part-time driver is paid for using arpa funds which will expire this year as with many programs the staff does amazing work with minimal resources in the year and a half since the Inception of the program which was originally funded by a grant they provided 1356 rides which includes basic Transportation uh to the senior center rides to medical appointments and some field trips more than 50% of the rides provided are for medical appointments in addition to providing access to the programs at the center for the older residents otherwise unable to leave home it provides another set of eyes for the staff who assess well-being and thus offer Support Services to our seniors in a preemptive manner full-time transportation service could increase the number of rides by over 40% um we have we have the wheelchair accessible van already which was donated by the friends of the ammer senior center the cost of providing a five day week Service uh to expand and maintain the current service is approximately $50,000 as a budget line item in total these helps us expand our Outreach to a very deserving and often forgotten citizenry and amors they deserve our attention respect and our resources thank you very much thank you for joining us done Vel Conor um I'm Vincent o Conor the 175 Summer Street Apartment 12 here to talk about um issues involving the police department and the all the various federal agencies that have been dragoned into becoming uh agents of the homeland security for the purposes of rounding it up I think in this District it's 75 people per day to make the numbers look good and there are three situ four situations actually that I want to just briefly bring before you first is one where there is a town policy if the federal authorities whoever it's going to be um have a warrant signed by a judge my understanding is the town takes the position that that's their business the town will not participate nor will its officers the the next three are more problematic um on the back of the know your rights there a copy of a Homeland Security detainer and that slip allows the authorities to go to somebody's home or workplace um but doesn't require that the individuals in the workplace or the people in the home have any obligation to open the door speak to them or whatever that only occurs with a Judicial warrant and you should have something in writing as should the police department from your Town Council about that and with regard to feds with detainers for individuals um my understanding is that that's also a situation where the policy of the town is that the police department is not to participate however if there are attempts by the federal authorities to break and Enter to make threats that constitute um dangerous activity they have a right to go there and prevent the federal authorities from engaging in such activities and to explain to them what the limits of the law are in Massachusetts the second issue is federal authorities taking into custody people who are citizens as happened in New Jersey last Thursday or Friday and in that situation I think some modus vendi has to be worked out between the town authorities and the FEDS to make sure that no citizen is taken from this town by federal authorities out of this town third um are federal authorities and schools with again only detainers if they have a a Judicial warrant it's probably not appropriate to serve it in the school but I would just um they this is something would have to be worked out with this school administration but if you just if the federal authorities just have detainers similar to the one on the back of this know your rights pamphlet they do not have the right to walk about the school to knock on the doors of classrooms and demand to be allowed in and the police department should if necessary um take whatever action is necessary to to keep the federal authorities within the boundaries of their proper activities and proper activities do not include we need you to wrap up yeah breaking down doors in classrooms to enter and to inquire of students who are in there so those are three things it's it's really important that those these kind of things be addressed in writing by the Town Council both for those of you who sit on the council as well as for every member of the police department thank you thank you for joining us Spence um that concludes public comment um there was somebody who walked in a little bit later did you plan to make public comment if you plan to make public comment you need to let us know immediately um Alicia can you hear us yes I can thank you Lynn thank you so much for confirming that come on up Angelica Bernal come thank you good evening uh sorry for lateness uh getting kids T food on the table so it always takes a bit so I just wanted to make public the comment on um the school uh budget situation so I I can I'm here tonight as a parent of two School two children in the school district to urge you to help us avert devastating Cuts in our schools um if these deficits remain our school district as you know stands to eliminate many many positions but I want to tell you the reality of what all this means to my children and their classmates my son is in the special needs student currently in Wildwood's intensive Learning Center he and five other classmates will be moving to the middle school next year at this time they have no teacher the clock is ticking and they need to fill this position quickly but what hampers this stability how can we properly attract a teacher when the trend in erses Cuts year after year special education teachers are in high demand and are increasingly lured away from public education by private ABA firms they offer competitive salaries tuition reimbursements to support Master's programs and great benefits as we stand we can't cut it in a climate where most teachers will ask why would I want to go to a district without competitive salary and no job security my daughter is in the comand days program at Fort River and the same situation applies to her she's in third grade but we look to expand this jeel of a program into the middle school but how can we attract teachers in this kind of environment of complete fiscal chaos and uncertainty I think you know now from the parents that have spoken at countless Town Council and school meetings that our schools are really in crisis we remain a growing community and yet we are bursting at the seams to support students properly we pay high property taxes here our schools are in Decline and where's our money going how can this be we keep asking and advocating and scratching ing our heads as parents to figure out what to do but the reality is we're looking to you as our elective officials for some solutions we need more funding and more investments in our schools not less when support for public education is in Decline nationally and the messaging from our new federal government is to devalue public education I think as a town we need to stand up and do otherwise thank you for your time oh Angelica Bernal District 2 thank you Angelica that concludes public comment we are going to move to the consent agenda uh the following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect they would pass with no controversy to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting ask that it be removed after I've listed them and make the initial motion um it's to move the following items in the printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit W waiver of Town Council rules 8.6 for agenda item 6. a 2 2025 Black History Month Proclamation 6A adoption of 2025 Black History Month Proclamation and 11 approval of minutes December 16th 2024 regular meeting December I mean January 13th 2025 public forum on on Appropriations outside the budget and C January 13 2025 regular meeting are there any items that people would like removed seeing no hands is there a second second deangeles thank you um we'll begin with the vote in this case an Anna Devin gothier I uh councelor ET hi then grimer and I councelor hanii hi Bob hegner hi councelor Lord oh I'm sorry she's absent um uh pamone yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes paty Angeles hi okay uh with that we're going to move on we're skipping item seven until later and we're going to move on to the actual resolutions I'm sorry we're going to move to the resolution and I've asked Alicia to read the last paragraph of the 2025 Black History Month Proclamation um thank you Lynn now therefore we the Town Council of the town of ammer do hereby proclaim the month of February in the year of 2025 as Black History Month and urge all residents to mark this occasion and to participate fittingly in its observance beginning with a flag raising ceremony on February 1st 202 with celebrations and recognition and recognition throughout the month thank you uh we're going to move on to action items action item number eight is a sanctuary Community bylaw data resident request response Paul did you want to speak to this yes thank you so under our um bylaw any res the group of residents can submit a request for in this specific information and the information is to be presented to the council ansers to the questions which is what you have in front of you okay but no action is required no action is required by the council okay are there any questions okay I'm seeing none we're going to move on I'm sorry yes did you have a question okay Pam go ahead sure it's um I wonder if I appreciated the fact that this memo came uh to us to ask what the status was um and given the previous speaker tonight during Town comment could you update us a little bit while we're on this topic on what the town any particular steps that the town government is taking um to protect citizen rights in ammer that's a really general question no it it's uh thank you for the question it's a it's an important question we and we've talked regularly uh especially since the first of the year with our police chief um and he has had I I think he has had conversations with the superintendent of schools because they were going to be on we want them to be all on the same page um there have been incidents in other cities where um agents have shown up at schools and uh we have sort of video of how how that has been handled appr LLY we want to mirror that and make sure the people who are on the front lines of those departments are able to um handle those same kinds of requests um you know I had the opportunity just a very brief passing comment to um mention um the situation with the governor um over the weekend and you know she and thanked her for her support on on these initiatives and um so I think that uh we're in a pretty good shape but we do anticipate there'll be some kind of something will happen along the way but we're we're as prepared I think Mr OK Conor s summarize where we are on this as well as as um anybody could Pam just to follow up on that um I would actually appreciate getting some kind of a workshop or training or something just to just to educate us as counselors if our if our uh constituents come to us and say what do we do for help I would I would want to know know exactly who to point them to and and where to go first sure I can work on something like that I just also I want to mention Our Town attorney is is participating with other attorneys from other Sanctuary communities to make sure they're sharing information um amongst the different cities who are in towns who are considered themselves Sanctuary communities um but I'll look into getting some kind of educational material for the council any other questions on this see none we're going to move on to appointments the town manager has no appointments in your um packet tonight is the memo that you all received with the appointments for the standing committees of the council um and so with that we'll move on to the other item yes Anna you had your hand up please had a comment on these would now be an appropriate time sure say that all right right with all that said I lost my email where I pulled it up so I was a bit surprised when I saw the um hang on let me just type and not try to type and talk because I just wrot surprised into my search bar so this is a the text of an email that I had sent to Lynn that I stated I was going to make State at the council meeting for context when I received Lyn's email asking for committee preferences it read please list your top three preferences which I did and in my email I also said I'd love to only be appointed to one committee but you asked her through preferences so I'm giving you three preferences so this is what I had written and I'd like to State it now um I'm frustrated that counselors engage in this process in different ways which to me seems to lead to a strategic way of gaming the system we were clearly asked to list our top three choices most of us did so even if we only really wanted one committee if I were to only list my sole Top Choice does that mean I am promised a spot it seems from this updated list the counselors who did not put three choices are guaranteed to get their first choice in all four instances this is true I find it unacceptable for the counil to not engage in the process in a uniform Manner and would encourage you to not complete committee assignments until they have done so had I known this would be an effective strategy I would have only put down a one for finance and not listed any other committees I fact that making committee appointments is a challenging part of the role of President and I appreciate you even asking for preferences but to privilege those who do not respect the processes you requested it to be conducted is in my mind unacceptable and unjust to those who did engage fully I ask that you please resend these appointments and not make new appointments until you are provided a full picture of preferences three from each counselor or unless we are allowed to resubmit our preferences with an option to select our top one to three choices part of the reason why this is so frustrating to me in addition to what I said there is there are committee appointments that we're making today to budget coordinating group jcpc I had stated in my initial preferences email that I wanted one committee um so that I couldn't have significant time to dedicate to serving hopefully on one of those other ones now I'm concerned that I'm going to request to be on those committees because I would like to be and because I think I do good work when I've been on them and I'm going to be stretched extremely thin because I was placed on two committees despite requesting one which is understandable I submitted my top three so I'm frustrated that I didn't get a reply to this but I'm frustrated that there was no reinforcement of submit three or submit one to three it can't go both ways and this this list of committee appointments absolutely privileged those who put just one or two and maybe that was their strategy and commend you on figuring out a strategy I didn't know about but it is absolutely not fair to the rest of us um for the for the president to go with that and accept it and not say no I'm not taking this until you submit all three so either we need to redo the process and only and say just one through three or we need to not accept them until they're given three of them okay Alicia um thank you Len is it okay if I respond to anest comment please uh thank you so I'm going to speak for myself because I'm not sure if there are any other counselors who didn't put their top three choices but I know that I did not um and so I want to one speak to why I did that and why I have done that in the past and to also respond to how the president handled that with me um and I want to say that I did only put one committee on my preference form um and that is because that is the only committee I would like to serve on um and I did also send a message to Lynn letting her know that I do not wish to tie her hands with this decision that I would respect if I was placed on no committee at all but that this is the only committee because of my time constraint and my personal interest and what I hope to do with my future that I would like to serve on and would make time to serve on at this time um and that I will respect whatever decision the president makes knowing that I might not get that choice um and Lynn did respond and asked me to resubmit my three choices um and did try to place me on a different committee other than the one that I chose um so I do just want to say that in response to some of the things that you have said um just to be fully transparent about what happened between Lynn and I at least I don't know what happened with other counselors but in that decision-making process Anna did you have some further comment yeah Alicia I appreciate that explanation you were not the only one there were four people who did that and to be honest Alicia I said something really similar in my email about only wanting one committee due to time constraints um I didn't specify as the parts that you talked about in terms of interests but uh and I respect that you did and I think that that's absolutely a fair thing to email but I shouldn't have to necessarily so um for me that's that's where my frustration is coming through is is where you weren't the only one um there were there were I think four folks who who did this and um again I'm not necessarily faulting folks although I wish people would do one to three but um there was no formal way to say how many committees we wanted I included that in my email as did you um I was placed on two I wanted one as well um but that's the way that that that panned out so I'm absolutely not calling out the counselors I'm actually calling out the process by the way the process goes was conducted and thank you okay are there any other comments on appointments yes I'm concerned about my capacity to serve on two committees and I'd like to be placed on one please uh would you communicate to me which one you would like to drop and then I will leave that up to you I mean I indicated my my preferences here I think I I what I had initially stated was I'd like to be placed on one standing Town Council committee so that I can seek a spot on one of the council appointed committees Anna I will make that adjustment at your request thank you um and I'll try to settle this all up by the end of the day tomorrow so that we have no more uh confusion on committees uh we're going to go on to the other and while I place the item in the um packet often people change their minds once they see uh who else is interested uh either they want to add their name or they don't they don't so the first one is the budget coordinating group and on the in the packet you will see the people who have served in the last year and you will see the people who have expressed interest in the coming year during this past year we have had four people yes I don't remember expressing interest specifically so how would you have known what we were that's why I didn't so now let me finish so before we go any further we want I want to make sure that we understand who all either