good evening it is 6 pm and I'm calling to order the committee chairs of the Greenfield City Council we are in the Greenfield City Hall meeting room and this meeting is being recorded by committee chairs if any other persons present are doing the same you must
notify the chairperson at this time purpose of this meeting is to prepare agendas for subcommittees for council consideration no discussion or comments will be entertained unless requested upon by the committee chairs so we will start with a roll call
and thank you to council solo so that we get to do this uh I know your car had no not what you wanted oh carpet you just said it all right so um I don't have my list
here so I'm just going to pretend like I know what I'm doing uh we'll go to councelor Healey we'll call vote or councelor Wandowski here councelor Garrett I am here councelor
Healey here councelor Golola here councelor Toronto is not you have a quorum thank you so much all right so our standard um
procedure is to go through the things that have come onto our list for uh this month figure out where they go so first is discussion of a new parliamentarian i have no in more information so I'm going to put that per
minute let me Yes Kathy requests a call from you regarding it okay thank you uh second item is authorizing $1,787 for the FY23
um utility bill ways and means ways and means i can't say no so he has to take it okay made sense to me that's what I had on my notes uh approval of amendments to the Franklin Regional Council of
Government's Charter submitted by Furcog Executive Director Linda Dunl where is that an So basically you have only two options you either vote it in as is or you vote no okay so that
will go to the full council totally fine and I make any amendments on it I read it it made sense they were very excited about it too mike I think you could tell uh scheduling a special city council
meeting on Thursday May 8th at 6:30 p.m for all zoning amendments so I am going to um I'm fine with that date and that time unfortunately I don't know about other counselors but I am going to be in
Wister but my event ends at 4 so I should be able to get right back here yeah that was okay with you and that um the recycling gets picked up but otherwise I'm afraid
long time sorting and I assume that that will be like ADUs and all the stuff it's everything we're talking about in EDC all the citizens petitions yep okay great and that way we don't have to worry about it on budget day which is very good yes
uh next item is proposed resolution to declare Greenfield the sanctuary city for transgender and gender diverse persons which was submitted by a Greenfield resident with support of myself um subsequently several counselors have also wanted to
co-sponsor um I've been working with councelor Golib looking at other language from other places and whether or not this could be not a resolution but an ordinance that protects gender affirming care um which is what has been done in
other places because I know some of us don't like resolutions and so this would give us a little bit more teeth um and and real protection besides resolutions so if it makes sense I think that goes to ANO sure unless I mean since you're
sponsor Golab do you have Well or maybe it's not ready up well I I would say this could go to ANO i could also say um the resolution that the community member submitted and the
ordinance that I'm working on are significantly different and um compatible that I don't know that one has to stand in for the other i I know that there are diverse opinions about
resolutions on the council and um I I don't I don't I wouldn't I wouldn't I know we've been talking back and forth about it and I always want to make an ordinance as opposed to a resolution but I would if this went forward and other people wanted to co-sponsor it
I I could see this going forward as is in addition to an ordinance i think it makes sense if you're going to do something like this to have as an ordinance versus a resolution and so if we're going to think about doing an ordinance and again this is just my two cents i'm not you know separating this i
would say probably just going with the ordinance and then maybe incorporating the language of you could even take the resolution language and put it into the ordinance as like a preamble you know maybe maybe that's a half measure but and some of it is absolutely in there as that you know we want to make I wanted
to make sure that it's clear what it's for and uh you know some of this is signaling to the community that this is a place that we respect people and keep them safe um but then also like not just we're saying it but we're going to do
some things how did we do the um the legal immigrant safe city safe city I think was that an ordinance or was that it's in the ordinance section so we're in the in ANO we're looking at the different chapters and I noticed that there's a whole
chapter there so that is not a resolution I guess then strictly speaking I think Catherine you can you can mute me I don't care um so the safe city ordinance is an ordinance
um yeah and I would also add that in looking at ordinances on this topic um there it's been interesting to me to see other communities starting ordinances with a lot of where as language like
resolutions start with we don't have we don't do that frequently here but it's been interesting to me to see that that is done so I think that your suggestion councelor Garrett of incorporating the language wouldn't be impossible
yeah I think it's really just the preference of folks who are kind of shephering us you know as far as what you want to do the only other thing you could also have it at community relations since you're kind of a lead sponsor on it if you want to keep a hand on it which uh councelor gov given the
amount of things that might be at ANO as well um you know what I I'm going to ask what your preference is happy to have the conversation at community relations if that's one less thing off your plate
but I go spunking briefly either one of would work for me it's either one would be fine um let's let's take it to community if comfortable with that
came from a community member and I don't think a lot of people want to talk about it Yeah and I know uh you know they're really hoping something by Pride which is going to be really hard given Pride June yeah we got to do the budget too okay
perfect all right so recommendation um next thing on the list open meeting law complaint filed against President Wendelowski and councelor Golib of the city council submitted by Stephanie Duclo March 24th 2025 and council's
request for and granting of extension of time to file response to complaint uh when all right um so we need to have that response by the 18th of the month and we can have a full discussion about it at the city council meeting okay it
