Town Council - Regular Meeting

Will you let us know when we're speaking to you?

Is yours going on? Oh, Lynn, can you hear us? I can hear you now. Can you hear me? Oh, we can hear you. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. the goodwin memorial church no it's not you i'm trying to figure out why there's noise and uh visual noise but i'm going to keep working on it if you want to get started um i just want to let everyone know i am here but um vice president walker will be presiding over this meeting recording in progress

We're recording. Please go ahead. OK, thank you, Athena. Good evening, everyone. Seeing a presence of a quorum, I am calling the July 20, 2026 public forum to order at 6.32 PM. 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. Chapter 2 of 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 room. Although I'm not sure if we have a quorum present in the room. We do. OK, great. The meeting is being recorded and is accessible in real time via Zoom, by phone, and as a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9. um i will call upon each counselor by name uh to and and would like them to indicate whether or not they can be heard and we can hear them counselor brevik present um counselor conno martin i believe it's not okay counselor conno martin uh andy churchill present anna devlin gauthier absent uh lynn greismer present mandy joe haneke present counselor lord present sam mcleod pam rooney absent uh counselor ryan present kathy schoen i'm here Jennifer Taub is also absent and myself is present. If counselors have technical issues, please let the clerk of the council know or call a point of personal privilege at any time. I would also like to recognize Kathy to call the finance committee meeting to order.

I call the Finance Committee to order. The Finance Council members have already indicated they can hear and be heard. That's Councillor Brevik, Sam McLeod, Lynn Griesemer, and Anna is absent. So I'm calling on Joe Jane, who is a member. Joe?

Yes, I'm here. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Joe.

Great. Thank you, Kathy. So we are holding the public forum on the Community Preservation Act appropriation for the Goodwin Memorial Church. We do not have a presentation for this, but we still will have the public forum comment period. So anyone wishing to comment or ask a question specific to the financial order related to this public forum who is attending remotely, please raise your hand in the Zoom application. If you are present in the town room and have not yet signed up with the council clerk, please do so now. Residents are welcome to comment or ask a question specific to the financial order related to this public forum. This is not the general public comment period. We will have that later in the regular town council meeting after this forum adjourns. Public forum comments or questions are not reflective of the opinions of the town council. Because this is a public forum, if questions are asked about the financial order, there is potential for them being answered. Point of order. Counselor Rooney has joined us. Yes. Counselor Rooney, can you hear us? Yes. Thank you. And Counselor Ryan, did you have a separate point of order? Okay, great. Thank you. I don't see any hands on Zoom. Do we have any signups in the town room, Athena? No, not for the public forum. Okay. Yes. So we will have to allow the floor to be open for the next three minutes. So if anyone does want to comment before the three minutes is up, please feel free to raise your hand or sign up with the clerk in the town room. Otherwise, we will be holding the public forum for the next three minutes.

OK. OK.

okay um i will take a last call for comments for the public forum um okay great uh kathy you may call uh you may adjourn the finance committee yes the finance committee is adjourned thank you um and i move to adjourn the public forum and i'll second that Thank you and Councilor Brevik. Yes. Councilor Kano-Martin.

Yes.

Andy Churchill. Yes. Lynn Greismer.

Aye.

Mandy Johanicki. Aye. Councilor Lord.

Aye.

Sam McLeod. Aye. Pam Rooney. Yes. Councilor Ryan.

Aye.

Kathy Schoen.

Yes.

Jennifer's absent and myself, yes. So with that, we are adjourned for the public forum and we are going to move right into the regular council meeting. So seeing that we have a presence of a quorum of the council, I am calling the July 20th, 2026 regular meeting of the town council to order at 6.40 p.m. 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. And this meeting is also being recorded. We have already confirmed that we can hear each of the counselors and that they can hear us. But if any counselors have any technical issues, please let the clerk of the council know or call a point of personal privilege. There will be one public comment period during general public comment. If you are in the town room, please sign up with the council clerk to make public comment. If you are attending remotely, I will ask for you to raise your hand in the Zoom application when we reach the time for public comment. We have announcements. Our upcoming council meetings in August are listed on the agenda, although they are subject to change at this moment. So I would just keep an eye on the dates for our August council meetings. The Community Resource Committee will be meeting July 23rd and again on August 13th. The Finance Committee's next meeting is tomorrow the 21st and again on August 18th. GOL will meet on August 11th and September 8th and TSO will meet on August 6th and September 3rd. Okay, so we will move into 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 you 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 individual 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, 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. Right now, I do not see any hands on Zoom. Athena, do we have folks signed up in the town room? I have three. Okay. So we will allow three minutes for each public comment. And can we start with the first person, please, Athena? I think it's Sam.

I'm sorry, I can't.

Sam, thank you. Yes, just be sure that you unmute the microphone, state your name, and you are free to make your comment. Okay, we need just a moment to work on the microphone. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Do you want me to unplug it? No, leave it. OK. OK. Oh, OK. And you'll just have to hold this down.

I'm sorry.

I'm going to start my clock. So good evening, counselors. My name is Sam Badri, and I'm speaking tonight as a student researcher currently participating in Hampshire College Teach Out, focusing on regional climate resiliency and public utility infrastructure. I'm here to introduce a major emergent economic opportunity for the town of Amherst that leverages the unique agricultural and scientific assets right here in our community, the development of a centralized, publicly owned biochar utility. Biochar is a carbon-rich soil amendment created to pyrolysis because this is a nascent highly integrated industry requiring the coordination of municipal waste agricultural supply chains and public infrastructure requires a level of centralized planning that no single private business can handle it must be a public enterprise we can establish this immediately by launching an initial campus pilot program by partnering with the bloomberg philanthropies modeling our project after their successful city climate initiatives in minneapolis and cincinnati which is where i'm from We can secure private foundation backing. We can then match that with the state infrastructure capital via the UMass Bright Grant framework. Because this is a pilot function, strictly as an educational resource for student learning, utilizing state university research assets is completely legal and highly incentivized. This public utility solves a massive liabilities problem for operating budget. First, it directly offsets our high tipping fees for yard waste by processing it locally. Secondly, because Biochar is recognized globally as the absolute gold standard for permanent carbon credit sequestration, this utility creates a continuous renewable revenue stream for the town by selling high value offsets directly to Boston-based businesses. physical output then flows right back into our local economy selling at this refined biochar to pioneer valley farms and orchards boost crop resilience for our internal municipal budget utilizing biochar and our town greens the golf course the sidewalk tree bed structure increases water retention the dramatic drop this dramatically drops our public landscaping water costs and extends the lifespan of our trees finally because our region pulls water directly from the ground rather than rely on the Quabbin, this utility provides a localized water filtration shield identical to the activated charcoal infrastructure utilized by major municipal water systems like Cincinnati to clean and purify groundwater supplies at scale. The data and findings gathered from this Um, from this pilot, uh, we'll get the town, uh, towns of Amerson Hadley, the exact framework needed to build a permanent combined municipal facility in the future. We do not need to sacrifice our values, historic landscapes, or replace invaluable agricultural research footprints with short-sighted commercial sprawl to balance our budget infrastructure for this future exists right now on our regional educational lands, and it must be protected as a public asset. Thank you for your time. I truly appreciate it.

