Town Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it is 630. So shall we start recording?

Recording in progress.

We are recording. Thank you. Good evening. Seeing a presence of a quorum, I am calling the June 1st, 2026 special meeting of the Town Council and Finance Committee to order at 630 p.m. Please be advised that this meeting is being held in person and that remote access option for members of the public is provided as a courtesy only. In the event of technology issues with the remote connection, the meeting will continue in person as scheduled as long as there is a quorum of the council present in the town room or through technological means. Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025 extended through June 30, 2027, the ability of public bodies to meet without a quorum of the council physically present at the meeting location, although a quorum of the council is present in the town room. This meeting is being recorded and is accessible in real time via Zoom, phone, and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9 and at amherstmedia.org. At this time, I will call upon each councillor by the name they have indicated that they would like to be addressed. This will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us. Councillor Brevik. Present councilor Ken Martin present. And the church of yes on the Devon got here present. Then Greece summer president man to Johanna key is present councilor Lord president Sam McLeod president Pam Rooney here.

Could you not hear me I said here okay, thank you.

I mean council Ryan here Kathy Shane here Jennifer Tom. Here. And Councilor Walker is not here yet. If Councilors have technical issues, please let the Council Clerk know or call a point of personal privilege. At this time, I'll recognize Kathy to call the Finance Committee to order.

I'm calling the Finance Committee to order. Members of the Council have already indicated they could hear or be heard. So I'm calling on Joseph Jane, who is one of our resident members.

Yes, I'm here. Thank you.

Thanks, Joe.

Thank you. At this time, this is the Capital Improvement Program public forum. We will move to the regular council meeting immediately after this for those that are here for that. At this time, I will recognize Paul for the Capital Improvement Program brief presentation.

Actually, I'm going to turn it right over to Sean Mangano, our finance director.

Thank you, everybody. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

So my name is Sean Mangano. I'm the director of finance for the town. And tonight is our public forum on the capital improvement program. This year's plan is the result of a lot of hard work by department heads and our joint capital planning committee to put together a five-year vision for capital needs for the town. This year, like in past years, we started with last year's plan and then worked with department heads to identify what new needs there were and pull it all together. Next slide. So this year's plan allocates $11.5 million of funding, which includes everything but enterprise funds, which are supported by water and sewer rates. This does include debt. And roughly three quarters of the funds are going to the schools, library, and public works. The schools and the library portions both include debt payments for new building projects that are anticipated. So that's why their slices are a little bit bigger than typical. And the public works slice includes all of our road investments, which is pretty standard. Next slide. So some highlights of this year's plan. In economic development, there is $200,000 for the planning department to bring on consultants and experts to help them program the Wildwood site, which we anticipate being turned back to the town in the fall. There will be community involvement in that process. And so these funds will help support that effort. And then the Hampshire college campus, which the town does not own, but has an interest in what ultimately happens there. This will provide the department with any resources they need to support that effort. And then in infrastructure and sustainability, there's 1.2 million for road repair and cash capital or road repair and resurfacing. That's the cash capital component that combined with chapter 90 will produce well over $2 million for road repairs. And then lastly, there's $200,000 really for our sustainability director to implement different strategies that are outlined in the climate action plan. And we can update the group more on those strategies later. Next slide. Debt is a large portion of our capital improvement program. The first thing we do is subtract any debt from projects approved in the past. And this chart, the top section is sort of our regular municipal debt that's been approved. in the years going forward. The second section is our municipal debt that was funded through a debt exclusion, which is really just the school. So there's an additional tax levy that's temporary to fund that specific debt. Next is our regional school district assessment, which is the debt of the region, but we are allocated a slice of that every year. And then the last section is our Community Preservation Act debt. And the only difference between this chart and what was in the budget document that you all received is the War Memorial bathhouse at the bottom. That project wasn't approved at the time we printed the budget, but it is now approved. So we've put on this sheet the projection of that debt. Next slide. So as we look to the future, we use this five-year plan to guide our decision-making. One key element of this year's plan, which is really emphasized by the Joint Capital Planning Committee, is no new debt and being really judicious with taking on any new debt before we take on the DPW, because we want to keep our debt obligations as low as possible to make that as easy on the town as possible. But it's still going to be a challenge. Another component of this is that it allocates 10.5% of the tax levy, which is up a little bit from the prior year, And that's the level we think is necessary to complete our four building projects and also have some funds available to meet other needs in our departments every year. And so that leads me to the last piece of that slide, which is as we look forward and you look at the capital plan, there's not enough resources to meet all of our needs. So we're gonna have to work very carefully with our department heads to prioritize their projects, seek alternative funding sources, seek alternatives to their projects that still can address the need. And that'll be a major challenge for the upcoming capital improvement programs. Next slide. There's a couple underlying plans that are, ingrained within this capital improvement program. The first is our road improvements. A few months ago, we proposed a plan that calls for $25 million to be invested in roads over the next five years. The first year of that plan is funded in this capital improvement program, FY27. And the key here will be in the coming years, in the fall when we certify free cash and the town council is weighing what to do with free cash, that we really prioritize roads in order to fulfill this plan. Next slide. And then the last piece here is our four building projects. We have two projects that are anticipated to be fully completed next fiscal year. We are currently soliciting proposals from designers for our DPW. And once that is set, which we think will be completed in the next month or two, we'll have a much clearer timeline for the DPW project, but we think that's still a couple years away before it could potentially open. And that leaves us with the fire station, the last of the four, which is we do not have enough funding currently to complete. We have $13 million set aside. We anticipate another four to five coming back after the elementary school project is complete from the investment tax credit and from rebates. But that still leaves us $10 to $12 million short of our target. And we do have some designer funding approved that was approved many years ago. So as we get closer to that target of $30 million, we can get that design work started. And with that, I thank you all and welcome any questions.

Thank you. It is now 638, so we will have at a minimum eight minutes of public comment at this time. This is public comment only for the Capital Improvement Program. There will be other public comment later for general public comment. If you're attending remotely and would like to make public comment on the Capital Improvement Program, please raise your hand now. And if you're in the town room and want to make public comment on it, please sign up with Athena. Residents are welcome to comment or ask questions in this forum related to the capital improvement program and plan. It is not a general public comment period. That period will take place during the regular town council meeting that begins after this forum adjourns.

Council workers joined.

Oh, thank you. Counselor Walker. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Public forum comments or questions are not reflective of the opinions of the town council. Because this is a public forum, though, if questions are asked about the capital improvement plan, there is a potential for them being answered. We do not have any hands on zoom raised. Has anyone signed up Athena? Yes. Excellent. Can you call that person up? Did you know Vince O'Connor? Hella Pannewig – Assistant City Attorney, Continuous Integration and Rehabilitation Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the U.S. Department of Health

Vincent O'Connor, 175 Summer Street, Apartment 12. Good evening. I'm going to ask council members tonight who support our public schools to engage in smart, responsible budgeting to support both school budgets as voted by the respective school committees. To follow my comments, I would refer the council members to page 49, the manager's budget. The method is simple. The schools must know by November 1st how much money they have to hire staff. The school staff must know by July 1st whether they will be retained or have to look elsewhere. Capital budgeting is very different. As many of you know from past four or five years of adding all sorts of capital projects and capital spending in the fall or the following spring after the previous year's surpluses have been certified. All capital spending is not finalized or locked in by July 1st, but it's spread throughout the fiscal year, which just begins on July 1st, whereas school budgets are locked in by July 1st. My request is that the Council demand a June 1, 2026 estimate from the manager and finance director of what surpluses or deficits both from the municipal and operating budgets and all the reserve funds that are projected to be generated by a post-July 1st evaluation, and that he provide, or they provide, a revised page 49 for the council and include all funds, and both operating budgets for the past two years and the proposed years. With this information, the council, either one, could creatively and responsibly temporarily postpone some capital spending until the fall, enough to fully fund the first year of our new elementary school with the certain knowledge that in the fall the postponed capital spending will be able to be fully restored. Or two, the Council can look at various existing capital spending funds and decide that collectively these existing funds can more than cover enough proposed capital spending to offset the manager's $1.5 million cut to the elementary school budget. So I'm urging the board, the council to look creatively at the capital spending proposal with the thing of both assuring itself that the spending proposed can be put in effect and that the elementary school budget to open the new school can also be fully funded as at the level voted by the at-large elected . Thank you.

Thank you, Vincent. Is there anyone else signed up for the capital improvement program? Steven, did you want to speak to the capital improvement program or general public comment? Okay. Nope, that's it. No. Okay. It is 643, but we must hold the public comment period open for the capital improvement plan until 646. So we will wait for those three minutes. If anyone signs up in those three minutes, we will recognize them. While we wait, I figured I'd just mention that this is a requirement of the charter and the council has preliminarily voted to seek a change to the charter during our charter review committee so that we don't have this dead time in the future, but that we still hold these public forums, but without the required time that may be unfilled by comment. We will have, I will also say that we will have, and I'll announce this again when we move to the main meeting, we will have a general public comment period and another special public comment period as required by our rules and regulations. The water and sewer rules and regulations require a special public comment period on those rates, which we will do during the meeting when we get to that item in the agenda too. So there will be two other public comment periods, one of which will be a general public comment period. But right now we are waiting for the time to expire on the public comment period for capital improvement plan. If there's anyone that would like to speak to it on remote, please raise your hand. And if you're in the town room and have decided you might want to speak to it, speak to our town clerk. Seeing that it is 6.46 and public comment has been open for at least half the time of the meeting at this time, I am going to recognize the chair of the finance committee for a motion to adjourn the finance committee.

Finance committee is adjourned.

We're going to take a motion.

I make a motion to adjourn the finance committee. Is there a second? Second. And now I have need to. Okay, then I will call on the counselors first. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Lynn. Aye. Kathy is a yes. Jill. Yes. Anna. Aye. And Joe J.

Yes.

Thank you. We are adjourned.

Thank you. I move to adjourn the public forum for the town council. Is there a second?

Aye.

That was Lynn Griesemer. Seconding that, we will now vote on that. We'll start with Councillor Brevik. Yes. Councillor Ken O'Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Anna Devlin-Gauthier. Aye. Lynn Griesemer. Aye. Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Councillor Lord. Aye. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Councillor Ryan.

Aye.

Kathy Shane. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. And Councillor Walker.

Yes.

The public forum is adjourned. At 647pm, we will now move directly into the regular meeting, and there is still a presence of a quorum. So I am calling the June 1 2026 regular meeting of the town council to order at 647pm. Again, please be advised that this meeting is being held in person and that the remote access option for members of the public is provided as a courtesy only. In the event of technology issues with the remote connection, the meeting will continue in person as scheduled as long as there is a quorum of the council present in the town room or through technological means. The meeting is continuing to be recorded and is accessible in real time via Zoom, phone, and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9 and amherstmedia.org. I have already taken the remote, the roll call attendance to make sure everyone can hear and be heard. As I stated earlier, there will be one public comment period during general public comment period. and one special public comment period devoted to comments on the proposed FY27 water and sewer rates and amendments to the water and sewer regulations. If you are in the town room, please sign up with the council clerk to make public comment at either of those sessions. If you are attending remotely at the time, I will ask you to raise your hand in the Zoom application when we reach that time. The announcements are in the... agenda, but we have one additional one that i'm going to recognize Kathy for.

yeah. Hi, I didn't get it on the agenda, but I wanted everybody to know that on June 6, this Saturday at 11 in the morning, there is a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the North Amherst Church, that historic church that stands at the entrance to North Amherst. It will be a celebration both of the history with some recounting of it, amazing food, and there's an extraordinary organ, and we have an organist coming. So it is a you-all-come, and I just meant it's going to have a terrific agenda.

Thank you Kathy there are no hearings scheduled for tonight, so we move on to general public comment anyone wishing to make general public comment, who is attending remotely. Please raise your hand in the zoom application if you are present in the town room and have not signed up with the Council clerk please do so now. residents are welcome to make public comments on matters within the jurisdiction of the town Council. The Council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. Public comments are not reflective of the opinions of the town council. The First Amendment broadly protects individuals' rights to address the government, to speak, and to express themselves, including their right to say hateful and offensive things. I am generally unable to shut those commenters down under the First Amendment to the US Constitution unless their level of speech falls within an exception articulated by the courts, such as fighting words, true threats to a particular individual, harassment of a particular individual, or incitement of imminent lawless activity. if a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging in unprotected speech i must defer to the principle of freedom of speech there are no hands raised on zoom of people who wish to make public comment how many people in the town room have signed up three three each commenter will have three minutes to make their comment athena Evan Naismith.

Evan, please come on up.

State your name and where you live. I think the light is probably still on, but on the mic, but if it is not, please make sure it's on and then make your comment.

Good evening, counselors. Evan Naismith, District 5. I hope you guys got the handout. We're going to discuss some numbers tonight, but if you get bored, just hit the trap door button and poof. Okay, economic progressivism means that wealthy individuals pay more than their fair share and less wealthy individuals get a robust social safety net. Just think about Bernie Sanders. That's economic progressivism. When we look at the raw numbers, it becomes clear that Amherst's current housing policy is not at all progressive. Over the last decade, the average Amherst homeowner's house has appreciated in value by $21,000 a year. Those homeowners also obtain a $2,000 annual benefit from the state and local tax deduction, SALT, and another 2,000 a year from the home mortgage tax deduction. Homeowners do, however, have to pay about 1.5% of their home's values in upkeep, averaging like 6,000 bucks. They also have to pay $4,200 in capital gains tax, but only when they sell their house way down the line. All in all, the average Amherst homeowner profits about $15,000 per year just from owning their home. It gets worse though. The benefits are even more extravagant for wealthier homeowners. I live in Amherst Woods. Since I moved there five years ago, my house has appreciated by $200,000. That's 40 grand a year. The average Amherst renter household makes only 38,000 a year. That's according to your HPP. In other words, I make more money just from owning my home than Amherst renters earn at their jobs. Phrased differently, it's more profitable to own a home in Amherst Woods than it is to have a full-time job paying $19 an hour. To top matters off, our black and brown neighbors are overrepresented by double in the renter category. If you want racial justice in Amherst, you must start with housing policy. This is a policy choice. And don't take my word for it. Here's Bernie Sanders. Quote, the housing crisis in America is not a consequence of natural disaster. It is a consequence of public policy. End quote. I did not move to Amherst, Massachusetts to live in a town that is socially progressive but fiscally conservative. The numbers I just quoted shock the conscience. They are a natural consequence of the town meeting government wherein homeowners wrote policy to benefit homeowners. But that era is over, and we must change. Throughout this summer, I plan on introducing half a dozen bylaws, each aimed at increasing renter affordability. These bylaws are simply the codified versions of the HPP's recommendations that 10 of you already endorsed. Next week, I plan on sharing with you some inspiring and bold housing policy changes being undertaken by the most exciting mayor in America, Mayor Mamdani. Until then, thank you for your time.

