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i'm going to call the role for the first one chair bullseye vice chair both sides senator cruz aye five members of president all voting in the affirmative recommendations adopted thank you and for gm 550 for school facilities board nominee chad ferrius to exterm to expire 6 30 20 24 chair is uh to advise and consent on chad farias chair votes eye careful tsai any member voting in the negative any member voting with reservations hearing none all five members president uh your recommendations adopted thank you for gm 551 and gm 552 for uh consideration confirmation to the school facilities board for nominee alan oshima recommendation of the chair is to advise and consent on both of them one is for a term to expire 6 30 20 21 and the second one turn to expire 6 30 20 21 chair votes eye on gm 551 and gm 552 any members voting in the negative any members voting with reservations this reservation on both of them thank you with five members present your recommendations about that thank you on gm recommendation of the chairs to advise and consent on the confirmation to the school facilities board of nominee bettina maynard for a term to expire 6 30 20 24 chair votes eye chair votes eye on gm 553 any members voting negative any members voting with reservations hearing none all five members present your recommendations about it thank you and for the last nominee gm 554 as well as gm 555 to advise and consent to the school facilities board nominee harold edwards for a term to expire 6 30 20 21 and a turn to expire 6 30 20 25 cheer boats eye sure what's eye on gm 554 and gm 555.

motion made by catherine second technology joe it's joe okay joe okay okay um any questions uh discussion concerning these uh policy cn9 uh kate will you do the roll call certainly joe britton aye rachel celeski hi kate caneva aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye jojo silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich gianelli hi kathy molinero hi al russo hi amy spolino hi motion so carrick we have all 11 board members in favor of demotion okay um i want to thank the policy committee along with uh mr walson and everyone for getting together and bringing these policy uh forward to the board next on the agenda is the superintendent's report thank you thank you madam chair um just information you all know we do have our lobbyists and i'm sure we're going to organize a meeting with our our contingent um legislative contingency alone but if you're interested in the cave virtual day [Music] but anyway that that's the date chosen this year you know we're working with um ryan bigham for our own um session that we need to have with our contingent um the next section um i did send you um a copy of a letter that we've drafted to the governor um i can tell you very seriously this does impact the cities as you see in my letter we represent just on the 45 percent of the total number of students that are in connecticut over 65 percent of indigent those that are indigent um so we have a real need and i think a few years back the governor at the time decided over over a lot of conversation court cases a way of assisting the cities and equalizing access to education modified ucs grant included groups that were very needy and were very difficult to fund with operational budgets and put in a plan and you know our plan was the 10-year plan for danbury the governor's current position um if you take your time and look at it we all know in fact one of the parents mentioned the essa money the sm money coming to us uh was our conversation with the state was that it was to be used for items that that would mitigate the um the pandemic impacts some of it could be construction some that could be life safety work but majority should be spent on kids and closing gaps and focusing on standards that we were not approachable or even possibly doing some pd work with our teachers and that money should have been going that way um but the governor's taking advantage of it um whether or not they were required to do that um i guess in his position um he's uh indicating that that money could be used for operation i will tell you that the state department has asked us to put together an essa grant that was really focused on the intent um telling us that it may change you know in the future but that's how we're going to construct it if you look at the three areas that i that we articulated in here the regression from the equity principle the esser money and the fiscal cliff i'll start with the end in mind with the fiscal cliff i mean most of you've been around long enough to know that one-time sources creates nothing but a tremendous disadvantage when that money does not come into the district any longer which right now you know our current budget almost under just under six percent of it is is there just to turn the lights on and that was to meet some cliffs that we've had over time with uh um allocations that were you know one percent two percent um if this in fact um budget goes through you're going to be facing something three years down the road that is really terrible on the on the taxpayers in the town and of our children and we've tried to bring that attention to the to the governor we've asked from private sessions uh to no avail and and took this course i will also tell you that that significant cliff um is not voting well in hartford with many legislators um but with that said i think it's incumbent on this board to really express to our our delegation the impact it's going to do on not just the education program but if in fact that creates the cliff um your numbers are going to be unless taxes are raised um you'll be we'll be losing staff and and going to numbers that are right now are very high in classroom which has led to some of our issues about returning to school but i will tell you that that's a major problem not to mention the equity there are towns that are gaining money when there are urban settings that are losing money very inconsistent and we're not understanding uh why that's happening so i just ask your patients if um you look at the 109 million dollars that we're losing on in these districts and then trying to hold the es the ecs money for two years by pausing um does nothing but create havoc and equity for our kids in terms of equal access to a curriculum just not fair the yes or money for the board we will put together a budget or a recommendation and we use that that's going to mitigate our um our pandemic loss you know summer school extending time um but i want you to know now the state department did come back to us and say told us that if something happens to the governor's budget and we have to use those funds we may have to recalibrate our budget the yes or money so that may or may not happen so i just want to put you on notice now um i know um the the committee may want to i don't know if it's the public relations committee or any other committees may want to take this up in terms of um how to move forward i've got some interviews with reporters i'll be talking to pto about it um i've sent this to our legislators and um although i won't be here i will be here in in my soul to make sure that i do all i can um to make sure that we we don't go down this path and that we fight hard and and let people know how it's going to impact our kids so um if you you know i appreciate if you go through it you have any questions uh please call me um about it i think it lays out the argument um very clearly this was sent to governor lamont as you can see we have not heard back yet uh and we'll see what the response i did talk to our ex-mayor who's advising the governor and i think he even though this might not be a good idea you know uh but he's worked with them and hopefully those in hartford would look at this that have experience in the urban setting to kind of mitigate this this proposal because it is damaging to the cities um so if you have any questions then you can uh please get them to me and um i'll try to uh answer them and if you need any other information i'll provide it to you oh um sorry kate had a hand up and dan joe dr sal i just want to clarify and make sure i understand this correctly um if they freeze this funding we're looking at uh 2.7 million for the next bump for next year and then 2.7 million after that so really a loss of over seven and a half million over the course of those two years that should be coming into danbury is that right yes okay and when you talk about uh the potential of recalibrating the budget the use of the esser funds are we talking about the state basically affording permission to use it for operational purposes right okay that's what the government's suggesting yeah in this proposal now but the essa funds are federal right so well well okay i'm my understanding although it's limited at this point because i've asked those questions i think it's up to the state to determine that okay no at least we're told at this point from the federal contingent that there are no statements within the um within that act prohibiting the use of them for operation that was a state decision decision yeah look at the purpose of it because anyway so the governor took um took his uh opportunity to say uh that it could be used for operation fund okay thank you for clarifying i appreciate that i thought john i i did um i've sp dr cell just in line with what you said i've spoken to both representatives godfrey and ner conte both of whom were less than pleased with the notion of pausing this funding and they were both they were going to work to see what they could do to to to change this thing neither one of them thought this was remotely a good idea um so obviously we'll keep those conversations going and i'm sure you can reach out to them directly and and and have them further that conversation but yeah no i spoke in fact i spoke to both of them the day the budget came out and neither one of them were particularly amused by by that proposal i think the more we do that and call them our contention has been no matter what side of the aisle that sean um it doesn't make sense um so yeah that was their view as well so anyway um call them and talk to them that'd be great um you want me to move on madam chair yes if there's no more questions yes so really c should be under the next or discussion um you know i guess i just should be discussion so let me let me just start by saying that in the beginning when we looked at our challenge for returning the fall our main issue was space and i and that has not changed in terms of aggregate number of students if they were to return that put us in a position to move towards a hybrid for safety and during that time um my advice that i was following following was the advice of our advisors medical advisors and um you know whether we had a hiccup there october not the advice at the time i've explained that we did what we did um moving down at this period of time what if we knew you know then what we know now i think the lens would change somewhat and um i have a meet had a meeting last week with our medical advisors and i do want to go over some good news with all of you i think the parents that spoke in the beginning of the of our meeting and had talked about some of it in a glossary way there's some specificity that indicates to me um that uh that um you know as an advocate for our youngsters that um we should look at this differently we should look at this in a way that um uses the uh the best practices that i'm finding out from surrounding towns that have been implementing this uh because they they've been able to do it with lesser numbers of infection rates and also we'll be able to do what we know now about the primary transferring of the virus as recent as yesterday morning the statement was made it is not a regarding problematic for youngsters it is the the problem of the virus for adults i think we've all known that and um you know and and it's coming to fruition in ways that are going to put us in a position to do some other uh more aggressive uh returns when you couple that with the vaccines so let me just revert back what you what what you see on the agenda is in person learning we've gone back to the hybrid and we've gone back because of space right now we've been looking this steadily over time we have about 228 classrooms that are over we call the minimum that could not achieve