WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=SdfE6z8tO60

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: SdfE6z8tO60):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Start, Introductions, and Agenda Overview
- 00:01:59: Discussion of Internship Program Proposal for Youth
- 00:06:03: Connecting Internships to City Communications Efforts
- 00:08:23: Logistical and Academic Considerations for Internships
- 00:13:48: Distinguishing Internship Goals From Communication Needs
- 00:17:32: Approval Mechanisms and Political Divisiveness Concerns
- 00:18:23: Exploring Collaboration and City Council Accessibility
- 00:21:41: College-Aged Interns and Funding for External Internships
- 00:25:43: Addressing Delays in Meeting Minutes Accessibility
- 00:30:57: Explaining Website Integration and Cost Implications
- 00:33:15: New Technologies for Meeting Recordings and Accessibility
- 00:36:08: Prioritizing Actions from the Community Relations Committee
- 00:37:47: Ethical Concerns Regarding AI in Meeting Summaries
- 00:42:28: Committee Positions on Communications and Community Relations
- 00:46:11: Revisiting Internship Ideas and Civic Engagement
- 00:47:14: Gathering Feedback Directly From Students and Youth
- 00:48:52: Exploring Mass Hire and Other Internship Resources
- 00:50:46: Contacting GCC and MMA, Stacy and Councillor Dialogue
- 00:55:11: Committee Approval and School Committee Meeting Updates
- 00:57:03: Attending School Events and Council Meeting Presence
- 01:00:24: School Committee Representation at Council Meetings Discussed
- 01:04:10: Superintendents Attendance: Tradition, Decision, and Zoom
- 01:06:36: Gratitude, Thank You, Long-Term Planning, Facility Meetings
- 01:07:53: Unhoused Updates and Community Engagement Citizens Academy
- 01:10:20: Citizen Academies, Boards, and Commission Partnerships
- 01:16:10: Public Frustration with Scheduling and Zoom Technology
- 01:20:16: Zoom Instructions and Focus on Importance of Small Efforts
- 01:21:06: Motion to Adjourn and Meeting Conclusion


Part: 1

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Good evening everybody. Um the time is 6:35. This meeting is being recorded by the community relations committee. If any other persons present are doing the same, you must notify the chairperson at this time.

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>> Um >> okay, great. Madison from Greenfield reporter is recording. So we'll do a roll call of members. >> Oh, perfect. I'm seven here. >> Oh, no. That's all right. We're We just

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are roll calling in now. Okay. Brown here. Councelor Balduk >> here. Councelor Citizen Alves >> here. Councelor Minhas >> uh here.

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>> And councelor Dillith is unable to make it tonight. So, we have two guests and if the guests would like to introduce themselves, that'd be excellent. >> Hi, folks. I'm Stacy Ston. I'm the chair

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of the school committee here in town. >> Thanks for being here. >> Hi, I'm Jonathan. I'm the communications director for the city. >> Thank you for joining as well after work hours. Um so we have a few discussion items

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tonight. First is the internship idea, the unhoused committee recommendations and then local government communications and discussion around community issues and priorities in general. And because these are all discussion topics, I think

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it's okay if we um jump around a little bit. So we can take things there isn't like a a we can approximately start with that idea, but happy to move things around as we go. Um so maybe let's start

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with the internship idea and if you wanted to share where you were coming from with that. >> Yeah. So, um, this was an idea that was kind of formed

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with talking to a lot of the youth in Greenfield and also those who have grown up in Greenfield and and have unfortunately left the area. Um, for them, two of the biggest concerns around being

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in Greenfield and how what makes it hard to stay here is one is finding housing and another is finding jobs. And I could definitely connect with the second one a lot to myself because I

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remember when I was going through the Greenfield public school system, it was really hard to kind of figure out what you can do with your career. Uh, a lot of our educators are very dedicated to the students. They

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want what's best for them beyond what's just for school. But with a lot of our resources, it seemed like maybe we're kind of lacking and falling behind when it compares to other school systems. I was fortunate enough I left Greenfield

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and I went to um Northfield Mount Herman through a scholarship. Um and I had to unfortunately leave Greenfield, get out of the Greenfield school system to get an internship and inside

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Greenfield. Um they had a program that was essentially pairing students with different agencies, different um organizations in which they could kind of just get their feet wet, learn about how that career environment looks like.

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I was able to work in the courthouse doing that in the library um in the finance department. And it was like these like three month small little things, but you got to kind of see, hey, how does it work behind the scenes? And

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for a lot of our students here in Greenville who come from a working class uh place, their parents are aren't potentially the most welloff and can't just make up a call and be like, "Hey, get my kid an internship." Like, they need that structural framework. And so

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the idea is just kind of throwing it out there. How about we have a dialogue over the course of these next few months talking with um key relevant authorities like yourself,

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Stacy, uh who work with our students and who are kind of part of our uh different departments and also our local business to kind of be able to see if we can create some type of a program or some type of a playbook to be like, okay, this is how our students can be guided

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towards these careers. I mean, it doesn't just mean, hey, you get into an internship and you might love that place. You might just be like, okay, I don't like working here. I don't like being in a cubicle or I don't like being in a lab coat or I don't like being in XYZ. But it kind of helps you

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narrow down and also get you ready for the workforce, get you ready and give you that confidence to be like, okay, these are these skill sets that I've developed. And I think Greenfield can kind of step up their game when it comes to that type of thing. and potentially all we might need is just some

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collaboration between different key uh players when it comes to the kids education. So I kind of wanted to just have in the next few months just some conversations to see if we can expand something like that for our kids. So Stacy, there might be a lot of resources

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that we that are already in place, things that we can find, things that we can expand on that the community at large just might not know about or things that maybe the council can do to like help facilitate that. So that was kind of the idea. Mhm.

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>> Um, and does anyone want to if you want to respond to that or we can share more about last meeting how that was connected to communications and civic communications as well. Um, which is sort of why we wanted to have both of you all at the meeting. Um because we

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were specifically interested in how we can make the work of the city council and the mayor and any of the boards and commissions and committees more accessible to the public and how um it's a tremendous amount of work to do that

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and not expecting you or other or the city clerks to be um taking on more than what you're already doing, but what are ways that we could complement those efforts and even considering the senior tax work off program, but then we were

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thinking how um youth might be a better fit at some of the things like social media or something like that. So I think those that was sort of like what we had discussed last time just to set the is there anything else? We just we considered having an intern do things

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like um post, you know, get interviews with the city council, make the city council more accessible, things like that, you know, um basically um have an intern almost for the city council so that somebody could um research things and like do I forget the

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specifics, but there was a there was a push for wanting to make the city council more accessible by literally having an intern write almost like a newsletter like this is what your city council is up to. this is what we're trying to work on so that it's published regularly and that it was more accessible to the public that way like

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the mayor's newsletter but written by a student. I think that's it. >> I think you had also mentioned potential collaboration with GCTV. >> Yeah, we had um and but they're going to want money

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so I forgot about that. Yeah. But yeah, and they're they're going to want money for anything depended that um >> yeah, >> I think that was it. >> Okay. Do you all want to share any thoughts?