Thank you for coming tonight, Evan. Athena. Stephen Casey. Stephen, please come on up. State your name and where you live and make your comment.

Stephen Casey. Stephen Casey. 26 Helix Street, Apartment 7. First, I just have to say that is a very sharply dressed gentleman over there. And from what he was saying, I agree with the concerns of the economic strain. You know, we see at this local level that we're not alone in that. We see that over the state, in the country. And I'm actually here tonight because I... I just cannot stand my idol. One of the huge impacts on our economy is Hampshire College. The school is of great value to me personally, and it should be to all of you. The loss of that school, the loss of the jobs with the staff, those are our neighbors, our community members, students losing their academic community for the alum, no more reunions, all that that school has given us, our local town leaders, our favorite places to eat, and much more. But it has been, you know, stated that the current plan is not feasible. And so there has to be a change. And I accept that, we accept that. But the current situation at Hampshire continues to deteriorate almost weekly Right now there are about 100 students there on campus who are working diligently to complete their program for the fall, working through the summer. And now they're being told that there might not be enough funding to see them through that plan. The students that have transferred to other schools are facing challenges where they are not receiving the same financial aid packages that were offered at Hampshire. For some students that were going back to school, this now places a huge block and hindrance on their academic progress. And so I would just like to use this platform to bring to people's attention the need. i'm not savvy enough with all the different fundraising programs that are coming on and I don't i'm not as prepared as I had wanted to be today, but you know, such as the such as the time so. The dream is to be able to purchase Hampshire. It's possible, maybe not in its entirety, but in pieces. Town residents have expressed their interest in parts of the land, and I would like to further that conversation and just urge you to support all the students at Hampshire because Amherst is about education. Just look at the budget.

Thank you so much for coming tonight, Stephen. Very well. Athena? Vince O'Connor? Vince, please come on up, state your name and where you live, and make your public comment.

So Vincent O'Connor, 175 Summer Street, apartment 12. I have comments about three issues. The first is about the governor's executive order regarding ICE activity. And I have to say, from what I've read, heard reported it has the same deficiency that the managers executive order has it says all these wonderful things but it when push comes to shove it doesn't say how where the teeth are who is going to go out and while people are committing criminal acts against residents of this town and people are calling 911 and asking for help, it doesn't say, and that's because we have 351 communities and 351 police departments and so forth. But I think that it's a serious problem to announce all these things that sound good for people who run institutions But for the people who are going to end up calling 911, where's the beef? So the second comment has to do with the building projects for Public Works and then for the fire department. I really think that the town is serious about listening to the employees of those two departments, that they should offer the unions that represent those departments, the employees of those departments, matching funds, $5,000 to $10,000 so that the unions can hire competent professional people to participate in the discussion of what is going to be constructed and how it's going to be constructed and what it's going to include and not include. And I think that's the best way to partner with the employees. And finally, with regard to public works road building, There are two streets that I'd like to mention, Station Road between the temporary bridge, so to speak, and the rail trail, and the first half of Summer Street. These are streets that have had potholes filled, and the filling has evaporated, disappeared, been thrown out of the potholes since it was put in. The streets that appear not to be able to be, need to be at the top of the list because those are the streets that are essentially irreparable without substantial work.

Please conclude your comments. Thank you, Vincent, for coming tonight. Athena, do we have anyone else? No. And there are no hands raised online, so that concludes general public comment. We will now move to the consent agenda. The following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect that they would pass with no controversy. To remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion later in the meeting, ask that it be removed when I list the consent agenda items. The request to remove an item from the consent agenda does not require a second. So I will read the motion now, but I won't seek a second until we see if there's anything to remove. And the motion is to move the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit. Item 8D, approval of request for long-term use of the public way, Amherst Mobile Market. Item 8E, approval of permanent changes to the public way, West Street and Mill Lane sidewalk redesign. Item 8F, approval of permanent changes to the public way, North Pleasant Street sidewalk and parking improvements. Item 8G, intergovernmental agreement with Pelham for treasurer collector services. Item 8H, acceptance of deed for watershed land. This is land that we approved the borrowing or the money to purchase couple of meetings ago and now it's accepting the deed for that purchase item nine a one to two approval of town manager appointments to the historical Commission and a whole bunch of reappointments that are listed on the motion sheet and the agenda and item 11 a approval of minutes may 1820 26 regular meeting is there are there any requests to remove any items. Kathy Shane.

I'm not going to remember the number, but the North Pleasant Street redesign, the parking and sidewalk.

So that is item 8F. Okay. Approval of permanent changes, North Pleasant Street sidewalk.

Yeah, I'd like to see a look at what that looks like and have a quick discussion.

No problem. Are there any other requests to remove items? Seeing none, is there a second to the motion that includes items 8D, E, G, H, 9A, 1 and 2, and 11A?

Ryan, second.

We will now vote. And we start with Sam McLeod.

Can you repeat what we're voting on?

This is the consent agenda without the North Pleasant Street items on it. It's on page 2 of the motion sheet.

Aye.

Thank you. Pam Rooney. Yes. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Scheng.

Yes.

Jennifer Taub. Yes. Councillor Walker. Yes. Councillor Brevick. Yes. Councillor Kano-Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. so now we move on there are no resolutions and proclamations tonight there are no presentations and discussion items although the first action item was originally a presentation discussion item until we got a couple of motions associated with it so it's kind of a hybrid i would say and we are moving on to action item 8a hampshire college property land use planning update authorization for the town manager to enter agreements with mass development and a proposed council statement identifying key priorities for the next phase of Hampshire College land use so before we're going to take a little bit of a presentation first and discussion and then we will move on to each of the motions starting with the motion related to um authorizing the town manager to enter agreements and then moving on from there which is why I said it's kind of a hybrid of a presentation and a couple of action items so I'm going to pass it off to Paul

Thank you. So tonight, we want to give you an update on where we are in the land use planning for a land that Hampshire College owns. And Jeff Bagg will be doing a brief presentation. We will also be asking you to approve what we call an intergovernmental agreement with Mass Development to receive funds to help us in the planning process. And then I understand there's another motion that will be proposed by one of the town councilors. A lot is going on with the college right now. I think you've received some of the email, do some information even as late as today in terms of the situation with the college in terms of its finances. But we're focused tonight on the the use of the land and how We think that the town should be involved in that. Later, we will request that you go into executive session to consider potential purchase of land, but that will happen at the end of the meeting. So, Jeff, do you want to go through your update?

Yes, great. Can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Excellent. Thanks. I'm really happy to be here. I wanted to come to the Council with Paul and announce that we are really pleased to have a collaboration with Mass Development for what we're kind of describing as an extensive but focused initiative to prepare for future potential uses of the Hampshire College campus. As you can see here, I'm trying to break down some of the key components. But phase one, we've received the letter today. I think it was dated yesterday. So this is hot off the presses. We've been working on this for several weeks to get to this point. And what we're looking to do is have phase one, which I'll describe in the next slide, begin pretty much immediately. And it will allow us access to basically a skilled team. They're known as house doctors in this world with mass development for us to begin to assess the land. And this is stuff that we talked about last time, but assess the land, prepare maps and gather what's really critical baseline information, conduct initial public meeting. What we're trying to do is have a meeting occur in July to give this opportunity for people to talk. and begin to help position the town to create thoughtful new zoning aimed at what we're describing as kind of balancing preservation against the need for new housing and tax revenue. Phase one, so we've talked about that. Phase two will be part of a new rolling grant that Mass Development is creating for other communities. There are a couple other communities in Massachusetts who are also working through the challenges and opportunities of closed campus. What we're really appreciative of is Mass Development's effort to kind of carve off a phase one for us so that we can really start right now with urgency. And I do want to give note that Claire O'Neill is in the audience and she's from Mass Development and her and her team have been really critical to shepherding us to this point where we're at today. And let's see, a couple more notes. So as what's listed on the slide. I mean, the goal is really to Create a process for us to collect information and community input, create a vision for the developable portions of the campus and an act zoning to implement the vision over time. And what this will do is it really enable us Enable the property to generate much needed tax revenue for the town. It's one of the overarching goals. It will allow for us to look at and understand and plan for various kinds of housing to be implemented over time. And so that is something that will continue to say is that Will be hoping to create the plan and the zoning and it allow you know something to be implemented over time. And then again balancing redevelopment with preservation of important resource areas. And we're also embracing the existing cultural institutions, so we are really cognizant of what's surrounding the college campus and the importance of those entities. Phase two I mentioned is gonna be implemented for our project. It will seem seamless on the outward facing view, but internally we have kind of this phase one MOA that Paul described for phase one, and then we'll have a second agreement for phase two as Mass Development unrolls their program for the other communities to join in. With that, you can go to the next slide. So phase one is, as I described, trying to start immediately. And phase one is really targeting June and July. And the things that we talked about last time, we're honing in on the things that we want to identify in the activities is really just looking at the basic physical characteristics of the site. There's a lot to look at and examine, which we've never really looked at before. So there's roads, there's infrastructure, there's developed areas, there's undeveloped areas. And so this team will really help us Look at that, understand it, map it, and then make that available to the public. We are going to look at the existing regulatory framework. So the two examples are zoning and wetland regulations, but there's a lot of other things that will probably get incorporated into that review. We are, you know, part of the team will look at the market. So the real estate market, the economic development components, you know, where there might be interest for uses to look at the campus as well. Like looking at existing infrastructure and utilities. So we have had multiple discussions with DPW they have some baseline information and understanding of what's on the site, but we really need to take a deeper dive into in terms of the location quality and capacity of some of that infrastructure. And that's really this baseline information setting, you know, setting the stage for what's out there today. And through phase two, we'll start to look at what infrastructure upgrades might be necessary to support various scenarios. And I'll talk about that in a minute in phase two. We will look at the condition of the buildings. It'll probably be visual for now to just get a sense of the buildings. I don't think phase one will be getting us inside the buildings to do a deep dive in terms of the condition of the inside of the buildings, but it'll start to assess them for multiple different reasons. ownership, easements, and access. So those are all things that we will look at in phase one. And then to digest all that, the team's going to put together some educational materials. We want to do a series of interviews and stakeholder discussions, and then look at some development scenarios. And so it is noting that this isn't drawings at this stage. But this is to start to look at land area, identify land area that's developable, and then start to understand some basic numbers about commercial opportunities or number of housing units that could generally fit on the site, just to give us this fit test information. And the proposal is to kind of make this digestible, small chunks, kind of based on individual issues or topics. And it doesn't say it here, but it will be hosted on a website, and so we will publicly make this information available and then so leading into July is our target to have a listening session with the Community. We would expect it to have an open presentation to present some of the baseline data mapping and early issues and opportunities that are just sort of the factual basis for us to start from. And then looking at an overview of resource area constraints and kind of the impression of the real estate market. These are all to set the stage so that we're all starting in the same place, the same page to start from. We will review community goals. So that's the master plan, the housing production plan, the comprehensive housing policy, and all those items will get factored into this first meeting. And we're mentioning again the cultural institutions with the opportunity for public comment and the opportunity for people to raise questions, concerns, and identify their goals. So I think with that, you can go to the next slide. And then phase two, what we would be moving into is somewhere between August and December is to really continue a deeper dive, more intensive focus on the data and information, community input, and kind of take some next steps. So this slide, what I wanted to articulate is that we're laying out a three meeting process. So the first meeting will be listening session in July. We would have a second public meeting, a Charette style meeting in either August or September, followed by a third public meeting tentatively slated for October. And so in meeting number two, the concept at the moment is to do a Friday afternoon walking tour of the property and then follow it up on Saturday morning with a multi-hour kind of hands-on visioning exercise to look at all the components that we'll have information on gathered at that point, conservation, open space, economic development, housing, the development opportunities, arts and culture, community facilities, trails, and recreation. And then from that session, the team will start to be able to actually develop some scenarios. And so this would be looking at maps, talking about the size and location of potential buildings and just understanding the density or extent of new development opportunities within especially the core campus. And we will examine what people have been throwing out a lot of different ideas, but there's ideas of mixed use kind of village centers, A research campus continued education or various housing types, and so this will allow us to look at the site and model out some of these and start to demonstrate what it could look like and what the densities would be. And this would this would be the point when we would have illustrative plans diagrams cross sections and other supporting materials for people to look at. And then finally kind of in this realm is the fiscal analysis, so we could then look at a development scenario and understand. some of the opportunities, the impacts, what it would provide or offer for tax revenue. And we would have that fiscal analysis component here. Then followed by the last kind of big public meeting would be a Charette style in October, gathering input, responding to ideas and plans. And then we would have kind of this preferred scenario upon which we would continue to work with the team to craft some zoning that would actually allow that to be implemented in the future in the long run. So the goal is a intensive but in thorough process to get us to some kind of zoning proposal for December, would be a target, November, December. And there'll be a final report. There'll be information available. The team is set up to attend several meetings, especially through the draft zoning amendment phase. So really giving a lot of credit to Claire and her team. We've been developing the approach to this for several weeks. And so we feel like this is a really good opportunity for the town of Amherst to jump in, have some facilitated discussions, and really understand what potential options there are for the campus. So I think with that, that's the last slide, and I'm happy to answer some questions.

Can I just say, we're really, really fortunate to have Jeff Bagg here leading this conversation. Jeff came to Amherst ready, and he knew that we had the Wildwood School on our plate. And I thought, well, if you're so good with the school, how about a whole college campus? And so now he has jumped full force with limited staff. As you know, our senior planner has moved on to the town of Hadley, and he's just been really carrying this load with support, obviously, but he is really the one conceptualizing this and moving it forward. So I just want to thank Jeff publicly for all the work he's been putting into this, along with everything else that he's got to handle.