either six foot or three foot minimum for social distancing and we are studying that uh analytically in terms of what it can mean for us in terms of increasing the amount of time for students to return but i think it's incumbent on me to tell you as a board that we have an opportunity to gain some time we have an opportunity to expand some time even while we study the space utilization challenges that we have and i want to start the conversation so you have a full gestalt of the of the actual infection rate in danbury uh carapanti if you could go over those numbers and talk to the board about what we have seen since we've um returned you know waiting out the um the impact of the holidays i think that that's where i'd like to start the discussion and then we'll move on from there is that possible sure thanks dr sal um like the rest of the state danbury's numbers have continued to go down uh so currently we're at 23.7 cases over the last 14 days per 100 000 our positivity rate is about 4.6 over the last 14 days um so we are in a better place than we were uh seeing a few weeks ago even um so that's been steadily decreasing we've been monitoring along with with kathy o'dowd um and her team any cases within schools and quarantining and doing contact tracing and that seems to have been very effective so right now community spread is is still happening but it's much lower than it was a few weeks ago the uh numbers that you were seeing could you share with the board in terms of the collection and what what you're actually analyzing we're talking about the waste product talking about some other items sure yeah so um danbury is now part of the statewide program where we're monitoring the wastewater and any traces of the virus within wastewater as an early indicator of what's to come in the following weeks in terms of new cases and same thing that's also showing a downward trend of a virus being shed in the wastewater so all around our indicators are looking a lot better uh with that the the cdc came out with some new guidelines and one of the things that they're talking about as a critical component of making sure the environment is safe is contact tracing and to be sure that districts have an aggressive comprehensive um contact tracing so um kathy maybe you can clear the board on how what our approach to that is because i think that is really an important element to any return in person um sure dr sal thank you good evening everyone um we do have an aggressive contact tracing uh protocol in place um it starts with the identification of a positive case which that information comes to the school nurse it's shared with the principal uh with myself certainly dr sal and the cabinet dr fong and kara so when we do have a positive case identified in the school our contact tracing begins with um who that person is uh where they have been in the building um where they have been in um in less than six feet of distance uh for 15 minutes or more that's the criteria for identifying a close contact um if it's necessary we need to look at if the if it's a student if they've been riding the bus versus a parent transportation and once all that data is gathered um it is shared the letters go out we notified direct contacts by what we call a red alert robocall where parents are asked to check their email immediately for an urgent um kobit 19 quarantine message regarding their child and the letters go out through school messenger so that they can be translated into spanish and portuguese we do a follow-up once we do those calls for a direct contact or a close contact we get the principal will get back um a report from school messenger who answered the call if the call was blocked what went to answering machine and then there will be subsequent follow-up phone calls just to make sure and confirmed that every close contact who needs to be in quarantine is notified and then as we ask that people stay in their quarantine and be tested those results are then brought back to the school nurse to confirm that everyone is safe to come back on the date that's identified for them uh again we work in collaboration with kara uh and then there's further community contact tracing on her end thank you so um yeah the other part of three-legged stool we got the contact tracing we've got the um as i said the um the regression of the infection is the vaccine and uh kim uh could you talk to the board about where we are with that i think that's an important tool yep so um as you know because i've been talking with you um over the last multiple of weeks we've been waiting anxiously for the governor and the state department of health to open the eligibility for vaccination to more of our employees so um yesterday it's dog years this week yesterday the governor opened both the category of age 65 and up and also educational sector employees and right now what we're doing is um we have run lists of everyone that basically everyone that receives a paycheck from us and we are sorting them so that the one criteria that we do need to meet is that we need to try to focus on those who are going to be in buildings working with students so um for example those who are working remotely who have no contact with students will not go in at this time so um this is a process of going through our lists reviewing people who are working remotely reviewing all of our categories of employees and making sure that those lists are as accurate as we can get them for now um we are going to upload them on monday with kathy's assistants and cara prenti's assistants and i will say i i've been doing some fashion of this job for many many many more years and i care to admit and without those two at the helm we were going to be sunk um both carapanti and kathy have been magnificent through this um and trying to organize um the lists trying to make sure everyone gets accurately uploaded and then that everyone gets communicated with um so what will happen is once those lists are entered and uploaded on monday folks will get an automated email from the cdc that invites them to register in vams and then kathy is going to be working with me to message to our employees the quickest way really for folks to be vaccinated we're looking at running some clinics in district it's going to be dependent on supply and that's all very much a work in progress right now um and i can tell you that these folks are on the other end of my phone calls very early in the morning and very late at night as we try to work out these details so um i will say i i sent an email to all hands about a day ago just sharing with folks that this was the news and i will tell you i've had dozens and dozens of emails just folks expressing relief expressing excitement expressing optimism some people have sent me pictures of their grandchildren i mean i think people are really excited about this and i think it's it's what's giving all of us a little bit of a spring in our step on getting this across the finish line so i'm hopeful that in the days that come in the weeks that come as we meet again i'll be able to give you some more information about how we've done with this progress but for right now full systems ahead everybody's firing on all cylinders and um hopefully we're going to get there soon garrett brunt did you want anything to that i just want to add that we're still waiting on getting confirmation of when we're gonna get our uh allotment and what what our allocation of vaccine will be so as soon as we get that information we can spread that to you guys and i'm just anxiously awaiting that information from the state can you do what is a target amount of allotment um well i would like to target to try and get all of our staff that you guys have identified for us done within the first two weeks they have said that we want to be completed within the month of march i would like to do it sooner than that so i have put in a request for to cover everyone within the district um that i've been given from uh from kim and kathy uh but i have not received that confirmation yet i should know in the in the next couple days whether we can move ahead with that not and whether i'll receive that allocation so what i want the board to hear is that what you've been able to do and i'm thanking create our own system on our own campuses if we get the vaccines that you're requesting could have all of our faculty and our staff our bus drivers done within the two weeks right at least first dose well thank you very much you guys have just been tremendous so thank you can i ask a couple questions oh sorry kathy oh that's right i was just gonna ask um about the april vacation coming up and people going on vacation uh to another state how is how are we going to handle that when they come back is there is there going to be some kind of protocol for um for them yes there is the quarantine him or kathy who wants to yeah i i can speak to that um so there is a connecticut travel advisory um which basically states for anyone that travels um they are required to have a negative cova test either 72 hours before returning uh to connecticut or they can test at any time after coming back to connecticut however they do need to quarantine until those test results are back and submitted to the school nurse in terms of kind of communication what we continue to push out to all of our employees is that my office and and jen gonzalez in particular is our human resources specialist who has been wholly dedicated to all things covid and to leaves of absence absences sick time covid days so she is really familiar and works hand in hand with kathy on that so for anyone who has questions about it um jen is a really good resource shoot an email but right now you know obviously our concern is that um for those folks who do travel we're going to see ourselves with a number of people who may be required to quarantine and that's going to put a stress on our system for sure yeah so we'll send them out i'm sure we are getting questions about it but um you know i don't intend on canceling april vacation um what we've learned the adults have been responsible hope they would continue to be responsible um rachel you had a question yeah and just not only for staff but for families will there be some um you know awareness made just in the risk of travel but also for staff will there be designated clinics for teachers um and also with the prioritizing within the teacher group um just wondering like the ones who may be working remotely because they have an underlying condition if they are vaccinated then perhaps they could be in a building so i don't know if there's you know any thought around that all that is being worked out procedurally the advice that we've had there'll be um there's there's some technical legal issues but kim is um uh going around but certainly um there's a people be more more apt to come in that are vaccinated but i think we're working through all of those idiosyncrasies some of it are very very difficult personnel issues but we but that's part of the um strategic thinking let me say it that way for kim and i will thankfully leave kim to sort out the ada compliance issues in a past life i worked for somebody who did ada compliance and it's a nightmare um just in case we aren't able to do clinics for staff or do direct set up our own vaccination site will staff be afforded the opportunity to use personal days or sick time or something like that to go get a vaccination if we're not able to set it up ourselves right or are we not sure part it was we're not sure um i know that kathy and i have had conversations about the clinics not interfering with work hours um so we've been working really hard to to think about how we do that in district working around school hours so that we don't impact we're also giving some serious thought to timing in terms of the week because some people do have side effects the next day so we're trying to be sensitive to that um but people will have the option of also going into vans and and signing up with an appointment anywhere else in the state that they want to go and we would ask that you know they do what they can to avoid the work period because we could see some significant stressors that way as well but we've got much further than that yet thank you so so let's um continue this walk down increasing and in person learning so i mean this is what we're facing i think that's uh that's good news for us