has to be in open session yes and would you like that added to the agenda i would love that added to the agenda thank you very much would you love that really would you love that i don't think you would
um just a qu I know this has gone to the AG's office to review or their open meeting office and so we're waiting we received an extension which is what we filed for was an extension because city council's meeting would not Oh I see you
would have the full council before finally this is why I think it's very important in open meeting saying to she's not here but saying to folks like an open meeting
complaint at that point i'm not trying to diminish the idea of the complaint but it it's be careful with what you're doing
because man you you can be causing a real headache for the rest of the volunteers that serve on on these committees is when when you're filing an
open meeting complaint like you need to like it needs to be validated it needs to be like a real reason for doing it not just it can't be trivial is what I'm saying and
I think we've had the the the few that we've had in the last year have been completely trivial um and they've they've caused like a huge headache and and why would you do why
would you do that like why would you want to do that why would you want to make it worse for the people who are trying to contribute voluntarily for your community why would you do that i just I just don't understand the reasoning
behind that like an open meeting law complaint needs to have some teeth you need to have a real reason for for putting these forward otherwise sit
back and shut up like sorry like sit back and shut up like you're you're wasting our time you're wasting our volunteers you know wait like just sit back and and wait for something that's actually
worth worth talking about like but you're not so and I'm sorry I'm gonna I'm not I'm going to shut up myself right now I don't Yeah you're good I mean we're all frustrated
Yep and you know that's sort of positive intent i I think the biggest point here is it's hard enough to do what we do to have to tiptoe around what we do makes this even harder and we shouldn't have to do that um I agree there's rules to follow and we're trying our best and
we're just people but we're not going to get any work done if we're worried about getting in trouble all the time because you're going to be concerned about consequences so I think that's what Mike's trying to emphasize is it's a waste of time and money and we appreciate it but let's have a conversation like reach out to the city council office before you do something
like that and let's have a conversation in the next meeting in open public and talk about it before we go to the next steps we we would appreciate that courtesy as we would give that courtesy to others right so we'll just leave it at that and move on absolutely you spoke way better than I could that was what I
was trying to say thank you Derek you don't want to drive conversations outside of the meeting that's being recorded and that's what this fear so that's I totally appreciate both of your comments um so next on the list is the mayor's
appointments and reappointments um we've got agricultural commission public safety commission and the unhouse community committee um huh should those go to ANO oh you're very you're very quiet
[Music] turn it up yeah turn it up yeah I'm done talking a little bit okay um my question about this is are we talking about it before we hear back from the AG's office because we were talking about the open
meeting law so right are we talking about the open meeting law complaint before we hear back from the AG's office because I mean the question really is our practice has been to ask questions without
submitting them in writing and what I did was submit questions in writing instead of asking them off the cuff and if the the finding is that I should just ask those questions off the cuff I I disagree with the merits of that finding but if that's what the AG's office says
okay if they say that we can't ask questions to be honest I I with councelor Torono and that we've been asking questions since this came since we were told we couldn't a year and a half ago um but I think either way
our I don't anticipate our conversation being anything new unless we have something to respond to and so I don't know why we would have it on the agenda before we hear back from the AG's office because I think we'd end up having the same conversation we've been having all
this time so I wonder if Quinn has a sense of whether or not we might have an answer by then so as far as I know what was sent to the government was just a request to extend the time i was not aware so
please forgive me i was not aware that there was questions sent to the AG's office no but I will check into it tomorrow okay and we can take get off of a agenda if we need to no you cannot you have to
respond you have to respond to the the open meeting law violation at the next council meeting or you would be in violation of okay open meeting law again but that's the reason we have to do it is we have to do you
have to do it you have there's a certain amount of time we have to do it but I don't want to I don't want to speak for you Katherine um weirdly that we're on the same uh
uh level here if we're we're having to bring this up because this seems to be a recurring issue right is that what I'm is that what I'm getting from you as well like
we've had this recurring um on whether or not we're allowed to talk about things we're allowed to have um new business if you will um on our
agendas which we haven't had in the last year and a half or so with a a a disproportionate idea of how that is interpreted and we did
get a legal opinion last year um that said everything we were doing prior to the apprehension of this was fine like we were doing everything according to the law fine and I've I've made that in
public both at at at council chair i've made it at full full counsel like we're doing everything the state and the law has said we're
doing and we doing it correctly um and so we are allowed to have according to them and then we get a legal opinion I think it was uh a year ago six months ago I don't
know when the last legal opinion was everything we're doing is totally fine like we can talk about things that aren't reasonably anticipated at the time of production of
the the agenda we don't have to do that so I don't understand why we keep feeling like we have to do that because we've been told by the
lawyers it's fine we like we can literally have new business this this stuff we keep putting in our agenda that says not reasonably anticipated by the chair at the time of
the hosting that's it it's jargon at that point like we can we can talk about whatever we want to talk about at a city council meeting because that's the point of a city council meeting yes we can
invite folks and hopefully do it with a reasonable anticipation of when we're going to invite people but there are things that could come up that aren't go aren't going to meet the 5-day rule they