has said or now wants to make sure that they have said they are interested in the budget coordinating group okay so the people that did say they were interested was Mandy Joe hanii Andy Steinberg Lyn grimer holla Lord George Ryan Anna Devin gothier and Bob hegner are there other counselors that are interested in BCG George like to remove my name okay are there other counselors that would like to either remove their name or have their name added can you read the list again yes Mandy joh hanii Andy Steinberg Patti Angelus I'm sorry no Lynn grimer holla Lord Anna Devon gothier and Bob hegner okay and last year we had four there is no restriction on this except that no more than two can come from the finance committee and the people who are here who are on the finance committee are Mandy Joe hanii Andy Steinberg and Bob hegner yes Mandy Joe a clarification of what you just stated no more than two can come from finance committee unless Le more than three are appointed according to the charge so if you appoint if the council names four or five or six right more than two Finance can be on I think that that would be correct I'm trying to go by our rules that is the charge and the rules all right so there are six counselors um do we have people who would like to make statements if so let's begin M uh councelor hanii okay Anna I've been interested in budget coordinating group for a little while and last year I um agreed to remove my name from BCG and instead put it on jcpc and the reason why going to MMA or what was it called connect 351 um sorry going to the Massachusetts Municipal Association conference this weekend titled connect 351 uh there was a really interesting session that I think like 20 of us were in somehow um on school funding and one of the things that they talked about in that session was the success of a particular town in convening these the different bodies and essentially having their own version of of BCG as well as having full meetings of those bodies um for us that would be the schools the library the council for them it was the schools uh their select board the school committee and their finance committee uh I believe that BCG has a much more important role to play than it has been utilized for in the past few years and part of the reason why I really would like to be on BCG is that we're looking at some pretty hard years and I think that we need to have increased communication I think we need more meetings at BCG I'm not saying I can guarantee that as a member of BCG but uh part of what I think this committee needs to do is really be strategic in addressing these issues that we're looking at down the road um and that that session reinvigorated my desire to be on BCG uh so roundabout way of I would appreciate support for my serving on BCG this year are there any other counselors who would like to make comments so the question is there are six people interested do we want to go with all six I'm sorry an option I don't see why it's not does anybody see that it's not an option we only usually have four we usually had three then last year we had four um yes aren't there more than three finance committee yes but if we go beyond three it can have more than two three finance committee it can have more than two finance committee the only finance committee are hegner uh hanii and Steinberg right Kathy didn't ask for it no all right thoughts do I clarify oh Mandy's hand sorry sorry yes councelor hanii um I would worry that the other elected bodies would um believe we are putting in a show of force that is unnecessarily um non-cooperative if we named six people okay they they seemed okay with four last year but I I we need we need a spirit of collaboration okay that I think naming nearly a quorum of the council to this body would not engender okay Anna comments Mandy said what I was going to say okay then uh I'm trying to figure out do we go do we just rank Athena we could ask people to rank their choices I don't have a tally sheet ready for that I mean that's a complicated way of doing it you can ask for a motion to um appoint all of the counselors who listed or you could do one at a time there's some hands up you have your hand up yes um you know I've been on budget coordinat group for more years because I was involved in the original finance committee that established a BCG and uh in my role in the finance committee in the select board I had uh numerous opportunities I'm willing to um seed the position even though I'm very interested because I think that the history of the be ccg is something that we should bear in mind and U I was very interested in that comments that we received from that uh one town manager who talked about their version of the budget coordinating group because actually it was much more uh in line with what our original ECG was when it was created in and we created it for the very reasons that he spoke to which is town meeting form of government and uh it also had a traditional piece where each of the uh budgeting authorities gave a presentation near the beginning of meetings regarding what the budget realities were for each of their segments of government and there was a more of a sharing than I have seen in the budget coordinating group since the council was formed um I think that one of the things that uh no matter who ends up on it needs to be committed to is trying to work together as a committee to Envision what the role is and um be creative in determining the role because I do think that the role has evolved from its original um uh design for the reasons that I've stated is something that we kind of uh use it as a um I think for more limited opportunities than is there so regardless of the decision made um I won't be um hurt if the decision is he done some many years we don't need them anymore uh it's time to move forward that's okay I mean that's a realistic decision to make but I do encourage that the U budget coordinating group as a whole under the leadership of whoever comes from this room um think very carefully about what BCG was at the beginning uh what the intent was what the intent was that was in the charter commission for putting it into the charter uh what their expectations were and how it is evolved and how it should go okay Bob hegner yeah I'll take name off will BCG so at this point then that includes councelor hanaki Andy Steinberg Lyn grimer holl Lord and Anna Devin gothier am I correct that's still five did did I misunderstand Andy's comment yeah I'm trying to decide I what I said was that U if the decision of the group is that it's time to move on that I totally understand and uh I my feelings will not be hurt and I don't want you to make decisions based upon uh what you might perceive as my concern I okay offered stay in because of contribution of the history uh that I've had with the budget coordinating group and uh um how it evolved I was in the original discussion to create it from the very beginning but that's not necessarily a reason for you to continue and U think I just encourage the group to make what it determines to be the best choice George Ryan so that's actually the reason why I would very much like to see councilor Steinberg serve on this body but that's my own personal feeling I'm wondering if just to proceed we can agree either by Vote or by consensus that we want four members on this body and that's what I'm hearing but that may just be me if that's the case then we would go to a vote and we would just list our four candidates and the the four who have the highest totals would be on um that is what certainly what we may end up doing but is is that sense that four is the number people are most comfortable with given the previous arguments that we don't want to I'm yeah yes I'm hearing that people are uncomfortable if we go to Five Pam Rooney you have your hand up that's exactly the question I was going to ask what uh what do the other groups uh typically bring to the table usually two just two each so we're agnostic presumably we're not advocating specifically for school or Library we are advocating for the town in a balanced budget so I don't I I think I would still support poor people that seems okay to me so it sounds as if we greeing that four is an okay number uh we still are have the number up Kathy you have your hand up yeah I was just I I think what George said but I couldn't hear it completely clearly was if we have five let's vote on them because I also think it's really important that anyone who is going to be part of this stares at those budget numbers and comes very well informed to the table just you know so um and has time so Andy I would Advocate you not pulling yourself off the list right now because you stare at the budget numbers all the time so I just think it's an important this year in particular having some sense of dollars is important dollars everywhere not just dollars in any one of those so at this point with five we have councelor hanii Andy Steinberg Lynn grimer coun answer Lord and Anna devil and Goth here if we want to go to four then we should just do a ranking name your top four I'm I'm working on a tally sheet I can have this in just a second oh I'm sorry Pat go ahead George your hand is up okay yes Pat I um believe Heather served on it in this last year Hala I'm sorry yes I first met her as Heather um and Hala is the one person of color in this list and I would like to see her retained okay and she is not able to be with us tonight to speak on her behalf so I think we're going to move to ital and the consensus seems that we should stick to four okay are you sending I all something no I'm setting it up now so you're going to say you're your top four sure okay um no I'm just going to go through and you can say your top four you're gonna call on counselors and I'll tell Elicia you have your hand up yes sorry I'm hoping you can repeat um the counsel who decided to keep their name in yes they are councelor hanii Andy Steinberg Lynn grimer counselor Lord Anna Devin gothier okay okay Alicia is there any further questions yes sorry I just have one other process question um do you need us all to pick four or if I have less than four can I do that or do you need me to say my top four you know given the most recent comments from Anna Devin goth here I would suggest you pick four are we ready yep are we on councelor E I believe we are councelor who are your four candidates is it possible to pass at the moment I'm still thank you councelor hanii Andy Steinberg Lynn grimer Anna Devin gothan okay Mandy that's four names yes councelor hanii councilors haniki Reeser Steinberg and Devin gothier thank you councelor hner this is very difficult yeah cancel heni uh Andy Steinberg Lyn Grier and Anna okay councelor Lord is absent councelor Rooney Steinberg grimer hanaki Anna okay councelor Ryan councilors hanaki Steinberg Grier Anna Devin got councelor Shane yeah you'll have to excuse me because I don't know which ones are councelor so I'll do Andy Lynn Mandy and Anna that works uh councelor Steinberg yes I'm in the um counselor hanaki grimer Lord and de C here okay councelor tub uh councelor Steinberg haniki gmer and Devin gothier councelor Walker um I also agree that this is a tough decision um I think anyone would be great and I'm going to go with Anna holla um Mandy Joe and Lynn uh Council d'angeles um I'm going to go with um holla Lynn um Anna and Andy councelor Devin gothier Lynn Anna holla Mandy councelor councelor Steinberg councelor Han councelor gisma councelor dein got okay thank you everyone here are the results and we're going to place that in a motion open okay so I am going to make a motion to appoint counselor hanii Steinberg grimer and delin gothier to the budget coordinating group effective immediately for a term to expire January 6 2025 I seek a second second second okay then we move to oh I'm sorry I apologize okay so uh the motion's been made it's been seconded we'll move to a vote um grimer is an i hany i Bob Hegman I uh Lord's absent yes Pam Rooney I I'm sorry uh George Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer Tob yes ala Walker no Patti Angelus hi Anna Devin gothier hi Council rete hi the votes 11 in favor one opposed and one absent okay the next is jcpc the people who have submitted names this is not exclusive of other people submitting their names are Kathy Shane uh Lynn grimer who is respectfully withdrawing her name uh Hala Lord George Ryan Anna Devin gothier and Bob hegner this is for jcpc okay does anybody like to would anybody like to make comments at this time yes sure Kathy Shane holla Lord George Ryan Anna Devin gothier and Bob hegner Anna you have your hand up yeah thank you last year uh I removed my name from BCG and Hala removed hers from jcpc and this year although she is not here I'm going to remove my name from this and encourage folks to support her uh in this in this um on this committee okay uh Kathy you have your hand up uh yeah I I just have a question because I didn't pay attention when you put the information out are people aware the jcpc meets every week for about six weeks correct yeah for about six weeks it last last time we needed a full two months it hasn't been set it's only set once people are point right we don't have a time yet so because we have two from schools and two from library so we've got to find a time slot that works for everyone and the both the school and the library have not had the same people in the last two years so you can't assume that whatever slot that worked for the other two people will work for this year's two people so I don't know who those are Lynn y I hear you uh but the library completely changed it was two brand and new people um and actually schooled the same thing to people who hadn't been on it before right okay so at this point the the list is Kathy Shane Hala Lord call uh George Ryan and Bob hegner and we appoint three and two have to be in finance only two can come from Finance which is not a problem in this case so no yes two of whom shall be on finance committee three town counselors two of whom shall be on finance Ah that's the way the rules rules unless I'm reading the wrong thing that's what the committee charge says seven voting members two school committee two Library three town counselor so then in that case hegner and Shane both have to be on and the choice then is between Ryan and holla Lord correct am I correct okay um I hate that holla is not here because was her own thoughts um but we need to get this committee appointed we can't wait any longer um all right I'm sorry who is their hand up all right let's um do the same thing we did before except we have to put both Shane and hegner on no she's not no so it's really between George and tala it's a tough choice I'm sorry should we do do you want me to do the tally yeah okay councelor Han George Ryan councelor hegner um councelor Lord councelor Rooney councelor Lord councelor Ryan Ryan councelor Shane Ryan councelor Steinberg Lord councelor tub Lord councelor Walker councelor Lord councelor d'angelus George counselor delin gothier councelor Lord councelor councelor Ryan and and councelor grimer 65 and we have four okay I'm voting for Ryan so it's a tie George I withraw my name all right so the motion for uh jcpc is as follows um to appoint counselors Shane Lord and hegner to the Joint Capital planning committee effective immediately for terms to expire January 6th 2025 is there a second second right okay um then we begin the vote and councelor hanii no Bob hegner hi councelor Lord is absent pamaron yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane abstain Stein Andy Steinberg I Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Patty Angeles hi Anna deblin Gotham hi town ET I councelor grimer is an I councelor hanii we've done okay so it is 11 no it's 10 in favor one opposed one exstension and one absent got it yes okay all right so now we go on to the next area um and first of all let me just on the four towns meeting as we have often um sorry point of order the appointment for the jcpc the term expires January 6 2026 not 2025 just a correct thank you hey by the way the earlier ones also were 2026 for BCG a little fact checking going on back here in the audience B BCG is just for 2025 oh so it expires in 20 year it's 2026 okay okay the representatives to speak on behalf of the council at the four towns meeting to authorize the Town Council president and chair of the finance committee to speak on behalf of the Town Council at the 2024 for towns meetings is there a second I'm sorry 2025 okay is there a second motion fails for lack of a second second second okay second Mandy Joe do you have your hand up and I I was going to mention that you mentioned me in this go ahead so I actually having thought about this believe it is a mistake to quote well to authorize someone to quote two people to quote speak on behalf of the Town Council end quote at these meetings um we as a council tend not to vote on any positions before we go to these meetings um we have Financial guidelines that everyone can read um we speak during these breakout sessions at these meetings but we don't take any positions at those breakout sessions and the person that summarizes them should not be seen as speaking on quote behalf of the council and so I think given given some of the things that have happened and been said as summary after these meetings to actually vote as a council to designate two people to speak on behalf of us when we don't actually take positions regarding what is discussed at these meetings prior to the meetings a lot of times because we don't know what's going to be discussed at the meetings not that we're not doing our job but we're literally presented with the information that morning and are asked to talk about our thoughts on it but if we've designated formally designated two people to speak on behalf of that could be seen as adopting positions when we haven't actually adopted positions so this is a motion I will be voting against okay um are there any other comments at this time um I okay I'm going to call on you in a moment but Jennifer um I guess I'm asking for some clarification I was thought that when a counselor spoke on behalf of the council at a four towns meeting there had been some agreement about the gist of what would be said that it wasn't just that person's personal remarks is that correct having been the person who has often spoken as his Andy what I I've tried to do is summarize what has been said when we have that little caucus which sometimes we have a quorum of the council there sometimes we don't I mean I totally understand councelor hani's point and uh so it's um anyway I totally understand the point of the and and having said that and then summarizing periodically after that different counselors will make additional comments and that's also fine so yeah no I don't um disagree with councelor hanii either I just was my impression yeah that that's it wasn't so much speaking for the council as somebody had to speak and and and give it summary of what had been said during the breakout it's really a summary but the way the motion