Thank you, Sam. Vincent O'Connor. I believe it's the one to the left. Or your right, my left, sorry.

And Vince, just please hold down the button when you speak into the mic, please.

Just make sure you hold down the button when you speak into the mic. Make sure you hold down the button when you speak into the mic.

Oh, OK.

There you go.

Thank you. So Vincent O'Connor, 175 Summer Street, Apartment 12. I'm here to make some comments about the manager's directive that was defended by himself and the police chief. And first, it is utterly unwise to send police officers to be observers. because they have a positive duty to interfere in criminal activity. If criminal activity occurs in front of them, their failure to act will be a defense for ICE and Border Patrol people who engage in criminal activity. So, very unwise. Second, the directive tells... It unlawfully tells police officers that they should be bystanders when criminal activity occurs in front of them. Police officers are not subject just to the directive of a manager or mayor or a chief of police. There are positive laws in Massachusetts that require them to act Any person who directs them not to do so is involved in themselves in criminal activity and has incurred both civil and criminal liability and professional potential harm. And also, any officer who obeys such commands subjects themselves to both civil and criminal penalties and the potential loss of their ability to be police officers. So those two reasons are sufficient. The third reason, not to send police officers to the scene, but instead send crests four to eight individuals, four to six, however it is, is that it avoids the situation where police officers who are bystanding doing nothing then turn on the neighbors who have watched criminal activity and want the officers to do something. The people who should be sent are people who have no power to arrest, only the power to observe. And that will avoid liability for police officers and for those who command them. And quite frankly, if you want to understand who is the best observer of police misconduct, saying that ICE and Border Patrol people are, in some sense, police, look at Minneapolis. The most effective observer was a 17-year-old black girl who not only took a video of what happened in the murder of George Floyd, but testified two years later in court at the ripe old age of 19 or 20 against those officers. And so I think it is folly And it's detrimental to the individuals in the police department to be sent to observe something that they should be acting on and to create liability for them, civil, criminal, and to potentially destroy their ability to be police officers. And anyone who orders them to do so is themselves a criminal and should be held to account. This council needs to wipe that directive off the books.

Thank you, Vince.

Evan Naismith.

Evan Naismith, thank you. Please just be sure to hold down the button on the microphone when you're speaking and please state your name and make your comment.

Thank you. Good evening, counselors. Evan Naismith, District 5. Tonight, I want to talk about Newark, Delaware. This is the town that hosts the University of Delaware. Newark is almost identical to Amherst in its size and demographic composition. but its housing policy is really different. Over the last decade, Newark has permitted off-campus student housing at four times the rate of Amherst. Market-rate apartments built by for-profit developers. But because it permitted an appropriate supply of housing, living in Newark is far more affordable than living in Amherst. Apartments.com says that rents in Newark are $350 a month cheaper than Amherst. Rent Cafe says that they're $600 cheaper. Zillow claims that Monthly rents there are $700 cheaper. I don't know which one of those numbers is accurate. But even the lowest number suggests that Amherst renters pay landlords $15 million more every year than their Newark counterparts for the same exact product. A few months ago, I interviewed Newark's planning director, Renee Bensley. She has a background in housing economics and a master's in urban planning. She took half an hour out of her day to explain Newark's policies. Rather than pushing students into dormitories, Newark permitted thousands of taxable off-campus beds. In fact, they permitted so much student housing that renting market rate in Newark is cheaper than renting subsidized housing in Amherst. Accordingly, Newark has completed zero subsidized units in the last decade. Ms. Bensley says she prefers market rate student apartments because landlords carefully screen their renters to protect their investment. As a result, the rowdier students tend to stay on campus and the more responsible students live in town. Though Newark technically has a four plus unrelated individuals bylaw, Ms. Spenceley informed me that they don't enforce it because renters are only required to list one contact on their lease. Furthermore, Newark doesn't need to enforce that bylaw because most of its students live in apartments, not in residential neighborhoods. Please understand, Newark, Delaware represents the entirety of my vision for Amherst. Nothing more and nothing less. Their tax base is broad, their housing is affordable, and residential neighborhoods are populated by families, not students. They got there by permitting, not prohibiting. Policies I just listed were also successful at Penn State, Purdue, and many other small towns hosting big universities. Those towns permit student housing far more than we do, and their year-round residents reap the benefits. If Amherst adopted the housing policies of these municipalities, it could save residents tens of millions of dollars every year. I urge the town council to find its voice on this critical issue. Please take decisive action. Thank you.

Thank you, Evan. there are no no other names on the register okay thank you athena and i do not see any hands on zoom um so i'm going to close the public comment period and we are going to move to the consent agenda excuse me the following items were selected because they were considered to be routine and it was reasonable to expect that they would pass 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 um Should I state the whole motion? OK, so I move the following items and the printed motions there under be approved as a single unit. 8B, referral of financial orders to the Finance Committee. 8C, approval of the September 1, 2026 state primary election warrant. 8D, approval of amendment to agricultural preservation restriction. 9a one through eight approval of town manager appointments and reappointments 11a approval of minutes for june 15th 2026 regular town meeting shane seconds thank you kathy um so i will move to a roll call vote uh counselor conno martin sorry was that a yes

Yes.

Thank you. Andy Churchill?

Yes.

Lynn Greismer? Aye. Mandy Johanicki? Aye. Councillor Lord? Aye. Sam McLeod? Pam Rooney? Yes. Councillor Ryan?

Aye.

Kathy Schoen?

Yes.

And Councillor Walker, myself, is a yes. Oh, and Councillor Brevik?

Yes.

OK, great so that passes unanimously. With let's see here. Two absent 11. We don't have any resolutions or proclamations. The town manager goals update is the first item under presentations and discussions. Will we have a presentation or is there anything you would like to say about that, Paul?

Yes, thank you. In your packet, there is a memo that Addresses gives you an update on the town major goals I think part of the original goal process the council had asked for a six-month update on where we are and that's where we are today and it was a good exercise because it gave me the opportunity to assess where we were also to identify areas that Where we were not going to achieve the goal and for various reasons and I'll start by saying the Many of the goals you'll notice that we're either rescheduling is because of either staff turnover, meaning with the planning department specifically, and also with the gargantuan task of taking on the Hampshire College rezoning. That has just really absorbed an enormous amount of time. And so I tried to sort of summarize where we were. I'm really proud of the work, the progress that we have made despite those challenges. those things that have happened, including the Hampshire College rezoning effort and the amount of work it took just to even get funding for that. Major goals are pretty much on track and we will be trying to focus these to reach the successful conclusion by the end of the calendar year. So I'm happy to answer any questions or give updates, more detailed updates if anybody would like to have specific questions about them.

Thank you, Paul. Okay. I don't see any counselors with any questions at this time. If you if we can we can move on to the dpw staff relocation plan update.