and the good news um should impact uh our purpose of of having our school system and bringing our youngsters back um from um from all of the vl that we're having or from the hybrid so one of one of one of the things that um we're studying very deeply um is is in terms of our needy group returning returning in and i'm all also looking at the day of the week that we're at this point as a bet as a best practice that we feel because of the way we're handling our um cleaning that we'll be able to take advantage of wednesdays so right now we are looking at um returning youngsters back on a wednesday to begin with and also looking at some other days of lending the day so that we can increase the amount of time our youngsters are at school when they do come in with that said reproductively we are looking at some other um options for improving the number increasing number days now we have been not sitting back but making calls around because we keep hearing of districts that are um uh that are um you know in full um in person in fact two weeks ago um i was listening to the boston superdome schools for the diocesan and we called them right up and we really couldn't get good answers from them because what they say on the air and what's really happening all the time isn't really necessarily what's going on i just want to say that so what i've asked kevin to do for me is that we've been making phone calls uh locally to see what's going on and to see in fact the best practices that that are um are able to allow districts to increase the amount of time now i will say to you that our our our data now is matching the data of these towns that's why i have the interest in the fall it was not we were four and five times the the infection rate but right now we're at the same point or lower then and as um cara pointed out we have an opportunity so kevin maybe you could talk to the board a little bit about what you've been able to you know research out and compared with the kind of uh best practices that we're doing so i could get to the next phase of my conversation can you do that absolutely so so i just want to share with the board in the community what we've learned in some of the feedback and how other districts are getting all of their kids in and there are various models i know we've heard some of them as part of our public uh public statements that were made earlier in terms of what other districts are doing originally as part of our reopening plan we had included an hour plan of six feet social distance and were feasible but at the minimum three to six feet and the three feet comes from the american academy of pediatrics that was the minimum guidelines that they had provided and then of course the cdc was mentioned in six feet were feasible throughout this process i mean so what we have learned from other districts is that they are using that three feet social distances guideline as a minimum and that is allowing them to get up to 18 to 20 plus students in the classroom and so what they have expect have explained um is that they have removed from as much excess furniture from classrooms as possible to try to maximize that space but but but however we are learning from some of our urbans and you know some of our neighbors right around town as we pull them that they are getting you know a high number of students um in their classrooms higher than we have right now in our blue and orange cohort and you know there's an opportunity now given the feedback that we have from our architect who had done some studies for us prior to school year and i think we have some opportunities now to revisit our own classroom layouts and we'll be polling our principals um and revisiting those classrooms to see what the maximum number of students that we can get in all of our classrooms but now with this with this new feedback and what our neighbors are doing and some of our bigger urban districts are doing three feet appears to be the number that they are using um as a guideline so um just for the board and to understand danbury high school is the largest high school in the state so you could talk about norwalk where they have two or three high schools and uh hartford has a sundry of high schools a lot of them have space the challenges that we're having still just the operational of lunches and things of that nature which impacts our schedule so we're studying this very deeply to see how and what options that we have we are again looking at the elementary in terms of increasing time so one of the things right now that we're looking at and i'm going to let kelly speak to our needy students coming back and as we start looking at our wednesday as an option of of um maybe focusing on that first as we study the other days of the week and the number of students as i said to you before we have 228 classrooms that have over the 19 or 20.

any members voting negative any members voting with reservations here are none your recommendations adopted with the five members president going on thank you very much members this concludes the committee on education

we had about 104 classrooms at k5 that are over that 20. so we need to look at this in terms of uh how they can come back safely no matter what's going on around us we have to do what's safe but the criteria and the best practice the mitigation strategies for danbury the masks are important we have in every class on a desk we have those a little individual partition given all of that we have some opportunities so i'll let kelly talk a little bit about what we're doing what our elementary and then finish up with some of our thinking about wednesday go ahead kelly thank you dr sal good evening everyone as you know i've spoken throughout this return process about who we've deemed the high needs special education students and so this is a unique group of students that require more time in person to receive their instruction predominantly this group predominantly not all attend self-contained classrooms and the level of support and instruction that they that they require um is best done in person um and i have to start by saying that the teachers the staff have done an amazing job in a distance learning format um on you know tweaking and changing their methods you know coaching families and caretakers to work with this particular population but i'm excited to be able to share with you this evening that we are looking to return them four days a week um i receive uh questions you know on a daily basis from from this group of parents and i certainly understand their desire to have their children in school more um so i'm glad to announce that we'll be returning them and we're going to stagger the start so next week starting on march 1st we will be bringing in the k5 population of high needs special ed students and then the following monday on march 8th we'll be bringing in this the 612 so the grades six through twelve um special education students um for our preschool population the percentage of children that we have accessing in-person instruction right now is lower and we were afforded the opportunity to be able to bring in all preschool students four days a week um so i am announcing this this evening letters uh staff were made aware earlier today and they knew this was coming so this is not a shock they've been planning for it for weeks just waiting for the definitive start date the staff and i have to thank them publicly are just they they lit up they want these kids in school they want to see them in front of them so that was wonderful to hear um and truly their support along the way um i i couldn't have done it without without the team um so we did meet with the medical advisors cabinet did um we made sure that they felt in looking at all these different classrooms and and the population of students that it was appropriate and safe to do so um and so uh we are very um you know excited to be able to move forward and feel that we are doing um things with safety uh first and foremost in mind um the notification will go out to families tomorrow morning um it's drafted and ready to go just sitting i wanted to be able to share it with you this evening and i again just want to thank you know cabinet kathy o'dowd the medical advisor team the bus company my supervisors the the special ed and related services staff um everyone has really really worked hard to um lift this initiative off the ground and and lastly to the parents and families that have partnered with us they haven't always agreed with the decisions they're anxious to have their children back in school and certainly i understand that and i just think it's wonderful that we've all been able to reach this point and i'm hopeful that this will be a first step in potentially bringing more students in more often um if uh just the last question i know we'll receive dr sal had referenced the wednesdays um you know right now these children will be coming in the four days so that's monday tuesday and again thursday friday um if the district moves to bring in other children on wednesday um these students would then increase to five days so i don't know if there's any questions about it um all right thank you thank you thank you i don't know was there a question i didn't say no all right so um for the board i think you know let me well let me just say the community we did talk to the representative for the teachers union and we did speak to the representative of the administrators christie and um aaron and i want to go on record by saying they're enthusiastic and supporting to bring our kids back our teachers want our kids in front of them they understand the value of that and the administrators want them back as well um that attitude um that's a very positive attitude and that's what working towards so i i'm studying the um the numbers when i say i am in all of us as a team um i'm i'm thinking by next week we can work out some logistics of the wednesday as a first initial step and we're looking at the length of the day has some options as well so we could get something uh to to increase the amount of time students are spending in front of teachers with the goal of using the best practice to open up our um our opportunities even further as we move towards um april particularly now with the alignment of our vaccine so um you know i i did want to uh i promised the board i'd come back at this meeting and update you i'm really really pleased at the way the members are going and the uh positive attitude about getting our kids back so with that madam chairman i am um i'm through the the the uh all the mitigation the clinton we have some news coming to you about the uh the cleaning and stuff but we're not ready to to make those announcements but keeping the facilities clean making sure we have a comprehensive contact tracing making sure that we have the minimum social distancing the masking and the venting those are all things that we have and the money that courtney had has put into play and the city's helped us with some of those maintenance construction things so we're ready uh we're we're poised to bring that kids starting um as we just mentioned thank you dr say anyone having a question for dr sal kelly or kim i do glass yes joe um and i'm not sure i think this might be for kevin um the new cdc guidelines that new four stat the new four status chart that the cdc has come out with um where we seem to be infection rate-wise i think the recommendation was something to the effect of six feet social distancing to the greatest extent possible is that any different than the guidance we had before that seems to be a little different than the old cdc guidance i'm trying to measure that in trying to square that with the three foot six foot dichotomy and how do we make that work at the high school how do i make three feet work at the high school um good question joe kevin i think you know those are the questions that we had thank you it's kara parentheon tara yep okay let's just corroborate uh joe what i've asked that question i tried to read that the narrative and kara knows we talked about it with the medical advices last week and maybe you could share some insights for us yeah the the um recommendation is three feet but if when possible i mean the best practice is six feet it can go to three feet and then it says basically whatever is feasible between three and six feet okay okay thank you i love the idea of trying to get kids in