is written it sounds as if we've taken a vote and that's what the concern is uh George Ryan councelor Ryan so if we don't appoint someone officially then and we have a four towns meeting and we then have our little caucus I take it at the caucus someone will be appointed to summarize our comments is that how it's going to play out I mean I'm not against that I'm just wondering what in the past it's nice to know that X is going to be the person who's gonna but if X is not there then we're gonna have to find somebody else um and we don't know who's going to be there sometimes and things happen um so I'm kind of wondering what's the point of even formally appointing someone um at this point I I I guess I'm struggling other than just we know X is going to be the spokesperson but that could easily be handled at the moment Bob hegner my experience with for towns meeting has been that we need to be very careful about what we say because things can be misinterpreted they can be taken out of context so whoever does speak on you know for ammer uh has to really hedge what they say um as I've spoken a couple of times as the chair of the finance committee and I can only say this is what our you know interim budget guidelines you know State and we don't know what our final budget's going to be we won't know that until June so or you know May so one has to be very careful so just bear that in mind whomever we choose if we choose someone that we need to uh make sure we choose someone who can be you know thoughtful in terms of what they say Andy I'm sorry I skipped over you I apologize for that okay I think I'm inclined to go with POS with the suggestion that we not appoint anyone now and that that decision as to who speaks can be made at the for towns meeting at the conclusion of the caucus um somebody who is uh and I think at that point we will judge who has been a good spokesperson for the day during the discussion and who we have confidence can carry through I uh wonder if we would be better off not making a designation in advance um are there any other comments if yes Pat I'm just wondering I was listening to Andy's comment and I'm wondering doesn't that take it could take up a lot of time to decide who that person is at the meeting and that feels kind of awkward or I don't know I'm comfortable with it okay Pam point of order so withdraw the motion okay thank you and I'll ask that the person that seconded it would agree to withdraw I agree okay thank you uh the next thing that we're I do want to just note and thank our continued uh counselors who have been on the elementary school building committee clearly this has been a banner year Kathy and Alicia and also the Jones Library building even today another 2our and 15 minute meeting yes thank you Pam so much okay so now we come to DPW and Fire EMS station uh the people that have expressed interest are Andy Steinberg Kathy Shane Patti Angeles Lynn grimer holla Lord Pam Rooney and Anna Delan gothier Pat you have your hand up okay uh councelor hanii you have your hand up I mean I I will say I struggle with this I am interested yet at the same time we haven't seen a charge we don't know how many counselors will be designated we don't know what the charge says we don't know what the time frame of the charge is so how can I pick people or how can I even express interest myself when I don't have any parameters to base my interest on at all I think this motion or this designation is completely premature until a charge has actually been adopted by the manager and provided us Anna comment completely agree I think I don't understand why we're doing this tonight without a charge and why not wait until we have a charge and then vote once we see what that charge is or charges depending on how it shakes out I I won't support bringing this motion forward okay Andy and I was actually going to ask to withdraw for the very reasons so we talked about I don't uh feel comfortable being being selected for a position that hasn't been defined yet okay George I agree it's premature I would ask that it be withdrawn okay then I will uh the motion never never was made so we're going to pass this one off withdraw the idea okay and let me just mention on the issue of uh leasons I did not collect people's interests because go first of all has to decide decide which committees we going to do liaison to and one of the things that I would just like to mention with regard to that is ask yourself not which committees want to have Liaisons but which committees do we feel should have liaison okay uh Kathy um I just to the topic that we quickly took off the table which I'm fine with the DPW fire committee I do hope that Paul would get us a charge sooner rather than later so it could start meeting and secondly my experience on the elementary school building committee which I will admit is the only one I've ever been on is that to the extent possible and it's very it's very uh structured in terms of slots because the school building authority says you've got to have one of these and two of those and some others but I would have really hoped to have an engineer an architect you know some people because these are these are buildings you know so Paul Paul will have to create this out of whole cloth where msba said superintendent of schools a principal a facilities P you know we had a 13 member committee with without designated but I think this the skill set from this is is going to be important okay um so let me just summarize we have appointed people to BCG we've appointed people counselors I'm sorry we have appointed counselors who are people to BCG we have appointed counselors who are people to jcpc we have decided that on the day of four towns meetings there will be a discussion and then an agreement upon who will speak to summarize carefully summarize and then the uh we've decided to delay uh recommending to the town manager members for DPW and fire and EMS okay with that we are now going to uh take a break I think it's better time to take one now than later so let's take a 10minute break come back at quarter of eight and at that point we are going to dive into the town manager goals five minute of it five minutes of eight is that what I said a quar of we're taking a break now we will reconvene at 7:55 thank you please turn your mics off and your picture and turn them back on when you return e yeah for like tip to e e e e e e e e e e e the crap e e e this is your one minute warning yeah that's exactly what you said I think you see that from other town oh yeah you do we are going to reconvene please turn your videos back on do not turn your sound back on counselor Walker are you there yes I am thank you Lynn thank you uh counselor ete are you there yes I am thank you all right before later on in the meeting I do want to ask people to summarize very quickly some of their highlights of the MMA conference but before we go there prior to going to the MMA we once again sent you the goals that the um go has been noodling over in fact go actually did meet one more time in in January and voted the goals that were in your packet the last time our goal last time was not to have a discussion our goal tonight is to do the following to go through the goals we're going to go in reverse order so we don't get stuck on the first one and then never get to the last one okay um we are the goal we we want to assume that at this point the council has reached consensus on the six goal areas and the statements of the objective that doesn't mean we might not come back to them it's just for the moment we're going to assume that the purpose of our discussion tonight is to reach a shared understanding of the meaning of each action item recommended by go okay and then to ensure the list of action items reflect all of the council's proposed action items for the Town M manager even though later on we're going to eliminate some okay the goal tonight is not to debate the action items it's to make sure that if you have any additional action items you want on there you add them at your own Peril but you add them okay then at the retreat then after tonight's meeting we we are going to ask you to rank goals I'm sorry prioritize okay prioritize goals as high medium low or possibly eliminate after tonight not tonight after tonight but I'm sorry action items thank you Athena if I may yes um we're we're still working out the process of this prioritization because there are some goals that from the council discussion councilors feel like are easy and it doesn't make sense to have to rank something that is an e easy goal in terms of high medium low priority if it's something that will most certainly be accomplished so we're going to work out a process so everyone's on the same page about how we do this in a way that makes sense given the goals that we have at the end of the night tonight right and I want to thank Anna George Athena for working on this process with us we basically did a planning meeting um and then on the actual Retreat night which is February 4th we will feed you um is did you say not pizza all right we'll put that request in and then our goal then and we will describe that more in full after tonight is to come to some final consensus meantime we also want to invite the town manager to wait in at any time and say whatever he feels he needs to like this is ridiculous there's no way we can do this or G aren't we already doing that or G this sounds like an interesting challenge whatever okay Anna and I'm want to invite Anna and George and Athena to add to anything I just said um I want to clarify one thing and drive home another point so first off just because we are already doing something doesn't mean we still don't want it as an action item here so he can note that we are currently doing something but again if the council feels that that work is a priority for continuation it should still be on the action items list um and then the other thing is it sounds like we're getting into semantics but there's a big difference between ranking and prioritizing so as once that email comes out um once we figure out kind of the the logistics of it uh please bear in mind we're asking for PRI prity levels we're not asking you to rank the goals against each other that's where we came into the issue last year of different sized goals right so please please please just putting the thought in your brain now to keep it there and let it grow is we're asking for priorities George or Athena anything else you want to add George Athena no thank you okay uh councelor hanck I just have a question before we start convers ation you you mentioned adding whatever we any other goals we might action items we might want in in but I think some of your Communications about tonight's plan also included that we would get on the same page or attempt to get on the same page with what each of these means yes so is that so if we have those questions as we go through each of these or each big section we should ask what is people's understanding of this too that is yes okay absolutely Andy and following up I think a little bit on what councelor hanii was just saying what I would be interested in as we go into the action items and particularly the ones that are marked as new if um and when they're reported and described if we could um make sure that there's some understanding as to whether they came from the committee or from another member of the council doesn't have to be a name attached to it and uh but why this was suggested or any background information that would make us understand um the intent of the party that suggested it okay Kathy um yeah I think I said this when I initially saw this action list we have if people have encounted 37 actions and as far as I can see they're 10 as many as 10 that we've really never had any discussion about so Andy when you just said rationale but I also thought our goal here is to focus the town manag on staff that are on things that are really a high priority um and we know the staff shortages so I thought we were going to try to avoid new things that require staff extra staff to work on them or new things that would require new items in the operating budget since our budget is tight and so when I went through these um so and then the last would be things that we've talked about and there's some consensus rather than just somebody would like to have it on so I I see things that either there hasn't been a long discussion with a Reacher of consensus or brand new it would be new staff time and I can't understand why it rises to the top um so and 37 seems like a lot you know so so I'll just when we go through them that's my screen is going through does this new require staff to make it work like new committees okay okay I I understand that Athena go ahead so the the goals for the evening tonight are to reach a shared understanding of what the actions are that counselors have proposed so some of the questions about where they came from is for the meeting tonight and then ensuring that the list reflects all the action items that councilors want included in the list and then at the retreat um tier Point Cathy that would be the point at which the council has a conversation about where the priorities are what the resources are required for each goal and so on so that part of the conversation will happen but it will be at the at the retreat rather than tonight okay Jennifer so um a counselor explains why they proposed a certain action item but you were saying tonight is not not when we debate it so we're not going to debate action items tonight we're looking for clarity meaning okay so that's going to take a lot of discipline if somebody it is okay and my goal is that we're going to spend no more than 15 minutes on each goal so if someone were to say why they there's a goal an action item an action item right if we disagree with it we don't say that that is correct not tonight okay it's be really okay thank you discipline okay all right we're starting with and we're going to put them up on the screen uh the last one Town Council community and strategic relationships okay it has three action items under it those three action items are on the screen is there anybody who needs clarification on what pursue strategic partnership agreements with Amber college and Hampshire College anybody who needs clarification on that can we make this slightly larger I don't know ah excellent okay I don't think that's a new one wasn't that basically in last it isn't a new one you're correct it's not properly classified it's continuing okay is there any question on that I'm seeing no hands I'm going to go to the next one the next one is work with our legislators to explore the possibility of state level payment and L tax pilot legislation regarding nonprofits councelor hanii you have your hand um I have a question about the same question for both this one and the next one which is if there is supposed to be no ambiguity um as to whether a goal was completed what is the intention of what work with legislates means as it with respect to the manager because that has a a wide range of actions all to having one conversation to helping write legislation to anything in between okay um I agree I think it could it's a wide range when you say work with obviously it's it the question for the council is how would you prioritize this when we get to that part of it and I think you know just even prior prioritizing between these two um and submitting legislation can be an action item it I think that our time is spent better spend on things that will get through the legislature not to just to be submitting things unless there's a strategy involved in submitting things to the legislature which there sometimes is that sometimes the legislature when they get a a certain Quantum of requests from local cities and towns uh then they start to pay attention but just oneof some of these things just won't go through we ought to be realistic and talk with our legislators about what's realistic I think they don't want to put effort into things just to be performative they want to put that effort into things that are going to be actually actionable and I think it'd be worthwhile the one on the state owned land is something I think worth definitely worth pursuing us seeking pilots from Pilot legislation regarding nonprofits that's a really big world because it really is controlled by hospitals and other nonprofits it's you know we're a small fish in that that initiative okay um Bob hegner yeah um since um well Anna knows this the the and there's a a new report out by the state auditor on uh Pilots for state-owned land it doesn't cover UMass um so I would like to see UMass put in here specifically um and the state owned land it's it's I mean I don't know what what the status of that is that report um Athena is going to copy for everyone and and and send them um send a PDF around uh but I'm not sure what the status of that report is it's sort of like a a finding by the state auditor it's not really set in concrete uh but there's a suggestion about revising the formula for pilot for state-owned land but not UMass and UMass is what really matters in this town so I would like to see UMass in this I just want to okay so the one suggestion is on the state owned land we somehow or another say including UMass okay that's a word clarifi that's a clarification of statement but what we're starting to get into is the debate on the value and we're not doing that tonight okay but I I appreciate the idea aide that under the state-owned land which is the third one it includes including UMass okay um pamon uh I had a actually question on the one above that which is to um regarding nonprofits and it wasn't clear to me if that included our institutions of a higher ed that would that would be the one that I would focus on that does include your uh private highed institutions but not public it includes private heds yes uh Anna I wanted to offer a point of clarification if that's okay instead of so uh the point of clarification I don't know if it answers the question but to add context of discussion there was discussion at go regarding the specificity for goals similar to this where you see work with or pursue words like that go did discuss um not stating achieve this item because it's not fully under Paul's control um there was discussion about specifying a number of meetings or what that would look like but ultimately go decided against doing that for the for these action items um and then the other clarification is that I think Lynn just said nonprofits would include our private institutions of Higher Education meeting Hampshire college and Amis college and state owned land absolutely does uh include UMass I wanted to clarify the auditor's report doesn't omit UMass it merely does not take into account the use of the land um which is what this goal gets at thank you Paul so two things I think you know we should recognize the context of the auditor's report that the auditor is in a battle with the legislature and in terms of if this goal is about moving something forward through the legislature I don't