aren't going to meet any of the the little you know tits and tats of that but we are able to do that at a public meeting because that's what a public meeting is supposed to be and I don't know why I've said this for three
years now i don't know why we are even discussing this anymore we can talk about whatever the hell we want to talk about at a public meeting because it was already posted as a
public meeting and we can't anticipate everything that's going to be discussed and nothing in the state law nothing in the stupid federal law now has said otherwise we can do this every
single month and we can talk about whatever we want to talk about question and stop like and essentially to stop with the fear-mongering about we're not allowed to do
this because of some open meeting law like they don't they actually don't even say that in their own their own writings they don't say that and we've gotten we've spent money in the
city we've spent money on legal opinions looking over the open meeting law and they've concluded exactly what I'm saying we do not have to fear this we don't have to worry about any of this
you should say it is codified mike you should say that full counsel because we do have to respond to it but what you're saying you say pretty much the same thing again and I haven't said this i've said this for I've said this for months that's why Derrick's laughing i know he's laughing today exactly i don't want
to be How many more times do I have to say it we have codified this we've gotten a legal opinion and we have like like adjudified this as much as we possibly
can that we can talk about what we're going to do without it being having to be written in the five-day rule like we don't know what's going to happen i'm being my picture's being taken i'm very
disrep I've got a question from councelor Golo well I I'm not concerned about this and I agree with what councelor Torono said i don't think that this is where we have the debate i'm more curious this is where we set the where this is where we
set the agenda um for council and so my question is what are we supposed we are supposed to be writing a resp like how do we formulate the 13 of us on council floor how do we formulate a response
what what is what is to be discussed what's the process what's expected of us everybody's so I'm going to let Quinn answer who knows where so what I'm going to do is refer you all to speak with the city clerk
okay who actually has that process memorized okay um and we can work from there okay i I will talk to the clerk and make that so so whatever we need to do but do you think
once we get process from Kathy do you think she can send an email to counselors just detailing that process so we all kind of are walking in aware of the situation or know our expectancy is it a is it a discussion
right that'd be super helpful yeah okay all right so I had a a few discussion items um one uh we got an email that was a public testimony request by resident Al
Norman um it was also making all public emails um for a meeting right for a meeting uh public uh we have responded saying we that there's a a lot of different implications in making
everybody's emails public um both time for the clerks to redact personal information um I had concerns about just people won't send stuff in if they think it's all going to get on a website but the one that I thought was
interesting that I that I Let me retract that i didn't say that uh the other piece that could be discussed by us um and so we'd have to decide which committee this goes to but whether or not if somebody
does give public testimony and maybe written testimony could that be posted on the city's website for transparency issue so would we want to send this to a committee to talk about i mean we
certainly can talk about it i have other or do you want to kill it right now i kind of want to kill it right now i hope I hope not i I think there's there's a process in place if you want records of our emails you can put a public record request in and and do what everybody else does this is more work for the
clerk's office it's more work for us that we don't need to be doing it also encourages spam style emails just stack the deck with oh let's say the exact same language over and over and over again to make it look like there's overwhelming support for an idea when in fact it's orchestrated by a person what
I was thinking people send us to get like written public testimony whether I know at the state level that's what gets and I think if they send us a testimony and they feel so strongly behind it that it should be public they should come to the meeting and present it in public comment well they do both usually then
it's as public as you could get we already we already have an avenue for this to happen i mean we've sat and don't saturate it we've sat in through meetings with three hours public comment like I mean we're we're used to hearing from the public let's keep it that way
and it can it is public records so somebody can do a public records request and if there's a financial burden to that then because it goes on the clerk's office says that's part of that's public meeting law stupidest thing they can pay the fee% 10 cents a page
the pay $20 an hour Yeah so right thank you Al for wasting more of our taxpayer dollars you've done this for 35 years all right so we've addressed it the
issue and we are dead in the water all right uh I don't know the process for um but we have the new committee um I sent to it got sent out the people that are being
um that that I am appointing uh I think that's doesn't need to go beyond that so you all have that I'm saying that out loud for committee chairs so those um you want to send that to the full council we can do that to Yeah so unless
you wanted to go through ANL right no let's send it to the full council well it it looks like it already is is that Pamela Goodwin and Zoe Smith um those are the mayors to appoint oh those are the mayor's appointments okay all right that's going through may I ask And I think the council president has the
authority to do it anyways right so we don't need to vote so Yep i just Can I ask a question yeah absolutely we'd like to know who you would like to appoint as the chair uh councelor Brown thank you you said you were board yeah well we I I
wanted we wanted to make it on the council um I know I I have a lot you Sorry i knew I was going to get it in there somewhere announce okay have a little good volunteer and so the actually the
appointments of the mayor don't need to go through ANO for Pamela Goodwin and Zoe okay those I they may have to okay but I will soon back with Kathy about it yeah or if it's a matter of me
um we started talking about this but just I was thinking about this whole process of submitting questions for the mayor and departments and how to to balance between if it's a complicated question that people get a