more times and longer days than anything else i just wanted to see how that squared with the new policy thank you well our challenge is uh as you can imagine you're gonna get 8900 kids eating lunch of course right and and and that's what i try to tell people when they come well you know they're doing it here you have the largest high school in the state we got to figure out a way of doing it there safely and then you have two large middle schools um so with that said we're going to look at the best practices that's happening around us and um start with moving moving towards this wednesday with the idea that we can grow even further safely this may be an unanswerable question about the high school but i mean i'm assuming advanced calculus has very few students in it very easy to socially distance that class a class i would never have taken but how many kids are there in the average social studies or history class or science class at the high school or is there not an average well [Music] because we're loading things up there's well i said 228 are over the let's say the 20 20 okay that we have 104 4k uh k5 okay the high school had there's about 50 classes um that challenge and what we're learning joe there's different ways how to do that so let me see here's something i'd like to pose to the board and i this is something i could use some advice on um at the beginning of the year there were um stringent recommendations and you know we had to do this and we answered that one of the things that worry us very deeply are the we have approximately 37 percent 38 youngsters on dl when we put this planning model together that we have to make and those assumptions are based on parent choices um those parent choices produced in in-person students as we move towards a more aggressive in-person model we may have a number of dl folks who want to return and um the original thinking was you know you have to give them a window of about two weeks i've written the state department i finally got an answer back today and the answer was that it's a local decision in terms of how that may roll out when i when i'm talking to some of these districts that um even parents mentioned tonight you know they're telling parents you once you make that decision you can come back if there's space safely or at the end of the quarter we're going to have to look and review that because of the strength issue and a minimum of three feet if all my kids come back and come back it puts us in a danger zone right we can't do that but we're going to have to look at that procedure and to be fair to everyone that when we move down this this this pathway of increasing in person that um you know people are going to be in line that want to get back and would not be able to get back in as quickly as they want and i say that to you because you'll get the calls and you'll get but that's what we're faced with because danbury is oversubscribed with the number of students that was the argument we made in august that has not changed the only difference is was as kathy pointed out in the parent comment tonight you have almost half your kids home well that's only if they stay home okay so that's what that's what we we're we're we're working on thank you and how are things currently dr sal at the high school i mean i've heard some um rumblings through the rumor mill about you know not everyone's um respecting the social distance um but that's only you know through the rumor mill so i'm just wondering if you've heard if you've had any feedback from the high school how how things are going no no i i i will say to you i haven't had any someone asked me to um you remember the thing we worried about rachel with the masks i haven't there's been one or two but that's special cases and kids refusing to wear masks that hasn't so i haven't heard that this is the first i haven't heard anything from the high school kevin or or cara kelly any any any anything we're getting i i didn't hear anything in fact i'm getting at the high school dr sal is that things are going well there you know um admins aren't well on top of things um you know like anything else when the kids return back to the buildings they have to get used to the norms and the protocols um and the new expectations just like anyone else um they're teenagers but um you know they've been uh things have been going relatively well it's been it's been quiet good yeah yes yeah my office is at the high school so um and we've had no problems good um today um aaron daley shared with us a survey she had done of the nea membership that reported back that a lot of people were like a majority of people that were surveyed were satisfied with the masking and the distancing that was happening in general in the schools not particularly to the high school but in general that was some of the feedback that they got well that's good news you know by and large i think once we all got back we're understanding uh the the the challenges and the kids have accepted it very well respectfully and the teachers are feeling comfortable i i will say the board so the the the coming back in is is is something i got to deal with the other thing i think is that we're going to do what you know this uh you know creative innovation this disruptive innovation we may have to have a partial hybrid um and um going on while we have kids come back i don't think we can have a pure system not with the growth that you have in danbury so there'll probably be some mixing and matching a creative solution and i will tell you um we've been thinking about this creativity for a long long time we do have an opportunity to do something about it so by next week we'll be looking at this expansion wednesday but we'll be hopefully maybe at the next board meeting we'd even have better information about increasing the number of days beyond the three and two because right now the only way it would work would be one would come three days a week and then two days a week on and off until we can expand it safely so that's where we're at if anybody has any other questions um you know there's a good time to ask there's a lot here i realize that it just takes a lot of planning okay okay thank you dr sam well thank you everyone certainly appreciate it okay um next on uh our agenda we have an information item it's just for information am i correct dr sale yeah you're right congratulations right okay uh before i go to the board chairperson report do i have any uh committee's report yes i have a policy committee okay go ahead uh we met last week um reviewed and recommended the policies that were put before the board today um i just want to thank the members the four other members that came out willingly i know it's not one of the more exciting committees and also again to thank kevin and kelly for their help last week i would um just want to make sure we're all set to convene our regular monthly meetings um starting with uh march 3rd at 6 00 p.m is that doable mr waltzen it works for me absolutely um and then yeah that was it for me okay thank you are there any other committee's report uh okay yep thank you gladys um just want to report back from the community relations we've met twice and i think we're making some good forward progress here our goal is around helping educate the community about the budget that was approved and thank you very much to uh to mr wallston uh to courtney and to dr mead for participating in those meetings and helping us move that messaging forward so we look forward to reconvening um next thursday and uh we'll just uh we'll be hopefully meeting with members of the community to give them some info accessible information about the budget thank you kate thank you could be part of it kate that cause letter thank you thanks dr cell just a discussion we had talked about looking returning to in-person broadband meetings at beaver brook and i you know had a discussion with dr sale uh as we had talked earlier about why at that particular time that we could not go back at to be rebrook and have open board meetings and and some of those uh issues are still there at beaver brook and with consultation with dr sale uh we sort of looked at uh probably having our first in-person board meeting uh the very first board meeting in april again i was kids back into school everything is moving alongside the way that you know that no one is uh getting infected or whatever we have to stop the process again so we're looking at going back to in person in april along with consultation from the health department and everything else that entails in making this decision so i hope that the board members are sort of comfortable with that and uh move toward doing that and making sure those things that need to be completed will be completed and if not then we'll look at another alternative date but right now uh the first board meeting in april any questions in the discussion madam chair april 7th excuse me uh i think it's april the 10th mr uh i'm sorry l okay i am showing on looking at the agenda april 7th the first wendy board of education regular meeting because april the following week would be april vacation week okay gotcha okay okay will this be at beaver brook or is it no good point it might not be okay because that's a small space for yeah plus right now that's what i had said joe that once we work out all the details start information back and it might not be feasible for us to do it okay and we had to work maybe have to wait and look at another time but you know we we talked about going back in april okay first board meeting april maybe the gym at danbury high school yeah i said that before al i think that's a great idea or how about the parking lot maybe the traffic yeah there you go okay and uh my last thing i i attended a workshop uh on february 18th that cave was putting out uh the diversity equity and inclusion i i think uh it was a very interesting workshop i think at some point uh you know i'll have more a discussion about that i know we have a uh open agenda tonight and uh i don't want to keep people up too late but you know the workshops come on uh lying and they send them to you and if you were interested in taking them uh take advantage of them because we all can learn from listening to other people and how other districts are doing at these uh k workshop um that's sort of all that i have and if i forget anything which i'm quite sure i did uh we'll have a brief discussion about it at another time if there is nothing else on the agenda i need a motion maybe let's make a comment to mrs president i i'd like to thank her for her efforts for the vaccination program i first-handedly experienced the fine job that herder staff are doing thank you thank you al and just uh briefly i had i had to go over to rogers park and i was intended to tell dr uh zelita uh last week to uh get my shot and uh it was arranged through uh my church at new hope baptist church and everyone that came into rogers park were just making comments as how clean the building was so kim could you take that back make sure our custodians and everyone was just saying how you know there's no paper on the floor look at you know and the people was coming in and out so that goes to show you that our custodian and his staff and everybody was really doing uh their job to make sure that our buildings are well represented thank you thank you for saying that i'm sure they'll appreciate it uh if there's no other questions or discussion uh we will entertain a motion uh do we need to take a break no there is a separate link for the executive session okay thank you carol so we will go out and go right into i need a motion to enter in so i'll make a motion that the board of education convenes an executive session second by russo madam share can i ask you a question are we intending do we need to come out of executive session back to the public session to vote on anything no okay so this way we'll be adjourning directly from executive session not coming back here okay thank you made by kate second about you motion soul care