Thank you, Paul. I was going to say some of the same things to thank Jeff and frankly, all of the town staff that has been working on this to get us to this point. I want to also thank Mass Development for, in some sense, jumping into our call for help as this announcement came through to even get us here today and then to prioritize it so quickly. I want to remind the council we're going to open it up to questions and discussions at this point, try and keep it to land use planning. There is an executive session tonight too that can probably deal with questions not related to land use planning. I'm not going to make the motion yet on the mass development one. I'll take questions and all first regarding a bunch of things. We'll start with Councillor Ryan.

So I'm wondering what impact, if any, there would be while this process is on while it's going through. If Hampshire College goes ahead and makes some kind of sale, would it still make sense, and help me understand how it would, for us to continue with this process? Because we know they are under enormous pressure, and I don't know how likely it is, but it's possible that they will make a decision in the next couple of months, maybe during the summer, maybe in the early fall, Um, the scenario you've painted is, I think, an excellent one makes a lot of sense. But if something like that were to happen, um, would you say that we still should continue with this process because they're really not connected with the process need to be revised? Um, that's my question.

Jeff.

Yeah. Councilor Ryan, I think it's a good question. We've grappled with a lot of similar questions. Um, you know, for the time being, this is full steam ahead. We, we believe that this is a great signal that the town is sending that we're, we're prepared and very interested in looking at the parcel for sort of the developable portions for housing and for tax revenue. We want to, we want to have that signal out there, um, You know, the best case scenario is that a potential purchaser or an entity that does actually end up acquiring the property will want to engage with the town and will want to follow this process and understand where the town wants to go. So that we do in general feel like a partnership will be the best case scenario. There are other options. So there are other options for things to happen beyond our control, and we will adapt to that if necessary. But we think that in almost any case, a buyer, a purchaser of this land at that cost is going to want to have conversations with the town and be engaged in a process to work together. That's our hope. We will have to adapt if something changes that we're not expecting, and we're prepared to do that, but we didn't want to Tom Preston- We didn't want to start with something like that we wanted to start with this process, this is a normal process but it's robust and it's faster because of that pressure and we think that if we are. Tom Preston- Successful at coming out with a zoning amendment, you know in December November or December. that would be a great signal. And that would show the cooperation and collaboration that we're looking to have with whomever's interested. And just one more thing on the zoning amendment, because I don't want it to get lost, is that would just be to get to the zoning then it would get submitted and it would go through the next process with town council and the planning board and CRC. So even the first six months is quick and it's to get the input and get a vision going, but then it would have additional input and process to move forward with implementation. So Mr. Ryan, I hope I answered that question to the best of my ability there.

If I can just jump in on that. So what we know is that Hampshire College is going out of business and it will not be in operation as we know it. And so that campus will be moving into probably someone else's hands. And what people do is they come to the town and said, what would you like to see there? And we say what we think, but I think it's this process that's going to help define it by actions by the town council in terms of what you want to see through zoning, through your voices through zoning. And so that's exactly how the town will say what it wants on that land. So I think we need to know from the town council with the community engaged planning process, what does the town want with that land?

Thank you. Kathy.

Thanks, George, for being the first person out, because that leads perfectly into, I can build on your question. I think this is a great plan, including that initial phase of doing an assessment of what exists. That will be useful to any buyer in terms of the condition of the building, the infrastructure, wetlands. So my question, Jeff, is, You just said this is a fast timeline, and I would agree with it, given the way we've moved in the past, particularly on zoning. But is it going to be fast enough on the zoning side? Do we need... While doing the public engagement, do we need some potential scenarios of if it was zoned like this or zoned like that? Because that signaling of what the town might be willing to do before we voted on it may be as Hampshire is engaging with someone who might want to take on the debt. So it's purely a timing issue. And I know from the press release you'll have partners, thanks to the state, and that list of the kinds of teams that are there, it looked to me a combination of geotechnical, Zoning and design and architectural is a good team to add to what we have and what the state would bring to be able to do some early visioning, you know, on lot sizes, whatever. So my question was just on the speed. And even if we can't vote on the zoning changes, would we be seeing some of the ideas along the way?

Paul or Jeff?

I'll take a fair shot at it. Yeah. Counselor Shane, I think it's a great question. In all honesty, we had a little bit longer timeline that we have been discussing the past couple of weeks. And we recently shrunk it to be more concise and upfront. So, you know, we really want to be able to engage people along this path. And I think the team really advised to to make sure that we're allowing people the time and opportunity to have a voice in the discussion. And so what we recently came up with and we're finalizing the scope, it's still in draft, but we think we have a really good handle on how it'll unfold, especially this phase one is really having time to get some of that data together. So mapping and understanding and really dive into that and then be present in July with the community showing the maps and having the discussions and starting to talk about what's possible. That's actually quicker than it was originally slated to happen. And so we think that that's going to be good. You know, we were a little sensitive about doing too much during the summer. We want to make sure that there's opportunity for people to follow along. And so So I feel really good about starting in June. I mean, we're meeting Friday, I think, and then next week, and we're really going to ramp right into this and then have that first listening session in July. And from there, even though we're doing it in two phases, technically behind the scenes with two contracts, it's going to be seamlessly going into August or September with that, that second community meeting. And that's when it will be a charrette style. That's when people will understand certain pieces of puzzle that are available on the property. And, and I think we, we want to make sure that we're going fast, but not too fast. So, so we did, we did talk about that machine and I think we, we landed in a really good spot. So hopefully that answers your question.

You did. Thank you.

Thank you. My hand is raised next. That actually segues into my question. Maybe this will do that well for the rest of everyone as we seg into each other. But the summer meetings and the three public meetings, are not at ideal times. So I have a couple of questions related to that with some of them over the summer when people are traveling. How soon can we get those dates finalized so that they can be out in the public and announced? And then also, will there be an ability for people who cannot attend those meetings to basically attempt to submit or put in similar public comments? A listening session might be easy, but I'm looking at the charrette in August, I think it was, or early September. That's a couple hours with maybe some diagrams and all that might be a little harder. But is there a way to make sure that some sort of ability is able for people who can't attend those to make similar comments that are undertaken and considered as the next phase of the work goes through. Jeff or Paul?

I believe that we can make sure there's an opportunity for people who couldn't attend a meeting to have some way to communicate. And I think the first meeting is really just to allow people to come and understand what's happening and see some information. And so we do, we will be providing a web, a webpage. So the consultant team, a Horsley Witten group is sort of the, the, um, the overarching consultant team. And so they're going to host a website that can be, um, a story map style. So it'll be easy for people to scroll through and find information. It'll be map based and it'll be much more interactive, no offense to our website, but it'll be more interactive and, and easier for people to access the information. And I'm pretty sure we can, at a minimum for the July meeting, have an opportunity for people to provide comments. And then in terms of the second meeting, we did talk today about maybe pushing it from August into September, sometime like maybe after Labor Day, so that people are settled back into their routines. What that would do, and we want to accommodate that, what it would do is just push the product out probably from November to December. But I think to be cognizant of people who might really want to participate in that really in-person Charette-style meeting, I think we could potentially talk about shifting the date a little bit from August to September.

And I think the idea would be to get the date in July. We don't have a contract signed yet. We need authority from you to do that. And then once we get a contract, I think Mass Development's ready to go. That once we have a contract, then we can start talking about actual dates. And it'll be hard to find a good date because there aren't. But I think the alternative is to wait till after Labor Day, which I think is not acceptable. We just need to work on it. there will be plenty of opportunity. And I think having online opportunities and recorded for Amherst Media or whoever, if we just do it through Zoom, I think the hybrid meeting is going to be the best way that we can do it because we want people to be present. But also, if you're traveling, you'll still be able to log in and watch it either in real time or after the meeting has been recorded.

Excellent. Thank you. Lynn?

I do hope the meetings can be held so that even people who aren't in town can participate actively given today's technology. So let me just paint a scenario and allow me to ask then the question. And the scenario is sometime between now and the end of June, somebody buys this property. And they buy it with the intention of having it be, I don't know, an educational something. It seems to me that even if they do that, we probably wanna go ahead and do something with zoning because the possibility, frankly, of a higher ed institution surviving a startup in this day and age is zip. So my real question then is, would we just go ahead and do zoning regardless? recognizing that whoever bought it is then going to want to influence the zoning so they can get the best dollar back. Paul or Jeff?

Yeah, I think that is a potential scenario, but I think even any kind of land purchase is going to take time. No one's going to write a check. Maybe someone will write a check. I think Hampshire would love for someone to write a check. But if you're buying a major piece of land, you're going to need some due diligence, some time to get your financing in order, whatever that's going to be needed to be done. So I think... And they're going to want to know what the town wants. If it is a comparable educational institution, I think you're right. That doesn't preclude the town's efforts in saying, if that institution were to move on, what would we like to see on this land? And they may not want all of the land anyway.

Thank you. Can I just say one other thing? Yes. I also want to thank Mass Development for stepping to the plate. You've always been a good partner to cities and towns. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Kennel-Martin.

Yeah, I similarly, I have a concern that the process is really fast and I think it's going to be hard to get the kind of community engagement that we want, especially given the time of year. And also I'm concerned about accessibility to everyone in town to be able to give their opinion. So thinking about things like language, are we going to have translation for these materials into what languages? Also thinking about times of day, like people work at different times of day. So If it's an evening meeting, we might have people who work the evening shift. So when would there be opportunity for them to attend? Transportation, where is the meeting going to be? Is it on the bus line, hopefully? Maybe it's right here in town hall. But I am just really concerned about accessibility and about who gets to give their opinion on this. And I know there's a lot of opinions. We've all been contacted on the council, I'm sure, because I've seen the emails that go to all of us. And so there's a lot of people with a lot of opinions on this, and it is a really monumental decision. So yeah, I'm just really concerned about the community outreach process and how it can be as robust as possible and given a really short time frame.

Thank you. Andy.

I appreciate mass development being represented here. I don't know if if you're here just to watch or if you are here to comment, but if you're here if you were up for commenting i'm curious what this situation looks like compared to. Are there any other parallel situations that you've seen and if there is the the technical assistance role of mass development is that generally what one mass development would do or is there any. And we'll discuss purchase scenarios in executive session, but is funding for purchase ever an option?

Claire, if you would like to respond, you may. Come on up. Make sure the light's on. I don't know if it's still on. OK, thanks.

Thank you. Good evening, members of the town council. Thank you to Jeff and to Paul and your entire team for the work that they've been doing with us over the past few weeks. First of all, I'm very sorry for the situation that Hampshire College finds itself in and therefore the community of Amherst and Hadley and indeed the region. Sorry, I should have started off by introducing myself formally. Farrah O'Neill, I'm Senior Vice President of Real Estate Planning at Mass Development. So I'm very much on that technical assistance side. We work as the state's development finance authority and also land bank. We work with communities across the state. My team works with communities through grant programs that are through the One Stop for Community Growth. We also work with communities on an individual basis and also some nonprofits on an individual basis as well. We do a lot of work on district planning, which this kind of falls into. We do a lot of work on surplus public property planning, which while this isn't surplus public property, I'm more curious about the Wildwood School. That sounds interesting as well. We... We unfortunately do find ourselves often working with communities who are facing a dire or negative change in their economy. I'm working with the town of Clinton right now. Jabil is a company that owns or took over a 75-year-old plastics manufacturing firm that used to have 1,000 employees in the downtown. In recent times, it's been more like 500, 600 employees in the downtown. But Jabil has announced that they are moving those employees out of Clinton. And so we are working with the town to better understand what the impact is on not having 600 employees next to their downtown area. and also what the different redevelopment scenarios are, both from a fiscal basis, but also that same multiplier effect on the downtown. If the buildings become residential, commercial, industrial, mixture of both, trying to understand what the future of those facilities will be. So I bring that up only because while that's a company and a downtown area, It's also about economic development. It's also about job loss. It's about the fear of the community as big changes occur. And so I just wanted to give you a flavor of another type of situation where my team works. And we really value the opportunity to collaborate with communities and to collaborate with teams like you have in place. you know, while I won't say that we look forward to working on this issue because it's not necessarily a fun thing to do, we very much will be, you know, step by step with you as we engage here. And we do have an excellent team that's going to be working on the project with us. Forest Lee Whitten, they have a fantastic team in Providence and in Massachusetts as well. They do work across the Americas, but they are very much involved in sensitive environmental projects, as well as straightforward civil engineering, planning, landscape architecture projects. And of course, they are teaming with Dodson & Flinker, who I'm sure you're all familiar with, and then U3. is a firm again that I know you're familiar with and they have done some outstanding work across the nation with colleges and in different situations. I've avoided the topic of purchasing property. We have a number of tools available to us to help anywhere from manufacturers, colleges, communities. We have a number of financing tools available to us. And so certainly I don't want to preempt anything that you and the council may discuss. But, you know, we're certainly, as the Commonwealth's land bank, we're certainly, we certainly have access to tools that we would talk with you about if and when it's appropriate.

Thank you so much, Claire.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Sam.

Thank you, Mandy.

I also would like to thank town staff and Jeff Bagg.

I consider today's announcement that the town is seeking to engage with the state to be a very good one. It's clearly a very significant issue for our town. We all are hearing about it, seeing it, and understand the impact, but I agree with comments that have been made that beginning the analysis and gaining information is a good thing. Information up front Regardless is the town uses it or others will only be helpful I share Casa Ryan's questioning of you know what may happen in the near time period, and I thought to myself well. what's going to transpire between now and December we don't know but i'm glad to see that the. plan is to expedite to the extent possible the review process and also I'm glad that there's an engagement component. I do think it would be good to make the engagement of the community as available and varying avenues as possible as Councillor Martin referenced. But I think it's a necessary step and I'm very pleased to see that the town moved quickly on seeking engagement. I think it's a good thing no matter what the outcome is. We don't control at present what's gonna occur with the college. There are some things out there right now that we don't know what's gonna transpire. I'd like to thank Claire for being here and for communicating on multiple levels uh smoothly and informatively um the the town has uh this is a big this is a big issue for us and we should be deliberate and also um engaged with a sense of urgency I believe in our process thank you thank you Lynn you know this is a question

my voice to Paul and Jeff, and that is, will there be a committee guiding this or will it strictly stay within the staff with the consultants? Paul?