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It's okay if you don't think that that's a workable idea. Also, that's fine. I'm sure we can figure out something for harmless and this vein of of how do we make what we're do what's happening in everyone's city more accessible. >> Yeah. I mean, I can I'm happy to respond

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more broadly um about internships with students in general. So, um I I think for for one, I don't think that there's any idea that it's totally impossible if we're willing to stick with enough logistics like if we are willing to to

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actually figure out a way. Nothing is totally impossible to my mind. Um, and I think there are, you know, as we're thinking about any internships of any kind, there are going to be some just real logistical

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um factors to put into our planning. So, I'm thinking as a for instance, any person, it doesn't matter if they're a city employee already, needs to have a Corey sorry background check done if they're working with an under 18. So,

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that's sort of across the board. Um, and so when we think about I I would and the reason that I'm bringing stuff up like this, um, is that those cost money, they will need to be accounted for if we're doing that on a bigger scale than we have done before. So, you know, I want

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to be very sensitive to GCT. GCTV will probably want money for things, but even if we don't have them as a partner, even for this, there will be costs that are associated. No internship program is totally free. And if this is something we want, that's okay. That's great. I

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totally support that. And um a bit of historical knowledge that I have is that uh Greenfield Public Schools actually had an internship program with DPW that was sort of acting as a as a pipeline for our students to to get acquainted

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with those jobs, figure out if that's something they like, etc. But the reason we don't still have it is because there was a grant that was paying for it. like the logistics of getting the kids to the sites and that sort of thing. Um because not all of our kids have their own cars and so transportation is another sort of

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potential cost that we'll want to think about. Um and that grant went away and that's why we don't have it anymore. And so thinking about >> are there other grant programs that we can be looking for? maybe private foundation funding, friends of Franklin

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County groups, whomever that would be willing to subsidize at least the startup cost for a program like this, whatever the actual content of what students do is. Um, so that's just one thing I wanted to name. The second thing is that, you know, for any anything that

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we want to do with our kids, our students, it needs to not only be something that helps them explore career options, explore different types of work. um in different places, but there also has to be some academic relevancy or component to it. So, you know, I

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think that's part of just what these discussions would need to be is how does this fit in with our curriculum? Um what standards are we aligning and making sure that this internship experience is a positive one? Um not just like temperamentally, not just gaining some

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mentorship from another trusted adult, um but that it is actually furthering their learning in some way. I'm also of the belief that I think that any experience you can have just about is one that you can tie into a curriculum if you want it to. Uh but that's just,

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you know, it's just one of those things that we have to actually do the work of of enumerating what those learning objectives and outcomes are. Um the third thing that I really want to be mindful of is mentorship doesn't just happen. And an internship is one thing,

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but really the the value there is being placed placed with a trusted adult who can actually talk to you and knows how to appropriately mentor a student. Not everyone does. Not everyone's a natural at it. And that's okay. Why they're all training programs to figure out how to

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how to mentor, how to be mentored. And so I would want us to um as we're thinking about moving in this direction, want us to think about what are the necessary structures that we're also setting up around like to contain to put the boundaries to like create the scaffolding necessary for a program like

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this to succeed. Um because I would want to know for instance for a city council newsletter, is it the city council president that is their me mentor that that's their point person who they work with? what is the nature of the relationship with every like can we spell some of this out >> because clear expectations are helpful

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for everybody um to understand if this is working uh even um those are sort of the big things that I have right now like I said I'm like very interested in this idea I think more opportunities for our kids is just

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better um and I want this to be like if there is a way for us to also make sure that we are creating opportunities that our students want to have. So not just setting up any old internship because it fits our needs, but is this something that is

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fundamentally of interest to our students? Because we can create a program, but if we have no students who volunteer or who sign up, then then it's not really meeting everyone's needs. Um, Jonathan, would you like to share? I

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feel like we're posing like internship as the solution, but even more just backed up like what problems or capacity or like what you would want or need support with and if an intern is something that would help or not, it's okay. >> Well, it kind of seems to me like there

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are two topics and needs being discussed right now. There's um counselor Minhas's kind of expressed need of wanting to see more internship opportunities. My sense is that's kind of internships for the sake of the internships and giving students

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that experience. And I think that's potentially a distinct issue from wanting to improve communications from council to the community. Certainly they could be, you know, there's an opportunity there for those two things to come together, but they don't

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necessarily need to and they they aren't necessarily going to be compatible. >> Um, you know, internships, I think generally I don't have a lot to say about, you know, the general idea. I think totally, um, sympathize with counselor Minhos's desire there. Um and

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I think in general, you know, offering more opportunities for students to have professional um experiences is is great and super important. Um you know, it is work for staff people to manage interns. It's not like having a you know, a part-time employee. It's

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more like a mentorship. Um having managed interns myself in the past. Um so it is, you know, it is additive most often to employees workload. Um, so that's that's just a truth I think that

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has to be kept in mind. There might be some exceptional interns out there who who truly take on some workload, but for the most part often times it's it's additive to the workload. I think um, from the communications perspective and that issue of wanting to improve sort of

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council communications to the community, um, you know, I think bring on an intern to do that would would probably complicate something that's already potentially a little complicated. Um, you know, I'm thinking of a a hypothetical

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situation in which um in which the the council has an opposing view from the mayor, right? Like as staff, I report to the mayor. Um, so that could create a challenging dynamic, right? If council is looking to put out a communication on

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on city channels that is not aligned with the administration's position, um that's that's an awkward dynamic for staff to be in the middle of. Um so something to consider. Um and then you know if if you are thinking

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about maybe bringing on an intern to do some of that work you know how how does the management of that person um play out and can council manage staff? I don't know the answer to that. Um I

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think the clerk is the the clerk of the council is managed by Kathy the city clerk is my understanding. Um, so I don't know that there's precedent for that, but I think it'd be something to look into a little more um, as kind of a fundamental question if you wanted to have, you know, sort of an intern for

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the council. Um, and otherwise, if if that intern is going to be managed by by staff, you know, again, I think there is a little bit of a a potential um, dynamic of conflict there that that we could get into. So, just something to to

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chew on a little bit. think, you know, too too early to have a really uh black or white view on any of these suggestions at this point, but those are the thoughts that come to mind for me. >> Thank you. Also just to share um we did have some

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conversation with clerk Scott and she was saying that she's not sure what approval mechanism would need to be in place like if we did want to put something on social media or on the website making sure that it's completely um apolitical and truly just like this

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is the budget timeline or like this is opportunities you can weigh in but we're not that it wouldn't be appropriate to use city communications to say something politically divisive and that she's not sure if who would ultimately have the authority over that

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if that's the council president or who who gets to decide that. >> Yeah. And I I'll just offer, you know, I I would really love to be putting out more communications in general to the community, including like a quick

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summary of what's on the docket for city council in any given week. And it's it's really just a capacity issue for me. There's there's more work that can get done um in the in the vast majority of weeks. Um so, but I would be happy to

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work with someone on council to to draft something like that with the understanding of, you know, basically the mayor's office has final approval on on what goes out. um you know that I think that I could imagine that kind of lightening the workload and whether that's a counselor or an intern you know

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kind of kind of up to you all however you set that up. >> That's good to know because I think we already are trying to queue up some materials especially about the budget to make the budget season more accessible. So, that's good to know that we could

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send you things potentially, but we'd have to figure out like the color palette and whatever. Like, we could talk about all of that off the off the meeting. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. >> One of the things I was like how I was