e e e to order at 703 and I'm going to read a um my introductory statement here um welcome to the February 25th 2021 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is an accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the co9 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 9723 or 888 78899 and enter meeting ID enter meeting ID 7973 um you will be uh to public comment will be via telephone only so this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at www.gov.org slatch CN so um so let's see gayen do you want to read the land Heritage statement alrighty land Heritage statement I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies is the ancestrial traditional and contemporary lands of the anishi Nai including the odwa ajib and bodwad me and W do peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals that's the land Heritage statement thank you do you want to do the roll call next just one second alrighty roll call okay uh commissioner Graham commissioner Graham commissioner Skinner commissioner Needum commissioner Needum thought he was here uh council member dish pres commissioner uh Apple commissioner Apple commissioner Gib Randall here council member geswall here commissioner kwart here chairman Brown present commissioner over here commissioner Mery here Vice chair Mitchell here commissioner bnda here commissioner Ferris here I'm sorry everyone I'm having Wi-Fi issues and I won't be able to have my camera on okay that's roll call thank you U thank you gayen it seems like we have a quorum yes we do have a quorum yep so um let's proceed to the approval of the agenda do I have a motion to approve the agenda as written so moved um I hear a second read a Mitchell seconds um um okay all who uh all who agree um raise your hands or say I raise your hands um all opposed raise your hands and for say nay hearing nothing I uh declare it um the agenda is approved unanimously uh we'll proceed to the first uh C of public commentary um this is a bit out of okay there are no special presentations and U so we'll proceed to public commentary public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 1888 78899 tollfree or 5247 tollfree and enter webinar ID 7973 this information is this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak once speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name an address at the beginning of your comments and please be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established let's see kayen do you see anybody yet in the que uh there's one caller but their hand isn't up okay so let's wait a few more seconds okay and um that caller is Dan Vic now so he may want to speak later oh okay that's true there are no other callers okay so this ends the public comment period um let's proceed to the approval of the minutes of our last meeting which was on January 28th I think um so um let's see is there U is there a motion to approve the minutes I moved John mki um is there a second I'm not hearing a second I'll second we'll have a discussion though uh are there any proposed corrections I don't hear any proposed corrections to the draft minutes so um all who approve of the minutes is drafted raise your hand or say I I I I all who disapprove say no or raise your or raise your hand I'm hearing and seeing nothing so the approve the minutes are approved as drafted um so let's move to the next um item on the agenda here unfinished business uh the first item is update from the chair on article 3 chapter 40 review process um I have contacted the chairs of the uh Transportation Commission and the disability commission about this Kathy and I have not yet heard back from them about an appointment uh remember that the uh this is about um modif about amending article 3 chapter 40 of the city code to provide for uh more Landscaping provide residents more Landscaping options um especially for the extension you know between the um sidewalk and the street so it was decided back in December so that we would have an ad hoc committee there would be one member appointed from um Transportation Commission one member from the disability commission one member from the environmental commission and Kathy Griswald would be uh city council member who is um who is also attending so the idea was to draft uh redraft this part of the city code you know to address the concern both the environmental concerns the disability concerns and the transportation concerns so I would hope to get a report back from them within three months or so um are there any questions about this um Kathy um I I think it's also important that we um ensure that whatever is drafted is consistent with a20 and the new new uh Vision zero Transportation plan so that's one of my interests yep okay I'll make sure that um we have that discussion uh during this process okay any other um any other questions about this okay I I hear nor seeing anything so um let's proceed to the next item on the um uh what does council want or need is an annual report from the commission um this is not an urgent matter I mean I think it's just something that's worth considering because remember it's part of our bylaws that we're supposed to submit an annual report on the state of the environment so and this was originally established as a you know bylaws in 2010 10 years ago 11 years ago so I'm hoping that we can get an update from Council about what details they would find useful in a report such as this um you know with all the um you know with the mind of what what kind of information Council would find most useful as well as not having to duplicate activities of other you know City entities or require much work from the staff so excessive work from the staff so um that's my hope here so I'm hoping that the council that you know Kathy and Lisa will have a conversation at the pro you know over the next few months with Council about this um I'm not sure what else to do um and then maybe they can report back with some recommendations yes Kathy yeah um some work has been done and I I think that council member just has also been involved in some activities um there are so many other organizations that are doing this work that it's taking some time just to to be able to identify all those organizations the office of sustainability which didn't exist 10 years ago uh the Brian steglitz from the uh water treatment facility is putting out a monthly newsletter um Gman is you know the Gman cleanup is is getting more priority than than it probably was 10 years ago so uh I guess some progress is being made and I I want to make sure we're not duplicating other reports but maybe just referencing them no that sounds great uh Lisa yeah um that's I want to Second what Kathy just said um I think my concern here is that to do a state of the environment in an arbor is a really complex undertaking and in order to do it right um I think there's no way we can do it without staff and so and it's not clear to me why the environmental commission's reporting duties should be more than what other commissions are more than report more than reporting on its own activities and and so while I I I will I hear the directive to ask other council members what they would like from this report and what detail they would like and I hope I can just do that by sending an email because we're never even in the same room so it's impossible you know um so um Kathy's nodding so I can do that and just tell people not to reply to all um the other concern I would have is whatever they want I would want to know is this just supposed to be a council facing doc or is it a public facing document and is there going to be a commitment of Staff time to produce it um so because I think that it doesn't make sense for the Commissioners on this committee to take their time from what are some really active I mean we've got a lot of really active working groups that are doing work um and so I just I'm I'm just feeling as though this isn't um that unless it's such a priority to council that they want to ask staff to put time into it I worry about the the the requirement as it's um as it's conceived yeah that's a concern I think um many of us share so um so let's see John mky has his hand up Steve yes John thanks yeah I I'd like to Echo um both council members comments and I think I I I'll put into maybe slightly different words uh council member Dish's comments um that we consider what the return is going to be on the time invested um you know a lot of time can go into this we already make um proposals for the the city's policy agenda um and the question is if we spend a lot of time in this what's the level of redundancy how is this going to be read I I've seen the amount of material that council members get just preparing for normal meetings um outside of you know in addition to everything for all the commissions and boards and everything that they serve on and so I'm just I think we should be cognizant of that in in framing what we um what we finally do so thanks very much yeah all right thank you John anybody else um want to comment um Kathy um what might be helpful is more of an exec itive summary and a list of what's available out there right now from other sources because that I think would be helpful to councel because there's so much information available and then we could fill in as needed working with staff but that that would be a a very small minority of of what's needed I think okay um Rita you had your hand up yeah I mean my thought is just that it kind of leads into one of our other discussion items for tonight um which is just kind of our task list and it seems like if we are working Along on a task list that is considered of priority that that's probably a good status for us you know um and ideally we will have collectively identified the important things that we should be working on exactly yes so um any other observations comments okay um so this would end the discussion for that item I uh yeah this is worth thinking about a little more but I appreciate these comments I'll write them up and we'll um circulate some emails and see what happens um next month if there's anything extra um and then maybe we'll make a decision we'll come to a decision next month about this item in our bylaws which might involve correction of the bylaws okay so let's move on to new business um the first one first item on the new business agenda is a review of the commission task worksheet this is something that I can share with my screen I sent it out earlier and I think let's see let me try to get it up here okay is that visible yes yes so I see this is just a a a tool for tracking our our tangible actions and our projects so this could form like a basis for our report to councel um so I I started off with action item one this is something that I'm the owner and the lead person in the commission on this um effort to draft a construction and demolition recycling ordinance so um I can um I can fill it I can uh fill it in with more information later I have a Google doc I'm using to summarize information um that's you know a live document that um people could click on if they want um my big question is how can we properly share this document so it can be updated as a living document I'm not sure John I think you had something similar to this in the energy commission so um yeah how how are you able to share this document or manage it so the energy Commission has a um shared Google Drive um and I think the intention is still that that'll eventually be migrated to a Microsoft platform but that hasn't happened yet and we have a lot of different materials on that drive including orientation materials um and then um a folders for different working groups and subgroups even um and on that drive is um our action item tracker um admittedly we spent a lot of time on it um after we Zoom resumed meeting um late in the summer and fall via Zoom um and um in the meantime um we've shifted um our Focus to five projects that have been agreed upon with OSI so we need to update that but to your your basic question um it's just in the Google Doc um everybody can access it they can put their you know add information in um or um make make a comment just like any other Google Docs so it's um shared with everybody on the energy commission as well as um with um staff leison okay so um I have I have this document in um in my Google it's a Google doc that's in my drive so um I will do uh I will do this similarly and we'll see when it can be integrated into the Microsoft product which is called um what's it called Rita it's Escape my mind right now we gayin I don't know yeah sorry okay well we'll figure that out eventually I think it's called teams te E A Ms okay yes Microsoft teams oh okay all right if I can I make a comment about the natural features we aren't writing