think the auditor's report is going to carry much weight I think there's a political game going on that I'm not fully Savvy to but and I would suggest that I look at the the bottom goal and um I think what our goal is is to work with our legislators to increase payments in L of taxes involving state-owned land in Massachusetts that's what we want to do we want to get more money on state-owned land in Massachusetts in in ammer um and I think we could simplify it and like whether it's just more money coming into the pot that's good if it's revising the formula that's good if it's it doesn't I don't know if legislation is really the the end game here okay um Kathy I I think Paul said part of what I would I think it could be simplified to just be payment L of taxes for either of these but there are there have periodically been bills and some people some towns have joined Coalition so when we say what does work mean in might be that there something starts moving um and I think it will be as much on us as counselors as it is on the town manager because I went to about five pilot discussions over the past year or so um but just was listening to see if anything was actually moving as a piece of legislation right yeah Andy yeah uh I don't want to get into this tonight I think it should wait until uh to get into detail when we have our next session on this both of these items are actually covered in the MMA resolution on budget that we just um confirmed at the annual meeting and uh the context of that came out of discussions in the committee in which I sit so that uh I could talk go into further but I think that it's this isn't the proper place okay are there any other comments on these goals Paul you still have your hand up Okay I uh councelor hanii I have something to add to this section yes is this the time yes um one of a question about but one of them is begin negotiating a new strategic partnership agreement with UMass I believe it is up in 2027 and last year last time it took four years years to negotiate so um I I think we need to add that one um and the other one is offer to meet with each counselor individually at least twice per year okay is there anybody that needs clarification on either of those seeing none are there any other comments on this goal Bob hegner yeah I would like to see something on improving communication uh with residents because I think um my experience in talking to my constituents is that they rarely hear back from the town if any thing um and any official of the town in fact I've been praised by some as you know you get back to me I no one else does you know uh so I think it's important that we improve our communication and also I think the town website could be improved it's I mean I know that costs money and all but boy it's it's not very user friendly and I would like to see it be more user friendly I think you should put website on as a separate one and I want to go back on the improving Communications with residents I have a clarifying question is that with regard to the town manager for whom these goals are written or is that with regard to counselors well I I would I would it's townwide I mean it's it's under the the the town manager's purview for all town you know employees of the town to better communicate to Residents and then it's obviously about it's on us as well to better communicate but okay my my you know my what I'm aiming at here is for the Town employees to better communicate okay are there any other uh Anna you have your hand up I have a clarifying question for Bob um I'd like to know how that's measured so this is something that go did discuss but uh I I I'd like to know what better communicate means because I think that there's a spectrum and ultimately the litmus test that we are asking ourselves is at the end of the year how do we know if this has been complete to our satisfaction or not so my my question my clarifying question to you and you don't need an answer now but something I'd love to kind of noodle a little bit more is what better looks like and then the other clarifying question is if you could also specify how that is different than the we aren't there yet I'm not jumping there but um I'm not saying it's the same thing but if you could specify how it is different than the goal the action item under the administration and Leadership goal area which is clarifying to the public regarding requests and complaints um I I do I think understand what you're saying in terms of how it might be different but just to uh that was our effort at picking one element of better communication for the coming year with within go so uh if we could drill down to kind of what's the checkbox of better communication that would be that'd be great okay uh Paul you have your hand up yeah just um as an interm measure if you have constituents or anyone that feels like they haven't gotten response from me or from anybody else please just send them to me so I can follow up because we don't know about it and we don't I hate the idea of someone being frustrated because I haven't gotten response which happens but if we if I know who we can follow up on I can have appropriate person follow up and we will do that yeah as do I thank you uh Bob you have your hand up but I assume you don't we are done with this goal okay we're moving on to the next goal which is infrastructure management maintenance and land stewardship to maintain and manage the town's capital and public assets we're starting at the top are there any clarifying questions on the first one which is forum and appoint a building committee to make progress on the fire and DPW buildings Anna my clarifying um it's not a question no I'm going to I'm going to use my discipline nope it's more it's more of an next one pointed question uh Jennifer do you have a clarifying question on this one well again I'm sure go discussed it but how would you measure progress like if the committee is formed formed okay well no it says to make progress maybe it's a no it says form and appoint a building committee the to form an a point so whether the committee makes progress is a different that's very different yes uh Pam roone you have your hand up yes um similarly similar topic um there's also three three four items down is um present schematic designs to the council for the D DPW I think if that actually I want to reward it but I think it ought to go up there with appoint the building committee and get some steps accomplished so I I'm trying to merge two blocks into one okay um Can can I can yes and before are we are we presenting new wording right now or not no we're looking for clarifications and if NE necessary wording yes so you're suggesting that go back up to the one above Athena form and appoint A Fire EMS and DPW bill building committee and present you're suggesting merging those please wait I'm sorry this is the part that gets me really stressed out is when we start doing the changes in real time without responding to the the rationale for them being separate if we could Anna do you want to talk about the rationale yes so this was something GI talked about a lot we sometimes get fixated on the number 37 right and we want to merge things no not you not you we as a committee often got fixated on on a number and we would find ourselves combining action items into one thing saying oh we did a good job reducing the number of goals but the reality is the amount of work is the same so what we were trying to do is make it so that each action item is one specific action so that's why it's broken out um and then the other part my hands raised for a separate question so does that answered I think that I just wanted to provide the rational to why those were two separate items I was actually trying to achieve more more in the one in the one action by by yes getting a committee going but also making some progress on steps toward design and construction I understand that so I'm happy to leave it separate um but we should at least then put the two items next to each other so they don't get lost we can absolutely reorder them I think the reason was as we go through and do an evaluation if one is achieved and not the other we're left with that middle ground rating again right and so we want to be able to say yes no to each one Jennifer do you have a comment on this sorry I had a separate question if you're jumping me because I was responding to Pam I had a separate clarifying question hold on let's get this done okay clarifying question yes um my clarifying question and I had phrased it as a clarifying question was have we as a council had a discussion that I am forgetting regarding forming and appointing a singular building committee versus two building committees for the fire and DPW and my proposed wording change would be to break those out we at a council have not had that discussion the count the town manager however who appoints this committee has continually talked about it being a joint committee I understand that the town manager has done that I was not sure if the council had had that conversation no okay uh We've is any other comment on either the first or the second which is now present schematic design okay we're going on to the next one which is to assess the current condition of the waste water treatment plant and present a plan that will address these issues with the future goal of developing a funding plan for improvements and repairs councelor hanii um I have have a request to modify the last Clause of that I don't know whether I thought we maybe had discussed this at the last meeting but I could be remembering that wrong instead of with a future goal of developing a funding plan for improvements and repairs I would request it get changed or an option be left of including a plan to fund improvements and repairs so that we have a plan in the next calendar year okay it might be listed as an option for wording at this point but a plan for including funding plan plan for funding either way works for me including a a funding plan for improvements and repairs are there any other comments on that one coun uh yes councelor bachan I I guess what I would want to know is when do you want to have the conversation about what's realistic in in terms of accomplish being able to get accomplished in the next 11 months I um T nter is at the next meeting next meeting so then the next during the retreat that will be the conversation where during the retreat and and I think Paul what we really want you to do is at as we finished and I prepare for that okay uh is there any other question on that and is there any other question on this one with the changes that were made okay maintain a list of prioritized future Road and sidewalk repairs and new sidewalks that is available to the public and update dated annually councelor hanii um I don't think this is a new one okay already I agree um but I actually I have a different one I guess that relates to this and I guess I would propose it as an alternate to this okay so I don't know when you want that why don't we list in the same box an alternate wording go ahead um I hadn't thought of wording but um facilitate a conversation with the Town Council on how the to prioritize future Road and sidewalk repairs and new sidewalks so it might not be the best wording but what I'm getting at is list is fine but a lot of times we might dispute how that list came about and it might be nice for the council to actually converse with someone as to how we would like to see prioritization do we want to prioritize the building of new sidewalks or the repair of sidewalks do we want to prioritize X roads in X location or types of Roads complete streets and building of that things that that's it might not be best worded but that's my thinking that and it might be an alternate to that or it could be a new one Lynn if I may yes I would just like to offer the council to hold the words the actual words in the document Loosely at this point since there will be an opportunity at The Retreat to Tinker once the list is Right agreed upon Thank you Pam Rooney thanks um I actually had some different wording again for the that same condition of the wastewater treatment plant and it was more to the effect of address critical infrastructure needs for water and sewer to comply with state and federal health standards and laws could you give it to that to us again would you repeat that it's uh address critical infrastructure needs for water and sewer to comply with state and federal laws okay is there any person that needs clarification on that Anna could you specify how that is it's it's that's sorry no I'm I'm I'm looking at the two and they seem like two different things and so I'm I'd like to hear more clarification on how why the but see I'm I'm feel like I'm breaking the rule because I'm asking for for rationale I can wait but I yeah but clarification is opinion so I I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait okay uh councelor hanii you still have your hand up okay we skip back to was water up for something separate are we done with Wastewater Anna um so I think I'm a bit confused on the rules and I'd like clarification I had alternate I wanted to break a rule into two um sorry a rule and got the rules of procedure on my brain um I wanted to break an action item into two action items would now be the time to do that okay so I would like to have the alternate wording for the first action item on this list read form and appoint building committees for the fire and DPW buildings respectively Paul I think that it would be important for the retreat that you present your rationale for having one committee okay okay that I'm I'm wondering if there should be the line should be removed there oops wow leave it the way it is we'll deal with it later okay moving on uh we need to go down below roads are there any other comments on the roads and sidewalks okay uh propose a fee an entry fee for outside entities municipalities when condu connecting to the town of amest water Andor sewer systems questions comments Pam roone I'd like to add and and new users I'm sorry and and new new users which implies not necessarily outside entities or municipalities I'm thinking people within ammer okay so municipalities slash and new users it should just be a slash new users up above after municipality should be a slash yeah you got it thank you so in other words if a new subdivision comes in there's a joining fee got it okay anything else on that one clarifying question uh yes um you're saying did you say subdivision or what if a person who's not on the town sewer wants to join is that is that that that would be the same thing that would be a new user an individual it would be an individual end or a group of homes yeah or a new building okay um councelor haniki you have your hand up I could just ask for next week's Retreat could you have information available Paul as to what the joining fees are now and for who they apply thanks thank you it's a nice way of asking for the retreat thank you uh propose a plan to develop a I'm sorry you have your hand up Pam still Kathy you have your hand up um yeah I was just G to say I'll bring some information too because in some towns they have something called a um well impact fee or a linkage fee which is this kind of concept and there's at least one town that has it on the books and has been able to withstand the challenge that it's ATT tax rather than a oh okay okay just put in the in parenthesis maybe behind sewers systems uh such as linkage fees now I'm just saying that you have to be careful how you do this that it doesn't look like a tax got it um next one any problem going forward okay propose a plan to develop options for disposal of town-owned and unused properties councelor hanii I just have a clarification on this is this meant to be any Town own unused properties like when go was discussing this or did they discuss specific properties in uh in terms of like yeah may please we did not discuss specific properties otherwise we would have listed them here thanks Anna Bob hegner we have a policy that we developed on disposal of these properties how would the plan be different than what our policy states this came from a counselor so you'd have to ask whoever sent this in I don't remember who sent it in I can I can search back but I do not recall either okay we do have a policy there is no question about that what we haven't done is the town manager has not come to us or we have not come to him and said we think it's time for us to dispose of this property can we proceed with that that's it's the carryover would be the policy but no it's really new we haven't disposed of any town properties uh no it's new I thought it was this year but I have to go back and look I can't remember Paul you have your hand up yeah so just to be clear we're talking about real estate holdings not yes not uh I think that would be a good thing to clarify of town-owned are unused real estate versus Vehicles right uh Kathy um I'm I've really been trying to avoid word smithing so I don't want you to type this in but part of the issue is we do have a policy once we decide it's Surplus okay but before we decide it's Surplus one might want to say how do you want to redevelop or do you want to RFP it or do you just want to sell it and those are the options and to my knowledge we just don't have any process that lends itself so we just have properties with the doors locked so are you suggesting so I think the wording of this is okay the intent is to get some thinking before we want to do something with it on what we could do with it and how we might do it um you know so East Hampton went through a whole process of options that they settled on a few um so I think this wording is okay is the attent is not the staff should figure out how to dispose these but really developing options is is my emphasis when I read this thank you Paul do you have your hand up Anna I think I just pulled up our policy in reading this goal given the policy it sounds like the goal is asking is for the town manager to come forward and say like Kathy was saying come forward with a list of these are the properties I believe we should be deeming Surplus because as part of the policy the town manager shall notify the Town Council that any town and property is no longer required for public purpose and may be deemed Surplus and present the council with a request for disposition of the property so I think it sounds like what we're asking Paul to do is do that is do basically an invent so this goal could be clarified a bit more I think okay um thank you uh next one sign a contract and breakr on the Jones Library renovation and Expansion Project Bob heg Anna you have your hand up what's left over Bob hegner uh this should I think be clarified or qualified because we haven't as a council decided to do the the project number one and number two it's not clear that the project is viable because the section 106 review has even been completed so um I don't it just seems like we need to say you know maybe if uh you know all the you know if if the uh funding is sufficient uh if