Yeah, so the intent is that the Mass Development will work with our staff, with the team being led explicitly by Jeff, but it'll be a community engagement process and bringing in stakeholders who have been identified and then utilizing the committees, the normal process for changing bylaws, like zoning, the planning board, the CRC, and the council as being the decision-making process.

so no special committee or anything like that i see no other hands right now for general comments so we're going to move to the motions there will still be time to obviously discuss the motions at this time so i'm going to make the first motion which is to authorize the town manager move to authorize the town manager to enter into any memorandums of agreement with the massachusetts development finance agency mass development and and the town of Amherst for the purpose of assisting the town in developing a community-informed redevelopment plan for the former Hampshire College campus, incorporating site analysis, stakeholder engagement, redevelopment scenarios, and recommended zoning changes to promote job creation and economic development, the project within the town at 893 West Street, Amherst, Massachusetts, 01002, the site. Is there a second? Second, Rooney. Kathy got to you before you, Pam. Nice try. You tried. Is there any conversation on this motion? Seeing none, we start with Pam. You get to be the first one to vote. You have to unmute. I did it three times. Yes. Counselor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane.

Yes.

Jennifer Taub. Aye. Yes. Councilor Walker?

Yes.

Councilor Brevik? Yes. Councilor Kano-Martin?

Yes.

Andy Churchill?

Yes.

Ana Devongathie? Aye. Lynn Griesemer? Aye. Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Councilor Lord? Aye. And Sam McLeod?

Aye.

That is unanimous. We now move on to the second motion. I'm going to recognize Andy Churchill for this one since he is the main sponsor of it. So Andy?

Yeah, in your packet, you have a memo that describes the reason for the motion. Basically, this is jointly sponsored by Can you speak closer to your mic?

Sorry.

This is jointly sponsored by Jill Brevik, Lynn Griezmer, and Alicia Walker. But basically, with the unfortunate closure of Hampshire College, the town of Amherst has been presented with a rare opportunity to guide the reuse of a significant amount of land to meet the town's widely acknowledged needs for more housing and tax revenue. We heard tonight, an update on Hampshire College and the work that is going to be done there at this time we believe the town council has the opportunity to send a public signal to potential bidders on the property by articulating some key priorities for the next phase of the hampshire college land use so therefore we present the following motion for consideration by the town council so i move The future uses of Hampshire college land are of critical importance to the town of Amherst and comprehensive consultative and inclusive land planning efforts are being undertaken by staff. As this effort continues and as Hampshire college decides what to do with its land, the town council identifies the following key priorities and stands ready to provide zoning and regulatory support for them. Buildable land, the first priority is buildable land should be prioritized for housing small business development and other appropriate tax revenue generating uses. Second priority sensitive habitat farming or resource areas should be prioritized for preservation, creating a balance between potential redevelopment and preservation. Third priority. Housing development should prioritize a wide range of housing types as reflected in the town's 2021 comprehensive housing policy and 2025 housing production plan. And fourth, if components of the property could support identified town space or facilities needs, those needs should be considered.

Is there a second? Griesemer, second. Do you have anything else to speak to the motion, Andy?

I think that basically covers it. It seems appropriate to have this deliberative process. And at the same time, in our discussion, these priorities have sort of emerged, I think, fairly generally across the council. So I and the co-sponsors felt it was important to send that signal now so that people who might be considering these types of uses would feel encouraged to come forward.

Thank you. Kathy.

I just a short comment. Thank you very much for doing this and for the enumeration. I think it's a good idea what you've done in this motion and I'm supportive of it.

Thank you, Pam.

Yes, thank you. I think your number two talks about protection of resource areas. And I think I'd like to sort of hear the word non-buildable. I mean, we're talking about preservation of non-buildable land. which would include all of the above. But I don't want to, I don't, if you understand what I'm saying.

So I think you're potentially making a motion to amend to change the second bullet point to non-buildable sensitive habitat farming or resource areas and the rest of it. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, that's good. That's fine.

Okay, that is a motion to amend. If that's friendly, Andy, you made the motion when you seconded it. Do we need to take a second on that motion to amend or is it friendly for you to add those words? We'll take a second on that and then ask questions. So there's a motion to amend to add those words non-buildable. Is there a second to the motion to amend?

Second.

OK. So now, Councilor Breivik.

Sorry, just wondering if that then means that if there was land that would be considered sensitive habitat farming or resource areas that could technically be buildable but currently is not built on, that that then wouldn't apply here?

So if those, this is my interpretation, is if the words non-buildable in front of it, in front of that second bullet point are added, that means that the non-buildable ones are prioritized for preservation. That doesn't mean the buildable ones aren't preserved by definition. Like it doesn't mean the buildable parts couldn't be preserved, but that the council would be prioritizing for preservation the non-buildable sensitive habitat farming and resource areas, if we add those words in there. That's my interpretation.

Okay, and then just so it sounds a little bit like then stating the obvious if it's non buildable, we can't build on it, we wouldn't be wrecking. I think what we at least my understanding of the sentiment of this is that we want to preserve as much of the land that is currently preserved as possible, whether it's technically buildable or non buildable. And that's why adding this in was important. I think that might adding non buildable might weaken it. Anna.

Yeah, I think my concern is in the same direction as Councillor Brevix. There's a whole lot of land that is great to preserve for conservation that plenty of people would want to build on. And I think that the entire point of conserving it is to prevent that habitat, even if it is considered protected under bylaws, not, you know, sorry, my brain's fuzzy today, but not necessarily supporting passes from those bylaws in order to promote building. So unless I'm misunderstanding and there's a comma that I'm missing here where it says non-buildable comma, and then all of the other things, I cannot support that addition. Thank you. Pam?

Namas are good.

Did you say commas are good?

I did.

Okay.

If she needs a comma there. So obviously, if it's a wetland, if it's priority habitat, et cetera, I don't know what resource areas particularly mean. That's not spelled out, but you kind of get a sense of it. I'm just saying we have a lot of protected and conserved lands in Amherst. There are some wonderful lands or portions of the Hampshire College site But I want to just remind us that with all of the setbacks, the restrictions, and what are their considerations, if something is generally developable, then it probably ought to be considered for that. Thank you.

Andy? Andy?

Yeah, the first bullet says buildable land should be prioritized for housing, small business development and other revenue generating uses. So I think we don't necessarily need to say non-buildable land, you know, shouldn't be. I think this is an attempt to say we recognize that there are various types of uses on the property and there's a lot of land that's probably not buildable and some of it has some uses that might be I wanted to be considered other than housing. So I think the combination of the first two is an attempt to strike a balance and understand that the core buildable area would be prioritized for new uses, but there may be some areas that should be prioritized for preservation or other uses.

I withdraw my additions. I didn't have it written in front of me. I had forgotten some of the wording of the first item. Thank you.

The second was by Andy Churchill. Are you okay with the withdrawing?

Yeah.

I think procedurally we're allowed to do that. Athena is nodding. So this is withdrawn. So we do not have a motion to amend in front of us now. We are back to the original motion. Are there, I got two hands up, Andy. Okay, Sam.

Thank you, Mandy. I appreciate the motion from all the counselors and see the clarity of the communication. I do, however, wonder since we have an executive meeting scheduled for later today on the topic of potential purchase of Hampshire College. If we're having this discussion slightly prematurely, even though it's very important. So I'm not expressing disagreement with what's being discussed here, but in my mind, there's an executive session where there will be additional information that I assume will be discussed. And as with any process of decision making, I like to hear whatever the latest might be, irrespective of the value of a proposal that could also be taken uh or brought up at a subsequent meeting so uh that's my thought process i kind of want to hear our executive session even though it may uh not be immediate uh directly associated with this it might uh but i think we should uh hear everything first thank you thank you lynn

I just want to say, when Andy talked with me about this, what I felt was it really reflected the many, many conversations that this group has had. And it allows us to come forward with a statement that summarizes the kind of feeling that people have had about this whole conversation, both in executive session as well as outside. Sam, I'm just going to suggest to you that the last sentence, the last bullet actually takes care of any concern you might have. Thank you.

That bullet reads, if components of the property could support identified town space or facilities needs, those needs should be considered, is what that bullet point that Lynn just referred to says. We're going to go to Councillor Brevik.

Yeah, I'll just add to what Lynn said. I agree. And also that I think one of the parts of this that I liked is, is the fact that this conversation is happening in the public part of the meeting. I think we have had conversations around this topic and but they haven't been available to the public. And so I think this was an attempt to share our thoughts summarized, you know, to date on this topic. And I think that's valuable. So if I think if there are things that people find that they would like to change or discuss in here, I do think it might be helpful to do that now as part of this discussion in front of the public.

Thank you. I see no further hands, so we're going to move to a vote on this motion. It is as the motion stands right now, as written on the motion sheet between pages three and four. And we start with Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Counselor Walker. Yes. Counselor Brevik. Yes. Counselor Cano-Martin.

Yes.

Andy Churchill. Yes. Ana Devon-Gauthier.

Aye.

Lynn Griesemer. Aye. Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Counselor Lord. Aye. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

And Pam Rooney. Yes. That is 13 to 0. That item. I believe we are done with this item since I see no other hands up, which means it is just shy of 8 o'clock. We will take our break until 8.05 at this time, and then we will come back at that time with action item 8B.

Yeah.

So we have a form of the council back from break. Those on Zoom, if you could turn your videos on so that we know you've rejoined us, that would be great. And we will be moving on to item 8B. I'm here, Mandy. Thank you, Anna. We're moving on to item 8B, the Human Rights Commission charge and bylaw 3.3, Human Rights and Human Rights Commission. So we are going to start with the first motion. And then once that motion is on the floor, I will move to the GOL chair to talk about the GOL report on that motion in particular. The chair can talk about both motions if they want at the same time, but we only have one on the floor at a time. And this one is to adopt the Human Rights Commission charge as presented in the document titled 08A GOL Voted Human Rights Commission Charge 52626. Is there a second?

Second.

I think I heard Lynn first. So, Anna, as chair of GOL, would you like to present the GOL report?

Yes. Sorry. I'm just pulling it up because I think this is similar to what we discussed last. We're talking human rights, right? I pulled up the right report. Okay. Phew. I'm looking at it and realizing. So this was the replacement of the... Oh my God. Nope. I pulled up the wrong report. I'm so sorry. Y'all, my jet lag is kicking me in the butt right now. I'm really... I apologize. so so gol continued our discussion as a reminder the human rights commission charge was the first piece of the discussion and then the bylaw was the second piece um and so the uh the motion or the the decision that's in front of you today is on the bylaw is that right am i looking at the charge i mean i'm so sorry on the charge thank you mandy sorry about that so the charge as stated we worked through it at gol with um the chair of the human rights commission along with the town uh the council for the town of kp law um and we essentially took the version of what used to be a bylaw and shifted it, morphed it into being a charge for the council to consider. This is, I know we've discussed this before, but this is essentially bringing this in line with the other commissions that we have that are existing as a bylaw. And I know that there is some discussion about amendments that I'll have my vice chair, Councillor Ken O'Martin, speak to later. But the charge that's in front of you is the product of the draft or the revised draft that had been in front of the town manager co-created by the chair of HRC with the legal counsel, if I'm understanding that process correctly. The GLL report kind of goes into detail about the specific points of discussion, but really, ultimately, at the end of the day, what we were focusing on was how to make the HRC have more agency over the items of their work that they really should be able to handle themselves without needing to go through an entire bylaw review process. And because my brain is fuzzy today, I'm happy to defer to my vice chair and other members of GOL to fill in anything I missed.

I was going to do that. So Councillor Cano-Martin, I know there was, this is a revised from the first read. So can you speak to that part?

Yes, so at our previous council meeting on 518, I had proposed a couple of amendments to the bylaw charge upon the request of the HRC chair and the HRC. And we took those up in GOL at our 526 meeting. So the current charge that is in your packet is the most updated charge that we voted to recommend at the 526 meeting. And we did actually change the wording of the amendments. Not the first one, so there were two amendments. The amendment to item one of the charge was kept as is, and then item seven was reworded. I don't know if Athena wants to screen share. And I did send a red line version, but for some reason the red lines didn't show up. But if folks would like to take a look at it on the screen, you can see how we reworded item seven.

I do think the red line version showed up in the Word document, not the PDF. So there was one in the packet, I believe. I think this one was. Can you page down to item seven on the third page?

Yeah, and I can summarize what the changes were. Oh, there you go. Yeah. If you go down a little bit further, there you go. Yes, so the commission may report, refer and render recommendations on certain issues involving the town, including concerns as set forth in the complaint resolution procedures established by the commission, period. And then we added the sentence, this may include the recommendation to employ the services of an outside qualified mediator or negotiator to clarify that the Commission itself will not engage in mediation or negotiation but can recommend the services of someone who is qualified to do that. And then the Commission does not have the authority to subpoena witnesses or take sworn testimony or the power to adjudicate or directly mediate the resolution of disputes between individuals or entities. So we just added the word directly in there to again clarify that the Commission will not engage in mediation itself.

Thank you. Is there further discussion on this motion to adopt the Human Rights Commission charge? I don't see any hands, so we will move to a vote. We start with Kathy.

Yes.

Jennifer. Yes. Counselor Walker. Yes. Counselor Brevik. Yes. Counselor Kano-Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Ana Devin-Gauthier. Aye. Lynn Griesemer.

Aye.

Mandy Johannake is an aye. Counselor Lord. Aye. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. And Counselor Ryan.

Aye.

That is unanimous. We move on to the next motion. The next motion is to rescind, move to rescind general bylaw 3.3, human rights and human rights commission and replace it with the following text. 3.3, Human Rights and Human Rights Commission. A, no person shall be denied any rights guaranteed pursuant to local, Commonwealth, or federal law on the basis of nationality, race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, religion, disability, marital or familial status. military or veteran status, socioeconomic status, and or ex-offender status. B, there shall be a Human Rights Commission whose work is governed by their approved charge. Is there a second?

Second. Second. Oh, sorry.

Lynn hands it off to Ana for the second. I move to you as chair, Ana of GOL, for the report on this one.