So again, this is a very good thing for us to respond to, and I appreciate the council's order. and In reviewing the order, I agree with everything the Council had requested, except that we won't be able to reach the target date of October 1 as requested by the Council. It's a very serious order, something that we take very seriously, and again, agree with all the sentiments, including the DPW workers in the decision-making process, relocating personnel, to a new location as soon as possible. We know we have to relocate our employees out of that current building, because that building is going to be demolished, and there's no reason for us to wait once we get a suitable site. What was important to us and to the Superintendent of Public Works was that they did not want to relocate people twice, and that if we're going to move people, that we should move them once to the temporary location. The locations and the other thing was an operational concern that was expressed in terms of separating some of the employees from others and the employees in terms of the day-to-day management. This is a complex undertaking because not only are we relocating a giant department, one of the largest in the town, but they still have to meet their operational requirements. Whenever it is, they still have to conduct the duties that they have to maintain during the course of the workday. So being able to do their jobs while we're relocating takes a lot of planning. The good news is that we have selected Weston and Sampson as our designer for the new facility. We're meeting with the building committee on Wednesday to discuss further about what the what their response to the rfp is going to be and what the timing looks like for some of their work so i think having them do a true assessment of what the temporary needs are and the permanent needs is really important again you know we do prioritize moving our employees out of that building as quickly as possible especially before the winter if we can um but and so that but we're going to utilize our um You know are the the consultants that we're hiring to help facilitate that process When we looked at this in terms of our current staff doing it without an appropriation It was just too much for our current staff to take on Without setting almost all their other activities aside because you really do need to do an assessment We recently relocated our Recreation department from the middle school to Wildwood and just with a handful of employees and moving into two classrooms it took multiple days work in terms of planning, organizing, hiring moving companies, procuring the moving companies, getting the space ready because the rooms that were being given us weren't really suitable for immediate occupancy, and then finding issues within the building once we were inside that we're still trying to address. So I just want to emphasize that the need is there, their commitment is there. It's a pretty big task to make it actually happen.

Thank you, Paul. Counselor Brevik.

Thank you, Paul, for the report. It is really clear and I think makes a lot of sense. And I think that syncing this effort with the larger planning effort makes a lot of sense. Can I just make sure I'm understanding correctly that then you think it is realistic to have the relocation happen by the end of the calendar year? Or am I misunderstanding that?

So it depends which direction we go. So that's one of the first tasks for the consultant will be relocating So one of the plans, there's several different options available, and that's something we'll have to look at. One is to move in a building that we already own, which would be Wildwood. A second would be to build a temporary structure that would have a useful life after we occupy it up in at Ruxton, which would not be done by the end of this calendar year. And the third, a proposal came in when we're reviewing options to build a new facility on the current site relocate the employees to the adjacent facility, and then demolish the current building all on the same site. We have a lot of questions about that option, but those were the sort of three options that we have. The least appealing option, which would also be an option, is that we would find multiple sites for the different units, utilizing smaller spaces to different locations. that could be achieved. The only things that can't be achieved easily is keeping our vehicles undercover and also the mechanics bay, which is probably the one space that we really need to, it needs the most work, honestly.

Can I just ask a follow-up?

Sure.

Sorry, just because I'm surprised to hear that third option. And I, you know... COB, Bethany Collins, In looking at the report like the requirements for the temporary location or things like safe operationally effective capable of supporting services and we heard so much testimony that. COB, Bethany Collins, The current site does not meet those criteria, I imagine you'd use the same criteria and considering that option as well correct.

Yes, that is correct. And what I think what the proposal was, and we were surprised by it during the presentations at the building committee meeting, was that one of the proposers came in with building a new building on the same site adjacent to the current building. And then once that was built, moving people into the new building and then demolishing the current building and then continuing with additional facilities on that same site. that would eliminate the need to move people twice into a temporary location. And so there were some efficiencies of that. You know, we talked about it this morning. Actually, there's a lot of we have a lot of questions for the designer about that option because not we didn't think there was enough parking spaces and there was not enough really room to move around to actually build the building and conducted normal DPW operations. But, you know, Weston Sampson came. It was Weston Sampson came up with that proposal. It was intriguing to see.

Um, Kathy?

I think you may have answered part of my question, Paul. I looked at the design proposals you had from the different firms, and that trying to build and then relocate on the same site is clearly what we did with the school. One of the reasons that pushed us to the Fort Rivers site was the amount of space we had. It would have been extremely possible, but much more difficult at Wildwood. So just, I heard what you said about looking at that and if parking and vehicles are part of the issue, I guess the question I have, and you have a good design team, is there a solution for the parking that doesn't impede the construction? And so those are, I'm assuming, are all the logistics that you're going to be looking at. So those are my main questions. I thought you got some, not the one you chose, but you had at least one very creative set of ideas. And I know with the school, we picked on all the brains that we had proposing things. And we picked a designer, but we also knew what other people had proposed. So I'm assuming you're looking at what kinds of ideas you can get from those quite thoughtful proposals, I thought.

Yeah, and Councilor Rooney can weigh in on this as well. I thought we had some really strong options available and felt that the firm that we chose to engage in negotiations with had the deepest experience and the deepest bench in terms of being able to help us reach a successful conclusion on the project. yeah, and I thought there was people, the two, the other firms really present some really interesting options as well. You know, I think that there are, some of these comments I was relating to just come from DPW employees themselves, sort of, we have talented people in the engineering department who are sort of penciling out some of these things and trying to figure it out, and they're going to have really strong opinions about it, because they know their operations better than anybody, and they're sort of like just checking it out to say, sort of, could this really work based on what they saw on the presentation?

I just have one follow-up on the, I understand the reasons you chose what you chose, but that was the one that, expressed the most skepticism of staying within the budget that we've set. So I'm hoping that the committee will be able to enforce a budget and that kind of thing because they still are living with a proposal that they did multiple years ago. And so bringing it up to date in terms of that focus, I know it's gonna be a challenge.

Yes, so I think that's true. They did come up with the original proposal You know, our capital projects manager, Bob Parent, is the OPM, current OPM for this project. He understands the mission. And, you know, Sean Magano is on the committee as well. He understands the finances. So we are sticking with that $35 million. It'll be a challenge. It won't be everything we want. It'll be... It won't achieve many of the goals that we had hoped for, like relocating everybody into one location. So we're looking at alternative options like, you know, having water be at the new centennial, you know, wastewater is already at its own facility. So we're just, we're going to have to adjust our appetite and what we can achieve with this. We just don't have the option of really expanding the finances for that project if we're going to stay within our budgets.

thank you um you mentioned that the the superintendent had had thoughts about this i know we heard quite a bit from you know the rank and file employees about their concerns about the building that they're in but they're also concerned about um the contract that hadn't been taking the temperature of the employees as well as the supervisors, and is this sort of sense that there's an understanding of the complexity of having a temporary facility and that they mostly wanted to see progress happening, or is this contrary to the urgency that they felt?