heads up ahead of time but so that it doesn't dominate the whole discussion like it did last month and that was that was a problem and I didn't anticipate it when it kind of happened that way so I would agree if you're looking for statistics or numbers or you have to give the person a chance to prepare that
because then they're up there scrambling trying to think and they're panicking and they're going "Oh grab it." And they don't know and it's not a good look for anybody really like I think it's only fair that you submit those questions and if you come up with a question in the future that might have a financial implication or number tied to it just write it down in a book and send it for
next month we meet every month so or ask it and don't expect an answer yeah like Right would you would you all like maybe the process to be that the full city council asks questions of the mayor or department and then they can respond to
any that were sent in writing just so it doesn't I'm not quite sure I know what you're asking i'm just thinking of like proc of of timing i think you could put it on the agenda that way where it's where it says
formally submitted questions to the mayor's office and list those questions and they could go through those ones first okay and then any other questions for the mayor not recently anticipated or something like that so you so the ones that were submitted take precedence
right like I I certainly don't want folks to uh what we ran into last month right got a lot of for this one um if we're asking questions like you're
saying give folks time to respond and that that I agree with entirely um we ran into an a a thing last month where one department was given some preloaded
questions and then responded to them very quickly i mean we've asked them for other information and and and been stonewalled so that's where my blowback was last month
that aside and going forward I agree we should have a process or a method for this and we should also hold the departments no matter who it
is to respond to that in a timely manner um I don't care which department it is if we ask for it if uh as a finance committee we we
ask for information there is no reason 30 days is not the next month that is not egregious that is not an an over ask you should definitely be able to deliver within 30 days absolutely if the school
department asks if anybody from the school department asks for information they should definitely get their information within 30 days of it to be able to respond at their next monthly meeting if
DPW it that's what I mean to to to level the playing field right if any question is asked especially a financial question asked and especially during a budget season I will I will take this close to
the the vest right here if anybody's asked "Where's your money going?" and you can't give me an answer within 30 days that sounds nefarious is what it
does that sounds like you're hiding something and now I'm gonna now I'm gonna over question you on why you couldn't deliver that amount to me every department should be able to answer that
question any time of the year within 30 days that's what I'm saying right if you can't then you're not you're not functioning within your department well enough and you should be removed i don't
want to get into a done the budget so well no it's not even on a budget i'm I'm talking about a a a functional aspect of a department i think you can't if you can't answer a functional
departmental question within 30 days you actually do not have a reason to be ahead of that department you should be able to do that that's a long time that's a full month so when we if we and we're only going to
ask those questions probably in the month of March or April or or whatever like you're supposed to submit your stuff in September but if you can't do that then you should
probably walk away from your department because you can't you you are you're essentially saying I can't complete the function of this department so somebody else should step in and take my place is is
what I'm saying i think I think the good a good process maybe would be so we answer any questions previously submitted are answered at the meeting any questions asked afterwards as long as it's not an open meeting law
violation are if they can't answer it it's recorded by the clerk's office and it's put on the agenda under old business for future discussion um and now it's documented and if they come back to the next meeting 30 days later and they still can't still can't answer
the question everything's documented and we have a way to keep track of who's doing their job and who's not doing their job and there's some accountability there i like that i like the accountability part yeah that's what I'm trying to say get some sort of like real finite
process in in how we're going to have accountability for anyone who's having to respond to financial counciling that the so couple of things
one I really like the idea of putting it onto old business and having that system for accountability because I agree that people should be responding and that feels like a way to do that i'm wondering question councelor Wandowski was it how to have I think I'm hearing
two questions um how to have all counselors have a chance to ask questions and how to make sure people have a fair amount of time to respond is because I have a response to those but I want to make sure I'm understanding your questions first were those kind of your questions at the beginning of this
conversation they were because I wanted you know what I noticed even when I asked the questions of the fire chief the month before he you know that's what he started to focus on and I didn't want that to drown out any other questions
from counselors so you know they're going to go what comes up first uh and one comment ironically the one month that we put the questions in we get an open meeting law when every other month we don't put questions in and we can talk about anything under the sun and
there's not an issue so that's how edge real life Catherine some some some thoughts about that one is I think if we have a like a standard practice that we're all used to I think
that that helps so I think this conversation is important so for example if we were to decide that if anyone submits questions in writing those are those are written first and the person who's answering the questions understands that more questions might be coming and that and that people can ask
questions i think that that works and I also think that it's completely reasonable to say "Hey you got this question last night you don't have the numbers yet." That's okay um I I don't think I need to convince anyone that my
intent was to give people more heads up um and that I would have been totally okay it's totally reasonable to me if people were to say "You you gave me the short amount of time i'll give it to you a couple days from now." I think that we we can say that to people if they're not