a new ordinance we are doing tree protection improvements to chapter 57 the UDC which will amount to very extensive amendments actually how's that good okay and Steve I have a a question on use of this it would be good for us to agree how we will use it in the shared Drive is this intended to show um routine updates or is it just kind of a tracking document as kind of like a peg that this is a target that we're going for right I think a best practice is that I will I will allow I will allow viewing PIV privileges to everybody on the commission I will only restrict editing privileges to the owner or the lead okay I think that would be probably the most prudent thing to do um um Lisa you have your hand up yeah just a quick uh question I'm not sure John do you John msky do you still want to be the owner and lead on this I was I wrote down that I was going to talk to you after the meeting um I'd prefer not to be although I'd be happy to be your sparring partner I sort of stepped back um as you know from the waste group um but if you want to collaborate um I'm I'm happy to do that but in terms of actually being a lead or owner I think that's probably a misnomer okay that's fine and if anyone else wanted to co-lead with me that would be fine but I'm also perfectly happy to go as we are um that group is clicking along we have a mission statement we have an action menu we have a meeting tomorrow so and I will send out an agenda after this meeting tonight great great okay um thanks Lisa um I can't see everybody's hand so I'm going to um ask Rita I I see no additional hands right now okay they call the teams the team's uh sharing site SharePoint SharePoint yeah that's it okay so I'll keep track of that and see see where that's going uh in the meantime um well if everybody's agreed we'll just set up set it up this way um is there anybody who wants to submited another another action item number for this document at this time uh maybe we can talk about um the resolution that um we're going to talk about later under new action it or new new agenda items I don't know that it's going to be necessary because I think it's just going to probably come up in the next meeting for a vote but we can talk about whether that's appropriate to add um actually if I recall correctly what we we used an action item tracker like this um in um energy commission meetings for more than a year and um what we did is we reviewed it at the end of the meeting for additions and changes um and I think that's would be a good practice in this case too that way we can uh for example take what we discussed in the meeting and say what if anything needs to be added to or modified in the tracker okay I've been thinking about um putting in action points separately but um I guess we'll just put in the action points pertinent to these goals in this document that seems like a good practice John mki has his hand up yeah Rita you're gonna have to do yep got him John oh I I was gonna say Kathy could go first I saw hand since I I've got the mic on um okay one one thing that I would um recommend that we talk about doing is um and this is from my background in business and it may not apply in this case um since it's a little bit different kind of setting um but in in business um we set targets and we tracked our actions rigorously against those targets and in the case of business in many cases you're um talking about things that have an impact to the bottom line um and in our case you know we're talking about some things that have an impact to human health and to The Climate emergency and things like that and um one of the things that we really religious did is we we focus everything on meeting the due dates that we set and um if if we were missing due dates then we really pushed each other to be able to make up time and I think um in some cases that may not apply but in other cases that for example have an impact on um the a20 plan in a 2030 Target um and we've all declared U including Council that this is an emergency we really should not be missing deadlines so I think that's something that for further discussion as we go forward on how on how we use this because just having a piece of paper that tracks projects and if we keep on moving dates and things like that it it really serves very little purpose in my view Kathy would you like to speak uh yes I'm wondering if it's appropriate to have a water quality um item here um we want to track progress but I think what's most important is that we um are able to identify all the work that's being done because this uh especially with the 14 dioxan we've got Community Partners with the washoff county S Township and Arbor Township uh there are so many players in significant misinformation and so uh in addition to having some targets I think just having a place where uh we're verified information is shared would be good and we're really at a disadvantage because of uh the open meetings act and we can't necessarily have lengthy discussions at Council but we could at least update and share that information without any violations of the open meetings act through this process so I don't know what other people think but and and maybe updates on p as well um uh so I'm gonna call it myself um that kind of leads into something that that is my question is like what qualifies something to be on this list um and again how how are we going what are we going to put in as the comments you know is it going to um is each line gonna are we only going to have like three or four lines and just update or are we going to show a trend of of the actions that kind of thing um I just it's just a a question of the function in use that I'd like to understand okay any I don't see any other hands Steve's hand is up Steve okay good hi Steve what would help possibly since we're screen sharing if people would use their rais hand and if uh Rita if you're chairing or Stephen is chairing if you click on participants you will see a list of participants and you yeah thank you I do see them yeah but I'm learning to pay attention so do I have the floor Rita yes you do yeah yeah see that's the thing is I can't see the um yeah I'm sorry when I'm sharing the screen that's one of my one of the problems with this so um no I agree I mean I think for me see this is a tool to track you know from I have a SIM I have a business background too and for me this is uh solely a means to track tangible projects with smart goals smart goals for this group um and so if we have a smart goal that's related to water quality we should put it in here but otherwise um I uh in my in my Google Drive I do have a a tree structure that's built around the working groups and it has information in there as well and um I can make that um I can also make I can make that whole file system um you know viewable and um editable by Commissioners to me that seems like a decent idea that everybody can um can edit the documents that currently exist there or put them in there if they think they're really relevant to the topic um now I remember back in December you know Bob Needum who's not here tonight um expressed an interest in in continuing with a water quality workg group but we still don't have like a firm commitment from some other Commissioners I volunteered to help Bob especially around posos and some other toxic contaminants um but um so that's kind of where that stands um um any um any any comments about that uh Kathy has her hand up I would volunteer to work on that project as well okay great I guess I'm gonna put my hand up um just briefly that so I assume then that this would be placed on the SharePoint drive as opposed to your Google Drive then right Steve just because it's well no my understanding is that we'll just put everything on the Google drive until we can um until we can like upload it to this okay shared argument thank you is that acceptable to everybody yes yes I don't I see no hands up on that okay great so um does anybody wish to make another comment on this um on this tracking sheet and our broader Information Management okay I don't see anything Rita do you want no no hands up okay do you want to give me back the floor uh that would be gayen right I will I'll just stop the share yeah okay this isn't too cont veral so so we'll follow Robert's Rules of Order if there's a a hiccup here so anyhow um so let's move on to the next new business item which was a resolution submitted by commissioner Mercy requesting staff analysis of bi-weekly residential trash collection and this will be a first reading so again I'm going to share my uh my screen I have this document up right I'm watching can you see it I yes yeah and um I guess John would you like to intro yeah I'll introduce the topic and then maybe we can have a resolution I mean a a motion to consider it and if we get a second then we can um discuss it um so first of all I think it's important to give some uh background um this idea has been thrown around for a long time and has specifically come up in um um meetings and side meetings as a part of um the development of the solid W waste Resource Management plan and among the advisory committee that was formed um it's been discussed also in the Wasa zero waste Coalition group as well as in um this meeting in the past environmental commission meetings in the past um we talked about it in our last meeting and uh I agreed to to draft um a resolution and that's what we see in front of us um the motivation I'd like to explain um I want this to be in the public record um at least from my perspective um and I hope um everybody else um feels this way um is that the purpose really behind this is to advance a environmental and social good um we're not coming to from the perspective of a service cut and trying to reduce costs or for any other purposes it's really um looking at this from an environmental perspective and then lastly um before we get into this um I'd like to thank um those of you who um were able to look at this ahead of time I admittedly send it out very late um but um I did get comments um from um um Gabby as well as from eileene Naples um Mike Garfield and Jan Wright um who um very active in solid waste issues um and based on that I made some revisions um that you see here in blue and red um the blue ones are from ien and the red ones are some things that I added um today um based on others uh input as well as um recognizing a few points um in the process that I didn't consider in the first draft so um that's where we are and um if Steve or um Rita if we can get uh a motion then we can jump into this and maybe go through it as a first reading um my my hope would be that um we um agree generally on the content and then we leave it open for additional comments um and then hopefully might be able to take a vote uh in our next meeting so thanks for the allowing me to introduce the topic thank you uh so would anyone like to make a motion on consideration of this draft looks like is Lisa is that your hand up for that purpose okay we have one and a second from John Cowart thank you uh moved un seconded shall we discuss I see Lisa's hand yeah I would just like to request that maybe someone read through or slowly scroll through the edited document because what we received in our packet is not an edited document so we actually you know I'd like us to be working off the off the same version right okay uh I don't see Steve um which has some comments in the side I don't know if I'm able to do that um but I have the document that I sent out um late this afternoon early this evening um or Steve um uh Steve was sharing that he was here but I don't see him right now it would be best I think if John shared it then he can work from this document that is edited and we can add to that did you me to share it yes we email it out to everybody I can re could you could you give John uh mki screen sharing capability gayen a sure K thank you uhuh so I'll give it a whirl see oops right now it's not enabled looks like I'll try again here we are so um let's see how do I do this um let's see basic let me try Rita based on my experience you have to be a co-host in order to activate screen sharing oh no okay so um let's see he he is a co-host I think yes he is a coost Steve just sent me a text so you've got to select it now or not open it no we've got something else on our that you're sharing so you go to your screen and you click on the document that you want to