It's a good question. So the superintendent, assistant superintendent talked to people that they're in that, and they are in that building. They're talking to other people who are in that building who are expressing real concerns about it. And I think you're right. What the sentiment was, we're not seeing progress. We wanna see progress. And I think that was a legitimate concern by the DPW employees. And I hope that what we're doing now by contracting with a designer, having this relocation being incorporated into the original design scope is an important piece of this. So I'm hoping that that will let them see that there's actually action being taken at this as the highest priority for the town right now.

Councilor Kondo-Martin?

Yeah, I just wanted to ask if we know what the timeline will be for like when we're going to choose between, you know, the three options that you outlined in terms of the relocation of the employees that are currently in the building. You know, so I know you had mentioned, you know, relocating them to an existing town building, having a temporary structure, and then the third option is probably not so great at constructing on the site while they're still in it. But yeah, I guess like when will we know? And like also, you know, how soon will they actually be able to get out of that building? Because we did talk about that being a priority to get them out of there as soon as possible, just because of the health and safety concerns. And I guess also like it would be really helpful to see at some point like a breakdown of how many employees are still in that building. Because I know it was mentioned in previous meetings that you know, not every employee works out of that building. And it's, you know, it's not really clear to me actually like how many people were moving or anything like that. So like, just like more information would also be helpful as we go through this.

Sure, so the first thing that the firm will do is they'll sit down with each employee, sit down with the superintendent, assistant superintendent, and go through what their space needs are, what their functions are, how they do their jobs. They really want to understand from the employees what's important, what equipment do they need to be near, How often are they interacting with different people? So by listening to the employees, they develop a work plan that sets their agenda, what they need to design to. They won't be able to meet everything. And one of the firms, which I really liked the idea, it wasn't the one we chose, actually does a charrette with the actual employees where they lay out the designs or the ideas um with the employees only the employees not not the public or anybody else and let them sort of sketch on it and write down and they learn a whole lot by that engagement um you know i think the that building is in we all agree that it's in terrible shape and you know it could have a challenge any moment in time we would have to take immediate action we're hoping that this will give us a um we're We know we're aware of that. And we hope that we're able to get through that, get through this process before that building crumbles, basically. But I don't have a timeline. But that's one of the first things we'll do. And when you know, we don't have a timeline from the designer yet. But I know there's a scope that's been circulated to the building committee. I haven't really reviewed it yet. But, but just the actual design, the timeframe is not in that yet. I don't believe

Yeah, thank you, Paul. I was just wondering, maybe, Pam, if once that becomes available, maybe that's something you could share, one of your report backs from the building committee. Thank you.

It's a public document.

I know.

Yes, you would like to see it, is what you're saying.

Oh, yeah. And also, it's been kind of hard to access those meetings and their materials. So I think it would just be helpful. Thanks.

Sam?

There we go.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Vice President Walker. And thank you for the presentation of all. I read the response and appreciate the thought process behind it. I'm glad to hear that the employees are being reached out to to identify their thoughts and concerns, which is primary. I think the approach makes sense to seek to coordinate and minimize duplication. Given the number of technical systems that are under discussion, I envision that going to a temporary site for some of the items would in fact lead to duplications of expenses. I'm curious, are you aware or is it yet to be determined if some of the systems aside from the garage space for the large vehicles may have difficulty going to a temporary spot based on the added expense affiliated with it uh and separate from that what you know is there yet to be determined a time frame for when all the uh facilities all the systems and everyone might be moved to the new location thank you

Yeah. So many employees come in, they check in, they get their work assignments and they're in their trucks going out in the field. So they're not really in the building that much, but they're the ones in the field. Others have offices there and they work in the sign shop or engineering and Those are really not good places to be working. The thing that's more complex is, as I mentioned, the bay with the lift, because they lift very large trucks, so they need like a 40-foot door to get trucks in and out. We looked at some spaces that are already existing that might be available. They tend to be like 20-foot doors that accommodate automobiles, not trucks. The most complicated thing is that almost all of our water a data of our water infrastructure is in the current building. That's gonna have to be relocated at some point to somewhere and relocating all of that equipment where they monitor all the wells and all the water supplies, it's just a very complicated thing. It's one of those must run operations. You can't let those things go down. So there has to be a very careful plan about making sure that um all those monitoring stations are still up and running and we're able to access them in different locations so that's building a um a backup or a the the next location is going to be really important for instance we have a similar situation with our dispatch we have a backup dispatch facility at the north fire station um but that was we already had about we weren't building a an a replacement, we're just building a backup system at the North Fire Station. So they were able to keep the currents in the current dispatch center in the police station operational. This is a different beast because we need to get something up and running and then transfer everything over to for the water system. Wastewater is pretty much contained in the wastewater treatment plant now.

Thank you for clarifying your response and again I appreciate the planning thought process that you're going through and recognize. The value, I guess, pun intended of seeking to avoid duplication of expenses. It'll be interesting to me to see the outcome of the studies in terms of integration with temporary and permanent and what may or may not get there. But I'm very glad that you're proceeding along these lines with thorough review, I would call it. Thank you.

Okay, seeing no other counselor hands. Thank you, Paul. We are going to move to action items. The first item is the Community Preservation Act appropriation order. So I think I think believe counselor Lord is recusing herself for this item and is moving to the audience. Thank you. And I'm going to present the motion, having been referred to the Finance Committee on June 15, 2026, having held a public hearing on July 20, 2026, and Finance Committee submitted a recommendation to the Town Council on June 23, 2026, to approve appropriation and transfer order FY2707B and order appropriating the FY2027 Community Preservation Act budget as required under Mass General Law Chapter 44B, Goodwin Memorial Church Preservation as shown on page 11 of the motion sheet. Second. Thank you, Mandy Jo. Unless there are any Yes, Kathy.

Just a quick comment. The Finance Committee report you have in your packet, we were unanimous in supporting this. And one of the reasons for moving it quickly to finance is that there's matching money so that not only the money that we're putting in because there's an emergency situation. Our town staff worked really hard to get this extra money. So it became an even more robust proposal. And I just want to say thanks to all the staff work that went into that.

Thank you, Kathy. Okay. Seeing no other counselor hands, I'm going to move to a roll call vote. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Lynn Greismer. Aye. Mandy Johanicki. Aye. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Councillor Ryan.

Aye.

Kathy Schoen.

Yes.

Councillor Walker is a yes. Councillor Brevik. Yes. Councillor Conno-Martin. Yes. Thank you. That is unanimous. Three absent with three counselors absent. And Counselor Lord, I think we can welcome you back now. Great and all other action items were passed on the consent agenda, in addition to all town manager appointments which were also passed on the consent agenda so i'm going to move to committee and liaison reports. CRC Pam.

Thank you. The CRC will meet this Thursday to continue its public hearing on clean energy bylaw. We think we have a quorum. And so that's making its way through the works. We integrated with help from Mandy Jo, a good deal of the commentary from KP Law, from Carol, Carolyn Murphy, Marie, excuse me. So that is in much better shape than it was. That's kind of it for CRC.

Thank you, Pam. GOL, Anna, Amber, Councilor Kano-Martin, is there an update from GOL that you would like to share?