Thank you. So this was the more of the logistical in nature need. Once we created a charge, we needed to rescind the bylaw. Obviously, we didn't want to do this before creating the new charge. So you're getting them both at the same time. We took out all of the last bits of the bylaw that were really focused on the work of the HRC. And I want to Thank Lynn as a committee member for bringing forward the language here, which mirrors what's in the bylaw. And really the idea here is to emphasize the importance of this work to the town and to kind of enshrine the existence of the HRC in our bylaws. But we wanted to keep the anti-discrimination statement in just to emphasize its overarching impact and need on the other work of the town through our bylaws.

on anyone else on gol i don't know if i was out on for the 26th meeting so if uh counselor kano martin as vice chair has anything to add if there was for future other excuse me discussion on that i'm happy to defer as well counselor kennel martin i believe is your hand up to add or is it for the potential motion to amend okay um so i will recognize if there's nothing more to add from counselor kennel martin or anna devon gaffier on the report counselor kennel martin

Yes, so I am going to make a motion to amend item A, to add it to say no person shall be denied any rights guaranteed pursuant to local commonwealth or federal comma or applicable international humanitarian law. So it's really just adding those four words, and I think a comma would be in order, but people may disagree. But yeah, so just adding or applicable international human humanitarian law. And so that was upon request again of the HRC.

Is there a second to that motion? I heard Councilor Ryan first. Um, is there discussion? I just want to make sure, um, We'll go to Andy first.

I guess I'm just, what is applicable international law mean? How do we know what is applicable and what's not?

The question is, what is international, applicable international humanitarian law? Councilor Kennel-Martin? Do you have a response?

Well, I have a response from me, but I would love if Ronnie Parker were allowed to speak. She's in the audience. But I would just say that my understanding is that most of our understanding of human rights and the framework for human rights comes from international law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So I think it's important to just name that.

i'm going to have a follow up question before I I go to ronnie you talked about the universal declaration of human rights, but this does not name that it names just applicable international humanitarian law is it limited to the universal declaration of human rights or is it broader than that this reference, do you know.

I would love to defer to Ronnie on that. And my sense is that, yes, it could be broader, but I would defer to Ronnie.

The chair of the Human Rights Commission is in the audience. So, Athena, can you please allow Ronnie Parker, the chair of the Human Rights Commission, to speak to this? Thanks, Ronnie.

Hi. Actually, we were talking about very specific treaties that are international treaties, such as the Convention Against Torture that are signed and ratified by the U.S. government, and therefore they are American law as well. But they are, you know, they're signed by many countries. So the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration. It's not anybody's law. but there are treaties that we've agreed to. There is the ICCPR, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. We were very concerned about the convention against torture, which we have actually ratified because of what's going on now. And we have also cited these treaties that the US has ratified in appeal letters, such as recently we sent a letter of clemency for someone who has been condemned to hanging complicated story, but we were able to cite these laws because they are actual law.

Thank you. So the intent of the word applicable then is to reference any law that has been, any international law or treaty that has been signed by the United States? And ratified. And ratified by the United States. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Ana?

Okay, I think that helps me to understand, because my understanding was that international humanitarian law, when I've seen it capitalized, is specifically about armed conflict. And so I was trying to understand where this came in and to understand the differences kind of between the treaties and the different... almost resolutions or things like that, that we often reference an actual laws. And so I'm trying to understand if there's an example, Ronnie, that of an international humanitarian law that wouldn't be covered under federal laws since if i'm understanding you correctly you're saying that that the united states has signed on to them so so i just want to make sure i'm clear that one you're not talking about the kind of uh you know sentence case international human rights law where It's referring to armed conflict or are you? And if not, kind of where can we make sure that we have a list of these? Because we're talking about this kind of applying to all of our bylaws. And then second question is, are there any that aren't already covered by following federal? And what are they?

So there is a list and I provided the link to the GOL so it can it's it's on the one of the UN sites. There's a list and it shows which countries have signed which treaties, which have been ratified and so on and so forth. A good example of one that we have not ratified that I personally feel embarrassed about is the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. The US has signed on to it, but we have not ratified it. And the only other country that has not ratified it in the world is Somalia. So there is the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is fairly new, which I have very close association to and have worked with, that protects children under 18 years old against all sorts of stuff that we do, like going to armed conflict, being sentenced to death. There's all kinds of protections for children that the US has not ratified. So that's an example. where we have signed on to it, but we have not ratified it. Whereas the Convention Against Torture, the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and there are many others, those just come to my mind. Sorry, I didn't research in advance because I wasn't expecting to speak.

Thank you. Ana?

Thanks, Ronnie. That's helpful. Do you think that we should just... I worry about the confusion for folks who aren't clear on kind of the broader framing of international human rights law. Do you think we should say laws and treaties, just to be very clear? I understand that a treaty is a law, but just... For folks who look up international human rights law, it looks like it's just the specific one about armed conflict. And then do you see, or I don't know if this is a question for you, Ronnie, or for other folks, maybe it's something we want to dig into more, but are we ever setting ourselves up to be in a space where we are upholding something that would be counter to a state or a federal law in one of those international treaties, which obviously there's a whole other mess of stuff you could unpack with that. But do you ever see a scenario where we're accidentally kind of contradicting ourselves?

Rani? I'm not a lawyer, you should know. I did study human rights. But I cannot guarantee that. But usually, I mean, I don't see how. I do see where, you know, our laws are not as strong with regard to human rights as the international standard, believe it or not. But that's why we said applicable humanitarian law that is basically the ones, the treaties that have been ratified. Those are solid. The U.S. has already signed on to them. I don't see contradictions with state law.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Councillor Ryan.

So what about the suggestion of including or treaties? Is that attractive to anyone or should we just let that? I thought that was an interesting suggestion. Just for clarity's sake, for people reading this, would that help or is that, that's my question.

Councilor Cano-Martin made the motion to amend. I haven't heard a motion to amend the amendment, but I hear a suggestion and you were the second to it. So I will look to Councilor Cano-Martin if without an actual motion, she would be amenable to a friendly amendment to add or treaties. I think it was or, right? Yes, or treaties to the end of humanitarian law and Yes, yes, and she has so the friendly amendment is the now the amendment the motion to amend on the floor is now to add or in applicable international humanitarian law or treaties after the reference to federal law. Is there further discussion. Seeing none, we will move to a vote on the motion to amend we start with Jennifer tub. Yes. Councillor Walker.

Yes.

Councillor Brevick. Yes. Councillor Kano-Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill. Yes. Donna Devlin-Gauthier. Aye. Lynn Griesemer.

Aye.

Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Councillor Lord. Aye. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Yes. Councillor Ryan.

Aye.

And Kathy Shane. Yes. The motion to amend passes unanimously. We are now discussing the motion to rescind General By-law 3.3 and replace it with the following text that includes the amendment that just passed. I'm not going to read it again. Is there further... I just want to... State out loud that this is a second reading under our charter. So I want to make sure that that is stated during the meeting that we did have a first reading at the last meeting on this. And is there any further discussion on this motion? Seeing no hands, we start with Councillor Walker. We're on the motion to rescind and replace the Human Rights and Human Rights Commission bylaw.

Yes.

Councillor Brevik. Yes. Councillor Kano-Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Ana Devlin-Gauthier. Aye. Lynn Griesemer. Aye. Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Counselor Lord. Aye. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Council Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. And Jennifer Tubb. Yes. That is unanimous. The Human Rights and Human Rights Commission bylaw is rescinded and replaced. And we have also adopted a Human Rights Commission charge. That moves us to... item 8c the proposed fiscal year 2027 water and sewer rates and amendments to the water and sewer regulations this is a first read and it will also include a special public comment period we will make that we will i will open up that public comment period after we hear a report from the finance committee kathy

Yes, you have the report from the Finance Committee. We had a unanimous vote to support the recommended rate increases. As you can see in the report and then the two documents that were submitted to us, the rate increases will cover expected increases in labor and benefit costs, including an additional person, machine operator in both the water and the sewer funds to enable safer 24-7 operations and more effective operations and will cover infrastructure costs and debt service. These costs will still leave us in the middle range or near the range of other towns. In our report back to you, we asked during our meeting about the future, and particularly with the sewer fund, because we know there's going to be a need for some major infrastructure investments. And the answer was yes, there will be rate increases for that in the future, but we don't yet have estimates of them. The one other thing I might point out in our memo is we recommend there is a study going on of potential rate structure changes. A few residents had asked, and we had, and the Finance Committee had asked a few years ago whether there might be ways to set the rates so large purchasers such of our water or sewer use pay more, such as UMass. And we urged the study to look at those kinds of changes among whatever other changes. And I think that is all I have to say. And the report's quite short and the supporting documents are quite extensive. Thank you.

Thank you. We are now going to under the rules and regulations, we need to have a special public comment period on these proposed water and sewer rates. So I'm now going to open it up to that special public comment period. If you are in the town room and you have sign up with Athena, If you are on Zoom and you would like to make any public comment related to the proposed fiscal year 2027 water and sewer rates and amendments to the water and sewer regulations, which really are just changing the rates at the end of the regulations, please raise your hand. City Council Chambers, I see no hands for the special public comment period related to the proposed fiscal year 2027 water and sewer rates and amendments to the water and sewer regulations, so we are going to move back to. City Council Chambers, discussion of the count of the town Council, if there are any counselors that would like to have discussion on this or ask questions on this, this is a first read. City Council Chambers, Under the rules and regs we cannot change this until the second read there any discussion on these rates. Councilor Cano-Martin.

I just have a question. Do we typically change the rates every year and increase, or is this the first time we'll be increasing in a while?

We typically change them every year to increase. The rate increase is different every year, but they typically do change every year.

Follow up, do we typically increase them by about 5%, or is this like a larger increase to help cover the things that we discussed? Kathy.

This is a much smaller increase than last year was. Both rates increased substantially, particularly sewer, because of major infrastructure. So if you look in the budget book, I think, but also one of the memos, there's a forecast of where the rates will go, and this is gonna be in the range. And again, if you look at the budget for them, a substantial amount of the costs are either debt service or direct payment for infrastructure. And the labor side is a piece of it, but it's not as major as the actual operations of the system.

Thank you. You're welcome. Pam.

Thank you. Can you? Can someone mentioned what the timeframe is for studying the large scale user fee structure?

And who will be doing that? Do you have an answer, Kathy, or should I go to Paul?

I think turn to Paul. My understanding is there's work underway for contracting with someone to look at options. Paul, so I'm not sure what the timeline is for that.

Yeah, I don't know the timeline, but we do have a firm that's looking at the sewer rates and not the story specifically, but the whole sewer infrastructure needs of the town. So and part of that study, I believe, will include in recommending rates to support that work.

And just so you know, it's not just the kind of change that I talked about, but Guilford has talked about block rates and a few other things that they wanted to look at as potential different ways comparing the pluses and minuses compared to the way we now bill.

So I'm going to recognize Sean Mangano, who has raised his hand. He is our finance director. Sean. You going to be okay?

Yes, which to my my home computer okay for the water rates, the plan is to have information in time for next year's rate setting so that would be over the next six to nine months before we said next year's rates and that's on the different options for the water rate structure the sewer study. That's probably going to be another fiscal year before we have good data in terms of informing the capital improvement program. We might have some preliminary data for the next budget cycle on capital improvements to the sewer system. But the full report that's more informative will probably be FY29 when we can factor that in.

Thank you, Sean. Councilor Ryan?

So when I do hear from constituents about this, and I don't hear a lot, but when I do hear, obviously their concern is always that they see these rates rising every year. And I think we have staff and the report that Finance has given Paul has explained that there are good reasons for why this is happening, but is there at some point in the various studies that are being undertaken and the various planning things that we are doing, if we could give our residents some sense of what this is going to look like over the next five or 10 years, Are we looking at yearly increases of 5% pretty much going forward? Is that even possible? So it's not a question that's to be answered right now, but it would be helpful, at least in talking to my constituents, if I could give them some sense of what the future looks like so far as we can tell.

Sean has raised his hand, so I'll go to Sean.

Feel free to piggyback on this, but I think we do provide five years of projections in terms of the rate. So you can see that in the memo that we provided. What can change that is if collective bargaining agreements come in more over or under what our estimates are at, if there's new capital needs that come in, inflation. But we try to factor in increases to account for all that. where the rates will likely come in higher is on the sewer side. Once we have the information from that sewer study, there are not, you know, we don't have any factor built in. It's just sort of our regular capital and regular debt that we currently have. So the sewer rates could be elevated from what you see in the projections once we have the study complete.

Thank you. Andy.

Do we have a sense of the scale, you know, when we're looking at, are we talking about a new sewage treatment plant? Are we talking about, you know, what kind of funding are we looking at down the road for that we're preparing the ground for in terms of sewer infrastructure?

I will go to Guilford Mooring, our superintendent of the Department of Public Works to attempt to answer that. Guilford.

So on the sewer side, the treatment plant is going to go through a major overhaul. So it's not a complete rebuild of the system, but it will be a major overhaul. We're going to have to change our headworks. That's the front part of the plant. If anybody went to visit, that's where the water comes in and gets separated and goes into the plant pumps and then gets pumped into the system. We'll have to change the headworks. We're going to change the chlorine. Kjell Anderson, We're going to probably have to add 90 nitrification to the plant plant process. So these are these are major changes. So it's going to be some Kjell Anderson, Major money and just Kjell Anderson, I don't even know. I wouldn't even want to guess the ballpark, but it's probably more than $10 million probably closer to 20 or more.

Thank you, go for Are there any other questions on this first read of our water and sewer proposed rights? Seeing none, we will move on in the agenda. We completed items 8D and 8E in the consent agenda. So we will move to item 8F, permanent changes to the public way, North Pleasant Street sidewalk and parking improvements. I'm going to make the motion, which is to approve the permanent changes to the public way on North Pleasant Street, as shown on the consensual plan titled North Pleasant Street sidewalk and parking improvements dated January 2026. Is there a second?

Second, Ryan.

Thank you. I will go to George, Councilor Ryan, for a brief update on the Transportation and Parking Commission's report on this item.