or if the the the mou has been uh the funding you know is with respect to theou is completed or whatever U you know something something we have to have something in here it I I think Pam mnie he said it for me okay I I beg to differ at this point the Town Council has approved this project if a different decision is made made it's a different vote of the council we voted the money if we don't want the project it's got to be a different vote Andy well I just wonder when all of the projects we should be going back to just the original provision which was that it was our goal to complete the four projects as developed and um promoted by and approved by the council why we're breaking them into pieces and why we're getting into this fine wording I mean we we had a ro goal that I think was Broad and covered this and we're breaking it into pieces driving ourselves crazy Paul no I'm sorry Pat thank you I I guess I don't even see the need for this action item because if everything goes through with the uh review and everything and we've made a commitment we have voted to complete the project so that would be a normal course of action which would be to sign a contract and then go ahead and break ground so I I don't see that even that it should even be in here I mean I'm advocating I guess but um it just seems like a point of order yes at this point we're we're looking for questions and clarification of a goal rather than debating the merits of it thank you so Pam Kathy um I I agree with Pat as a simple solution because otherwise um do we want to put the elementary school make sure it adheres to the schedule stay on top of the contractor because this is this is also in the yikes world because it started four months late so deleting it would be the easiest thing because I think Bob's point is where the financial ducks are not necessarily in order yet so we don't want the manager to sign unless he's got the money in place but removing it will remove all the discussion about what the best words are so I want to leave this on I know Athena we're not supposed to be doing this now but it REM it removes the need to rewrite it if we remove it just put in parentheses potentially move potentially delete Jennifer I agree okay moving on uh George so if I find other items in this list that I'd like to remove I can also raise that objection is that correct even though that's not what the instructions were that's not the instruction instructions were forication ask clarifying questions I so we leave this for a discussion for the retreat I I think we have to leave this on here we don't put brackets around anything I'm just making a note that's all I don't want to get into more deletes Jennifer say I do think it's helpful having that in Brackets because it it may keep us from having a long at least it Flags us that we may not need to have a long discussion about this at The Retreat all right can we councelor hanii can I add that same wording in Brackets to things I'd like to see deleted then no no that if that's going to cause the problem then remove the word potentially delete and leave it there we know what it means that's that's all we're doing okay up okay update the fiveyear capital Improvement program in light of the 2024 revisions to the financial plan for major capital projects is there clarifying questions Bob uh I would just like to add also we dis in in accordance with the um the current um budget guidelines because we do talk about the fiveyear fiveyear budgets in that okay all right it's now is the time to ask any other questions of clarification and are there additions Bob you have your hand up and I assume you don't want to okay we're going on to the next goal the next goal is Administration and Leadership the first item for Action is to clarify to the public what departments manage which services and where and how complaints or requests for help regarding those Services should be made B Bob you have your hand up Bob you have your hand up okay are there quite clar Kathy not on this one line but can I just point out to everyone that the text before that talks about uh finances and when we look at when you look at the list you're never going to find the word Finance I want you to make sure that you ask to add something when we get to that point okay it's just yes just even in the order I would make it a number one here if if the other thing is written the way it is We'll add it and then we can reorder okay explore strategic options for making ambertown government employment a more attractive and rewarding place to work considering access to continuing education supervision and leadership training Kathy yes um the clarification is I'm not sure that we have a problem with making it attractive to work so I don't know how this got on the list um and my second was what I said as a prologue um are we talking about adding costs okay for employees and later we have a salary review and some things so I think we should be competitive but I'm not sure how this got on the list okay Anna so this uh was one that ultimately came out of being from go this was something that had Incorporated several I'm sorry I'm relying a bit on memory here but had Incorporated um a few other ideas that folks had had it also came out of folks reading of um staff evaluations in the past and continuously thinking about professional development and growth opportunities uh as we look at a CH challenging job market uh so that all of that was wrapped up in this there were question initial goals that had been submitted about you know offer XYZ to all employees and offer da d d d and what we were talking about was that that might not be realistic and so instead we needed to engage in more of an actual strategic planning process for what um what we need and instead of Town Council throwing Solutions out there we needed to ask the question and explore that explore those options so this is not this goal area is not saying do all of these things it's saying when you look at the Strategic options consider these things in what the um what the what the I guess what I was asking is do we think we're not unattractive you know is the reason this is on is we think we're not an attractive it says more attractive I think so I it's it's not saying we are an unattractive there's always room for growth all right getting funny uh uh councelor haniki so I'm going to try and offer a little bit more clarification I had proposed something and when we get down there I'm going to propose that ended up in here that doesn't even that is completely opposite what I was going for in here so that could be why it seems kind of strange um the end clause about access to continuing education supervision leadership training was something I had tried to put in and I will again propose when we get down there that ended up in here that I wanted listed differently do you want to propose an alternative here a splitting is that what you're going after well I can't really call it splitting because I would delete half of it I which is why I'm proposing something new because I would okay I would end up deleting this one all right uh Kathy yeah so at this point we're g to move on from this we may have to come back to it because of councelor hanii statement incorporate anti-racism anti anti-discrimination training into onboarding processes Andy I was wondering why um it's that's here when we just above and therefore haven't yet discussed a fairly substantial section that talks about um social justice issues okay I can answer that please Anna so we put this here because it's specific to the administration of the Town it doesn't extend beyond the town staff um whereas the other options above do this specific action item came out of conversation with the town manager where we talked about what's reason able to accomplish in a year and how to maybe be a bit more targeted in our approach which is also why that top box is the way it is um the town manager talked with go about picking a specific part of the employee life cycle so thinking about how folks work through their careers in town government or in any job and focusing on onboarding as a ideal place to Center our efforts for the coming year may I I point out that actually it's the in the into onboarding processes that's really new here because there's been a lot of effort in training on some of these areas okay are there any other questions on that okay next one undertake a review of salary and supervisory responsibilities to ensure there is no gender bias in salary promotions salary promotions and job responsibilities clarifying questions C k um I think this says we think there is a gender problem so because we're focused on gender here I just is that the intent we think there's a gender Anna it's not stating anything about our opinion the goal is to ensure that there is not to answer your the clarification well gender age ethnicity so I'm just by putting the word gender in you know it might be an older employee is passed over in favor of a younger employee even though um an outspoken employee you know so I'm just this was so I do we think there is a issue here is I don't think that's a clarifying question I think that that's a question that we should talk about at the at the retreat but the clarifying is the wording that it's on this list so the the question can I just try the question is and we can put this in parenthesis behind it is should it just exclude the word gender and I it any that's not a clarifying question sorry the clarifying question is this is what this was intended to say ly since I proposed this may I try and clarify yes thanks um yes gender is in there for a reason because during the town manager reviews there were some staff evaluations that had some concerns okay that's all I was looking for that's thank you okay Paul yeah so I think as I look through these I look at which ones are going to require funding and so some of these will require appropriation from the Town Council and and I I start to prioritize these in terms of which ones do I need to present to the council for this is obviously an outside consultant who would have to come in and do something so I think the only caveat I would put for some of these is that subject to finding approval by the Town Council and that I will present these um in terms of that um during the during the budget process okay do we want to add that now I don't think it's necessary but just they basically it's all they all be the same yeah we had similar discussions about other words uh Kathy you have your hand up I I just when we come back and we actually talk about what we want on theist can we put an indicator this costs money this costs money that cost money you know which I'm not saying this one but we are asking the town manager to do that in preparation for the retreat that's great yes okay uh councelor hanii um Cathy just covered what I was going to ask the manager to bring to the and Paul you have your hand up and I assume we're done for the moment engage a consultant to review the organizational structure and distribution of responsibilities of the top management of the Town clarifying questions yes it would require resources okay are there any other clarifying questions before we ask for any new items for this okay let's move to new items councelor hanii um going to look very similar offer access to continuing education supervision and Leadership training to all Town staff educ continuing education offer access to continuing education leader uh supervision and Leadership training I guess it could be continuing education and supervision and Leadership training to all Town staff although supervision and Leadership training are kind of two different thing yes so it should be super supervision comma and Leadership training stff actually it should be continuing education comma and supervision and Leadership training and we'll work on it we it is separate they are definitely separate items are there any other additions in this one Pam I would actually add the word um responsiveness so supervision responsiveness and Leadership training could you please clarify the word responsiveness yeah what is responsiveness training we've had several discussions just tonight about not hearing back from people and how much communication is you know anyway it's it's related to do we reply to people and provide information are there any other questions about that Kathy I had a another a different Edition you you have another addition Pat did you have a question about this your mic please microphone okay U it feels well this is responsiveness it feels like a different issue are you going to have a training in responsiveness or I mean I'm just trying to because this is about education and benefits to employees benefits to staff so I'm a little confused so I'd like you to clarify how it fits is it possible Pam to State another goal about responsiveness so that it another action another action item I'm sorry yes let me think about it okay meantime Kathy you have your hand up yeah as I said if you in this section of administration and Leadership the first is administer the operations of finances so I wanted to have something that mentioned the word finances please and my simple wording which I'm sure others uh might want to expand is manage the budget multi-year Capital plan and multi Capital plan with timely quarterly Financial reports just we need to know not several months after the year closes how we were but really as we go along so I just added the quarterly reports Anna did you want to yeah my clarifying question Kathy is you just said you added the part about quarterly reports is that not something that currently is happening and the reason and and again great if so the reason why is we had the discussion at at go um as to kind of what earlier I said just because we want something to continue doesn't mean it shouldn't be on here but there were elements that were so foundational to the the town manager's job like propose a balanced budget that we did not put them in here so we we were threading that line carefully and it being in the objective the town manager still should be working towards that objective he just needs to achieve the action items at of as well um so my clarifying question is are those quarterly reports new um and just to give you context as to why there wasn't like a specific other item Kath I'll just put the emphasis on the word timely so for whatever reason we're not getting them as often as we used to get them and I had a quick conversation with Mandy at a qu conversation with Melissa about the data systems that our staff are working with that make it hard to do it but there's no reason we we had third quarter a few years ago at the point we were looking at the budget not we never got a third quarter last year you know so I'm just saying clarifies on timely quarterly thank you I think that works thank you are there any other additions here P you were going to think about yours do you want to wait okay great we're going on to the next one uh frea I'm sorry councelor e you had something on the one we just were on yes if we are um if there's going to be a change with the boing that I think um councelor R Rooney put that should be removed I can't could we go back made into a separate area yes um for the sake of not losing it respon let's just put something about responsiveness training in appropriate And Timely responsiveness how's that okay just leave it as responsiveness great thank you any other questions on this one okay uh housing and economic Vitality complete implementation of the residential renter bylaw any questions second continue I'm sorry I actually do have one okay I believe the bylaw itself has a five-year total implementation so so it should say continuing implementation continue continue thank you very good catch um Anna Are there specific measures within that fiveyear implementation I'm sorry I'm not as familiar as that I as I suspect you are um Are there specific metrics that we can site or is continue adequate there may be but I'd have to look at the b i I can look too I can look to I wasn't sure if you like if you knew what specific ones were that we I feel like it was something like a third or half or there were some things in there but you inspect insed have to look at the bylaw itself I'll take the homework ass that's good enough any other comments on this one councelor hanii you have your hand up okay Anna hand up my question was answered I'm just typing my thought okay continue to work toward the establishment of a year round shelter including presentation of a funding plan Pam I just wasn't sure if this belonged in the U the financial section the capital section rather than under economic Vitality it's one of those where you have to choose where but yes councelor hanii um presentation of the funding plan to whom to the Town Council is whenever we've we didn't want to keep repeating that okay any other questions on that besides whether it's here or there at this point it's somewhere that's what's important and it's not twice which we kept running into in last year's goals okay work with amest UMass ammer ammer college and Hampshire College to identify housing opportunities councelor Rooney you have your hand up Pam no Bob hegner yeah uh it's not clear what's meant by housing opportunities I mean is this opportunities in town in at their colleges I mean what do we mean by this uh Kathy or the same question do we mean okay that on the do they have pieces of land that they're willing to build houses on I mean you know so Hampshire clearly has a lot of land that there could be houses on the land but is that what we mean I didn't submit this but I believe that is what's meant I don't have any clarification for you I'm sorry I don't know I does any yeah I I think the dorms are all full is what I was gonna say that that it's not that we can just all move move into them but on the other hand we've just seen an RFP released by UMass that gets at some of this very thing and there have been discussions by Hampshire uh ammer College about the same thing right so that's was is the idea that they would expand housing on their land um is that what we're talking I think what we need to do is say work with UMass ammer ammer College New Hampshire colle College to identify housing opportunities using their land George question comment I think it's fun the way it reads I think the the housing is a key issue in this town and these three entities have a fair amount of land and are also talking about at least you mass and Amis College are talking about housing and so we're basically encouraging the town manager to continue those conversations particularly around housing you their own land well I you know whatever maybe their money I don't know um I think it's probably going to be their land but I'm I you know at this point um we're trying to see what's possible um with these uh bodies in terms of generating housing um for perhaps their employees um would be one place okay so thanks I think housing opportunities is fine as it stands councelor hanii um I guess I was also had