There is not. I am so sorry. We were not able to meet this past week and are looking to reschedule our meeting. So I apologize for that.

No worries. Thank you. And Finance Committee, Kathy?

Announced at the beginning, we meet tomorrow and we will be taking on the financial orders that were just referred to us, but also reviewing financial management policies, just both for new counselors, but also we do this periodically. And our next meeting isn't until August. So that's my report.

Thank you. And TSO? Councillor Ryan?

Yeah, just a quick, most of the, all the work actually of TSO recently was what you just approved on the consent agenda, the town manager appointments. We will be meeting again on August 6th. And at that meeting, we will be hearing from the waste hauler consultant on the RFP. That's August 6th. And also there'll be a report update on work that's being done on the town website related to our outreach function. And then we will meet again on September 3. And at that meeting, we will be hearing from the streetlights vendor that works for the town and we will be asking questions and working on the streetlights policy document.

Thank you. And town committees with councilor members. I'm not sure if there's any other additional updates from the DPW building committee, I think that you would like to share Pam.

Just that there's a meeting this Wednesday. I think it's at two o'clock and it is not on Zoom. So I am not going to be able to participate.

Thank you, Pam. And the elementary school building committee, Kathy.

We met last Friday, and I'm not sure the photos are in the packet yet, but it's very exciting. The school will be opening on time. There are actually trees and grass that have been planted, and somehow the tree looks like it's always been there. So what's been achieved in a short amount of time is very exciting. It looks like the issue I raised about Eversource balking at some paperwork issues or reg issues around linking us up with solar will be solved in time. And it's thanks to heroic work on the past of our state representatives, but as well as our staff. The other thing that was great about Friday is the OPM meeting. person who was presenting it made a point as he was sitting in one of the classrooms using the Wi-Fi in the building of the new school. So it's not just that we're moving the furniture in, but the systems are functioning. And the only other point I'd make is that we've been working under tremendous time pressure, but we got a report about the tightness of the envelope, which is important for heating, cooling, and that we have so far exceeded standards. It's truly remarkable with multiple tests. So our construction staff are doing a really good job despite the pace that they've had to work. We have a, and the last point is there will be ribbon cutting and it's being organized for October 26th at 3.30 in the afternoon. But I don't have any more details. We have our town staff is working with the school staff and MSBA also gets involved in this. But that's when the official parade will be happening.

Thank you, Kathy. Lynn?

I'd like to better understand why the DPW building committee is not meeting on Zoom or in hybrid mode.

Is that something that possibly Pam or Paul might have an answer to?

So at this point the chair hasn't scheduled it that way but I agree that the creating it doing all zoom are all in person are are easily easily done doing hybrid meetings requires a bit of support, as we've seen tonight actually. After this meeting, what the chair had said previously is that once we get the designer going, the meetings will move into either hybrid or Zoom. And I think you're right. I agree with Councilor Rooney that they need to be recorded and in Zoom.

Can I just ask one more question with that? Are they being recorded?

No, they have minutes being taken.

Thank you. Councilor Kano-Martin.

Yeah, I just I I'm remembering that I think I had a conversation about this and she was saying that it was difficult to get the town room or maybe that she was concerned about other town staff needing the town room to do hybrid. So I'm just wondering if that could sort of be prioritized to allow the committee to use that space.

And also we're looking at a different technology where we could use a different room other than this room. It's called the OWL that other boards I'm on utilize. But again, IT needs to sort of help set that up and then we need to be able to secure it at night and all that kind of stuff. That means you can sit at a table and there's a central device that swirls around and focuses on whoever's speaking at the time. You don't need to have the complexity that we have here. As long as you're in a smaller room, that's the only challenge with that technology.

Councilor Ryan?

This is a question for Kathy and for the school building committee. Have you all been looped in on the discussions going on with the town manager about parking and picking up and dropping off students? Is that something that's been discussed by you all? And do you feel like you're you know what's going to happen or that? Yeah, just curious what's happening at your end from that.

the answer is a partial yes there's been an area identified on the bypass road that goes near where the green area is that can be a grassy area for parking while The issue, as you know, George, is that once we start using the school, the other school has to come down, and so we're losing part of that issue. And there'll be, so there's gonna be some temporary parking that will require more walking to get to it. But we have not had a long discussion on that other than to be assured that there is some planning that's going on. And early on, we were told that's the role of the town rather than the building committee, you know, so TSO should be worried about it or, you know, whomever, but it's not. Yeah, but but and then the other. The eventual building was designed for 170, why do I remember numbers like this? But anyway, 170 parking spaces. And it's because there's rarely carpooling for the staff who are coming in. So there's gonna be trying to be some encouragement of parents using the bus system rather than driving their kids to limit the number of cars that are going in and out, because we're gonna have to be sharing one entrance with buses and vans. So I'm assuming that it's going to be a full press by the school that once they get all the furniture moved into the building, but really trying to impress on people that there is this four month, six month issue that people need to worry about.

i don't know whether you want to add anything to that but that yeah yeah so there's three different things that are happening and there has been a there's meaning there's been a couple meetings on the town staff side plus the school staff side there's we have another one coming up on thursday i think um so and it's includes you know the facilities people from the school the superintendent is involved the dpw crest police um and finance and our capital projects manager those are all the people pretty much just pretty large group in the room um so there's three things that are a challenge one is as kathy said we won't have all the parking that we need when the school opens because the building where a lot of the parking is going to go is still standing so until that gets demolished at the end that should happen by the end of the year there won't be parking available so there's an internal circulation uh issue in terms of two different driveways. We were able to move things around to allow a second entrance on the north entrance, which is closer to Main Street, so that the buses will go in the south entrance and then the employees and parents and guardians will go in through the north entrance, which is closer to Pelham Road, Main Street. And so the, the bus traffic and the, the, and the employees and all the other vehicles will going in, there's a circulation pattern that they're putting together for that. So, I think the school department is kind of satisfied with that. Um, they also plan and then the other piece is. Parking offsite parking for employees and. we have looked at and some of this came up with traffic and parking commission i believe looking at the what we call east street which is where the east street school that's the parallel road to southeast street on the other side of the common there moving the parking around if you move it on the other side of the street you create more parking spots and then we also own the east street school so we can put some parking there and dpw's come up with a plan for that and that's about a four minute walk from the school There's another site, which is a property that we own at 81 Belcher Town Road that we're going to develop for affordable housing. There's about I've got the maps. I can show them to to the council if they'd like to see it. But I think there's like 28 parking spots there. That's about a seven minute walk to the school. And then if you know, if you're going down Main Street, there's a field on the northeast corner of Main Street, which is often used by the Jewish community of Amherst JCA for parking during certain religious days. The town actually owns a big swath of that, which I didn't really realize. We have a very wide right of way there. So we can get about 25 cars in there parking on the grass. And there's a there's a a curb cut to get access to that so there are multiple there's three different locations where we can place cars off-site and i think what we're talking about is of this morning was let's activate all of them let people choose which ones they want to utilize it's not and we won't pave these things they'll be gravel or something like that dbw is working on that so this the second thing is where do we put vehicles on the site where do we put vehicles off the site and then things that's most concerning is the traffic on east north southeast street and it's just going to be complicated there's going to be a lot of cars trying to get through there so the strategy is looking um at uh putting up flashing lights on the site so that we already own them um from the construction to slow cars down during at the two um entrances to the driveway and then also um having um somewhat having people helping uh people get in and out of the driveways during key times in the morning the schools have been us there the most important times was the busiest in the morning in the afternoon um police They may be able to do it. There aren't that many police officers on duty at those times. They could be called away. We're talking to the community responders, and Camille has said, well, if we get training for our community responders, maybe that's a function they can serve for an hour a day. They have to go through a training, which is a day-long training to learn to do it. So she's thinking about that. We really don't want to have to hire a detail to do it because it's very expensive. but those first couple weeks the first month is just we know we know we're going to have to have somebody out there helping people navigate through that and then usually after a month people find their way they find different paths they avoid the intersection whatever the other thing that's happening is the school is doing a strong outreach through their newsletter to encourage people not to drive to school not to drop your kids off to take the bus they're also going to have orientations by grade level in advance at the end of august to have people bring their kids in early before school opens to navigate the site understand where they would have to go help the kids figure out how to get in the building and the principal is doing a really good job of sort of planning that out And I think the last piece is communicating all this to the public, which has to happen in the next couple of weeks. So people know there's going to be change. They know there's going to be heavy traffic. They know parking is going to be difficult. And then the goal is to get all the students there safely. That really is what the goal is. So there's a lot of moving pieces, but I think we've got it segmented out pretty successfully.