So thank you. As stated in the report, this has been something that's been in the works for some time. The changes proposed are going to complete the Kendrick Park plan, and that involves a sidewalk that surrounds the park. There'll be some action to preserve a large sycamore tree. There will be the removal of two of six current parallel parking spaces, but there'll also be the addition of four spaces on the east side. So this is all in the packet. And as I said, this is something that is concluding or bringing to conclusion a long-range project for that area, for that park, and for the sidewalks and the parking connected to it.

Thank you.

Kathy. The reason I pulled it out is I may just have a clouded memory on this. I don't ever remember seeing the plan for that additional sidewalk that's being put in. And I'm not sure I understand the rationale for that, because there's a sidewalk just immediately across the street that people walk up and down. and there is a crosswalk there. So it's an added expense and an added sidewalk around a park. So that's my main question on it, not the parking areas. And I know that there was an allocation. I think there was an allocation from... CDBG for that additional sidewalk. And I raised the same concern about that as opposed to sidewalk repair in other parts of town where the sidewalks either don't exist or deteriorating. So I would just like to better understand why. And if you see the picture of it, we've got a sidewalk all along The other side of Kendrick Park facing the big apartment buildings. There are crosswalks Then there's this narrow piece of North Pleasant with a good sidewalk on the other side and I don't understand why we're taking Part of the Greenway to put another sidewalk in that's that is my only question on this and I know this was part of the internal plan because it was proposed to CDBG and I questioned it when it was brought up there too. But that committee had just thought it was already endorsed. So I know there's money for it. Thanks.

So I'm going to go to our Superintendent of Public Works, Guilford Mooring, who may have a response to that Guilford.

I do. Can I share some pictures?

Yes. Do you need Athena to help you or can you do it on your own? There we go.

I think I got it.

Yep.

Athena taught me a lot. So what you're looking at right now is the Cecil Plan from 2011, which laid out the concept for the park. The concept for Kendrick Park was to have a sidewalk all the way around it, and then to have four distinct areas in the park. To the north end, where the cursor is now, was an open area. Then there would be a playground. And then this piece here, which nothing's really been done here, was supposed to be sort of a performance area or possibly a skating park. And then this end at the very southern end was supposed to be sort of an area you could have markets or gatherings and booths and stuff. That's how it was laid out. But then the sidewalk was to go all the way around the park. And that's kind of what's been our guiding concept is to put the sidewalk all the way around the park. So this project will put the last piece of sidewalk in, but you'll notice that like Cecil plan actually has angle parking here and we chose not to do angle parking for two reasons. One, it does cut into the green space more than what we do. And the second one is it takes down a very healthy tree, which is this healthy tree here. So then our plan Can everybody see the plan?

Yeah. If you could make it slightly bigger, it would be better. That's helpful. Thank you.

So this is the existing conditions. And then right here, this little bump out is where the tree is. So we wanted to keep this tree because it's a large, significant tree. So we got rid of a parking space on each side, and we pulled the sidewalk out into this area. And went around the tree. And then we decided we would give extra parking spaces back on the west side of the road across the street. And then we also redid the sidewalk on this side. So there's a new sidewalk on both sides of Old North Pleasant Street from Halleck Street all the way to Triangle now. So we've improved, we've done both sides, we'll have done both sides of the street and new sidewalk and repaired sidewalk for both sides. So that was how it went. Does that explain the question?

Kathy, do you have any further questions?

The 2011 plan, we've departed from a lot in terms of what the internal is. So could you just explain to me why we need that sidewalk? I love it that you're saving the tree, and I don't have any question about the parkings. So why is that sidewalk needed all the way around the park? People walk in the park. They don't necessarily walk on the sidewalk. Why do you need it? Guilford?

The sidewalk is to give you ADA accessibility all the way around the park without having to cross the road. So once you're on the park, you can enjoy the park without having to go off the park and come back on. That's the reason the sidewalk was all the way around the park.

Thank you. Are there any further questions? I am not seeing any other hands. Guilford, I think you can stop your share now. We have one other one. Councillor Ryan.

Just want to note that the Commission voted 8-0 with one absence in support of this proposal.

Thank you. Seeing no other hands, we will... Sam McLeod.

Just to follow up to the question of the sidewalk, I My mom, who was legally blind, used to walk down through Amherst from Pope Berry Ridge through the center of town as I was listening to this proposal. uh that's who i was thinking of in terms of the ada accessibility of not just a sidewalk but rather a wider sidewalk and i did listen to the comments from the ada representative on the commission and provided weight to the the enthusiasm for it thank you thank you

We will now move to a vote on approving the permanent changes to the public way on North Pleasant Street, as shown on the conceptual plan that was actually put up on the screen. We start with Councilor Brevik. Yes. Councilor Cano-Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Ana Devlin-Gauthier. Aye. Lynn Griesemer. Aye. Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Councilor Lord. Aye. Sam McLeod. Aye. Pam Rooney. Abstain. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Cathy Shane.

Yes.

Jennifer Tobb. Yes. Councillor Walker. yes that is 12 in favor and non-opposed with one accept abstention it is unanimous the motion passes um we now move on uh the intergovernmental agreement 8g and 8h the acceptance of deed both were dealt with under consent agenda on appointments the town manager appointments both the historical commission and the reappointments of the um approximately 16 different on onto 16 different committees um were dealt with under consent uh that brings us to town council appointments um we will i'm i'm gonna make the first motion and then we will get a report on each of the individual people from the CRC chair after each motion on a report on each of those individual votes. So the first motion is to appoint Jesse Major to the planning board for a term beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2029. Is there a second? Second, Taub. Thank you, Jennifer. Pam, please give a brief report on this motion to appoint Jesse Major.

Hi, Jesse Major has served three years, has served on the Housing Subcommittee of the Planning Board, and had the strongest support of any of the candidates that we considered for this round. I want to note that the CRC acknowledged that although we had a sufficient pool of candidates in terms of numbers of people, there was very little diversity between some of the candidates and there was very little diversity in the group as a whole. And so this means that we are, in fact, sort of parsing out little differences here and there that are sometimes just opinion of a position and sometimes based on, you know, fact for what the person may have voted for in the past.

Thank you. Is there any conversation regarding the motion to appoint Jesse Major? Seeing no hands, we will move to a vote on the motion to appoint Jesse Major to the Planning Board. We start with Councillor Kano-Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Ana de Van Gogh. Aye. Lynn Griesemer.

Aye.

Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Councillor Lord.

Aye.

Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane.

Yes.

Jennifer Taub. Yes. Councillor Walker. Aye. Yes. And Councillor Brevick?

Yes.

That is unanimous, 13 to 0. We move on to the next motion. We'll handle this one the same way. The motion is to appoint Roy Johnson to the Planning Board for a term beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2029. Is there a second?

Second.

I heard Lynn Griesemer's name first, so Lynn Griesemer is noted as the second. Pam, can you give a report on this one?

Yes, and this is all in the extensive report that was prepared by myself and the vice chair, Andy Churchill. Roy Johnson is a longtime realtor in Amherst, has construction experience, and is interested in building the tax base. He was interested in a tax base that would support our schools. He lives in District 2, which is otherwise not represented geographically on the planning board. He understands cost ramifications of what it takes to build affordably, and he is, I would say, sort of pro-development in his attitude.

Thank you for that report. Is there any conversation regarding the motion to appoint Roy Johnson to the planning board? Seeing no hands, we will move to a vote. We start with Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Anna Devlin-Gauthier? Aye. Lynn Griesemer?

Aye.

Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Councillor Lord? Aye. Sam McLeod?

Aye.

Pam Rooney? Yes. Councillor Ryan? Aye. Kathy Shane? Yes. Jennifer Taub? Yes. Councillor Walker?

Yes.

Councillor Brevick? Yes. And Councillor Cano-Martin? Yes. That is unanimous. Moving on to the next motion, we'll handle it in the same way. The motion is to appoint Fred Hartwell to the Planning Board for a term beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2029. Is there a second? Yes, second, Rudy. There were three. Athena? I heard Shane first. Kathy, Shane is the second then. We start with the report from Pam for CRC. Thank you.

So Fred Hartwell has successfully completed one term on the planning board. And was noted that his experience in crafting bylaws, reading bylaws, developing code was a unique skill set and was a good tool in all the zoning work that we have in front of us. He also acknowledged that he has a strong understanding of construction and also he made a fairly strong statement about the benefits of having owner occupancy in rental units in town as it's beneficial to the community to maintain strong presence in the rental market. Concern was raised that, well, so I just covered that point. It was noted that he has served three years, excuse me, he has served two previous terms on the planning board back in the 1990s and 2000s with his current term.

Thank you, Pam. Is there any discussion related to this appoint motion to appoint Fred Hartwell? Councillor Ryan.

I would like to make a motion to amend.

Go ahead and make your motion.

I would like to substitute the name of Evan Naismith for the name of Fred Hartwell.

Is there a second to the motion to substitute the name Evan Naismith for the name of Fred Hartwell?

Second, Devlin Gothier.

I hear on a Devon got a second unit, we are now discussing a motion to amend to substitute the name of a Naismith for Fred Hartwell and discussion should stick to at this point, basically. Evan or Fred Evan Naismith or or Fred Hartwell I will let counselor Ryan speak to his motion first.

thank you a couple of points i'd like to make for you to consider tonight i think first of all it's clear that crc was divided if you had a chance to read the report or look at the meeting on tape there was in fact no consensus for a third candidate at least two of the other candidates most likely would have gotten a three to two vote second point i'd like to make is that in fact mr hartwell has now served for nine years on the planning board If reappointed, he will be served for 12 years. While understandable, perhaps, if there were a shortage of qualified candidates, this is clearly not the case. I'm very grateful for Mr. Hartwell's service, but offering someone, anyone, 12 years on this body, unless under the most extraordinary circumstances, just seems wrongheaded, especially when we have candidates who are eager to serve and who have not been given a chance. So I'd like to give at least one of them a chance. Obviously, I like very much what I saw in Mr. Naismith. He's clearly passionate. He's informed about housing and the kinds of housing issues the town faces. He clearly is not afraid to speak his mind. You may not always agree with him, but he will be forthright. His approach strikes me as evidence-driven, not ideological. He seems to get the fact that we are in a housing crisis. perhaps in large part because he's a member of that generation, which is directly impacted by the high cost of housing and high cost of running in our town. I was struck by the fact that he had clearly read the housing production plan and the council's comprehensive housing policy. He's clearly done his homework. He's shown the willingness to roll up his sleeves and get to work. On his own initiative, he reached out to two peer communities, State College PA, which is the home of Penn State, and also West Lafayette, Indiana, which is the home of Purdue, to talk with their housing directors to see how they're dealing with the challenge of communities that struggle with affordable housing in a market where students play a very large role. He's the only one that I noticed in the SOIs who mentioned renters and students, and that someone needs to be a voice for those two crucial constituencies and their housing concerns. 60% of our housing stock is rental. 60% of our population is student-aged. It seems they should have a voice on the planning board, and he has promised to be that voice. And finally, I think he really represents the future of Amherst. He has kids in our schools. Amherst is going to be home for him for a foreseeable future. And I personally support, wherever possible, putting people on the planning board will have to live with the decisions for some time that the planning board makes. So I hope you will consider this amendment and support Mr. Mason.

Thank you. Kathy Shea.

I will be voting against that strongly. And in addition to my watching Fred Hapswell, and I do believe when someone is served three years, unless there is a strong reason they shouldn't continue, We should continue because you put a lot of time and effort into this. He's served on subcommittees and there are some zoning proposals he has advocated that I don't like at all, but he is pro density, so he is not against growth at all. So I'll just leave off on Fred. I want to talk about And I was hoping I wouldn't have had to do this, George. There is another candidate, a fourth, Hazelton, who's very interesting and very strong and brings a set of skills. I really question. I see the strong enthusiasm, and he has been writing a lot. But if you look closely, what he's written, including what he gave him tonight, there are factual areas on a major level constantly. There was a very interesting exchange in the Amherst Current. where people were reacting to an article he had done. And the back and forth was him changing his statistics when someone would bring in another fact. And they said, oh, that's right. I got that wrong. OK, let's change that. Let's look a different way. I think that is a very poor background to bring onto a planning committee. The piece of paper we got tonight I can respond to in other ways, but it looks like facts. It isn't. And I can redo the same numbers in a very different way, so it looks sophisticated. He and I had somewhat of a long exchange on another paper he wrote for The Current, and he had footnotes in it, so I read every footnote, and I didn't think that the data he was bringing supported his argument. So again, I... Respect his enthusiasm. I think he's got a lot to learn. I hope when he's a lawyer, he doesn't go into a courtroom with the same kinds of arguments and statistics, because it wouldn't bode well. So I didn't want to have to talk about that, because I think there is a fourth candidate, Hazelton, who I hope will apply again, because he has all sorts of strengths that the planning board doesn't currently have. But he didn't get a majority vote. So I am going to mainly speak against your amendment because of the person you talked about as the alternative. I think he would not be a strong candidate at all. The last thing I would say is I think we all heard where he lives. We have several on the planning board already who live in a particular district that isn't renters. He speaks out for renters, but he has a strong belief if we could only get to a housing glut, rents would come down. We all know that if we really want housing to be affordable, we're going to need state subsidies and other subsidies to set the rates lower for people with low incomes. The new housing that's being built, Northampton had a great piece on this, the new housing that's coming on, It may be new housing, and I have nothing against it, but at market rates, it's not affordable for renters. We're not going to get to the point we have a glut. So the construction costs alone. So I think someone who speaks loudly and strongly should be supported by a fact base when they cite facts. So I am speaking strongly against your proposed substitution.

Thank you, Kathy. Sam McLeod.

Thank you, Mandy. I read all the six candidate statements and read the report and looked for all the information I could find regarding the candidates. I did try to watch. I couldn't find the video. I would have seen it. I do think there are a great many good candidates here. I think that the committee had a challenge. I guess it's a good thing that there are so many interested parties to serve. And I think it had to be challenging to determine how to discern between different candidates. I was, as I read it, it seemed to me that the third candidate discussion was truncated slightly. That's my perception from what I read. And in that regard, I looked at considering all the candidates and there are a few others who have not served the town in any respect who seemed to me to have strong resumes. And in that regard, I'm thinking nine years of service, I stepped down from the CPA chair after six, that it's not necessarily a bad thing to have somebody who's highly interested in the town, invested to serve on a board. Maybe no ideas, maybe not, but participation is a big part of it. I have not spoken personally with Glenn Hazleton. His resume looked good. I have spoken on a few different occasions with Evan Naismith, who did show up today as well. I'm impressed with the motivation, that is to say, the energy to serve. You know, the planning board is a burdensome committee, but it's one that individuals should be, and I'm not suggesting that others aren't motivated as well, but I've seen, I'm not speaking in terms of an ideological slant, I'm just saying looking in terms of the interest in serving the committee. And in that regard, as I look at two candidates, both of whom, by the way, are in my district, I'm supporting the motion by Councilor Ryan.