share so right now we're getting a world economic Forum yep that's on my um this is a Word document that I have so it's not in my browser um see what am I doing wrong can you scroll through your open apps you would just need to open the document and click open it onto your desktop John and then click on it to share I see let me see sorry about that folks let me stop this first let me try again so open it let me see thats how's that there yay just make it bigger yeah let's see view lower right yeah that's true I go lower right you're right and if if uh people who want to make comments if you would raise your electronic hand that would be very helpful so um is that big enough now that's great okay thanks for bearing with me um so um um the the title is that uh it's um a request that City staff do an analysis um of um every other week um single family residential tras collection um it's my understanding that this is the right designation this is something that Gabby pointed out and as I put here in a comment on the side first of all um the city refers to this as trash I looked on the city's website so I changed the title to trash I think everywhere else in the document I'm using the word trash and um my understanding is that um what we're looking at our um routes collection routes um in what are typically considered single family residential neighborhoods um those include uh some units um where there are more than one family unit living in there um but they're still using the standard uh trash compost and recycling carts so um I will check back with Eileen I sent Eileen and Mike um an email about two hours ago and asked them if this is the right term but for our discussion purposes um that's what I've used throughout the document um do I need to read through this whole thing or can I just scroll through it and go Point by Point generalizing each point um I I think you could generalize yeah I don't I don't I don't think I need I think maybe the next time we might have to read it into the record but I think for right now this is just you can just scroll slowly through so we can see all the changes that would be great and then we can disc come back and discuss the points so um generally speaking um this is a framing and what I wanted to try to do with a framing show a progression from where the city just collected trash um to a number of actions that it has taken um not only the city but also the state um that have um increased the opportunity to divert uh resources what we call now resources um away from landfill um so that they can be productively used so um we've been collecting um trash on a weekly basis um for decades I don't know the the exact date and frankly I don't know that it's all that important um so the bottle law was enacted in 76 and we know that that diverts um a lot of different um types of bottle and um beverage containers um the city implemented here um in 1991 or expanded um a service that had been provided since 1978 that's per Mike Garfield um we curbside recycling um the next thing that it did um and this is a date that e gave me um is the city added um single family residence curbside composting and an Organics collection um the 1998 is for compost in general um and um as was pointed out to me Organics um in particularly um food waste was added a later date um I didn't break that out I didn't think it was really necessary then in this uh whereas Clause um there's a number of other different ways of diverting resources from landfill um and I attempted to list some of them but as I State here if you can see my cursor not necessarily all of them um obviously there's specialty items that can be recycled at the drop off station um hazardous waste can go through the county program um there's the ability to divert construction and demolition materials on a voluntary basis at the recovery yard that Raa runs um appliances can also um be um diverted from landfill um through also the drop off station and also retailers have programs um Furniture can be diverted um clothing textiles um can be diverted maybe there should be an and in here um and then um of course all of these um are provide residents the possibility of reducing um their waste to landfill or their their trash to landfill um I also wanted to point out in this paragraph that the Ecology Center with the support of the city um has been educating our U um children in K through 8 about um recycling composting and zero waste and that has certainly contributed to a better appreciation of waste as a resource um in not in light of but I guess as a result of is a better word um all of the above efforts uh the city has gradually over time increased its diversion rate um for the residential sector um up to 52% that was in the report for the end of last year um then uh the other thing that I wanted to point out is obviously we're not just filling up landfill um but we also um with any organic waste that decomposes that creates um methane gas um and that contributes to climate change and then of course we have the a20 plan which sets a Target and include strategies for reducing what we send to landfill um so um I also wanted to point out that earlier this year the um Solid Waste Resource Management plan was approved by Council um and the other thing that I wanted to point out is that while 52% is uh a great uh figure um there are other entities um um cities in the US as well as entire countries in Europe where the um diversion rate um approaches 75% I think in Belgium I read that the um overall diversion rate is 75% so um we can still get better than where we are um as you can see here I'm willing to add a whereas statement um that indicates what the trend is on pounds to landfill per person um Eileen um you can see here over on the right hand side um is ask Jenny pataski if we can get some information on that um and then the last where as Clause um is modified in blue with a little a few changes um from me in red um that uh I guess um reinforces the point that I made earlier that what we're trying to do is um take resources that are going to landfill and diver those um so that like I said we are doing basically a um social and environmental good and that we're basically asking the city to look into means to accomplish this goal of um even greater diversion than what we have right now and so that all leads then to three resolve Clauses that we are requesting city council to direct staff to conduct an analysis of every other week's single family residential trash collection um that the assessment should include but not necessarily be limited to um these nine items where the last is um potentially um identifying um staff's understanding of what might be good single um offsetting um solid was service expansions and what those pros and cons might be and those could be then defined um according to points 1 through eight and any other ones that might be relevant and then finally um I have um indicated that um we would recommend a timetable and you seei question mark here um low later than the end of this year um for completing this where this would be something that would be then finalized with input from City leadership and staff and then obviously together with Council um but what I wanted to do is not just throw a date out there but give some rationale for the date and in in the setting of the date and um those are two points here we don't want to um because of this study delay important elements of the implementation of the solid resource um Resource Management plan but at the same time we also do not want to push this out so far that if other things happen um that it potentially would delay or um make the change to the frequency of pickup more difficult or more expensive so I would like to open the floor or Rea maybe you can open the floor to comments uh from other Commissioners sure sure um and just an update Steve is still trying to join us um and uh the floor is open for comments and I'm watching for electronic hands and I see um Jonathan overc I just want to say this looks looks really smart and uh it's nice to be in a community where we're not just looking for good enough but we're trying to lead set an example for other communities so I just want to give it my wholehearted support thank you great uh Chris Graham John yeah it looks good very comprehensively done resolution I like it uh how about Kathy Griswald um yeah I think this is excellent we've talked about it many times in the past um I have one question in a couple of comments do we have data right now on how full the carts are when they're being picked up like do they tend to be half full or is is there any data on that I am not aware of any um that's something that um I will write down and maybe it can be captured in the minutes um that we try to determine that um right one one take minute I would at least comment on from my own personal um perspective and that is particularly in the winter time when nothing is getting um smelly uh I I won't take out my waste cart for I don't know a month or more um granted it's just my wife and and me but we have a compost pile and um I take advantage of all the other diversion U methods and so we're sometimes only adding a little um plastic shopping bag equivalent of trash per week to our cart um and so um if you were to say how how full is a cart well my cart is somewhat full when I put it out but you know there's a lot of times I don't put it out um so it I think it's going to be really difficult to ascertain but I think it's a great question um particularly for those uh residences that put out a cart every week and and and not only that how does That Vary because in some weeks I'm sure it's going to be very little and then you might get a delivery of something that is very bulky and somebody just doesn't want to take it to one of the diversion points and they put it all in their cart and that week their cart is just overflowing or they move or something like that but I I I would I would definitely ask the question oh okay thanks yeah that's a good point in terms of asking also how frequently do you put your card out um I just want to make sure that anything we do does not negatively impact lowincome residents who are more likely to be sharing uh residents and having a larger number of people in the household um and that's just based on my own experience uh I'm mentoring people so I I don't have any statistics on that uh and the last thing is we really need a robust education program and we need to make sure that people are not confused if we're only doing it every other week there's got to be a very easy way to for people to check to find out if it's their week or not y and thanks those are those are great comments and I just like to highlight um these upfront education and messaging and there may be cases where um we have to offer for particular for certain households um potentially a different or larger cart I don't know to what degree that's possible um given the uh the trucks that we're using um but these are things that hopefully would be coming back as a part of the analysis oh okay okay great and if if not a larger cart then maybe an extra cart at no additional charge based on the number of people in the in the residence exactly size or number great Point um anything else Kathy because I'm gonna I'm gonna start calling on hand no no thanks I'm all set okay thanks um how about Shannon GB Randle um this looks great uh it's it's really nice to see this all put together and it seems very thorough to me the one question I'm just wondering about is um are you envisioning in this I I know this is only talking about trash but are you envisioning that recycling still continues every week and it's only the trash that you're looking at or is it every like just any of your pickup as every other week um at least the intention right now is unless uh you advise um me otherwise or we get feedback then as a part of the analysis that we should look at uh other collections differently that the focus of this right now is to Simply reduce the frequency of trash collection okay okay anything else Shannon nope that was it thanks all right uh Lisa dish yeah I want to Second everyone that this is a very uh really well-crafted and thoughtful resolution that has a lot of good information um I wanted to say that I think it's probably worth adding a point to the resolve Clause with all the numbers in it um that we want to have