Thank you, Paul. Counselor Ryan, do you have anything else? Okay, thank you, Kathy.

I just wanted to build on one of the concerns is, while the construction is happening, taking it down, all the traffic is through that south entrance. We don't have the two entrances. And I've asked multiple times of, can't we close off that shunt road that runs behind the bank? And I get a firm no every time. But I'm not convinced that that couldn't be engineered to have there are only two buildings there to make it two ways they can they have to go in and they could go out the same way because it's it's dangerous if you take a look at where it slants in it's really near the driveway But to the school and it's always been dangerous. It's going to be more dangerous. So, Paul, every time I ask, I get a no from one strong voice, but I haven't heard a let's look at it and see whether maybe there's something we could do.

So that is something we've looked at and I get the same response. I think there's some concern about cutting through the bank parking lot once you, in some ways, because you don't want clear access to the bank. The other thing I forgot to mention is that at the north entrance where the vehicles, there's going to be a separate entrance and egress for the construction traffic that's going to be walled off from the other. So they will be able to access the demolition sites on a separate road that's going to be built for them. And then they will be told not to go through that intersection at all during the peak times. There would just be no vehicular traffic from there. So there will be basically three driveways at the north entrance. At least that's when we last met, someone came up with that idea and it was pretty creative.

Pam? Thanks. It's occurring to me that there needs to be a pretty strong outreach program with the university and their parking system so that they could be notified, PVTA certainly. But it also occurred to me that with a new crop of students coming in for the fall, that landlords really ought to be, or if there's some way we could reach out to landlords in town and just say, work around this, try not to use that intersection. And then lastly, having a bit of even though it's a light shift, but having some kind of police coverage on Harkness Road, it will become a major cut around. And I feel badly for the folks that live there, but if traffic calming, as in police cars, would help. Thank you.

Thank you, Pam. Okay, and we were working on town. Are there any additional committee or liaison reports that have not yet been shared? Sam, is that a hand?

Yeah, thank you. The TPC Transportation Parking Committee had their first online meeting last week. I'm glad that we were able to because it is recorded for others to view. The subcommittee on intake process prioritization presented their results or their suggestions and I thought it was going to go live right away, but it will be soon for individuals to submit requests. The chair introduced the second topic, which was the West Street-South Mount Holyoke crosswalk request as we are developing an understanding of the intricacies of handling requests. He felt it would be instructive, which it is, to go through the process. So we began that discussion, which will continue next week. I think it's going to be an ongoing process to come up to speed, but things are moving forward. It's live in terms of processing or adjudicating requests. And hopefully we'll see the online form soon along with additional information. And as a COINCIDENCE, WE WERE ALSO DISCUSSING AT A PRIOR MEETING FOR THE AMERICAN SCHOOL INTERSECTION AND WE RECOGNIZED THAT IT WAS A MATTER THAT THE TPC COULD NOT RESPOND TO. IT NEEDED TO BE TAKEN CARE OF BY TOWN STAFF GIVEN THE TIME CRUNCH. HAVING JUST RETURNED FROM NEW YORK CITY THIS PAST WEEKEND, and having dropped my kids off at schools for years, I envision a Manhattan concentration of traffic for a couple of months here. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Okay, if there are no other committee and liaison reports, we are going to move to the town manager report, which is in the packet.

There are a couple of things I'd like to highlight, if that's okay?

Yeah, absolutely.

So most important is tomorrow night at six o'clock, there will be a public information meeting about Hampshire College, about the rezoning study for the Hampshire campus. And everyone is welcome. You should go to the town's website and it requires pre-registration. It's a webinar format that's being managed by one of the consultants that we have from Mass Development. We'll make introductory statements. We will... go through a number of the slides that shares a lot of information about the campus, what we know about the land patterns on the campus, the wetlands and things like that, and the sort of historical patterns on the site. It should be a really interesting meeting. And then we will be answering as many questions as we can get to. And this is also an opportunity to gather questions that people have that they want to present, because that will go on our website to answer most frequently asked questions, any question anybody has. This is not about what Hampshire plans to do with the site, and I think that's a lot of interest. We don't really have answers to that, because Hampshire College is not part of this. This is really talking about the the Hampshire College campus, and we're really orienting around the council's vote that highlighted the priorities. So I think if you have the opportunity to watch it, it'll be recorded, obviously, and then you can watch it at your convenience as well. And so it goes from 6 to 8 tomorrow, Tuesday, July 21st. The second thing is I went to announce that Dan Garcia, our new director of senior services, started work today. And so it's really exciting to have him. He's already reporting that lots of people are coming up to him in the grocery store and he goes to lots of different events and having suggestions for him on how to improve the senior center, how to get more people to be involved. So he's very receptive to that. We are doing a training for liaisons done by our Clerk of the Council about how to manage public comment, because that's something that we experienced as a big challenge for people, for chairs and staff members, and just really a comprehensive approach model pretty much on how the council handles its public comments where you know what you're allowed to, what you have to listen to and what you don't and what the rules are about engaging with the public on that. And also we're doing some trainings for their staff liaisons for the new agenda setting system that we're setting up on the website. So you can find all meetings and all of their agendas and recordings on one place. So that will be good. And lastly, I just wanna congratulate two staff members, Rome Cabrera from the Recreation Department. He graduated from the MMA Certificate in Municipal Leadership and Management Program, which is associated with Suffolk University. And it's something several other members of our staff, including the clerk of the council have gone through. It's a really good, it's a 26 week program whole day Fridays and you walk out with some actual graduate school credits. And so congrats to Rome for doing that. And and also Philip Avila from the assistant director of DEI was awarded the Nancy Galkowski Legacy Award for the Massachusetts Municipal Management Association, which is the association I'm a part of. And that will it's a cash award that will allow him to defray costs to participate in in trainings or mentoring opportunities. And so that's an exciting thing as well.