all the same confusing about where on the housing opportunities are we referring to just T University and college land or are we referring to town land or I think it's a a bit B vague but I also um had a request to add Economic Development and before housing opportunities this is housing and economic vitality and not a single one of these deals with economic vitality and we need economic Vitality got it good good catch um Pam roone thank you I was going to back to the work with the amoris college blah blah blah to identify housing creation opportunities that leaves the door open a little bit for whether it's created on their land created on townland doesn't really matter created in on private land um but I think maybe the word creation um would help okay any problems moving on propose a process for creating and implementing a firsttime home buyer assistance program Kathy uh my question is uh what's intended here CPAC has funded firsttime home R they put grants in and one of the issues has been buying existing houses they can't find them that are affordable so what do we think the town manager can do we don't have the money to so what okay that's that's I had no idea what what the idea here was because we have valy CDC with a terrific new piece that it's all with a piece of our money so I didn't I didn't know whether we what else we think the town can do here okay Anna so I put this one in and it was inspired by other communities that have a municipally run program for things like this uh and so I had been exploring what those were and looking at how they might vary from Valley cdc's and um how they might support communities that we've talked about wanting to get here that might not qualify for other federal or state down payment assistance programs so it was to try to address sort of that missing middle a little bit um I don't have a perfect plan yet and uh I if if the council decides that because there's no perfect plan this shouldn't be in the goals I will respect that Council Ryan I'm not but so but it just is this we Flo a bond is it Financial so I didn't know because CPAC definitely has always had this on the list of yes for working with external organizations this would be different because it' be municipally run Pam roon oh taking hand down okay Anna you're not your hand is also down thank you um propos changes to the Adu zoning regulations to bring them into compliance with state law councelor hanii um it should read with state law and EC regulations thank you are there any other questions on that one next propos revisions to the zoning bylaws that would reduce the cost of developing permitting and building two to six units of housing on Parcels in amers to increase missing middle Housing Development potential pamone uh thanks uh I think we should consider not necessarily including this one because it's already possible um I attended the uh panel the other night and in which somebody said somebody on the panel said that permitting is no more onerous in in amoris than in any other community point of order that's beyond our scope of discussion tonight isn't it yes it is I was trying to explain why I thought it didn't really need to be okay we're not taking things off tonight okay is there anybody that doesn't understand what it is Pam that wasn't your question Kathy is this is the intent that we would rezone to allow more six unit housings or is it just a focus on the process of Permitting can uh because it it has a very specific 2 to six as opposed to 10 or as opposed to so is the intent um you know I'm just thinking parts of town you can't have six and other parts of town you can have six so are we talking about resoning is the intent rezoning councelor hanii since I believe you proposed this I did propose this it's not a surprise to anyone um um the intent is to give the planning department leeway in how best to reduce barriers and reduce the cost of either developing them well the cost of the three together developing permitting and AC actually building so to develop them to get the permits to actually build what do we need to do to reduce the cost to do that in these whether that's change the zoning from special permit to site pan review or reduce the the size of the lot I could come up with like 12 different things but I'm not trying to put anything specific other than the goal is to reduce the cost of actually getting these things to construction and proposed zoning amendments um to do that and leave it up to the planning department and the manager on what amendments would best do that but ultimately the goal was all of our prior Town manager goals have been very vague about increasing housing affordability increasing this and that's not specific so I put a very specific one in of where should we concentrate and what should it be on but not how to go about doing that we're again we're not debating the merits of this clarifying it Jennifer yeah I just find the um response is not clarifying it for me um changing the zoning is not going I just don't understand how the cost of building materials what it cost to build is not going to be anyway it just that doesn't we can discuss it it it's the way it's worded doesn't make sense and the explanation isn't really holding together can I suggest a a addition to this that would say that would reduce the barriers and cost of developing barriers would be zoning cost would be the actual other items does I respond that is such an edital loaded um I think that's an editorial that zoning that the permitting process is a barrier I mean what safe how them you can make when something isn't zoned a proper way it's a our isn't zoned a certain way then that becomes a barrier I'm not I'm not voting yes no no I think this is a very it's hard to I think we should wait and discuss it because this is there's no way that okay no that's I think that's correct this is not an objective you know right okay okay no it actually isn't I mean no I think we AG no I was just going to say in terms of cost we're talking about time the time that it takes for something to go through a process Etc uh in that housing Forum there was a sense of how impactful time was in term because it you um construction costs uh can rise you know etc etc so um I think I don't so probably okay Anna I just I wanted to clarify what a clarifying question is a clarifying question is do you understand what this is saying not do you think that it makes sense no no it's true it's not do you think that this is true it's not do you think that it makes sense is do you understand what the action item is trying to say thank you Kathy that's what I originally asked is this supposed to be about zoning or not um is that included in this and I listened to the most recent discussion about Barry Robert's new building on Amity and uh University Drive which uh is not going through complicated is just going through regular and they were begging for it to be over at some point because they have to deal with water runoff and all these you know so it's the two to it's a 2 to six issue here is the way it's framed and others so it appears to be zoning so we can talk about that when we come back but I think this is written in a way that's very focused and we need to understand what it is and do we agree with it okay are there any points further points of clarification needed on this one okay propose revisions to the zoning bylaws to increase and support economic and Housing Development throughout the town were supported by the master plan any questions councelor hanii feel free to shoot me down if this is a debate but if this goes in with the phrase We supported by the master plan does that mean if the master plan says it the council would support it very good question I didn't write this so clarifying question second doesn't does the council approve the council approves the master plan correct so hypothetically so we approved the last one but we would approve and we'll approve the future ones so hypothetically goals that say we supported by the master plan the council has in approving the master plan given agreement is that that's the question the assumption that the council tends to make that's the assum because otherwise so I ask because there have been prior proposals and Zoning changes that come directly out of the master plan and implementation parts of the master plan that when proposed the council shoots down okay I can see how this is going to go past clarifying but my that was my clarifying question thank you okay um Kathy I think this one is one we're going to have a debate over it and I think it's written way too broadly you know one of the leave it for let me just make one more comment about this early on when Chris bre was there they wanted to do some revisions of weird language in zoning in our things were one place of order Kathy do you have a clarifying question I'm sorry we're gonna stay here for we're debating at The Retreat do you have a clarifying question I I yes this seems to be across the entire town it's not focused is that the intent but what's what's your question sorry I didn't hear a question this looks very Broad like look at all zoning all across is that the intent it seems the answer is yes okay any further questions on that one Pam Ro um I would actually rather see this focus on economic development border do you have a clarifying question could this not be clearer if it were focused only on economic development I don't know if that's clarifying you're not saying you don't understand the question so let's focus guys are you proposing a new wording perhaps another another section to focus actually on um to review zoning um as it affects businesses that are that are um possible in different districts in town that was something we had on the goals like three years ago I'll I'll work on it and it's it be zoning bylaws okay that's a new one is there any question on its meaning I sorry does this Pam are you intending that every zoning bylaw is reviewed with a positive effect negative effect negative effect or positive neutral negative effect are you is that what you're envisioning with this no um there there was some discussion a couple of years ago that some of the use the uses allowed in Village business business Village centers uh residential Village centers that kind of thing were perhaps restrictive on what types of um businesses could occur there so it was something that was on the anyway it it's been on the list before we have really nothing in here that that focuses on economic development I just don't really understand what this means like because to me in reading this this looks as this let me say what this reads to me as and tell me why I'm wrong this reads to me as review every zoning bylaw to see its effect on businesses so because it literally said that review zoning bylaws as they affect businesses that are possible so it's saying every zoning bylaw how does this impact what businesses are possible in each district is that can can I suggest a possible editor I'm not pushing back I'm just genuinely trying to understand what the end goal is Pam you probably wouldn't you probably wouldn't have to look at all of them so could we say propos revisions to zoning bylaws to increase and support Economic Development applic right who decides what and support Economic Development throughout the town period The Pimps was focus on businesses I mean that if you look at some kinds of businesses you can and can't do in different areas of town that's businesses businesses are Economic Development housing Economic Development one yeah it's true no we don't it's postponed um all right um all right is there any further clarification on this councelor hanii pamon Begin work on the on revising the master plan questions Pam you have your hand up I don't Bob hagden yeah Begin work on revising the master plan to do what to make what changes to it um can I just I think I'm probably submitted this you did okay I would have submitted it if you hadn't go ahead I actually have a different wording so it's not revising the master plan it's work on adopting a new master plan within the time required by the charter the charter requires an adoption of a new master plan every 20 years we are within five years of that if not four at this point um and the last master plan process took I think five years so so the the new wording I have is Begin work on a adopting a new master plan within the time required by the charter okay other questions about that Bob um I think I think it needs to be more specific because beginning work means it can mean anything just so um you know we should have a specific outcome here okay Mandy I mean it doesn't have to we can think about it I think the first thing last time that was done was forming a master plan committee some I don't know what it was fully called it was like master plan planning committee or something but I don't know whether that's the same process they want this time um which is why I left it vague because someone has to decide what that process will be is it forming a new committee or is it being done directly through just the planning board or XYZ but we could talk more more specific to be you know plan start a committee to do X why maybe that's okay I I'm not going to say anything because that's getting to the debate Kathy does this have is there a reason this has to be done in 2025 it I think what councelor hanck and I both would say is the last time it took five years to it take I'm just I'm really aware of the staff we have working in our town and and the the menu of to-do list we've just doing so I'm just saying does it it's is this necessary for 2025 so maybe that's a retreat question that's a retreat question okay are there any more additions to this okay yep we are going to councelor Ry has up Community Health hold on hold on excuse me I I did have one I just couldn't get my hand up in time I'm sorry go ahead P okay it is a new one um and it's it's specifically to pursue eoe D Mass downtown initiatives and Associated funding for sidewalk work and amenities explanation there we've been we've been advocates for staff to pursue funding and um you know bringing bring in great grants to help like the the town common for instance so there are particular U initiatives that are available through Eed and I just wanted to raise those up I my only qu I actually have a debate but I don't want to get into that but does this in fact belong down where we discuss roads and sidewalks we can we can deal with that later thank you uh George you had your hand no okay any other questions or comments okay Community Health and Community safety the first one conduct an assessment of the of the crest program and report back to the council by the end of June 2025 clarifying questions I think it's up to the town manager to tell us whether that's reasonable but that's for the retreat complete the review of Public Safety protocols consistent with the council's November 14 2022 votes questions work with the council to identify and propose revisions to policies bylaws and regulations to dismantle discrimination through consultation with marginalized communities questions councelor hanii what does worked with the council mean here versus thank you like is it going to be in a committee where we should just be getting help from the staff to be doing it or are we expecting the staff to be doing the work like I guess I'm not sure what what the thanks Anna I believe that the intention here was to ensure that c ccors remain feeling empowered to continue to suggest bylaw revisions as is our part of our responsibility as well so I I think that we put if I'm recalling and I open this to all go folks to back me up or completely tell me I'm wrong here because it happens um basically this is saying it's not just on the on the town manager to do this that the council should be doing this too and that counselors may be reaching out to work with the town manager on this particular element okay councelor haniki okay next question the through consultation with marginalized communities if the counselors are able to propose stuff how would what's what's the intention of that through consultation with marginalized communities in terms of showing you've consulted or not or is it going to be formal is it intended to be like formal Outreach or and who and I don't know if through is the right word there but I think that the idea is that that would be something that the council committees would talk about with regards to outreach and and the like if if it's coming from a counselor there may be other initiatives that the town manager pursues to conduct that Outreach I don't know basically sorry basically this is in here just to say that consultation should be part of the process is my understanding I I actually have a proposed revision or alternative here and it would be to identify and prop just drop the words with the council work with the council just say identify and propose revisions to policies bylaws and regulations it's it's an alternative okay identify and propose revision policies bylaws and regulations and I I would take out it just at end at discrimination are there any clarifying questions on this one moving on Create and appoint an advisory Council for lgbtq plus Youth and youth similar in structure to the Northampton youth advisory Council Kathy um I I looked at the Northampton uh uh thing it's actually called a commission when you say similar do you mean similar because one of the things it was training people on legislative action and how to draft legislation there was a lot around politics you know on getting involved in politics so I'm going to ask when we have a retreat why we want to do this what's the rationale but right now I'm trying to understand how what the word similar means because I went and looked at exactly what they do and um I didn't know what this the purpose of This was councelor hanii um my goal here was and and I actually have a rewarding because I had written it I believe lgbtq Plus comma youth comma and bipac residents um not bipac residents residents not youth not limited to just bipac youth um my goal in proposing this one was to actually remove the consultation with marginalized communities from and consultation with youth there were a couple of different action items that included things like Consulting with youth or Consulting with marginalized communities or Consulting with x-y Z throughout a prior document it some of them remained in here and I was looking to formalize that consultation by creating sort of um these committees or a committee or multiple committees that would um that the manager or the staff could go to um when dealing with some of this um and that could advise staff and Council in a more formalized manner manner than just this you know through consultation with marginalized communities well as I asked in the previous one what does that mean this was an INT an attempt to sort of formalize what that means Within These action items okay Kathy you have your hand up Pat when I initially read this I thought it was about lesbian gay bisexual trans gure plus