ready to answer the questions um so so does so I'm hearing I'm hearing questions in writing first but sta stating that there may be more and that people are able to say more and that if questions are not responded to within 30
days they'll be put on hold business that's kind of like the proposal that I think I'm hearing from all of us together yes yeah i I think it's important regardless if it's responded to or not that at the next city council meeting that question is addressed
meeting so the public has the ability to hear the response to the question so I think you need to even if they send us an email 15 days later with a response they should come to the city council meeting and tell us what their response was to those open questions so it's in the public that's a really good point
because some of these things we only get over email and only the council is seeing it and and you get it like two hours before the meeting yeah well that too and I'm driving and reading at this time and
you're like "Oh shit." Yeah there your car drives itself though right yeah it does i got one of those councelor Garrett did you have another comment or are we good no I mean the only thing just came to mind is it's where this would be addressed in the old business section which is later on the
agenda these answers to these questions so presumably like if it was a question of the mayor they would stick around to that section to answer it or like you know so I'm just thinking because we have that 10-minute limit on the amount of time they present oh this is questions we could move it though that's true if we we could suspend the rules
and move old business up if we needed to if we anticipate that right we would be able to say "Okay let's add can we eliminate the anticipate part of all of our stuff like Well you got you have to you can't
anticipate it." No but I think what he's saying is like we know that there's we know there's old business right let's just put it on the agenda and if we decide to suspend rules and procedures we can move that up to I feel like we're going to have to then every month
suspend the rules of procedure because our rules of procedure are flawed is there a way instead of putting it under old business questions for city officials we could just have it just constantly rolls back it all depends on the rules of procedure
see there you go maybe we should be talking about changing the rules of procedure maybe we should be talking about That's what I'm talking about like get rid of the rules of procedure there are no rules well because the rules suck dude the rules are flawed the rules suck
we're allowed to change how our meeting develops it's just a simple majority though i think that we need to really actually talk about this because things have become so convoluted i'm sorry i I sound like the
you know the the pi piper here like where I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to do the good and it sounds like I'm being an about it but I'm not like you know I want this to function
well that was the whole reason that I even ran for government at all i saw a bad thing happening and I wanted it to run for good and so I think that we need to really
realign our rules of procedure at this point if we're going to be that tight-knit and convoluted about it then unfortunately we need to be that tight-knit and convoluted about it when we're talking about um how we're going
to emphasize these rules is we want to get business done and we don't want it to interfere with what we're doing so instead of being in our own way essentially we're we're we're tripping
over ourselves is what we're doing we're tripping over ourselves i think you guys can all relate to that right yeah absolutely so let's not do that anymore let's make the Let's If we're going to do anything the point is which I hate that i hate that entire thing but that's
my own thing if we're going to do anything about changing how we're going to do the rules of procedure why don't we do it so we're not tripping over ourselves and we we don't have these continued conversations we can just
eliminate them and and and get the business done that's that's what I'm looking for so we need to stick with the other question okay counc yeah so I just want to be clear the
rules of procedure are like govern how we operate as city council and and we're doing an ordinance review right now so if there's a specific rule of procedure that a
counselor has a challenge with I would invite that like I'd invite you to bring that question to like I'd be happy to have that conversation um part of the rules of procedure are about how we have the agenda order the typical agenda
order and I think that it's we offic okay we're off topic we gota So we are off topic um we can always have a quick vote to change the agenda order uh I think if other counselors are allowed to talk off
topic like I want to be able to respond to what Yeah just I I You don't see Quinn's eyes um but and just naming where we're we're at right now we're talking about how we have our meetings yeah and
we're specifically talking about the mayor the questions to the mayor and how we can optimize that so let's roll it back to that a little bit I think and say if we take old business which is questions for the mayor and we just end up voting to move it after before public comment then we're good right and then
we'll just leave and if we don't like how that works then that's our rules and procedures to your point to your point change the rules change it to a better one so that we can have that conversation about the questions it's like you right think about politics as filibusters so you got to always relate
back to the original topic somewhere in your filibuster right there we go I could do it if you want old business to be in a different place than the agenda that's another discussion is what I'm trying to say and that vote to move that but back to the
conversation about I like the one thing that I would caution us on is if we always had I think that we we wouldn't we shouldn't put we shouldn't codify um having c having department heads have to
respond to old questions because we run we run the risk of uh we run the risk of having even longer meetings so I think that that should be up to the discretion of the chair whether you uh choose to have
people answer the old questions or not because I can imagine that just being being a long I don't think that was that was brought up at all no I'm I'm not responding to you i'm responding to councelor Healey um because I think it's
a really good idea i just think that there should be discretion there lest we have incredibly long meetings even longer meetings i think if I'm you know again it's just the way that this committee chairs works it would those