Thank you, I want to remind the counselors that the motion is a motion to amend to substitute the name evan a Smith and the original motion was to appoint Fred Hartwell please keep our comments to those two names only thank you and Jennifer top. um.

Yes, I will be voting against the motion. I feel very strongly that the planning board is already very homogeneous just based on the current composition of the board. The only woman on the board finished her second term and didn't reapply. We already have two men of the same generation with kids in the school from Amherst Woods. And I think to have three out of seven members of the planning board be from a small neighborhood in Amherst, one that has the most exclusive single family housing zoning and rarely do applications if ever come before the planning board for projects in or near that neighborhood, I think to have almost half the planning board be residents of a very small exclusive area does not well serve the town. I didn't want to have to get really into this either, but I guess picking up on what Kathy Shane said, I've received several emails from Mr Naismith and I have also found that they are factually often factually incorrect, so a major pressure housing pressure in Amherst. Is that we have so many students needing to live off campus and because students share the rent rents are higher. and for students. And that is how landlords set the rent. to serve the market for which they get the greatest return on investment. Pam and I in District 4 have a lot of students in our district, and we have had students that we have been communicating with that came to us and said they are very concerned that the off-campus prices for students are so high and they would like more housing opportunities on campus. So the private refinanced housing market serves the rental housing that is built in Amherst is to first and foremost serve the student housing market because that's where they get the greatest return on investment. So this is what Mr. Naismith wrote to me on May 1st. He said, in other words, since 20, he said only 476 more students live off campus today than in 2002. And considering that 106 North Flats in Sunderland opened in 2024 houses around 400 of these 476 students, there has been virtually no increase in UMass students living off campus over the past two decades. I mean, that's kind of patently absurd that I'm sorry, I'm I lost you for a minute. I'm overseas and it's 3.05 in the morning where I am. So I'm sorry if I'm not as articulate as I should be. But since 2002 in Amherst, we've built Kendrick Place, One East Pleasant, 13 East Pleasant, Olympia Drive, Spring Street, Sunset Fearing, One University Drive. That's not a comprehensive list. And the majority of residents in those very large buildings are UMass students living off campus. So there are thousands of more students living off campus today than there were in 2002. And for someone to be on the planning board, that thinks that there are virtually no more students living off campus and that that's not what's driving our housing market, that is very concerning to me. So that's just one example, I think, of what Kathy Shane was also touching on. Thank you.

Thank you. Pamerini.

Thank you. I can't vote for the substitution. I'm disappointed because Councilor Ryan did this last year as well. CRC came forward with a recommendation and Councilor Ryan substituted someone and that has led to this preponderance of the same demographic age group in the same geographic location neighborhood in town. So I'm disappointed that he's gonna do it for a third person. Again, I didn't want to say anything like this in the interviews or in the discussions, but the idea of open-mindedness is something that really worries me as has been stated by several people here, Mr. Naismith, has been making very strong statements, whether it's in the Indy or the current. And whether you take his side or not, we have not appointed people for almost the same reason, that they spoke too strongly about their neighbors, or they spoke too strongly about the need for public input. And here we have someone speaking very strongly about another aspect of life in Amherst. You know, we're being a little hypocritical if it's okay to talk about one topic, but not another. I, just his, you know, aggressiveness in pushing his data, which, as someone has said, is not is not always accurate. I have confirmed numbers that he has written as well. I can't support this kind of substitution. I'm sorry.

Thank you, Pam, on a different coffee.

Thank you. So, you know, there's talk of a specific neighborhood, and I will clarify I didn't go into everyone's CAFs to see specifically where they lived, but a couple folks mentioned this specific district, and I just want to remind folks that District five goes all the way downtown. And in fact, right now you are all sitting in District five. It used to be much more concentrated in South Amherst. But I struggle with district being used as the delineator when our districts are not are not balanced in the way of in terms of kind of as we look at committees. So that was just a quick note there. For me, you know, it's clear to me that while I could explain why I believe that Evan Naismith is a great choice for the final spot on the planning board, I really think he did it best in his words this evening, to be honest. In his candidacy, I see a commitment to continuing to align with the housing production plan and the priorities that we as a council have set forth. I also see someone who's really willing and able to dive into policy and work through things, as well as someone who's willing to hear other approaches and other opinions as they come forward. And then for me, most importantly, is that he's the candidate that I've seen emphasize the need for our planning board to understand and utilize that policy in a way which seeks to make housing in Amherst a more equitable facility. field, right, in terms of who can access it, who can retain it and all of the things that we talk about caring about. I think that Evan is bringing a voice that we would really benefit from having on the planning board with that with that bent towards equity within our housing and looking at how can we utilize our policy and how can we continue to follow that housing production plan in a way that makes it a lot better than how it has been, which has not been really accessible for a lot of folks. So I've really, I think that's for me, what I've appreciated is his willingness to learn and collaborate as well as his strong backing and policy and his focus on equity. Thanks.

Thank you, Anna. Andy Churchill.

Yeah, I understand that Evan can come on fairly strong or has come on fairly strong at times. But I think that I've seen when he takes a position and when somebody brings in new information, whether it's in the comments section or elsewhere, he's willing to listen and he receives that feedback with respect and he doesn't continue to, he doesn't respond by blasting the person who's bringing the new information. He incorporates it. And I think to a certain extent, he's learning the difference between an advocate, which is what he is right now. He's somebody, a public person who can take a position and make it as strongly as they want to. And then recognizing that when you're on a board, you need to be able to learn and change your mind. I think he has, he's gaining legal background in land use. He's focused on these issues in his legal training. And I believe he still has a lot to learn, but he does represent a perspective and a voice for renters and for students and for people who, aren't otherwise represented on the planning board as well. So I felt, I'm on the CRC, I felt that our process was pretty clear on who the first two members should be. And then I think when we got to the third person, I think it was very, it was quite close and split in different directions. And I actually think there are two members that are two applicants who could be considered And Evan is one of them, and I won't discuss the other one at this point because we're not supposed to.

Thank you, Andy. Councilor Kano-Martin.

Thank you. So I'm just going to start off by referencing the CRC report. If everyone looks at page five, I just want to call attention to the demographic information of the six applicants. If you can see that 100% were white and male, the current demographic mix is 100% white and male. And our applicant pool had 66% coming from District 5. We've already got a total of 57% on the board residing in District 5. So I just first would like to ask the question, how did we arrive at this applicant pool? And I understand how hard it is to get people to serve. I'm very sympathetic to that, but my understanding is that we have a priority on having a diverse applicant pool that really has the diversity of our town in terms of age, in terms of race, in terms of gender, in terms of where they live. So my first question would be, how did we arrive at this pool and how can we get a diverse pool? I really think that having a pool of applicants that are in no way diverse and that looks like this is not doing a service to our town and our values. So I don't have control over that because we are where we are right now, but I hope in the future that we can brainstorm together ways to get a more diverse pool and to work together to do that. The second thing I want to say, and this is difficult to say, and I didn't want to have to share this experience, but I'm going to share it. And I will say that as someone who is in public service, who is now in the office, we do have to develop a thick skin. And I completely understand that. I am working on my thick skin. But I have received some communications from Evan that have been aggressive in nature. And also my first interaction with him as a candidate involved him approaching myself and other female candidates and sitting us down and talking at us for about an hour about housing policy without almost letting us speak or asking us any questions about what we thought, why we thought that, or what our experience was. Now, it is difficult to be a woman in public service. I know that to be a woman on the planning board, I think we've only had one in recent history, must have been really difficult. I think it's okay to have men in these roles, but I think they need to be men who know how to listen and men who know how to listen to women. The tenor of his emails have never been to listen. They have been to tell me what he thinks and why and why I should agree with him. He has never asked me a question about myself or my history or why I came into public service or why I believe what I do. He's only told me what he thinks and what I should believe based on what he thinks my values are. I came onto this body certainly feeling like there were people that I would never agree with on this council. But almost each and every one of those people has sat down with me and had a conversation with me in which we could exchange ideas, in which they showed curiosity about me and my values and what brought me to this place and why I believe what I do. Something that Evan Naismith has not displayed. Now, had he displayed that and had he had been open to that, I would have given him this feedback myself and not in this venue, but he has not asked me. So I'm giving that feedback here and I appreciate his desire to serve. God, I appreciate anyone who wants to serve. He's a member of our community. He clearly is enthusiastic about it and he wants to be of service. And I think that that should not be the only characteristic on which we judge applicants. There's a lot to be learned in this process of applying to something, applying to a body and being a part of a body. And part of that learning is receiving feedback like this. I think it's really important to be collaborative when you're doing public service, and being collaborative means listening. And I think you can listen to people who may have different opinions or ideas than you. And finally, when it comes to representing people who are marginalized, such as renters and people of color, I appreciate what his words have said, but I would also say where his actions and what groups is he representing or allied with in town? What groups of people of color? What groups of renters? Who has he spoken to to hear about what their struggles are? People who are concerned about low income people, I think should be standing up for rent control because we have 57% of people who are a cost burden to our renters in this town. And rent control is currently on the table both as in the legislature and as a ballot initiative. I haven't heard Evan support either one of those things. So again, words are great, actions are better. And there's plenty of time to develop and to do those things the longer that you live in community with people. And I hope that Evan will do that. But I cannot support his candidacy at this time. Thank you. Councillor Brevick.

Yeah, I'm not going to add too much more. I think I'll just focus or expand a little bit on the last thing that Amber said. And I think I will not be voting to support this candidate. And I guess... Before I make my one point that I want to add to the discussion, I do want to say that I support fully residents' rights to come at us in any way that they want. I think residents can come and yell at us. They can come and if they're frustrated, they can, you know, I don't think we ever, you know, want to censor the way that the public interacts with us. But I think then it does shift when someone is then vying for a role, an appointed role. I think then we want to see that collaborativeness and the respect and ability to have discourse in a way that would be conducive to serving on something like the planning board. So I think there's a line there. And so not judging maybe past actions, but judging what those actions or what more recent actions kind of mean for how this person would likely carry themselves in that role. I'll just, and then just expand on what Amber said. I think in some of the communications that I've read, really feel to me like this candidate is cloaking this desire for market rate housing, more and more market rate housing being the lever that will make housing more affordable. I don't think applies in Amherst. I don't think it corresponds with our housing production plan. And I don't think it really corresponds with the values and what most counselors really believe. I think we, we, if we want to serve low income residents, students, renters, we need affordable housing. I don't think creating more market rate housing will do that. And it feels like it's this top down sort of trickle down housing policy But then being cloaked in this effort toward equity, I find to be just something that I cannot morally support using words like equity and progressivism and kind of trying to paint this gentrification strategy in that light to get more support in a town like this. I think it just shows me that it's someone who needs to get to know this town a little bit better and get to know what will really work here versus maybe national trends or trends that are relevant in big cities and really get to know this community, how we communicate with one another, how we respect one another, and what we're really looking for to support our most vulnerable residents. Thank you. Councilor Lord.

Thank you. I wanted to speak quickly to a couple of things. I don't know much. I read all six of the statements of interest, and I was actually very impressed with Mr. Naismith's words he gave to us at public comment. If we're looking for diversity, we don't see it there, but I have heard that maybe one of them was a renter. So wouldn't that be a place of diversity that might be privileged over lawyer and other stuff? I'm not sure, but I'm not supposed to speak to that. I'm mostly concerned about this process of a committee putting somebody forward and then just being able to erase that or to not erase it, but amend it. So I wonder if there's a different process when there is contention to say, OK, we can't come to a consensus. How do we bring it to the council? So I'm not going to vote for this amendment because I'm uncomfortable with the process. It's not to speak out against things I do not know, but I'm uncomfortable with that process. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Lord. Pam Rooney.

I want to say thank you to the comments. It was in fact noted that we had a really fun diverse pool. I think Mandy Jo made that comment. We recognize that terms and and positions need to be filled. So it's a it's a catch 22 that we we would encourage everyone to encourage their people that have qualifications that would be helpful to the town to encourage them to apply for positions. That said, when we have this wonderful public airing of people's characteristics and foibles that make it very tough for people to say, yeah, I really want to go through that process. I can't wait to have my positions discussed by the council. It is It's counterproductive. But I thank everyone for talking about the process and we will discuss it and see if we can't come to some agreement on how to proceed in future nomination processes. Thank you.

Thank you, Pam. Anna Davongafia.

It's been an interesting conversation, and I do want to echo what Pam said about how the impact of this level of detail in a conversation on future applicants, frankly, for other roles. I think that this has been a pretty detailed discussion, and I'm not saying that it wasn't necessary, but I'm going to need to take some time to wrap my head around whether it was helpful. I think... with all due respect to your experience, which is absolutely your experience, and I'm not taking anything away from that, it has not been mine. I agree that I have had conversations that are very similar to what you were describing with many constituents, including some who will text me during meetings demanding that I ask specific questions when I never even gave them my phone number. And I agree that we sign up for a whole lot of ways of being accessed by constituents, But I think that in these instances, we need to look at the information that these constituents have presented to us as part of the application process. To go away from that, to kind of just share my own experience, I have seen this candidate asking questions and learning. He has asked questions of me, and I'm sorry that that was not a shared experience with you. I think that you're raising really good questions about planning board members working on other levels and on other issues. And I think that it's really important that we're asking these questions of all candidates, right? Like, I don't think that it's fair to use this suddenly as a litmus test for one candidate when It hasn't been asked to others. I've never heard. I haven't heard from other planning board member candidates on those topics either. It would be great to know. And I think that it's something that if if we feel that that is a priority, we should add it to the to the interview questions. The last thing I just wanted to say is, is Councilor Brevik, frankly, I. strongly disagree with you on stating that we do not need market rate housing. Most students do not qualify for affordable housing. When we talk about affordable housing in the context of planning, we're talking about income requirements. Many students will not be able to qualify for that, and many of our community members can't either. Market rate housing is what Amherst needs, and it encompasses that lowercase a affordable housing that our housing production plan does discuss. So I think that, you know, as we're getting into this, that possibly is a direction that isn't helpful for this candidate discussion. And I'm happy to continue to have that discussion. But I do just want to emphasize that the market rate housing piece is getting at that lowercase a affordable and is a really critical piece of housing production in our community.