Youth and bipo youth similar in structure so with the I I just would like a clarification would there be an advisory Council for LGBT people uh youth um or bipo Youth and bipo people you res when I'm saying people I'm meeting I'm tired uh older people that so I'm I'm just confused about what's I think yeah so I'm I'd like a clarification is this one advisory council with all these members or is it a series of I think I had you know it expanded as I as I went through versions but I think I had envisioned different advisory councils so I guess it could be councils so appoint advisory councils instead of an advisory Council and I know it will need a lot of debate because that's a lot of extra committees but right yeah um yes Pat have you gotten did you get your question clarified the by adding the word residence having the word similar to the Northampton youth advisory Council the word youth gets deluded here so but what councelor hanii is saying she is proposing at least three different groups okay and you've already raised the question of what will this cost in both time and money okay identify promote and coordinate programming for Youth Empowerment to determine levels level of need for a Youth Empowerment Center Pam Ro uh it wasn't clear to me if the intent was to financially support um the youth programming and the and uh so I actually uh would suggest some word changes to be identify comma financially support and coordinate programming for Youth Empowerment while determining opportunities for a Youth Empowerment Center I'm going to propose an alternative there Anna did you okay uh please uh Athena put this in as an alternative because it is different and um Pam would you please word it again I mean repeat it again identify financially support and coordinate so it's identify comma identify comma financially support comma and coordinate programming for Youth Empowerment while determining opportunities for a Youth Empowerment Center my rationale is that we don't have a physical structure I would like to see the town financially support some of the ongoing work that does great things okay are there any questions or comments Anna uh my clarifying question is are those not two different goals um or sorry two different actions items because I think the the first was the conditional right to determine the level of a need the second is while also determining level or I think it's is it opportunities for a Youth Empowerment Center or need for a Youth Empowerment Center Pam it wasn't clear that um the first one to determine so do you run programs so that you can determine you know how big the Youth Empowerment Center needs to be okay so I'm understanding I think a little better what you're saying so what the conver ation in go talked about was saying when the town manager did his self- evaluation last year he talked about a lot of Youth programming opportunities that were happening both sponsored by the town and some external ones that the town helped to support and um he talked and I think many of us reflected that we had no idea a lot of those were happening and so we included the um the identify promote and coordinate thinking all right let's let's really put together what we've got in order to determine where the need is for uh for a Youth Empowerment Center so it isn't just about promoting them it's it's promoting identifying and coordinating to see kind of what's being met already and where the need is in addition to that if that makes sense yeah but again I don't think it's going to necessarily result in a physical structure so I think we can talk about it again but I think okay any other questions on this one provide training regarding racial Equity rights and other options to the Town Council employees and members of the public it is a carryover are there any questions comments Anna you have your hand up okay propose a plan for the creation of a resident oversight board consistent with council's November 1422 2 any2 vote any questions on that yes Jennifer is the goal to EST to create the resident oversight board or to propose a plan prop right now there's a group working on De developing a plan Paul did you want to speak to this just that that's true there is a group working on it um which is and they're coming have a proposal to the council at some point I'm not sure exactly a time frame though okay yeah I would I mean since this is we we this we ask that a plan be proposed I think in 2022 I mean I would hope the board could be established so your alternative to this would be create a resident oversight board establish resident oversight board and then put in that yes yeah that last um Anna you have your hand up and then I'm going to Alicia you can go to Alicia first she hasn't spoken Alicia um sorry I just couldn't hear Jennifer at all because she wasn't pressing her mic when she was talking and so this might be a moot point but I was thinking that that could be two separate things like we need the plan we don't have a plan yet um but I think along the lines of what Jennifer was saying in terms of timing is that it's been quite a while and so depending on how soon they can get that plan to us I think we should move directly into the creation of once we have the plan so the alter alternative it that she's proposed is to create a plan for and establish a resident oversight board consistent with the council's November 14 2022 vote does that address what you're suggesting I think that that could be fine I've kind of been refraining from saying too much in this conversation because my understanding is that this is just about Clarity um and I totally understand exactly what that is saying I want to add to it but I thought that that would happen in a separate meeting so that's also a little bit of my confusion here thank you I you're thank you for that uh Anna uh the clarity I can offer here is that this was this level of specificity was drawn from thinking about what's reasonable to accomplish in the year uh in and what steps like what are the specific steps in the process not pitching any changes just adding the clarity from go okay moving on develop a plan for addressing critical space and program needs at the senior center including an AA accessible Transportation program that runs 5 days a week councelor hanii um aren't they two separate things that's very interesting they were at one point let's uh let's put an alternative in here one is Alter develop a plan for addressing the critical space space and program needs at the senior center just yeah split into two goals um does that address your issue councelor hanaki thank you yes uh Pam yeah I had a similar thing I was going to say and increase accessible Transportation offerings instead of being very specific about the Ada accessible transportation that runs 5 days a week I'm I'm just saying if we had the wording increase accessible transportation offerings it doesn't it doesn't I mean it could be Saturdays it could you know okay Bob hegner uh really just a word smithing issue but we talk about proposing a plan in some action items and talk about developing a plan in others so we ought to be consistent okay Pam or Bob I still had one other change okay would love to see and that is rather than develop a plan just cross those three or four words out and just say address critical space and program needs at the senior center we know that there's arpa money it could be done in this this year let's let's tackle it okay let's not let's not all right any other uh com complete and submit a complete create I'm sorry create and complete no create and submit a complete streets tier 2 prioritization plan and a tier three construction application to mass do Pam you have your hand up actually do and comment um so I'm looking at number this nine and 10 the last two um sections here they actually feel like they could be combined maybe they don't need to be um but I I think um my it wasn't clear why these were being suggested and I think what we're really trying to do is reduce accident rates uh for cyclists and for pedestrians by doing a couple things one getting this the complete streets um planned done so that we can get money to fix the problems um and and and then also complete the network bike Network plan so they may be two things we could keep them two separate things all right Bob hagner I didn't take it down George so these are two items and that's why they're written this way um the uh plan the the first item create and submit a complete streets tier 2 prioritization plan would then allow us to enter into the uh application process and access up to $500,000 um as councelor he suggested um for addressing some of our critical infrastructure needs roads and sidewalks I'm thinking particularly of what will be happening in the next few years um uh on the uh East Comet uh related to the school so um the reason this is here is to get us in the best possible position in the coming year uh to access or try to access those funds the uh bicycle and pedestrian Network plan has been sitting out there for a number of years and I think it would be uh prudent and wise for us to try and complete that in the coming year so they're both specific and I think they're both doable within a year and I think the language is clear okay Kathy I just have a question when I went and looked at what a tier 2 was and a tier three tier 2 includes bicycle and pedestrian Network plan that you need to have one of those to be tier two so are are these redundant or are we saying maybe we don't do the complete streets and try to go for grant money instead we just come up with a network plan so I like these but it just feels like one is a subset when we say tier two when I read what tier two is it includes the second one so we don't need to do it unless for the general public that's you want people to know that what's in tier two so you could since it's otherwise Greek to anyone who's read this like you have to go Google it to find out what these are but you could say complete stretch to prioritization and you could put in pen okay bike and pedestrian so it's just it's separated out one element of what a tier two is I hear you and the call to do the bicycle and pedestrian Network plan has been specific call from many from a lot of residents and I think because it is part of that one jumbling it together again doesn't reduce the amount of work so clar clarifying it out as a separate action item allows us to have that checkbox to identify that it is a priority and uh to not just do it for the purpose of the tier 2 prioritization but to also do it for all of the other good things that a pedestrian Network plan includes so that's why we we put it in here separately primarily to indicate that to the in not primarily but because of what it identifies to the public as well as the calls to to continue this um and because lumping it up doesn't actually reduce the amount of work that needs to happen Okay I I understand that this may be for the Optics but at the end of a 12-month period I'm going to be either checking a box yes or no for both of these if number two doesn't happen you know I mean we won't have a yes but hypothetically one could happen and the other couldn't okay okay okay any further question on this are there any additions to this goal George I know you don't have want your hand up at this point Bob do you have do you have George did you have your hand up to add anything no okay Bob yeah I I I don't think we cover Health very well in this in this list okay and I would suggest we add something along the lines of developing a plan to reduce or eliminate food insecurity and uh develop a plan to increase access uh to Medical Care and immunizations again in ammer um okay those are two different ones two two separate ones develop a plan to please repeat that to increase access um increase access to Medical Care and imun immun imun okay those are any clarifica clarifying on what do those mean okay pamone I'd like to add one as well and that so it's a new a new one I'm just waiting for it's a new one I'm just waiting for the box to appear right hang in there Athena we're coming close reduce accident rates of cyclists by enforcing vik bike visibility laws which which requires a assistance from the police department and education so Dollar in there um councelor hanii um two questions for the one that was just added um well it's not really a question it's a request for information from the manager for the next meeting can you get us the actual accident rates for cyclists in our town how many there have been and what that rate might be given our population or however you define a rate right um and for reducer minate food insecurity um I guess I'm not the eliminate is I guess where I've got some questions about are you like is this is this plan meant for like munin you know Anna had said on one for the um you had a municipally run housing first time home your down payment assistant programs was in intended to be municipally run are you looking with this proposal um a municipally run plan for eliminating food insecurity like could you just expand on what this plan like your thoughts on what this plan might include to get all the way to eliminating it in a town well if we can't I mean reducing if you want to get rid of eliminating that's fine um the idea is to make sure that people have access to food uh I don't know the details of why individuals don't have access to food but I do know food insecurity is a is a problem in town and I think that you know we could there are a number of ways that um you can increase access to food um uh one would be to bring food to people another would be to uh have uh vendors uh go to different parts of the the the town and and uh uh you know another another thing would be to create you know uh transportation to and from stores anyway I'm not sure precisely what to what the plan would look like but there are ways in which uh I think we can do more to reduce food insecurity is it insecurity or is it food deserts or access to I guess that's that's what I'm not quite understanding given especially what you just described food in security getting you Clos access to as well as poverty that prevents people from purchasing food yeah I'm fine taking out or eliminate all right we're taking out or eliminate Anna did you have a comment I had a clarifying question um yes the uh addition of reduced accident rates of cyclist by enforcing bike visibility laws and education is that through um APD so increasing APD enforcement on bike visibility laws yes okay okay uh Pat I just wanted to add to what Bob was saying about reducing food insecurity there are issues of Transportation there's um issues from the senior center for transportation yep um and there are um there's precedent in establishing mobile markets so what the town manager and town staff can do is begin to figure out the ways to support those issues okay so the plan might be how you support it uh I thank you Pat for making all of those points uh Paul just back to the visibility I want to make sure I understand they this would be to if a cyclist doesn't have the proper visibility that the police would pull them over and give them a ticket is that the intent of this yes request okay understood thank you can I I ask actually have a question on reduce accident rates of cyclists by enforcing bike visibility laws and education what about helmet laws has nothing to visibility it maybe we should resay sorry I was I just said the website up so I was I was just looking at it just bicycle laws bicycle laws would include helmets I think it would so if you take out the word visibility it covers helmets yes visibility comma helmet bicycle laws include visibility as per the website why don't we take out the word visibility and behind it just C EG such as helmets visibility Etc okay are there any others that people want to add Pat you have your hand up I don't think yep okay we are going on to the last goal hang in there gang climate action update the capital inventory to include criteria and priorities for the transition of municipal buildings vehicles and Equipment away from the use of fossil fuels is there any clarifying question next seek climate leader climate leader Community designation and accompanying funding from Department of energy resources doar any clarification finally consistent with state law and regulations and as feasible support the development of climate action focused bylaws that would reduce greenhouse gases uh emission and reduce resilient Reliance on fossil fuels including the waste huler bylaw battery energy storage systems bylaw and solar bylaw councelor hanck I have two separate Alternatives um one is to get rid of everything that is at the including so would just get rid of that or if the council is not doing this the way I understand this in clarifying is that I want to add two other potential bylaws okay um please State what those are I'm waiting it would be everything it would be all of that if the council wants to keep the inclus then I have two other bylaws to potentially to add to that list if we're going to start listing a ban on two-stroke engines in town and a ban on fossil fuel use in new construction are there any questions or clarifications Anna Mandy would you uh clarify on the banon two-stroke engines if that would uh include any exceptions whatsoever and if I'm reading this correctly it seems like it would be any and all and I know you might not know the answer yet but I worry based on the language I haven't drafted it yet what thank you all right um are there any additions to this go goal see none ah Bob yeah for the the ban on two-stroke engines I would on new I would add the word new two-stroke engines because there are people who have two-stroke engines they bought 20 years ago that are still working may I don't have any but um councelor hanii that would be a debate as to when the bylaw is proposed what it so okay are there any other questions of clarification on this one are there any new proposed ones we are completed this exercise and we have now added more goals than any human could ever accomplish okay before huh before you move on yes so I know I've got some tasks to bring what I will ask you as we go through this process is what does success look like tell me exactly what I would have to do to accomplish what you're asking for so I would whoever's propos these goals and I would say that these this this is too many I mean I think you should be thinking very hard about which half do you not want to do or which half do you think are lower priorities seriously about it it's it's going to be is in 11 months given the staff demands that we already have on our plates um it's going to be very challenging so I think you the the value the council brings is not creating the list it's in creating the priority for us and that that's a priority is the work that is the hard part for the council adding things on is really easy but if you tell us I would like our staff to say these are the three or five I mean it's going to be more of things that we really need to accomplish this year so I think