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when you guys were brought up this idea about us having somebody potentially community relations having like an intern or something. It was less about like, oh, for example, like if there's a budget line item and half the council feels something about this and half the

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council feels something else. It's like rather than kind of like be a mouthpiece for any side or anything. It would just more along the lines of, hey, this is kind of how council works like operationally. This is how we are. These

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are your counselors. This is how you reach them. This is how they come to a vote. like kind of like giving the public and especially our youth like a >> a peak behind the curtain. >> A peak behind the curtain. Yes. Yes. Something like that rather than like

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>> cuz like I could want something completely different and Sarah might want something completely different and then what are we going to do? Like fight over the person, you know, like rather than like we have our own mechanisms of reaching out to the public. This would kind of be something for a way so that

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the council whatever the council makeup would be throughout time it would just not like highlight its position but kind of clarify what does the council do what is its actual role like so maybe someone from our youth maybe like someone out in

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the public could be like oh that job looks like kind of cool maybe I want to do that someday you know like something where they're more enlightened about how the council actually functions and what do we do and how is it done rather than like we want X thing and then now we're

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fighting with the mayor and like that's our mouthpiece and like the mayor has you and you're like a combine person and us duking it out like rather than that it would just kind of be like hey this is how the council functions like that's how I was thinking when you guys were talking about this

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>> I think also our dream scenario would be that funding for an internship was external to the like if we the city wasn't responsible for like applying for a grant, but that it was like GCC already has something set up or whatever, but that's totally

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idealistic. I don't know what opportunities already exist where we could be one of the avenues plugged into something that already has funding. Yeah, I am also just taking note of um

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um the the added complications when the intern is under 18 and that potentially there could be like um just u less hoops to go through if it was say like a more

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of a college age or an 18 to 25 year old or something. I mean, we could do something like um at the tech school where I went, they had a uh program where you would basically go to the college and earn credits at the college. Not that we're going to get

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credits for any work that is done here as an internship, but something of that age where you can put that on a resume and you get, you know, it's it's good for your resume to get into school essentially. So something that is geared towards seniors or >> you know people who you know a

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19-year-old who might still be in school. Um you number one you get their writing ability. You don't, you know, you're not getting like somebody who's 13 and, you know, can't really doesn't it's still only a five paragraph essay, but you have that ability and then you have that somebody who might have a car

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and if not, we can work that out, but you have that access to it's like almost like a pipeline to higher education because you have that credential, >> you know, but and then I I had a full thought and it disappeared halfway through. My apologies. >> Good.

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Um yeah, we do have some students who take a few classes at GCC. Um we also have something called the Beacon program which is more focused on like entrepreneurship type preparation. Um where I think they physically go to

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campus I think. Um but that is not quite the same as an internship per se. Sweet. There's probably a lot of like slightly interwoven ideas that are that

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are so there's like early college stuff. There's getting college dual credit, >> college credit type stuff. There's entrepreneurship entrepreneurship type stuff. There's internship which is and they're all slightly different. Um and so I think maybe getting a little more clarity on what what do we really want?

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What's actually solving the problem that we have? Um, >> and that's got to be something council specific too or school committee specific as well because it sounds like it's going to be a burden to staff to have somebody on the under their heels. >> Um, I mean, yes. So, anytime that you're

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taking on a junior employee, whether they're an intern or an employee, it it takes time to, you know, orient them to where they're at, get them up to speed enough to be able to like make meaningful contribution. I don't think that extra burden is the only reason to

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say no because if you're hiring more people that will be extra burden for folks but we do I think want to like like I think we're we do want to bring new people into the fold um >> I just think that that needs to be accounted for like if we go into this

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with the expectation that somehow suddenly getting an 18-year-old to go mentor under Jonathan is going to save Jonathan time not going to happen But could over time this person like in three months be able to do some of the like behind the scenes like work for

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Jonathan and maybe save an hour or two. Sure. You know, but I think that like we just need to be really uh cleareyed with ourselves about what it is that we can reasonably expect from a youth. Um,

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Jonathan, I'm wondering if I can like talk about some specific areas that I feel like would be great for more attention, I guess. Um, like >> yeah,

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>> I think that the um the meeting minutes is really a struggle. like I don't it's it's so delayed from when the meetings happen and there it's hard to find and like even like for example the capital

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planning committee um was a six-hour meeting and like we're supposed to be voting on things but we don't have any meeting minutes for it. So I'm wondering like how on earth Yeah. who like who is even responsible for capital planning

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committee meeting minutes or like how yeah how is this something that we can like it's really inaccessible even for counselors so it's like way inaccessible for the public so I don't I don't know I can't speak specifically to capital planning

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committee when I looked at the the calendar it looked like a meeting hadn't been posted publicly for them since like I think February 2024 was the last one that I saw so I'm not sure what the deal is there. That would be probably a question for Clerk Scott. Um,

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so the the meeting minutes are are tricky and it is ultimately it's it's really a question of time. Um, you know, I think part of the part of the challenge is probably that a lot of minutes don't even get submitted to the

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clerk or don't get submitted in a timely manner. Um, and of course, keep in mind minutes aren't approved usually until the following month, right? So, so right off the bat, you're not going to see them for four weeks typically. Um, and then sometimes, you know, they don't get

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voted on at that meeting or, you know, they get voted on but not submitted to the clerk. And we don't have a process right now where the clerk then sends them to me to post on the website. So, it's very um it's very ad hoc. Some

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committee staff members, committee liaison have um website access and are better about posting their minutes either because of you know for regulatory reasons like you know planning and zoning uh tend they tend to be very on it with their minutes because

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they need to be posted. You know city council you all have Tammy. So I think I think you you tend to be your minutes tend to get posted. Same I think for the the city council committees. Um you get beyond that and it it yeah it's

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pretty spotty. Um and you know in order for it to not be spotty um a few things would have to happen. you know, the the the chairs or the secretaries, whoever it is on the committees who are responsible for the minutes um have to

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be consistent about submitting them to the clerk or, you know, the staff liaison for the committee has to be consistent about submitting to the clerk. And then we need some kind of process where the clerk gets it to me or they're submitted to me and the clerk. Um, and right now we just don't have

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that. So, a lot of them just kind of go into into the ether or maybe just stay on people's Google Drives. I don't know. Um, but it is definitely something we need to improve. Um, something I'm very conscious of, something that um, I want to see improved and it's really it's

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just a question of of staff time right now. I've had a drafted boards and commissions procedures doc for like eight months now that's like half done and I just haven't haven't had time to to um to write probably the the final

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four pages of it and um and start putting some of that into action. So, it's definitely on the radar. I know that it's it's something that the mayor wants to see improved. Um and it yeah it's just a question of of staff time to work on it and and set up the processes

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to improve it. You know the other challenge is we we don't have great technology. You know there are there are better solutions to this where we could have a portal for these minutes to get submitted at a minimum you know so that people don't have to email them. Um but you know then

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you get into questions of you know for example you can't use Google Docs or Microsoft forms to upload documents unless people are logged in. So those two tools are off the table because board and commission members don't have

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Google login. So we'd have to find some other tool to use. Then we're getting into a budget question potentially. Um, I would love to see more integration throughout our website so that you know we don't have a setup where it's like an agenda set center where people put in an