questions would be under old business if theoretically if we adopted it's something like this and then they would come to this committee chairs sorry it's not a committee right and then we could dispense of them as we so chose so it's like a long list of questions and some of them no longer seem relevant or
frankly if the council president whoever that is you know either Laura right now or somebody in the future they could dispense of them if they didn't feel like it was going to be productive for that meeting so I think your concern makes a ton of sense about like the length of the meeting and it I also totally agree about keeping in the
discretion of the chair but I think no matter what we do the chair the president of the council would still retain that ability so I I totally agree with what you're saying but I think we're we're safe from that risk as long as we have a council president who doesn't want a longer meeting which I
think we do but future ones will want long yes they will that's why they That's why they'll run yes laura you want longer means is that what you That's what I'm running we know your random yeah that is exactly
uh I think all our meetings since I've been running have been shorter so that's indication you've only been here two months three months waiting for it oh I know don't break my It's like the the White Socks are like undefeated right they're They're not oh they Oh they were
like first in their uh I'm not a White Sox fan okay council participation in the citywide cleanup in April is requested by Greenfield resident Judy Bennett um so we got an email from Judy and was asking if the council wanted to be
involved i just wanted to bring it to you all i asked her what she thought would look like for us being involved and she didn't know so I don't know if this is just like announce it at the you know maybe we can get the mayor to announce it and then
unless anybody has any other ideas or wants to do a cleanup in your precinct so I already contacted her about that any thoughts an announcement i asked a few years ago in the um I call it the the Bruce Brownstein
uh act at that time of having a day where we would he he was a he is he's still alive i actually talked to him yesterday um he's a guy who who is one of those
folks who you know went out um and cleaned up our streets that oh you know nobody nobody really cared about like you just you see the guy you're like down there i was like but you know he's a wonderful
person and um and he cleaned up the streets he didn't have a car to drive or anything the guy would walk and pick up he would pick up he'd be on rain road all the time he would absolutely he'd be on Colin Street Goring Road yep
absolutely he absolutely he did the He did the Meadows like you read about um and you did um you know and I wish I wish that somehow our tax dollars could have bought him a car um because he
would have done the rest of the community but he couldn't um and he still he still does it to this day he called me yesterday and he he asked me about um if I have any leftover leaf blowers cuz he knows that I I had a
landscaping business i he didn't even know I closed uh three years ago and he said he used to help my dad out he said "Do you got any shindawas?" And I was like Shundawa is not even a
thing anymore echobot Shindawa years ago he didn't even know that but he wanted to know because he wanted to continue to work on cleaning up our streets and I think that it is very important that we
support any initiative to have you know civilians the streets and and and anything we can give them if we can give them I don't know if we can talk with the um the assessor about we have we have
different uh modifications that we use for veterans for um other folks to get some sort of tax breaks i think we I think it's something
we we should explore um for folks who are going to help out the community in that way and they're they're not getting paid for it we're not we're not asking like a kind of civilian core going like we're not we're not we're not asking them to do like
we're not asking them you know to be on the payroll and we're not giving them benefits like we're they're not getting health insurance and you know such but if they're going to be helping us clean up the area that we're doing and we're
not doing enough ourselves to be frank um to do that like we should give them some sort of maybe it's tax relief right toronto is that something you might want to explore i
certainly will that sounds like a ways and means thing to me it does thank you Derek yes yes all right so I I don't write these things and I can't do the wherees and with alls and all those well I do
but I do it in such a not not you know legal language that people want it to happen but you know I do I I I really feel like there there's a place for that to happen
and something to give back to folks who are like I know Allan Collins he might was he on this one he's not on this one but he's been on a lot of um committee
meetings i I see him walking up and down country road and he's picking up trash all the time like do a resolution like summer winter doesn't matter this guy's just huffing it left and right like
doing the the three mile you know walk one way three mile back picking up stuff and like shouldn't he doesn't he deserve some sort of reprieve from his like he's right
he's helping so uh sorry no it's I appreciate the conversation councelor Gol oh no i actually had a conver a question about I'm not sure if we're complete with this item but there was an item on the agenda that we h that we
skipped over i think Yeah was that the community relations scheduling of preack oh thank you i totally I was wondering okay sorry that was going to be my next comment to you was on that item okay thank you so um we talked in community
relations about going back to the practice of having the whatever meeting with public um that would be three precincts at a time and so we talked about April July and October being the
three months sort of being a being able to split it up and um suggestion was April for 7 8 and 9 um mainly because WID and myself could be
prepared um and and get that moving more quickly july for 1 two three and October for four five six so just wanted to Catherine's got her hand looking at it
um and so I I wasn't on the council when this was a practice but it sort of started to die out i know we have to worry about uh open meeting and not having quorum and all of that stuff and you know
recognizing that a counselor you know one of the three might not be able to make it um and that we'll take notes for them from what citizens from the precinct say if that's for folks if if that works I will
just we can just um put this [Music] on email and then get it get it onto the committee schedules and then councelor B yes so there is a couple things about
that one you are required to send out postcards to every citizen really yes so it needs to be in your budget because it would come out of the city council's budget if the mayor called it the mayor's office would have