Thank you, Paul. Andy?

Yeah, I was just trying to scroll through the extensive report to find what I think was in there. But is there a mention of the hiring of a new assistant planning director? Is that completed? Yes, the assistant planning director is hired and started work today.

Her name is Alexis Wheeler, I think. I forget her last name. Sorry, I just met her this morning. But she's doing her orientation, getting to know people, taking on the tasks. And so it's a really strong hire for us. And Jeff Bagg is relieved to have someone in that role.

Pam? Pam? Thank you. Can you, can Paul remind us and the public where the links to the Hampshire College conversation is?

It should be on the homepage of the town's website. There should be a, right, like there's four pictures that show up when you get to the homepage. And one of them says Hampshire, you just click on that. And then I believe that there should be a link there.

Thank you. I went to planning and zoning.

wasn't there it should be right in the front page and i can send it to you so you can share it out if you'd like thank you counselor ryan

Yeah, if you will, I've got two things I'd like to raise with Paul quickly. Again, as always, thanks for the very detailed report. First has to do with, I mean, in this report, you do tell us where you're going to have to make cuts from the capital budget. Remember last meeting, we took $120,000 out of the capital budget, and now we're finding out where that goes. gets taken away. First, this has to do with IT. Apparently, IT had previously approved equipment, and now it's going to not get all that equipment. Is that correct? And I assume that would impact, at least to some degree, its ability to do its job, because this is equipment it previously had expected to get. So that's not really a question. It's just pointing it out. The second, though, you mentioned that you have two distinct projects related to school facility assessment and planning, and one of those is not going to get funded, but you're not sure which one it is. Are you even able to tell at this point, and maybe I should know this, but I don't, what those two distinct projects are, one of which is not going to get funded?

So one, there'll be up to the school to decide which one. It's one budget, it's one capital item. One was for a facility study of Crocker Farm and I'm not sure if Kathy remembers, but

The other is they wanted to do an assessment of the way they use bus drivers and custodians, where they're splitting time, whether there was a more efficient way of doing it. So it was sort of a staffing, informing staffing study.

Right, so originally both of those were approved, and now one of them is not.

They were approved, but... They were best guesses for numbers, so the Crocker one was more clear on doing the kind of assessment that then you can apply for some of the grants that are available for HVAC and others, because Crocker has been sitting there with a half million, actually a as much as a million dollars in future expenses, and it's not clear that there's been that kind of assessment. So it's a bit similar to what we did of our other buildings, George, but we just never did it of Crocker.

Both of them are really, really important. You would agree, both of these projects?

Yes, but I'm assuming the schools are deciding which one.

Yeah, they're going to have to make the choice, but they'd probably like to do both. Anyway, I'm just observing that. I didn't know what they were. Now I do. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Just to be clear, the second part is operational review of the facilities operations department. That was the second piece of that.

I just want to say that that one was hazy, George. You know, it was wanting Shannon removed several other requests because they didn't have anything to substantiate them. And she said, but she'd want to take a look at this one. So it wasn't one of these. It's we have a dire need from this. It was. Yeah.

The other one is very quick. Paul, you mentioned shared services. The treasurer collector's office has begun serving the residents of Pelham, which I think is a wonderful thing. But I assume we're getting paid for that, or are we just doing it out of the kindness of our hearts?

No, there is an appropriation request in your packet. Okay, I missed that. So we are, I mean, the town of Pelham is paying us $102,000, I believe it is, and we're asking for an appropriation of $100,000 to pay for the, and there's a detail of what that will pay for for the town.

And it's not putting an extra burden on our staff?

No, it'll give us the opportunity to hire someone. We had previously frozen the position, so now we will have a funding source for that position. It also gives some opportunities for staff to take on additional roles that would help us and keep them engaged with their working for the town.

Thank you. Kathy? Building on George's question on where that 120 might come from, we, a year ago, not this past year, we approved with some question marks a new IT software for the finance director who then left us. And our current finance director said he doesn't really want to use that software. And so it's one of these capital appropriations that's unlikely to be used. And I just encourage you to look at that because it wasn't a one-time cost. It was a startup cost. And then there was an annual subscription to it that was expensive and would have required retooling all the ways we do various systems. So my memory is it was at least $120,000 in that line item. And it was in the hope that we would keep a finance director who decided to leave us. But I just Sean has said that he doesn't particularly want to switch to that. Also, it might be worth looking at that money.

okay and if there are no other questions i just had a couple of questions also paul um i'm not sure if i saw this in this town manager's report but i was hoping you might elaborate a bit on the rec department's move to wildwood and what the long-term plan is there how long we anticipate they will be at wildwood and where their destination will be after uh so we had to we

move them out of the license with this regional school district terminated on June 30th. So we had to move them out fairly quickly and And so we were really diligent about moving them into Wildwood. The school district was generous enough to let us use two classrooms in Wildwood, even though they still control it for the summer. So we had to get something that had proximity to the activities for the summer. The space that they're in is not fully accessible. So the rec department is holding office hours, specifically office hours in the Banks Community Center for the time being. whether they stay there are basically a two large classrooms not exactly conducive for office space not a lot of issues with the with the space so we will be looking at alternate once we could control the building on September 1 there might be another office space that we might be able to utilize that the district has said we should look at once they clear out they're using that building pretty intensively this summer because a lot of summer camps are there the other we don't want to rent space for rec the other spaces we have are the north hammer school and the um bang center which is i don't know if they can fit in either one of them those easily but so we the thing before us uh for facilities is determined uh we know what their needs are um whether it's better to keep them at Wildwood, move them to Bangs, which I think is too small, or move them to the North Hammer School. So those are the sort of options that we're looking at for that. And so we know they're going to be there at least this summer and probably farther into the winter. I'm not sure. There's a lot of things to work out with Wildwood once we take control of it, like snow removal and things like that.

Okay. And so the conversation or those decisions are made outside of the council, but will that be a part of the conversation the council has regarding the Wildwood building?

So we're setting up a Wildwood reuse committee that will take that on. And so one of the questions for the committee is, do you want to use any of the space? This is a temporary solution. We're pretty clear about that. We're not investing a lot. We're putting existing equipment in there and things like that. So for the building, do you want to use this building for something else? Or is it a demo? Do you want to use it in the meantime before we get to the demolition? Those are all the questions. And what is the true condition of the building? Once we get in there, we're finding lots of things that there's a reason the school is abandoning that building, quite honestly.

Okay, thank you. And I just had one other question and then I will move to other counselors regarding dispatch calls going to CRESS. I'm wondering if there's somewhere where it's listed which call types are going to be dispatched and if there's a phasing approach where other call types will be added or what is happening there?