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agenda that gets posted to the calendar. It automatically also gets posted on the board and commission page. That's just not how our website works. It's like a separate you just have to upload a separate PDF to post on the board and commission page. So, you know, it becomes very cumbersome to put them in both places. Um, minutes don't get

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posted on the calendar. So, that's sort of its own thing, but just trying to give you a sense of of where we're at technology-wise and some of the the lack of assistance that our technology provides, right? I don't want to say it's a barrier, but it's it definitely

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it doesn't help us um with with what our website can do right now. >> Thank you. That's helpful. >> Yeah. Um I'm I have seen other towns with this like agenda center portal and I'm wondering yeah you were saying some of the

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challenges of us having it but can you explain why why can't we have nice things right now >> money >> yeah well I think what you're looking at is pro is probably a I think it's civic plus um that has that specific feature so it's a different um it's a different

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website content management system um we use revise which is, you know, its own vendor. Um, Revise does have an an agenda builder and an agenda center and some of those integrations, they cost money and we're

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not paying for them right now. >> Okay, >> that's helpful. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. The Northampton one is civic engage, so that's not the one we have. Yeah, Civic Plus often. I think

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Northampton is on a Civic Plus website. Um, oftentimes that you'll see their their tools are called Civic something. And we use some of Civic Plus's tools are our um public records request tool is a Civic Plus tool. So, their stuff

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can integrate into our website. Um, whether or not we would want to integrate their tools as opposed to using some of the native tools from Revise, I don't know. I haven't evaluated um any of that, but yeah, it is a question of of website functionality and and the features that

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we're paying for or not paying for. Um, do you have a sense of how much this stuff costs or just like the for I don't know some of the newer tools, ones that we might want that we're not paying for

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now just to kind of get a sense of what >> um I haven't quoted the agenda center. I don't I don't know for sure that Revise or current vendor has a functionality that would meet the need here the way that I think some of the Civic Plus features would. Um the features from

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Revise tend to be, you know, a few,000 for a setup fee and then usually like $5 to $10,000 annually. Another like nice gadget that I think would be nice that we probably can't afford, but I feel like um when you're

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in a Zoom meeting and it has the like little owl um whatever the like where like is the little robot guy in the middle that like changes who the speaker is. I feel like that makes watching a

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meeting so much better too if you see the speaker and also can help with the sound quality. So I'm like how much are those things like I'm like is there no budget? Is there grants for helping with making a Yeah.

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>> Yeah. That's getting beyond my pay grade. That's that's an IT question. They're really the ones that are in charge of the the meeting room technology. Um, I can tell you that that we will have to make some investments in meeting room technology in order to comply with the new title 2 requirements

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for the Americans with Disabilities Act. Um, essentially, you know, that um those new rules cover video content. So, any meeting recordings that we post publicly or are publicly available have to comply. Um, that includes the captions.

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captions have to be included, which they are included now, but it's it's basically just YouTube's autogenerated captions that get, you know, posted with the meeting recording on GCTV. Um, but our current recordings would not be compliant because speakers are not

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identified. Um, so we're going to have to, you know, for example, because you all are in one meeting room, right? So all Zoom knows based on the audio that it's getting from you all is that city hall meeting room is talking, right? It doesn't know if it's councelor Brown, councelor Minhas. It has no way to

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differentiate. So, we're going to have to look into likely separate microphones for speakers in meeting rooms that can somehow be tagged with an identifier. So, there's some investments that are going to have to be made. I don't know if it would make sense to invest in um some some improved video technology. At the

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same time, I know that the the Zoom rooms um functioning that we have is is not cheap and it is complicated. So, Yeah, definitely an IT question on some level. >> Okay.

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>> Thank you. >> Well, on any level, is there any way currently that the council like specifically the community relations because that's what we're we're trying to do is engage more, you know, civic activity from the public, that kind of thing. Is there anything that you could think that we could do just the, you

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know, the few of us here to make that bridge a little easier for you now? You know, short of having an intern, you know, working directly with us. Um, are there things that we could submit to you on a regular that you could just publish? You know, what would help us and you kind of work in that

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relationship prior to any of this formal discussion for an intern so we could get at least one of those items tagged? Yeah, I would be happy to to partner with um with folks on council on, you know, creating some of that content that councelor Minhos was describing around

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kind of keep keeping focused on on sort of process on the city council's responsibilities um and trying to explain and educate the the public on on on those um those items. I think there are things that

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would suit themselves well to um to like some vertical video content on our social media. Um so if you all are are interested in working on that or or written newsletters as well just kind of explaining what's coming up in council meetings. I mean, it would not be hard

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or take a ton of time to um have, you know, an AI system read through the agendas and come up with a with a summary um and then, you know, edit it and um and put it out. So, something that would be happy to to work with with

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you all on. >> Yeah, I think that'd be fantastic. At least it gets our gets the ball rolling a little bit and then we can formalize something more an actual human later down the road. Yeah, we can be content creators. >> Well, if we're going to have an AI do it

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for now, then maybe supplement the intern do it later. You know, >> what do folks any feelings about AI and meeting summaries and >> I don't like it, but it's like it m it's it makes things easier. Like I know it's like destroying our ego system and it's

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like horrible at like leading to like the all powerful police state, but like it makes things easier. I think there's a fine line to draw because on the one hand we're already we're at our capacity as far as staffing. We're at our capacity as far as intellectual capability on the dayto-day. Even if we

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wanted to do more, we couldn't. And I think that having the tools that exist right now supplementing that ability, I think that's helpful. And I think if we begin one way and then steer towards having maybe a student or an intern of some kind come in and help later down

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the road, we're kind of meeting the best of both worlds and we're going in the middle. We're not committing to firmly standing on the footing of destroying the ecosystem. But um we have to acknowledge our capacity, you know, we have to acknowledge what can and cannot be done easily by a human. And if we want to have these communications,

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is it more accessible to have it done right now with something that is not ideal but can get the job done and then later when we have more capacity and we have more more time and more ability with these conversations to go down the road to something that's more optimal. I think that would be a

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strong position. Am I allowed? >> Please. I'm looking at you for this one because I feel like we've talked about this briefly. >> Yeah. Um, one, I think that with any AI tool that you're looking into, the level that you're probably going to want is

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somewhere above free. So, there will be probably cost associated even with an AI. >> So, just prepare to budget accordingly. Um, second, I do know that there are some AI like more more specifically LLM models that can produce transcripts, but

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it all lives locally on your machine. So, I don't know if privacy and who has access to meeting minutes and like where those go once they're given to whomever whatever company it is that you you might be looking into. Um, so there are

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there are other versions where the model literally lives on one machine. that does limit I think your ability to >> that chat like chatbt for example it needs like multiple servers it's too big to get on a laptop basically >> right but there are some other models

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that are more much more like chat GPT is trying to be kitchen sync it can produce images it does text that there's like a whole bunch of things that it's designed to do but there are other smaller more that are just they only transcribe that is all that it does that is all that it will ever do um and you can download

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that directly to your computer. I had to help a person recently do this phone. There's some other um notes that they do. Um but so like that it will take your time and your energy to look through all of these options and to figure out what you want. I'm also just going to say that

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once you have AI in there, good luck. Good luck getting it back out and and choosing a human option further down the line. My fear my fear and this is for you Jonathan. My fear is that if you

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start utilizing more AI, the more AI helps your capacity to get things done without support, the more people think you can do without additional human support. And that becomes a slippery slope where the more you do with AI, the fewer humans you think you need.