I would ask each of you to say what is your top one two three things that you really want to get done this year and that's what one of the reasons I've reached out to you have you those one-on-one conversations with you as well but as a council I'm hoping you'll come to some consensus on that okay Kathy I just want to double underscore what Paul just said I am astonished at what we did tonight I thought we were going to be narrowing I I think the idea of priorities is priorities if you can't do everything and you've got limited staff what do we want most so I think that's what we've got to do with this I mean there's nothing most of these idea many of these ideas we wouldn't get debate about them some of them will get debate about them but I just think we Chris I don't know whe it's even a Christmas tree we went we went over we went over the cliff um and we're we're sitting here with budget shortfalls left and right Staffing shortfalls left and right committees that can't easily be staffed because the staff is already Staffing three committees um so I I think we really need to go back and uh do some heavy red mark just exit exit exit um y um I I'm astonished because I came in with my list of deletes it didn't even occur to me to add anything other than I thought maybe the word Finance should be somewhere in it but yeah thanks thank you councelor hanii um in terms of process The Retreat is 4 hours next week so seven days from now well eight days but practically seven given it's 10 p.m. um you talked at the beginning of this process that next week we would be asked to prioritize but also you were trying to figure out some of the categories um like high median low but there was also going to be like a easy or something and then also maybe a delete um if you could I'm I'm asking people here um that are in charge of this if you can get us this chart and ask us to do a preliminary one before we even arrive that that is the goal yes Tuesday of next week but we need time to no I don't so I don't know what the timing of all of this is and then have that collated when we get there because then maybe we can if we've got some agreement we can start with something the goal is to do the prioritization prior to the retreat Athena so the the intent with this part is to collect the ideas make sure that everyone understands everyone's ideas and then we wanted to have this conversation first so that you can we can do just that and analyze that data and present it as a group at The Retreat so we can see everyone's priorities and thoughts on the full list and then at that point the conversation is what's the capacity what are our resources what maybe needs pulled off the list um so as soon as I can tomorrow I will share out what the council had edited at the meeting today tonight and give some guid on how to give me your feedback in terms of priorities and so on are we going to be told how many at most we can rank in the high and in terms because there's also like that was an initial discussion separate like goal areas too right you know and so it's hard to say I guess as I'm approaching this at home since we're not going to have a lot is it do I get 10 highs only can I put them all in the same goal area or can I only have so many highs per goal area I think we're going to need some guidance around some of that I want to have I want to give Anna a chance to speak since she's thought a fair amount about this as well Anna um unless this has changed since the discussion what we've talked about is not because each goal area has a differing number and scale of goals we're not we're not limiting priorities to a number per goal area the goal areas are just kind of our organization process as we create these when we go through prioritization the the math of it we don't know yet we have to look at the total number here but yes the thought was unless I'm mistaken and something shifted the thought was there would be a set number of high priorities that you divvy out a set number of lows and or mediums and then lows and a not on the list at all so um we can't be in a system where we have all ranked everything High uh there's got to be some choices made like Paul said this is just too many so that is the idea I don't know the number yet um I think that's something that Athena will be so I would I would add to that a short anecdote um because I think it's difficult to put a number on this and I think the conversation is what's reasonable rather than a specific number because any number feels arbitrary so um I often ask my son what's a reasonable thing you love this story how many Oreo cookies do you want what's reasonable and he'll say three and I'll go okay we were with my niece and she said 10,000 I was like you need a lesson on what's reasonable right so I would ask the council to do this exercise with high medium and low priorities and then other such as you know I'd like to get this done but it seems like a lwh hanging fruit kind of thing in a reasonable way so not ranking everything a high priority not eliminating everything you know so let's be reasonable and not strict with the number does that feel okay I no I think I think we have disagreement among the committee at this point is the problem I think that there's some of us that have talked about this with you um myself and Anna and George probably feel like we should say you get so many highs you get so many mediums you get so many lows I don't think that will be useful when the you're having a discussion because there's no basis for saying okay everything that's a low priority we do this with everything that's a medium priority we do this with there will be a debate on each of the goals I think the intent with with the prioritization is to give the council a picture of where the priorities lie and how many counselors feel those priorities Anna George I appreciate everyone on this Council very much and I want to say that even if we disagree Athena your anecdote is excellent and what you're saying is true if everyone has an understanding of the scope and scale and of what is reasonable I think in this example we might all be your niece and that's my concern is that if we go through and we rank everything that we think is reasonable as high I don't think it's actually going to be reasonable so that's my rationale between giving a set number and I I you're absolutely right set numbers are arbitrary I don't think that until unless we do two Retreats where we sit with Paul and get a grasp on on how what each one takes I don't think that we have the ability right now just based on how we engage in this process in the past have the ability to know what is reasonable can I ask for two other things or helpful when when this email comes through one is it will be hard to rank some of these when I don't know the costs associated with them so if those I know you might not be able to produce them yesterday but you know or tomorrow right but it makes it harder to pick high medium low if the cost of it would change my ranking um so I don't know how give us some guidance on how we should note that in this ranking and then also some guidance on how we should note a priority when there are six Alternatives in the same box okay I want to give some other people an opportunity to weigh in Paul Jennifer the only thing I was gonna say is I don't know how accurate or I'll give you a a in terms of the financing of all these things it's I might do like a $1 sign to it be like a restaurant thing $2 signs $3 signs I think that would be you know fine and just say high medium low would be fine too Jennifer yeah I agree with Anna I think we need a number um and I thought Paul that was a very good suggestion I'm going to do it myself it's like just my five priorities guess if we all go through that exercise ourselves I think that might be helpful and just we won't come in and be so invested in everything we think is important okay I'll give you a number of cookies Andy yeah in addition I think that there was a question that kept coming up in my mind is whether um things that were being proposed at various points uh duplicated what already exists um for example was a creation of a number of different bodies to um advocate for and uh various groups that were um potentially or in actual life uh being discriminated against but we have a Human Rights Commission but what is the purpose of the human right commission are we disbanding it um it it just um there were tremendous number of questions that came up about this in addition to budget uh which I think is budget means staff time as well as money uh and I think that we can look at the experience that we've had with uh existing bylaws that we've tried to pursue which I will admit readily that I'm involved with this co-sponsor well the waste all or the other was the lighting policy you know we know now um that both of those are topics that take a tremendous amount of staff time and uh may take additional resources and may um because we know what other communities have done be successful and be very productive but we don't but the question is in the end is whether it is worth the cost and we can afford the cost I think there are just a lot of factors that need to be weighed in every one of these which uh former councelor Shon Bal M had raised as an issue that we should look before we consider any issue at a series of great uh at criteria to make those decisions and uh I um am really worried about what's going to happen at the retreat when we're trying to do with this with so many different proposals at the same time U and it was hard enough to conceive of doing it the way that Shon was talking about which was a proposal was made and these are things you should think about before you go further and here we are not just doing that with one but doing it with a whole group of things at the same time I just can't conceive what this process is going to be like and the whether I'm going to be sane at the end of it Pat I also want us to be individually clear and honest with ourselves about what we're putting in this document I have been as a counselor working on food insecurity for six years okay and Bob is the first coun other counselor who's ever brought it up as an issue in the council and as much as I would like to see it be a goal is that that's a this Council has never addressed it so can it be a goal in this document or do you or should it be removed and you and I sit down and start to think of some actions and proposals that we bring to the council so does that make sense Alicia um thank you Lyn I think um I'm thinking about a few things here and these are just things to consider I don't necessarily think that there will be an answer to many of these questions but sorry excuse me I'm wondering when we're talking about ranking and we're looking at the categories I know Anna said that we're using our sort of General categories for like just general management purposes but are there any categories that we like together think that we want to have no goals in for the next 11 months um and I think that that's something to consider especially taking into consideration the fact that Paul is asking us to be reasonable um and to really think about what can be done in the next 11 months um and so understanding that even if we don't have a goal listed under a specific category that that doesn't necessarily mean that nothing under that category will be done but we use this to evaluate Our Town manager and so I think what our perception of his progress and successes is really dependent on what we decide we put in this document and I think it's really important that we be on the same page in this process because it will help us to be more efficient in evaluating the town manager and making really clear expectations for him which I think has been challenging for us in the past um and so like my initial thought would be and to be honest not really what I think is ideal for myself but picking one high priority Topic in each category um unless again we think that there is a category we can agree upon not having a a goal in for the next 11 months um and ranking them that way I'm not really sure but I also I don't really think cost for me personally is something that goes into my ranking considerations because I think if there was one thing that we all consistently ranked as high priority and there was a cost to it but it's one thing and we're minimizing this document then maybe it's something that's worth considering seriously even if there is a cost or even if there are staff Staffing implications I think that those are important things to talk about but I think we will get to the sort of meat of those things in our Council Retreat and so for just the purposes of prioritizing the document so that we can get to that discussion I think it is important for us to have really clear uniform sort of rules around how we're going to be ranking these things um and so I know that kind of wasn't really super helpful but these are just all of the things that I am thinking about right now um and it would be helpful to have guidance if we want to have one high priority in every category and then rank them down the line that way so we can have it for a basis of discussion um but I think if I have five high priorities in one category I'm not sure that that's going to be helpful for a conversation where another counselor might have no high priorities in that specific Cate thank you I think that was very helpful Alicia Kathy you still have your hand up uh yeah but actually I put it up um I think a number is really important I looked at 37 and I thought we should cut it down to 25 in terms of the actions and I like what Alicia just said but one of the things that happened in the drafting is there was a real effort to break things apart into single actions where you could have had a three sentence thing that had three things in it um so I think we're up over 50 right now my guess yep so I thought we'd go from 37 down to 25 but I think we need a number just the way if someone told me I have $100 to spend I have to live within $100 I think we have to live within a doable set so I strongly urge that we don't just say high medium and low but we say Get it down to a number and alicious suggesting one in each of the major things maybe that doesn't work but no not 20 in one okay okay um Anna do you have some final thoughts on this and I think at this point we need to go back to our committee I think they're repetitive of what I've already said so I lowered my hand I didn't hear that I would have been repeating myself from before because I felt like I had said it too long ago so I'm lowering my hand thank you all right um thank you for the various pieces of feedback and uh the committee if you will will meet as soon as it can tomorrow or Wednesday okay we will get something to you in advance we will ask for it back prior to the retreat and we will compile the re the information so you have it for the retreat okay um there are no committee and leaz on reports because no committees have met since the last time uh so uh and we approved the minut Paul you don't you do not have a written report yes you have a liaison report oh go ahead Pam there was a there was a building committee today yes there was for two hours 15 minutes 15 so and it was it was from the Consulting parties um explaining what they thought mitigation might be and I'm going to cough so that's all I'm going to say okay um all right are there any other Lees on reports or committee reports Paul did you have anything to add just a couple things so just to appreciate apprciate that Pam uh didn't mention the the building committee uh meeting today which I thought was well managed uh lot of interest in people and 80 people there I think were in in total so it's a really good meeting um thank to all the counselors who attended the mass Municipal Association connect 351 meeting uh in Boston over the weekend and uh Thursday and Friday it's a big time commitment and we want to recognize that but um you know I hope hope you'll give feedback to the MMA on a the location the the um how the facility worked what workshops you liked or didn't like or what was missing if they they really need that information um the uh one of the outcomes from that was the announcement at the Maya breakfast meeting of our health insurance the range of health insurance we don't know our individual rates yet but earlier we had been working through a 10 to 15% range they had come in with a 12 to 19 plus range which is not good news for us so we will know that information hopefully in advance of the BCG meeting I've really stressed to them that that's an important time for us um they know are where we've been budgeting so we'll see what they do but I think we are I'm anticipating we be at we are at the high end of the range when they came to us last time so I don't expect good news on that uh and the last thing is just the um I just credit our staff for putting together the the warming Center at the bang Center um and it became really important because what happened on Tuesday when it opened was that the Craig Stores um uh place that they would where they have for daytime at behind the First Baptist Church the pipes froze and so they couldn't occupy that and so they were able to with their staff come over to the banks Community Center with the crest staff that were already there and be able to occupy that space and we and they actually extended it to Friday to even though the weather was starting to warm up because I facility uh the trailer they call it behind the First Baptist Church wasn't available so um it was it was great that we our team had put together everything was ready to go on Tuesday morning and uh just credit to you know Crest uh APD afd Senior Center uh Health Department um Everybody in the bang Center for pulling it together right yes quite an effort are there any other questions of the Town manager um you have a written report in your account in your packet from me I'm sorry it was not there until today because like you I was at MMA if you have questions now please ask if not you can ask me later if you want to Future agenda items I did also did not get the calendar started but I will and in doing so we'll ask each of the Comm committees when they form to make sure that we've listed the things that you know are still part of your committee's efforts okay Mandy Joe you I mean councelor Han you answered what I was gonna ask oh uh councelor comments I'm sorry you answered what I was going to ask oh okay thank you um so that um and so now we're any future agenda items any counselor comments including observations about MMA that people feel they need to make okay um there's no any other final comments okay there's no executive session I move to adjourn is there a second second um the motion's been made and seconded we'll move immediately to a vote uh Bob hegner I councelor Lord is absent uh Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes Patti angels I Anna De goth I councelor Hi l grimer and i councelor hanii hi it's unanimous with one absence good evening