Yeah, I can share the call types with you. That's a good question. So what we are, so we're looking at all the call types and it's really an iterative process. So the dispatch director and the police chief and the CRESS director and I sit down, we go through all the calls that were sent to CRESS, look at the calls, the dispatch director looks at all the calls that came and decides which ones could have gone to CRESS. And then is also sort of separately looking at the timeframe from four to eight to say how many calls could have gone to CREST under our current system had we had operation activities then. So those are the three things that we're looking at. And then we look at actual calls that went to CREST and how they were handled. We're learning things from every call and we're getting a lot of compliments and learning things just from calls that CREST responded to on their own. Cress has obtained scanners so they can self-dispatch if they hear a call that is going to police, but they feel they could help for fire or police, they can self-dispatch. That's a normal thing. We've also gotten the call types from... And it's not a whole lot of calls right now going through the dispatch. And we're about the same as Northampton. And they've engaged LEAP to look at their dispatch. And we're probably going to do the same thing, talk to LEAP about whether they want to, that's the law enforcement action, something or other. But they had done the initial review of call types during the community safety working group time. And so I've talked with Amos about that. Could they come in and look at what we're doing compared to other communities? Or is this the right number? Maybe it's the right number. Maybe it's not. I don't know. I think my argument is that Crest isn't going to live or die based on dispatch calls. It's already proven its worth in many ways and has to continue to show that it's a worthwhile investment by the town because they are... I'll send you a letter that we got recently. It was from somebody who was really helped by Crest, which just really... They didn't have to be a town resident, but they were really helped by having that kind of response where they can spend some time with the individual. Um, as opposed to a police who have to clear the call because they get another call coming in.

Thank you, Councilor Conno, Martin.

I just wanted to ask about the I know that you had mentioned there was a plan to sort of like, determine what we want to do with the Wildwood building going forward. So I just wondered if you could report on any progress and forming that committee. Like, I don't know if there's been like any announcement on the website that we're recruiting recruiting residents for that or where that's at.

Yeah, I don't think there's an announcement on it yet. So what this was supposed, one of the advantages of hiring Jeff Bagg as our planning director was that he had done something similar in East Hampton. And then he just got overwhelmed by Hampshire. And so now he's got the Hampshire reuse site and this. having the new assistant director start work. One of the things that lured her to the town was these major projects that we have coming forward. So once she gets her feet on the ground, which will take some time, I'm not sure what his plan is for allocating staff out for both studies. But we haven't made the announcement, but it's on our list to get things done.

Lynn.

Thank you, Councilor Walker. You mentioned in your update that you'll be forming both the Wildwood Committee and also a fire station, not study, but actually building committee. Will there be counselors on both of those committees?

Typically on building committees, we do. I haven't thought through the Wildwood. I'll talk with Jeff Baggett about what worked in East Hampton, see what they look at there. I don't have an answer for that one, Lynn.

Thanks.

Thank you, seeing no other counselor hands i'm going to move on to town council comments, starting with the president's report mandy joke.

it's in the packet happy to answer questions. Lynn.

This is not a question to President Haneke. It's actually a thank you for the guidance that you were able to give us for the pilot meetings. Three, four of us went up last week. Andy Churchill, Pam Rooney, and Jennifer Todd and myself What we learned, however, was their listening sessions, and basically what they do is they spend the first half hour to 45 minutes basically going over what the pilot formula does and doesn't do, and then they also talk about what their process is going to look like. And then they break you into listening sessions. And so while I think it's very important for the ones that are happening this week that counselors, and I know at least two or three are continuing to plan to go, that counselors go but then also please submit your written comments because they're really looking at a broad view, in fact, I think a little more broad than what we anticipated based on the original charge. However, one of the things that we had been advised to do, and that is strictly stick to the issue of publicly owned land, not try to venture into the issue of non-profits and particularly private higher education. At another time, we can talk about the kind of research that we've been able to learn from other states that Professor Ray LaRagia has been doing, because other states have, in fact, passed legislation that provides guidance to individual towns on how to deal with large nonprofits. And I think there is something to be said for that. But that's a whole different thing than this commission. So again, I want to thank the counselors that have been doing the planning on this. And we sent you our testimony, so you've seen it. And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Thanks.

Sam?

Thank you. And thank you, Lynn. I know I talked to you earlier in the week regarding your efforts and to the other counselors in Greenfield. I just thought I'd let you know and others that I did attend the listening session in Holyoke today. President Haneke was there as well. And there were probably 50 folks or so is my estimate. And they are listening. I mean, they presented the information on the pilot, but when they broke into the breakout groups at my table, there was a commissioner and uh they are listening to what attendees say uh and with follow-up so i think it's you know i thanked the commissioner as well as uh you know the governor or senator for being involved in this and i think they're helpful and there's the ability to send comments as well which i did and i would uh there's one more in uh it's field and who knows what the outcome will be but i I'm pretty sure based on what the four of you did in Greenfield and others that they're getting the message from Amherst and we'll see what happens.

Okay, Kathy.

I just want to say thank you to the four of you, Andy, Lynn, Jennifer, and Pam. I read what you submitted, and I thought it was excellent. And it creates a model for the rest of us to build off of. So thank you for the thoughtful work that went into that.

Yes, thank you, Kathy. Okay, seeing no other hands, I will move to future agenda items.

So thank you all for putting on your calendar. August 31st is a potential council meeting. We will be canceling at least one of the three that are now sort of slated for August, if not two of them. But we don't know which ones yet. So watch your emails for that. In August, right now, the public forums on the appropriation orders we just referred today need to be held and then voted on. We are trying to figure out when we can get that clean energy bylaw that Chair Rooney talked about into its first read at the Council so that the second read can be at the first meeting in September and hopefully then it is enacted and effective before October 1. That is the reason for actually adding the August 31st in case it's not ready for the 17th. So those are the two main things on the upcoming agendas. We will be speaking with an agenda setting Councilor Churchill tomorrow. He has requested some potential agenda items regarding structural deficits and revenue goals for the council and figuring out how that looks at maybe a council meeting or otherwise. So that might end up on an agenda in August or later as we discuss it with him and what his goals for that request are. Right now, that's it for the August agendas, which is why you can probably tell we're trying to figure out which ones can be canceled.

Thank you, Mandy Jo. And I will move to counselor comments if there are any additional counselor comments. Please raise your hand. Okay, great. And any topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair within 48 hours of the meeting? I don't have anything there. There is no executive session. OK. So with that, I will move to adjourn. I'll second. OK. And roll call vote. We will start with Lynn Greisberg. Aye. Mandy Johannyke. Aye. Counselor Lord. Sam McLeod.

Aye.

Pam Rooney. Yes. Counselor Ryan.

Aye.

Kathy Schoen.

Yes.

Councilor Walker is a yes. Councilor Brevik? Yes. Councilor Kano-Martin? Yes. Andy Churchill? Yes. Okay, thank you. And we are adjourned at 8.10 p.m.