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I think you need more not to replace them with a nice little model. Um, I think for very narrowly tailored uses perhaps but only if that's something we talk about as a community and decide we are comfortable with and would like to

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pursue, >> especially if we know it's not actually going to be free and that that cost is going to a company that is actively undermining democracy. >> Yikes. So, just thinking about these sorts of

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things. >> Yeah. No easy answer. We don't have enough capacity for it for what we want financial or human power and the

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bad. >> Yeah. But we'll do something. We'll do something. Either way, I think the discussion is useful. Honestly, all the points that have been brought up have been very educational and informative. So, thank you for all your time. Definitely.

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>> Yes. >> Yeah. Were there other We could let Jonathan go and um >> broad question for Jonathan. >> Is there anything that you want us to know from your position just to the

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community relations committee? Like any news, anything you're thinking about? Um, boy, there's a lot going on. Um, you know, I think I'm I'm happy that you all are are thinking about the stuff

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and um, you know, as as clearly been discussed, you know, a lot of this comes down to capacity. Um so to the extent that you all can help me to prioritize the the best uses of you know investments of my

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time to better reach the community with with the information that you think um is not getting to them. Um that's really helpful for me. Um that's that's really good information that that I can I can use. Um it doesn't necessarily mean I'm

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going to be able to to address that need. Um but it does mean that I'm aware of the need and so if I do wind up with the capacity to address it, it'll be on my list to do it. So I think um just, you know, keeping our keeping our dialogue going and staying in touch and

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and you all are are more than welcome to shoot me emails if there are things that come across your radar or needs that you're seeing from a a communications or community relations perspective. >> Thank you. Excellent. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And I'm I'm more than happy to to

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come to meetings on a regular or semi-regular basis. So >> Oh my gosh. Thank you. >> We wouldn't we wouldn't make anyone do that. >> Do you prefer pre-generated content? Like if I was going to make a flyer, but you'd have to put the city seal and

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everything on it. That's why I asked. >> Well, I think we should talk more before before you spend time making anything. Um, you know, flyers. That was just off the top of my head, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. You know, flyers are are not ideal for social media. More and more

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I'm not posting any any text as imagery. Um because I find that just doesn't go anywhere on on Facebook and Instagram. They really throttle those posts and they don't most people don't see them. We tend to get like four likes if there's when we post a flyer as opposed

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to, you know, 50 to 100 if we post an image with the text and the caption. Um, so let's talk and you know, as I said, I think vertical video, if if folks are up for recording, is a a great um a great medium for a lot of what's being discussed here, people are much more

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likely to listen to a human explain things than read stuff. Um, so yeah, let's talk let's talk more and figure out what formats could work. >> Okay, that sounds good. >> Thank you. Yeah, I have like a graphic

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design friend who maybe I can um tap to help with some of this, too. >> All right. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, thank you. Like, follow and subscribe. Listen. There will be good council content

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coming. >> All right. Well, great. Thank you for Yeah. Talk soon. Bye. All right. Um, are there any loose ends we want to still talk about with the internship? Like I I liked the idea of

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even though we brought you here, I like the idea of focusing on 18 months to be honest. Feel like there might already be existing funding and maybe a little bit less management. But maybe we could still think about like under 18 going to public schools just civic engagement in

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general like the yellow conference that just happened like that type of thing would still be really valuable. >> We could reach out to Athena to see if there's a grant. >> It would probably be in the fall I imagine with schools coming back into the

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>> Yeah. And I'll be very frank with you sending something up that would start this fall. You're late. Too late. it's not happening. Um, especially since we're trans, we're we're transitioning superintendent. >> Okay. >> I want to make sure she has everything she needs to just start without starting

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anything brand new. >> Got it. She's there. >> Okay. >> When did she start? >> July 1. >> Oh, that's exciting. >> Yes, that's exciting. What if how could we potentially because I really like that idea where you said

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not just imposing what we think would be best for the kids and the youth but also kind of maybe giving them what they want and what they would want to actually show up to. >> What would be the best way possible? Would that be like a survey? Could we

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could something like that like happen where we can ask the kids like, "Hey, what would you kind of like?" >> Yeah, I think as far as like best mechanism, we should honestly ask them how they would like to be reached out to. >> I don't know if the survey is going to get us what we want unless we have some

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well wellplaced student moles who can text it to their buds, you know what I mean? >> Yeah. >> Um and who will help get the word out. But another place where we can start is we have student representatives that come to the school committee every >> Oh yeah.

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>> And so we can sort of suggest to them this is something that we're interested in. We're not like making programs overnight, but we would like to know if you could work in a city department, would you want to? If you had the opportunity to shadow somebody for three or four months, would you would you do

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that? Um what kinds of opportunities we can we can see if they can help us codees? That's what I'm saying. >> Yeah, >> that would be fantastic. Yeah, because I mean I at no point really have we actually asked what would the kids want? And I think that's just important just as a starter, you know, because even if

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we had an intern as an adult to start, I think because we're already late, that gives us more time to think about what it actually what would actually work for the Greenfield schools >> and actually what would work for the kids as well. I think that'd be that's interesting, especially after budget season is over. We'll know when the fallout we'll know what happens after

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that and uh we'll go from there. That's exciting. >> Yeah. >> Stepping outside of my school committee role for just a second. You might also try mass hire. >> Yes. I was going to say, yep. >> I have no idea what their requirements

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are, but I know that they've got the branch just >> Yeah. It's over a month straight. >> That's it. That's enough last meeting. >> Does anyone want to be like point person for mass hire here? anyone's interested. It's okay. We can

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also just have ideas and that's all right. >> I will. >> You will. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's fun that also that the three of you all went through like green public schools. So, >> only until Well, technically the tech

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school, but only until middle school. >> Yeah. >> I was determined to be an IT kid. Don't make that mistake. Everything you learn is obsolete in two years. >> Yeah. I'm curious about Massfire and all

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that they do. So that'd be interesting to >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Right. Because part of this could be like if we gather information from institutions and orgs that are doing this type of work potentially we can

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just pair that information with the students to just be like hey or create like a pathway where they can get access to that info to be like oh maybe I'm thinking about an internship how would I go to do something like that like maybe we kind of like gather some of that

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information or like help make like an infrastructure where that information can be easily accessible. in this whole process. >> Um, just to clarify, is there like a like a few questions we could generate

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that I could bring to them more than just >> have them come here like Stacy did? >> That's higher. >> Yeah. Like and like person >> I think we'd have to reach out to them first, see if it's even worth their their time is in our time. >> Yeah.

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But um >> yeah, what would >> our burning questions for mass hire? >> What resources do you have for like the youth here when it comes to that's so that's so broad. Okay. Um

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>> yeah doesn't tend to work with under 18s. Yeah. Yeah. GC specifically lists young adult programming as far as community engagement and they have a workforce development um for learners and for employers. So those are two people we

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can reach out to right there. >> Well, but right still but what are what are our questions for them? Like I mean one question I I sort of have is are do or for mass hire would be like are do you know of any other

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municipalities that offer something like this? >> Yeah. Good question. >> Um reach out to MMA with that question. >> Oh that's a great idea. >> And the thing about mass hire that gets me is that they're going to want to

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place somebody in a paying position. people who are at mass hire are gonna are generally looking for work. >> Right. Right. And so that's the thing. It's like if we're going to be getting somebody an internship, it has to be with the intention of getting them somewhere down the line.