to take the budget but they're not required to do that unless it's an even numbered year i have precinct if you would like to look at it okay um basically if the mayor does it it you do not have to have an agenda there's no
open meeting law to have to be followed if you guys do it open meeting law has to be followed there has to be an agenda huh it has to be hybrid okay we're not doing this yeah sounds good okay all right sounds awesome let's see thank you
thank you for giving us the big middle finger but but we could work with the mayor and still do it and still have our citizens be operation uh councelor G yeah I was
going to I was going to say can you all you can hear me um yeah I was going to say something similar to what Quinn said that there is an ordinance um on precinct meetings that I um that does say that it has to
happen on even years i'm wondering and I know that the since I've been on council that it hasn't I don't think that that this has happened um and so I am curious if this would be something that the mayor would want to do this year or if
they intend to do it next year um but I just thought it would be helpful to know that this it's a pretty short it's a pretty short ordinance but it says that the mayor needs to send out the postcard to every household in the precinct um I know that's why I raised my hand to let
folks know that that is that in our ordinance that says we have to send it or is that general law i was like that's part of the ordinance an ordinance it was an or can we change the ordinance in ANO to say we could post it online that's a really good idea yeah the sent
postcards yeah it's it's something that I've wondered and I was going to reach out to the mayor's office about too because I don't know if we're in compliance i don't know if we've been doing this and it like the intent seems really good but maybe there are ways to make it more doable um and yeah it's
it's within our our purview to edit any any existing ordinance so okay yeah it's one that I've been curious about because we haven't been I don't think that's okay so this will not go on to
any agendas now it's a disappointing fact to learn about the postcards it's just like what logistic we could circle this back around to ANO after you know because we are doing ordinance review right now so that would be great
and if not all right the last thing um before we talk about your committee agendas um proposed ordinance establishing an opioid use and prevention commission um submitted by councelor Balda so
uh does that need to go to ANO before it goes to full counsel it is at ANO and I reached out to Tammy it was a typo that it wasn't put under um under ANO it should be under motions
for ANO we're ready to vote on it okay fantastic so it needs a public hearing uh apparently it needs a public hearing yeah you know and may I'm sorry I didn't um so I was told that the this this one and
the solid waste would both need to be at a public hearing can't happen in April because we are past the deadline to submit um it must be in May okay or or bust or you
can see uh or you can go in the as city council in the middle of the budget season as the public hearing the public hearing can be held on city council or you can wait so if it go if it goes
to public hearing in May then it won't be on our agenda till June correct so the only reserve I have on the ordinance that I sponsored with Marlo is what's that what when does he plan on operating those trucks the grant and does it need to happen before June if it does then I
would suggest we just suck it up and get it on the city council meeting in May crappy as it sounds fine i think that's reasonable thing to do i I if there are if there are timeliness legit
timeliness things like we we we attend to them last year we switched our ordinance to be from dual stream to single stream so I hope that's enough and if it isn't then I think it makes sense to do it so did that did it meaning so I'm
hearing I'm hearing May unless we have to do it soon right yeah and and again I would say the same thing about councelor Bullock's um ordinance we should have a conversation
with her and just see if it needs to happen before June or you could answer that Katherine that's what I mean is is it like tied into like a grant like money is tied up until the committee is established yeah
right so so what are those it's important to know what those timelines are like if we don't if it's like by December then we need to do it right now i'll answer with a couple questions first I just want to make sure quinn you're saying that it's too late to put
the public hearing on ANO next week that's correct that is correct unfortunately Friday was the deadline to have it placed in the paper okay and so it has the public hearing has to happen it couldn't and also public hearing
can't can public hearing can't happen the same day that it's voted on could it like could the could the public hearing I I feel like I should know this answer but I I don't know for certain can the public hearing happen at the April council meeting and it be voted on on
the at the April council meeting unfortunately I cannot answer that question at this time yes i think yes okay because if it could be and can ANO vote to recommend before a public hearing or
does a public hearing have to happen before ANO recommends logically it makes sense the recommendation after the hearing right right right and so if it can't So if that's if that I agree and I agree in
theory that makes sense to me so it sounds like the soonest First of all Quinn if you could help if you I should know these answers just as much as anyone else should so if you get the answers to these questions can you let me know so that we just are on the same page from now on that would
be Does that make sense Quinn yes it does unfortunately I don't have those answers um that is more of the city clerk's perview so I will have a discussion with her on those okay the only reason that I said what I said and don't hold me to it is please don't hold
me to it um a lot of our public hearings happen on the same day we literally hold public not the EDC ones we if you guys remember in normal council we will literally read
a public hearing open the public hearing close the public hearing a minute later and then vote on it like it's all in the same day so that's why I'm saying I think it's fine but I don't want I'm definitely not in
that position to say while I'm while I'm sitting here saying I think it's going to be okay I do not want you guys to hold me to that and then all of a sudden we get exciting up a creek without a paddle as so it
sounds like I'm hearing if it's okay then we would get it on the April agenda for city council and I'll have to say it four times that same night which is typically what happens I'm looking at
section 29 of the charter ordinances and other matters subsection B says measures in general the city council may pass measure through all of its stages at any one meeting all right next proposed ordinances provide the no city council so if somebody objects to it then somebody can