Can I respond?

Hold on. Before I, I know you were called out. So I will go to you because of that mention directly.

You responded to, not called out. Sorry. Hold on.

Sorry. Hold on. I want to state before I move on, because right now all the hands up, have already spoken at least once and so i want to state we've been on this particular motion for approximately 30 minutes we still have one big item on our agenda and i just want to keep people aware of the time and all of that especially if conversation is not moving us or if everyone has made a decision on this motion to amend um maybe we can can can move on um but i just wanted to make that notice and all before I go and I will give Councilor Breivik an opportunity to respond if Councilor Breivik would like.

Just wanted to clarify that I was not saying that I am against market rate housing. I am for market rate housing in a mix that is, I think, that includes affordable housing and mixed rate housing. I guess what I was getting at is the idea that I think has been discussed by this candidate that the creation of market rate housing has the effect of then reducing housing costs in other ways. in that trickle-down approach. And that is what I was specifically referencing, not that I am in any way against including some market rate housing as part of a well-rounded housing production plan. And as we included in the motion earlier about Hampshire College, I think that this is something that most of us can agree on. What I don't agree with is that market rate housing being the sole focus. and the implication that that will then solve the affordability, the increase in amount of market rate housing will then solve the affordability crisis for our residents. I don't agree with that.

Thank you. We have one more hand up and then hopefully we'll be able to vote on the motion to amend. Sam McLeod.

Thank you, Mandy, and thank you, fellow councillors, for your comments. I would like to just add one thing, which is that I have had a few different conversations with candidate Naismith, and he really did engage in productive debate with me on the subject areas. That is to say, I tend to get into details and the conversations were focused specifically on whatever the topic was. It happened to be housing. And I walked away from the conversation saying, well, here's somebody who has a high level of interest and is interested able to engage in a back and forth on the topic now that was my experience uh over a couple of conversations but uh you know we didn't agree on every comment but there was recognition i understand what you're saying and vice versa i'm only speaking to my own experience uh so thank you thank you we now have another hand up before we can get to the motion vote on the motion to amend pam rooney

Since we won't be discussing this further, I hope, I do want to recognize that Fred Hartwell has been practicing what he preaches for a number of years as an owner-occupant of a rental. He has purposefully kept his rents in the affordable range accessible to people and as part of a strategy for for helping essentially keep affordability rates where they should be. So he is advocating that owner occupancy of rentals is very, very different from investor invested real rentals. I'm not saying this very well. But I appreciate that he in fact does what he says and has contributed in that manner for a long time. Thank you. Councilor Walker.

Thank you, Mandy. Joe, I think a lot of folks have already spoke to a lot of the things that I wanted to say, but I did just want to highlight a couple of things. One of them being sort of the lack of diversity of the pool, which was something significant for me. And I think when thinking about the planning board, and I know that as a member of the CRC, we did have some criteria that we were looking for, and we had some guidance from the chair of the planning board in terms of what they were looking for for members to fill those three slots. And I think that that was helpful. But I think as someone who has grown up in this town as a low income renter, that it is really disheartening to know that we have we don't have anyone of my demographic even applying or serving on the committee. And it is really concerning to me because the committee is dealing largely with the housing production plan, housing zoning, all of those things. And we have all recognized housing to be one of the particularly particular challenges in this town. And so I think it's going to be one of the most significant things for us to address. And without bringing in the actual perspective of renters and low income folks in this town, I think that that is a miss. So when we were doing the interviews for CRC, although we had the guidance, I had my own sort of personal rating scale and way that I was taking notes, trying to be as unbiased as possible, because again, the pool for myself is just 100% white men, which is the demographic that we have overrepresented on every committee in town. And so just trying to be as unbiased as possible. And I did appreciate that Evan was the only person who did have emphasis on that idea. Not that he personally represents that category, but that he mentioned it. And so that did give him some more points for me personally. However, when it all came to the end, my top three ended up being... fred hartwell ended up being third in my rating score and so that's how i voted and that's how the committee ended up voting and i i did recognize in the meeting and i think other crc members also did recognize that there was no real consensus on number three um and that a few members may have possibly been able to take the third spot depending on what motion came forward at what time And so I, again, I think this may be a process issue that we might want to think about in terms, in terms of our process at CRC and maybe even at the council in general, because I think this has happened on a few other issues. It's just, whoever gets the motion out first sometimes is the winner. But that's what happened. And so at this time I do feel comfortable supporting the original and the original recommendation from the committee, but I did also just want to mention. I don't know. It's just a very unfortunate process because I feel it very unfortunate that we all had to come here and talk about people's character on a live recorded meeting because anyone interviewing for any job ever never has to go through that. And for someone to have to interview for a committee to be placed on for the next three years without any pay, a significant dedication of their time, and to then also be publicly scorned feels really very unfortunate to me and wanting to appeal to other folks to apply to these boards. We want more hardworking folks who have jobs and we want more renters and nobody's going to want to apply for these kinds of positions if this is what they see. So this has been like a little bit of a difficult conversation for me, although I understand that it's necessary and it's part of our job. But I just wanted to voice some of those things and to state that I intend to support the original recommendation of the CRC.

Thank you, Councilor Walker. I see no other hands. We are now moving to a vote on the motion to amend. An aye vote would amend the motion to put Evan Naismith's name in the original motion. A no vote would keep the motion as Fred Hartwell in the original motion. We start with Ana Devin-Gaffier.

Aye.

Lynn Griesemer.

Nay.

Mandy Johanicki is an aye. Councilor Lord. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney.

No.

Councillor Ryan.

Aye.

Kathy Shane.

No.

Jennifer Todd. No. Councillor Walker.

No.

Councillor Brevick. No. Councillor Cano-Martin. No. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

There are five in favor and eight opposed. The motion fails. The motion to amend fails. We move on to the original motion, which is to appoint Fred Hartwell to the planning board for a term beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2029. Is there any additional comment? Andy Churchill.

I think that Alicia was correct.

You need to speak closer with your mic on.

This mic's not very good. Yeah. I think at least it was correct that we're in a situation that's driven by a process that we need to think about. Because I think that the CRC was, when we went around at the beginning, we had we sort of listed one people we were interested in and it became clear that there were two people that seemed to, you know, everybody sort of could come together around. And then there were three others that, you know, by, by virtue of either incumbency or new qualities that they brought to the table, um, were qualified but received split votes partially because I think of the process. And I think maybe going forward, we might want to consider some sort of ranked choice voting so that we could have a better way of assessing who's an acceptable candidate. And if they might not be my favorite, but they might be acceptable, and we might get a stronger majority of people who would have acceptable candidates. So I felt like we had two candidates that would bring new things to the table. And I thought that Glenn Hazleton was a very strong candidate and brought GIS experience and planning experience and work on boards. And for that reason, I'm making a motion that we substitute Glenn Hazleton for Fred Hartwell, who has already had nine years on the planning board.

So I hear a motion to amend to substitute the name Glenn Hazelton for Fred Hartwell. Is there a second?

Ryan second.

Is there discussion? We start with Andy, you already spoke to your motion. So Sam McLeod.

I was impressed with his statement of interest. I couldn't review the committee process. He would be someone new who has significant experience in planning and clearly as other candidates is interested. I've

from from my own viewpoint found him to be impressive thank you council ryan so i cannot vote to put someone on this board who has already given nine years and we would be giving him 12. i just i really struggle with that Mr. Hasleton offers, I think, a different perspective. He offers a fresh view. I have no problem with his candidacy, so I will vote to support this amendment in the hopes that we can get some new, fresh perspective and ideas on a board that I think could certainly use it. I want to say something very quickly about process, however. CRC does not decide who sits on the planning board. CRC makes a recommendation to us. And I would expect, as chair of any body, certainly one that's making a recommendation to the council, and I would certainly follow this, that I would seek to get consensus from my committee. That would be 4 to 1 or 5-0. 3-2 is not a consensus. And in this particular case, as I think Councillor Churchill's pointed out, any number of candidates could have gotten 3-2. So to leave this up to chance strikes me as just absurd. It's our decision. Ultimately, no matter what CRC decides, you have to look at the candidates and make your decision. This is an important body, and it's going to be more important in the years going ahead. So please don't, let's not obsess about process. A fair statement would be that we had two candidates that had a consensus from the committee And the rest was all over the place. And that leaves it up to us to make up our minds. You look at the SOIs. If you have a chance to look at the questioning, period, you just have to do your homework. And I know how hard that is, especially given all the things that we have to do. But that's what you have to do. And in this case, that's what you had to do. You can't just turn to CRC and say, tell us what the answer is. So in this case, I hope you will follow the amendment, support the amendment, and put Mr. Hasleton on this body. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Ryan.

Pam Ernie. I would like to point out that just last year, we reappointed Mr. Bruce Coldham, who also had served with me back in the 1990s and the 2000s for six years. So he is now into his fourth term and is doing a terrific job. It is not that someone doesn't bring really good skills to the table. I think this is, you know, let's not forget that people in fact do bring good skills to the table.

Thank you, Pam, Sam McLeod.

Thank you, Mandy. I just like to say that I, uh, I have great respect for the chair of the CRC, and I'm not making judgments on the process. And I appreciate the challenges that all counselors and all chairs in particular have. And I seek to make determinations based on my own experience. informational process. And in this case, I reviewed everything that I could. But I'd like to again indicate respect for the chair of the CRC. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. I see no other hands on this motion to amend to substitute the name Glenn Hazelton for Fred Hartwell in the original motion. So we will move to a vote. We start with Lynn Griesemer.

Abstain.

Mandy Johanneke is a no. Councillor Lord? Nay. Sam McLeod?

Aye.

Pam Rooney? No. Councillor Ryan? Aye. Kathy Shane? Abstain. Jennifer Taub? No. Councillor Walker?

No.

Councillor Brevik? Abstain. Councillor Kano-Martin?

No.

Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Anna Devlin-Gauthier.

No.

That is three in favor. Seven opposed and three abstentions. That motion fails. We move back to the original motion, which is to appoint Fred Hartwell to the planning board for a term beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2029. Is there any other discussion? Sam McLeod.

He seems to be a very qualified candidate.

Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, we start with myself. Mandy Johanneke is a nay. Councilor Lord. The motion is to appoint Fred Hartwell to the planning board for a term beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2029.

I'm sorry. He was the one that was recommended by the planning board.

By a 3-2 vote, correct.

Thank you.

It's late.

Aye.

Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Councillor Ryan.

Nay.

Kathy Shane. Yes. Jennifer Todd. Yes. Councillor Walker. Yes. Councillor Brevik. Yes. Councillor Kano-Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Ana Devon-Gauthier.

Aye.

Lynn Griesemer.

Aye.

That is 11 in favor and two opposed. The motion passes. We move on. It is time for town committee and liaison reports. It is late. We still have an executive session to vote. I am going to ask that we keep the rest of this agenda as quick as possible before we get to the executive session. Are there any town council committee reports I see no hands. Are there any town committees with council or members that have reports? I see no hands. Are there any liaison reports? I see no hands. You guys are doing great. Approval of minutes was done on consent. Paul for the town manager report.

No hands.

Are there any questions for the town manager report? I want to remind the council that the town manager will not be at the next well, not be at the June 15th next regular council meeting for reports.

Lynn. I'd just like to thank the town manager for the extraordinary words he said at Connie Krueger's memorial yesterday. And if possible, I'd like him to share that with the rest of the council. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam.

City Council Chambers, Thank you mandy i'd like to indicate, I had a brief conversation with the town manager and i'm glad to hear that the dpw is pursuing. City Council Chambers, interviews to fill vacancies with the. City Council Chambers, highway department and i'm hopeful. that that will continue until all the positions are filled, because I think it's of great importance, certainly to my constituents, but to me and to people in the town. So I'm glad to hear that the town manager has indicated that they're continuing with that. And I'm hopeful that the hard work that the town did in terms of the renegotiation of all of the union contracts and in particular the DPW may be of benefit in that regard. So thank you to the town staff as led by the town manager for their work. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Kendall-Martin.

Yeah, I also just wanted to say out loud that I'm really happy to hear that the DPW contracts have been settled and signed. Yay. And yeah, maybe now we can get that DPW work around the committee.

Thank you. Thank you. Town Council comments, the President's report is in the packet. It didn't include much information. this week although I did want to mention that the uh monthly legislative check-in has now moved to Mondays from Tuesday so it did happen today I will instead of waiting to that the full report on on the check-in from today will be in the next Council packet in my president's report but we have moved it to Monday's first Monday of the month instead of first Tuesday of the month future agenda items next regular meeting is basically budgets so we'll have a finance committee report and we will be going over all the budget motions and hopefully voting all the budget motions and any other counselor comments before we move on Seeing none, there are no topics. There are not any topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance. That's a lot of knots. So we will move on. I make a motion in accordance with MGL chapter 30A, section 21A6 to enter executive session to consider the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property, property owned by Amherst College, by Hampshire College, 893 West Street. The chair declares that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body. The town council will not return to open session. Is there a second?

Second.

I heard Lynn's voice first. Is there discussion? Sam.

I'd just like to have a three-minute break between the sessions.

We will take one between sessions.

If you're able and find it something to do. Thank you.

We will. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we start with Councillor Lord. Aye. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Councillor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Jennifer Taub. Yes. Councillor Walker.

Yes.

Was that a yes? Okay. Yes.

Thank you. There was a weird like echo.

Counselor Brevik.

Yes.

Counselor Kendall Martin. Yes. Andy Churchill. Yes. Anna Devlin-Gothia. Did Anna leave? I got weird, but I'm still here and I. Thank you. Lynn Griesemer.

Aye.

And Mandy Johanicki is an aye. That is unanimous. We are now in executive session. So we will leave this Zoom and sign on to another one.