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>> That's almost like dangling a carrot that's never going to come. >> Like maybe the question maybe it's more for GCC is do they have any funding for partner sites and could a municipality be one of the partneres? Even if one of

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their students >> what >> even if one like one of their one of their pre-existing students could have interest in that or they could form a program with the city >> independently. >> That's really the way they college to pay for.

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>> You mean get whatever grant the college has managed for? >> Yeah. Really, >> right? >> I don't mind emailing GCC if that's fantastic. >> Do that. So amaz and but what's my question for Mass

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Hire? >> I mean we don't even know if they're willing to work with us. That's the first question. >> I think we could just share the idea and just say like is this something that >> you have any thoughts about?

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>> Yeah, exactly. It could really just be that like we're trying to figure this out. Do you have suggestions? The reception is super nice having been unemployed and having gone there myself. >> So, I would go in and literally I would just go in in person and explain who you are and like I don't know what I'm doing because I've never done this before and

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maybe neither of you. So, let's talk and then they'll probably just talk to you. >> Okay, great. I'm looking forward to it. >> And they're super nice. >> Yeah, >> I think it would be great if someone was interested in the MMA contact, too. I feel like it would be helpful to know how

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>> I could do. >> Oh my god, I love this. >> Thank you so much. >> I'll do something else. I'll work on I'll I'll make a little graphic. I think you and Stacy should keep in contact and not I don't want to volunteer anybody's time, but I think because between the

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two of you that it would be a great idea to have those conversations with students and I think having you two be the point people on that would be great because you guys will email and we'll we'll hear about it after >> cuz this is so like intimately linked

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with like your >> Exactly. No. Yeah. Like this is not to sign you up for like a monthsl long adventure, but we would >> Yes. And I will just say I do need to take this all back to my >> absolutely >> my group. You mean you don't speak for

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>> Have you not been appointed dictator? >> No. >> Even if they tried no thank you. Um, and but I do need to just get a general like okay amongst the whole group that this is work that we have to commit ourselves to.

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>> I'm coming here kind of because I'm voluntarily giving away an hour, not because they told me. >> Yeah. Right. And that's why I even would suggest that the two of you guys keep in touch because obviously you're going to have to go back and get the whole committee's approval. Absolutely. >> Yeah. you know, especially if we're committing staff time to doing any

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student outreach, >> unless it can come directly from from one of us, but that would be much harder because we don't have access to student lists, >> right? >> Right. >> No, I coming from a place where we we were all kind of looking at each other, I feel like this is a good place to have

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landed. >> Great. >> Wonderful. >> The thing about the MMA that like I have shown up to like maybe two MMA events. Is there like a MA contact person? >> They have a lot of different people actually. >> I know.

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>> I mean there is also a a local contact Adrian but I don't know if that but her >> but she's like the legislative >> that's not her job. >> So I'm not sure >> she might point you in the right direction. >> We have the same brain.

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>> Adrian. Yes. >> Uh N U N E Z. >> Yeah. And there's a something. It'll be on the website, I'm sure. >> I will look it up. I think perfect. >> But I feel like the people who host the webinars, like the MMA communications

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person, like I feel like maybe they've hosted or even searching maybe they hosted some webinar about like >> Yes. >> I feel like there might be something recording already that we just don't know about. >> There wasn't. I looked. >> Okay. I looked JK. That was quick. >> I looked. All right.

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>> Thank you for looking. Um, do we you want us to let you go too, Stacey? I think next would just if we feel good on this, we can just happy to go about the rest of my >> Thank you for joining. >> Do you have any or do you have anything to add? Anything

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>> any requests? >> Any requests from school committee? >> Good idea. >> Yeah, true. >> We not to put you on the spot. M >> yeah. Um trying to think about ways that we can

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bolster like trying to be mindful of y'all's purview. One thing that I would love to see is more city counselors at school events. Mhm. >> And I don't know if y'all can make that happen, but our students would love to

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see you supporting them. >> Calendar I can sign up for so I can district calendar. Yes. Um and I've been looking to make sure that that continues to be up to date, but it is linked from the city calendar page. >> The school calendar is linked from the city calendar.

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>> Let me go to the city calendar page then. >> Do you mean like >> I was sports plays? Uh, I believe that some of our students held a dodgeball tournament recently and yolked. >> Oh my gosh, that was a missed

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opportunity. >> Film festival. >> Um, it's like we're sort of all the time hosting just cool stuff that our students want to do and are passionate about. Um, like I think there's going to be a talent show hosted by the French

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club coming up soon. How cool. >> How weird. >> Oh yes. It's like the Is that the World Fair? >> No, we already had that. That already happened in March and it was you should come. It was the 30th anniversary. >> Here's a question I have. >> Yes. >> Let's say that I show up. Nobody knows

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who I am. >> I don't want to come to an event and be like, I'm a city counselor cuz then it's about me. Like, what would be the best way for us to do that without kind of being like, "Wow, look at this big shot." Which really we're not, >> but you get what I'm saying.

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>> Anonymous person, >> right? like how do you how do you >> how do you show the kids that the city council >> or city councilors are attending without >> announcing it, you know? Like that's >> um yeah, I don't think that you need to get up on stage and make a thing make it

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a point to just like say hi to people and like oh yeah, city council here in town. >> I don't know why I didn't think of that. This is why I'm not >> that's genius honestly. I'm like wow social etiquette. >> I'm so human connection. >> That's not my super skill. I'm not good at that. Shake some hands. Hold some

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babies. >> We all learned something today. >> I'm really not good at that. >> Reaching for somebody's baby. >> Noted. Um, my request, I feel like I talked about this at one point, but there's

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like that newsletter for parents about the city, I mean the school events and whatot >> and I'm like, can counselors be added because that would just make it so easy if it just popped up in my email instead of remembering like check this calendar that I'm not in the habit of.

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>> Yeah, >> perfect. Yeah, we always hear about these things at the general meetings, but a lot of times it's a little late. So, >> yeah, that would be great. That would be great. >> Also, here's a weird question that I

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have. School committee has somebody at the council meetings. How come the council doesn't have anybody at school committee meetings? >> You know, that's an excellent question. It's kind of unfair. I mean, is that something that this that the school committee wouldn't even want

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to have happen? Or would it be like a little bit of an intrusion? Not that we I I don't know. I It's sort of I'm like, why does the school committee, you know, come to the council meetings? I think it's I think it's because our meetings are watched more broadly by the larger public. But I'm just curious. I

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It never really >> best of my knowledge, it is a custom. It's not it's like a it's an option that you all have and that you choose to exercise. >> Um but we're the only department that's

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asked every meeting. Um um and often we are sort of drumming up items to share with you if they're not big budget items, you know. >> Yeah. >> And and are you required to stay for the whole meeting or are you just coming?