kaibos it so if there's one person who says no we don't want to do this in one meeting that can happen but otherwise it can happen jasper is no longer on our committee so just kind of standed given that given that sorry I saw that a
lot that's the case then I think that we were already given the given the feedback and lack of any push back on either of these ordinances i have not heard from a single person pushing back on either of these ordinances i would say that we would be ready to take them
up as motions at the ANO April meeting and if it is true that the hearing and the vote can happen both in April then I would say that if as long with your with your consent councelor Wandowski then we would be ready for that in April i I
would welcome that given what is going to happen in May and June so having some things now would be good anything else um otherwise I think we've gone through all the items unless
I've skipped something else that I didn't notice um so EDC committee uh any changes this all look this all looks correct we had the four zoning amendments and they did fill them out
down below and then the last item was just something I brought as a discussion um we have Amy Callahan and Hannah coming to the meeting i'm going to tell them to come around 7 rather than 6:30 7:30 so they don't spend an hour in there but um that's basically to discuss
um examine the possibility of parking benefit district in downtown and um we've been working with Amy and the mayor and to see what we could do there so super interested to hear that discussion okay any any other comments related okay
then we'll move to ANO so yeah so we've got appointments um did we say that we wanted the approval of the FRCOG charter on our agenda we talked about that earlier or did um I think we
said it doesn't need that it goes because there we can't change it we can't do anything so I think it comes off here again but okay um and then I have um requested just for the clerk to hold the um a space if we want to talk
about the how we are reviewing the ordinance there's the review of the principles and process of that and then um the following items are are almost all um responses to our request to
department chairs department heads to let us know if they had suggestions for updating the ordinances and um some of these they said no some of them they said yes but this is this is the list of people who responded and also
um Christian Lel plant is going to come and give uh answer questions about um the Crossroads Cultural District Committee and local cultural council which are two new two new ordinances um
to structureify those two bodies but also along with these again I asked Tammy to put um and if you could double check this pen that would be great under motions um that we just talked about the um solid waste and the
opioid funds those will be under motions absolutely okay so I think that covers it all correct all right um I was told that I have to tell you the review of the city of Greenfield
ordinances versus where it says remove the review of bylaws we have to strike the word bylaw and resubmit as ordinance well because bylaws are for towns correct okay that's it that's a charter change that we need to
make or No just I needed to announce it here okay it'll get back to us all right so uh community relations um we will need to change our date of our committee meeting
so um I will get that done very quickly uh and probably we'll just go for the fun for you okay we'll find a date i love that that is a Massachusetts only
holiday like favorite kind of holiday patri Day patri Day oh it's in Maine in Maine how dare you forget our old lost territory we gave it away it was a compromise of 1851 honestly it was a
pretty good deal for us it was a good deal so Tammy recommends two different options for changing okay um the proposed date would be either on a Friday because that's when there's time
or prior to the council meeting so a six o'clock CR meeting oh we could probably do that uh I'm looking at council Brown who's on the committee as well
um how I should know this but because no one knew all if I checked with others and got back to the clerk tomorrow is that adequate yes it is okay i will handle right that you're going to check in anyway
okay and uh everything for our committee I think is on this list so we are good to go ways and means what don't you have on your list like nothing i have nothing but the budget yeah the
entire entire weight of that yeah the weight of the world as it were absolutely do so do you do you have anything extra no i don't think so right is it just
Well there was one thing that got added to your agenda it was um utility bill oh yep that was it uh transferring of $1,800 that's going to be a problem three to 25 yeah it's going to be a real problem okay that's why you should push that to
May i'm totally joking april fools and I know we don't have enough time how are you doing with um scheduling all the budget hearings they're already
scheduled fantastic i'll look at the schedule and I won't ask you what they are they're all in April right 15th 23rd and 30th okay and then um we've got the draft uh council
meeting agenda um in right here so our so the first one is our normal meeting inif on the 15th which is the day before the full council meeting and then we're doing the two Wednesdays
following that the 23rd and 30th uh the 20 the 15th will consist of um on schools and the DPW DPW right schools and DPW
and then thank you John the 23rd will be the rest of the departments that we've so called the departments um the small departments and uh public safety okay and the 30th will be the
deliberations so and those are all at 6:30 i know Tammy sent a thing to remind folks but it was kind of in like a footnote okay so I just want to point that out to all of you folks and anybody else um
we normally meet at 6 but those meetings will all be at 6:30 uh in April okay so and then we said that we will be doing the other two ordinances at this agenda
meeting so DPW and opioids and that will go onto the agenda of the public hearing yep we did miss a section again okay um anything else that I'm missing that
we said we would Oh city cler report so nomination papers are coming out April 24th nope we request the ability to speak about the nomination papers at the council meeting so that the word can get
out i did ask the clerk to do that so thank you for there's a lot of seats left yes everybody's No I think we were I knew that I knew about you
mine wide open wide open in case I was wondering any other business right it is 7:14 i would take a motion to adjurnn so second
all in favor councelor Wandelowski yes councelor Garrett yes councelor Healey yes uh councelor Golop councelor Torono absolutely we are
adjourned thank you all for being here see you next time [Music]