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I'm not technically required to stay for the whole meeting, but I often do. >> Um, >> thank you. >> Yeah. So, I'm here or whatever about the things that you do or whatever. >> And you know, it is a commitment. It is

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a significant commitment. And thinking about like how our superintendent's time is best spent. Maybe I'm happy to come and be our representative because I live here and I can do that for our incoming superintendent that would be keeping them here, you know, after a full day of

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work and then you got hours. >> That's not a great use of staff time. >> Definitely. So, you know, like >> obviously more than happy if there is something that we need to collectively discuss and decide if if it has anything

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to do with larger amounts of money than what you've already appropriated for us or it's capital or something like that. Um or if there ever, god forbid, is like a security issue or any of that, we would of course bring our staff to you to talk about this. Um but for the most

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part >> we we show up because we are asked. >> Now would it be beneficial for the school committee to have somebody on council in the same way? >> Um >> talk about our zoning >> maybe.

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It it would we've been doing a lot of work to streamline our meetings and and get them as close to three or few hours as we can or fewer. Um, my fear about having a random person show up to say random things when we

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don't, you know, I want to make sure that if y'all are there or if someone from your body is there that it's for a purpose and that it's something that we act upon, right? >> Rather than just adding our meeting 100%. >> So yeah, >> relevant.

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>> We appreciate the the gesture to reciprocity and unneeded at this time. >> Fair enough. Uh, and that is me speaking. I could take this if you would like me to back and talk about it, ask my peers and see if they would want

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somebody. >> I think it's okay cuz I think if there's something relevant that comes up, I think the offer is there, but otherwise I think yeah, >> thank you. >> No need to make meetings more meeting. >> I mean, could we take action at some

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point to maybe remove the superintendence requirement? >> A lot. We should talk to the council president and >> and maybe Kappy and see how long this tradition has been going and what it would take to undo tradition.

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>> Is it worth it to see this is just um sorry to interrupt. Would it be worth it to see if the new superintendent even wants to do that? Maybe it won't even be necessary. >> Yeah, >> it's up to her. >> Um if it if that is true, then you will probably not see as much of her as you

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have of Roland. If that is truly her decision, we've been led to believe it's not. >> Yes. >> Well, or maybe like greatly reduced like obviously during budget season. >> Yeah. Exactly. Or like but not like >> Well, what I'm getting at is like if we

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were to pursue that option, what if the superintendent is like, "Oh, I kind of want to come to the council meetings." >> Like because it's a new superintendent, we should maybe wait. But again, I'm not really privy to that information. So

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>> I believe that most I believe that most superintendent >> will come to meetings if that is required of them. >> Do they ever want to spend their evening out giving you a 10-minute update? Because that's effectively what we have

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Roland doing >> is coming and giving you all a 10. >> He lives really far away too. >> Yeah. >> You can always zoom in too if it's Yeah. But I get it. It doesn't really Yeah. Yeah, >> I will say though, I'll yeah, potentially zooming could be an option,

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but it's like with the one good thing that I like about school committee coming and reps from the school department is like so much of our stuff is just kind of like blah. And then but when like school committee is talking about like hey this is what's happening

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what's going on in the community it kind of gives you like that community feel of like oh there's some positives too rather than just like complaining talking about like how we can't have nice things and it's like no well there are some nice things already happening like when you guys share like the events

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and like what's coming up and like you guys invite us. I I I do like that. >> I hope the public likes it too. It's actually it's very encouraging, you know, to just >> it's like we're small town. >> You're like like we're real. You're like the candy before the medicine.

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>> This grand. >> All right. Is there anything else on Stacy schools internship? >> Just all of our gratitude. >> A lot of gratitude. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you for all the work that y'all do. Well,

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>> because you I just focus on the schools. Y'all do everything else. >> Take it back to the committee if there's anything that you know is useful here for to take back to them, you know, definitely because I think I think a stronger working relationship between the council and school committee would be absolutely beneficial >> in the long run. >> Yeah.

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>> So, I think especially as we're working on all of our long-term planning. >> Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Sorry, we just read that info. But that facilities meeting that group, I'm interested in that because I feel like that's citywide, too.

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>> Um, but that can be an update at the council. >> Yes, that can be an update at the council. Uh, we just were able to schedule our first meeting among the three school committee members who are going to be like steering that group. um where we will review what has happened

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before and we'll start working on a process to invite applications for others to be part of that advisory committee because it is open to people beyond um school committee. >> Well, that's very cool. >> Amazing.

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>> Be look out for more info. Now go before we actually have more questions. >> I know I could probably think of more. Thank you. >> Um I think also for the counselors remaining, it's I would say let's wrap

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up in like 15 minutes or so or see. Um Oh, cool. There's no school on the 25th. It's Memorial Day. >> No, it's Memorial Day. There's no school. >> I'm trying to find that link because I know

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>> I think the only thing we shouldn't talk about is the unhoused. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, but are there other things and then we also just had a random bucket of like continued discussion about community issues and priorities. So, are is there anything

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else that people I feel like on the unhoused Rex I don't have any new updates from last time. I'm still working on the bridge zoning and I will probably submit that tomorrow maybe. I don't have anything. I'm hoping that

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eventually we get some kind of I see that there's a a citizens leadership academy as well as a citizens academy and I'm trying I haven't parsed yet whether they're two different things >> but um it's just one of those articles by the MMA but it's g it's gave me an

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idea because we had talked about having things like um getting more community engagement by teaching people really about how the government works and why we do what we do and that kind of thing but and I wondered if that was something that we could um put together maybe with Jonathan at some point.

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>> Yeah. And it's I I haven't I haven't parsed I haven't really looked at it because we're in a meeting and I want to be respectful of that. But there seems there's something called a lead a citizens leadership academy which I think is very by the sounds of it very close to a citizens academy. But for uh

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our purposes, we might find that a leadership academy is something worth considering because we could actually partner with things like the different boards and commissions that always are desperate for people. There's always vacant seats and really get people to talk about why volunteering in local

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government is is critical and how to do it effectively. That might be something worth pursuing later. we can just put that on the table and you know next meeting or something like that cuz again I haven't figured out whether those are two different things and I want to really research that before I bring it up formally

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but um yeah >> I think I mean I think what we all went through in the last nine months >> except for this one >> oh yeah >> was it nine months >> I don't know myself that was pretty cool for the next one

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>> September April. >> Oh, yeah. I guess >> that was cool. Um I think it really could be they're um just slightly altered like kind of to be more of like onboarding to like commissions and

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getting more. >> I think that would be cool. Yeah. >> M. No, the uh Aaron did a citizens academy. >> Oh, yes. Yeah. >> Wasn't that held like here? >> Yeah. Well, it was all over. We went to the DBW. We went to the uh we went to the wraith water treatment plant. For any reporters that happen to be

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listening to this conversation, it was a very rewarding experience and I highly encourage any any future citizens to really really think about doing it because it was 100% worth it. Um and you know all the city staff took time out of their day to really make sure that that

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opportunity was available for us and I think even for new counselors that was really helpful. But a lot of people just don't know how that works. Like how, you know, how the wastewater treatment plant works, how the DPW works, how they make their decisions. Um, and I I personally

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I remember being particularly satisfied by the exploration that we had with traffic lights, which you wouldn't think is a big deal, but that's one of those mundane things that people really gripe about and they care about, you know, like why am I sitting at this? This is why. And when you have those answers, it

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makes every it humanizes government in a way that doesn't happen right now because we don't have the capacity, we don't have the tools. And that particular program, I think, is hugely beneficial for really having those conversations with a with a wider populace. >> Um, and so if we could do something like

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that on a legislative scale because the city council is not really we we're not a city department. We don't get to do that kind of thing, but the boards and commissions >> are volunteers. you know, we kind of volunteered to be city councilors and, you know, we had to go through more of a process, but it's effectively volunteer, right? So, those are the kinds of things

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that I think if we really put it put effort into building a program, we could launch something effectively in like a year or two, you know, because we meet like once a month. It's kind of hard, right? But that's kind of what I'm envisioning down the road. >> Wait, I'm confused. If we have like a citizens leadership

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academy as part of the community relations >> for participating in boards and committees and >> Exactly. And it doesn't have to be a huge thing. It could be like an once annual you know just those are those are the soft things that I think would be would be beneficial because for us as volunteers the legislative kind of thing

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um you know boards and commissions can submit those kinds of things that would then go to the council. We're kind of tangentally related in that sense. And I think having those kind of conversations >> outside of the executive branch with the DPW, the mayor's office, those are separate entities and we're more

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aligned, I think, >> as far as like, you know, how to get involved with the boards and commissions. we might have a strong footing with them to actually have, you know, there's a few chairs that we can get involved with and we can have statements and even like one or two like once a quarter or something like that

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have a group of people come together and be like, "This is what we do. >> These are the vacant positions. Let's, you know, come meet with us." Those are the kinds of things I think actually might be worth looking into. But >> there could even be like a tableling thing. >> Exactly. One board.

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we could reach out to the boards that have openings and be like, "Hey, do you guys want to meet up at the library at such and such a date and then have people talk to you about what it's like to be on those boards?" Cuz what happened to me was that I was randomly approached at work and somebody was like, "Hey, you like history?" And I was like, "How did you know about my

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favorite fun fact?" And I got involved in historical commission. And then from the historical commission, I met, you know, all the different people at city council or city city hall because I was here. That's where we had our meetings at the time. And it just kind of rolled into this thing. And >> I think that's a great entry point for

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getting people involved, engaged, you know, and that's that's my spiel. I don't have an ending to that. I don't have a nice dot on the end of that sentence, but >> um that's just a broader, you know, filler topic for the time being, but I think I think um I can put some more

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research into that and maybe get something proposed by the end of next month or for the next meeting. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Um you can if you have to put it on for the five day. I don't have anything submitted like document-wise for the fiveday rule, but we can put on the agenda loosely. I don't know how that works.

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>> Yes, totally. Um, just let me know whatever you want to call it. And as you can see, the agenda for today was a little, I don't know, patchy, but I think >> but we had a long a long segment in there. So, it's better that way because we'll actually get out in time to have

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dinner, go to bed on time for work. So, >> yeah. But this sounds great. I think we could definitely put something about Citizens Academy, Citizens Leadership Academy, and >> Yeah, because I also don't want to compete with Aaron and and what he's doing. So, >> yeah, >> exactly. Yeah, I'll figure something out, too, because I think I had no idea,

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you know, when I started out as a little historical commissioner, which I still am and I love, and I have to submit my minutes, I am guilty. Um, but irrelevant like that's >> I was I was definitely I was definitely taking a I was not making eye contact

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with life is so I'm so busy. But anyway, um but yeah, I didn't know for the longest time about any of this kind of stuff. Like I didn't know about the school committee. Like I just wasn't involved. And I feel like if we can go to people and give them an opportunity,

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the people that want to come are going to become engaged. It's that's very easy to do, I especially where we have a lot of people who were engaged in the citizens academy. Those people are going to go out and tell I hope the whole populace about what's going on. I I've been meaning to write a letter to the editor about it because it was just such

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a satisfying experience. >> That'd be great. So, I'm really hopeful that we can get some actual interested bodies. We'll see. >> I don't want to keep us for ever. Um but um

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one thing that I have been uh coming across a lot is how people from the public are a little frustrated that um and a few of them did speak at previous council meetings too. But apart from

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those folks as well, they're a little frustrated with how our meetings are scheduled. A lot of them are at like the same time, >> right? And it's like even not even just the public, but like I as a counselor like it no other boards and commissions

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should be meeting at the exact same time as a city council. Like that just should just be a it just like cuz wouldn't I ever want to like show up and kind of like maybe listen to the planning or the zoning or the health or the you know any the number of other meetings that happen

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like right around when we meet. Oh yeah, >> there should be no overlapping. Like I mean it's like you have a whole you have 30 days. >> 30 goddamn days. >> There's 51 commissions >> and there are 51 commissions but like all it like three at the same

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time is just like it's just bizarre. And then kind of also related to that is like our Zoom I get we're paying for our Zoom but it's like maybe the technology is there but like a lot of the folks in the boards and

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commissions don't know how to use it properly. So perhaps you can get someone from IT to if you're going to be a, you know, chairperson for a committee or something like that. You get some like

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preliminary training on how to run that thing so you can admit people so there's not just cuz like what's the point of being like, "Oh, we're transparent and we include like public comment when like somebody's just in the waiting room and you don't know how to admit them." Like

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that's happened to a lot of folks. >> It might just be simple enough to write up a set of instructions and put them right here. >> Like we could have it up there >> wherever there is. They could have it posted there. >> That might just be an easy fix. We could have we could email Jonathan about that

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>> cuz the tech is like there. We're paying for it. But it's like >> I mean I had to learn how to do that too like a while back. Like it's not like oh you're so stupid. You don't know how to do it. Like I mean it was a little wonky for me too at first, but I think like we

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should get our meetings as accessible as possible and like with the Zoom even with co kind of like being in the past like I really do appreciate the fact that we have um the virtual realm as part because there's so many folks who

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for economic reasons like maybe your job just gets right out at the time of city council and you want to be able like give a like a little like five like three minute thing but you can't run over from your residence or workplace to

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city council but if you can show up online like so we can maybe make that a little smoother. I don't know how to do that though. Like maybe I can reach out to >> from the public end. It's a little different. But yeah, I think it I mean

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if we I think just posting something here would be super helpful. Right. Wherever there's like there's one at the fire station, there's one at the library, there's one here, and there's one at the Jay-Z, right? I think so. >> Yes. Maybe like maybe I'll reach out to

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it. Uh I think it's Fernando. Yes. Maybe. and reach out to him and be like, "Hey, could we maybe like get something like that?" Like, "Could you make up like a concise like clear thing?" So that >> with pictures is helpful. >> Yes.

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>> Or we could even offer to make it if we just >> Yeah. >> If you wanted to fact check it, post it. >> Exactly. We had a guide already, then we could make initials or something. >> That sounds good. Honestly, it doesn't sound like much, but I feel

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like the little things are really what's important because um like with all the budget cuts and things like that, like I'm sure we're all driving on the roads over going, "What the hell?" And it's one of those things where the little things make that difference because we don't we can't solve those big problems,

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but making something a modeicum better is kind of we're pushing that boulder, you know? It doesn't. So for those of people who say that it doesn't really matter, you know, oh, it's just Zoom or it's just this, I I do want to say, I definitely feel like the little things

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are are important. >> They all forget. Exactly. And that's uh >> And on that note, maybe >> we're good, kids. >> Um I Anybody have anything else to add? Or we could make a motion to adjourn.

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Motion to >> second. >> All right. All in favor? >> I >> Great. So, we are adjourned at level 56 p.m.