analyzed the potential disperate impact on Lower inome households not quite sure how to put that but um or just to analyze the possibility of disperate impacts on households differently located on the wealth spectrum that sounds really bureaucratic but anyway um uh I think the the point that Cath that council member Griswald made I think it warrants a specific uh mention in that paragraph where you're saying the analysis should take uh into account all of these things could you scroll up to the top because I thought I saw something and now I cannot remember it was on the way here um I like your point and I noted it and I agree completely y um so for some reason whatever leftt out isn't leaping out again um I just wanted to make sure that um you have that this resolution gets passed by all of the relevant people on staff who should have a look before it comes to council because this is actually a very uh labor intensive thing that's being asked for and arguably it would have been a component of the of the solid waste Resource Management plan and I know that there will be great reluctance to fund something that looks like it's it's somehow replanning that document or redoing that document um both because we haven't had a chance to implement it yet and also because of the financial situation that the city is in so I think it if you have not spoken with Tom Crawford it would be worth doing that and I noticed that you you said that your blue edits were from eileene Naples um I've also sent this to her boss to Molly yeah it hasn't gone to Craig okay but Molly has seen it and um I she was copied on um several of the emails she has yet to weigh in um I wouldn't presume necessarily that it has to go to Craig but I'm I'm happy to to raise it to Tom and at least make him aware of it and that way we sort of um go from the top down and the bottom up yeah I mean I would say not just making Tom aware of it but uh asking him how feasible he thinks this is or how it could be made more feasible and I'd say it would be a good idea to reach out to Molly and talk to her um and just not just present her with a document and ask her to look at it but actually talk to her about whether this is something that can be done because I think you're right it's going to require funding an outside consultant yeah and uh I just I don't I I think that of all the parts of the city it's possible that Solid Waste has enough money in its budget to do that but it's a question whether they would think this is a priority since they just got their swarm approved um and then finally the point that Cath that council member grisal raised about how full People's carts are I would imagine that that is part of what this study would turn up I don't really think that the city routinely gathers data on that and so part of what it would be the job of a consultant or or whatever happens to to consider this plan would be that we would try to start tracking that and how many people trash is overflowing it you know is it certain times of a year is it certain households routinely you know that would be the sort of um that might be the kind of detail that they would go into I would I don't think that we're going to find data on that um right now great points I I agree with allthough and and I didn't specifically call that out but I pointed out earlier you know that type of analysis would would sort of be required in order to make a deduction as to what kind of cart adjustments might be needed in terms of either size or number so I've noted those down thank you um John Cowart thanks um so picking up on a couple of things so I'm just scanning through the the solid waste uh plan and it does mention this issue of weekly and bi-weekly so I don't know if you've kind of looked through that already John in terms of aligning it with that plan or saying know to least this point this isn't something new this is maybe building off of the plan um and it actually referenced one point that was first brought up in the 2012 climate action plan so this is something that maybe has been discussed for more than 10 years already of of looking at this possible topic um kind of picking up on other threads in the conversation from Shannon that same issue came up for me that was wondering are we looking at all three um I appreciate the level of effort this is going to take but I think that's going to be an immediate question that folks are going to ask and if we're not going to cover it maybe we should explicitly say that in here that this is is not going to be a part of it but myself I find it hard to think about reimagining that without also thinking about realignment of the other services too um and then the last thing is on the second to last resolve uh number six just a idea of maybe it's also Workforce impacts but also thinking about Alternatives that this might create for the workforce in terms of opportunities to put attention to other areas uh that could benefit the City yeah that's that's um supposed to be addressed in number nine um but maybe um this Solid Waste reference specifically could be parenthetic in the sense that um it wouldn't necessarily have to be in the solid waste area those people could potentially be reassigned to do something else that's value add for the city and for residents yep great thanks good point but I will just to highlight the appreciation for the work just you know when I first saw the email what the topic was it's like he going to think about this that that that and boom it was all there so thank you um Jonathan overp sorry my hands still up mistake all right okay uh so we got John cart okay um and I guess I'll just make some a comment um that I I agree this is a great idea to um see about diverting and or I'm sorry reducing the the frequency of of a pickup and I guess um what what triggers in my mind is kind of like a a garbology assessment you know it's like what actually is in the trash is it the correct stuff and that kind of leads points back to um uh council member or council member grisell's point about um education um it's like are are there the right things in there um and are there some things that could currently if we did our current assessment or if it is already done um is it the right stuff that's going to actual trash that's really my point I I'll that's that's a good point I'll I'll work that in um yeah I'll see if I can work that in so that it's more explicit and and I'm going back to um John's comment um I may add a resolved I mean excuse me a um whereas Clause that references where this has been proposed in the past such as in the 2012 cap as well as um any specific reference to it in the shrimp so that um it those those um reference points are not lost okay all right um and um I I want to just report that our chair is having trouble getting back into the meeting um and I'm not sure if if it's going to work um I did suggest to him that he tried phoning in and um I only see one attendee and I assume that that is Dan bnell as previously um indicated so are are there any other comments that we want to make oh Lisa I see your hand sorry I just thought of one other thing which was are is is is what we're asking for here an analysis of the impacts or is it both the feasibility and impact s of every other week I don't know I'm [Music] asking um I would say both is what we want okay then I would add feasibility I will add that appreciate that in put good good point any other comments so I have some homework thanks for the homework um I don't think any of this is um particularly onerous um and I will follow council member um just's recommendations to um specifically talk to Molly as well as address this to Tom Crawford um about um the feasibility of this being done um both staff resource wise as well as budget wise um and just to elaborate on the latter Point we've talked about it before um there is about roughly by memory N9 a half million dollars in um The Reserve fund um I think we talked about it um a couple meetings ago that actually last year uh Revenue exceeded expenses so we're not in a particularly a precarious position so that might be one more argument that we could use funds from from that current budget and we wouldn't have to dig in somewhere else um in the general fund to be able to to uh be able to finance something like this so I I'm I'm hopeful that this is something that can be done um within the time frame that we've n named identified here by the end of the year um and not have a negative impact on other parts of the city's budget okay um gayen would you see about um the second person who's online on the phone I think that might be Steve okay with a hand raised uh no that's Cil member dish oh oh oh I'm so sorry I was looking at the wrong thing darn I was hoping Steve was going to jump in so sorry I keep having things occur to me but as you said that um John sometimes these resolutions do have a statement about where the money is going to come from or if it's going to be Revenue neutral or whatever and that's something that um Tom Crawford would be able to help with in consultation with Mr hoopie I mean he would probably do that figuring out and that might be something to in uh to to see if there's anything you can work into the resolution about the funding great yeah um I think we're getting at the point where um we can buy cut off discussion that does not mean that um any or all of you couldn't contact me after the meeting um and I will um try to uh not try to I will distribute um an ated version of this as soon as possible I would say um within two weeks or so so it um still has plenty of time for additional input and revisions um and then we'll have one last bracket this a month from now roughly great thanks John very nice thank you thanks great input for everybody um okay and now um gayen I do see a second person in the attende list I don't know if you can um whoever is listening in um if you are Steve Brown can you raise your hand uhhuh chairman BR you can go ahead and speak hello I asked him to unmute himself okay thank you have to do it's like star six or something like that to unmute there star six star N I always get them confused which is which yeah can you hear me yes yep great can you hear me yeah I'm back on the phone good we can hear you oh good I have no visuals so I have no visuals okay um would you like to continue just running the meeting and I'll call call on the hands that may be raised Steve how would you like to proceed well I think it's more convenient if you probably do it um what I can do is I can I'm not in as a fan here as a guest I'm not on as a a panelist right so sorry um okay so I'm sorry this has happened well there must be a lot of basketball fans in the neighborhood okay all right so we finished the discussion of um um John mery's resolution about the biweekly residential trash um so let's move on to the resolution that I submitted um which is a resolution in as a commendation of Dan bnell um so I'll ask the group do you want to see that on the screen or do you want me to just talk about it any preference um yeah why don't you can you put the res resol where are we in the agenda we're on on the we've gone through the first two items of new business and now we're on the third which is the resolution in accommodation of Dan BN now yeah do you why don't yeah do you why don't you do that um I don't have any graphics or anything okay and I don't know how to raise my hand or anything okay all right um so gayen if you want me to share my screen I will do that yes just hit the green button at the bottom I made you to call screen thank you uhuh now if I can just find it yes okay can you all see um oops there can you see my screen we can see your screen uh part needs to be expanded a bit y looks like it's not the correct document uh boy this is the one that's on top for me I see resolution to acknowledge and commend D B down this is this has a resolve Clauses about Gman so yes you need to this is a b Gman resolution but I think this is a different document you have it open in a different tab Rita maybe stop share so okay I'll stop but um thank you for the Q I'll try again um oh I see what you mean thank you how about this all right this is mine says resolution to acknowledge and compel commend Daniel bnell does that show okay thank you all right um so I want to thank John mki for the suggestion to prepare this um Commendation and I also want to um acknowledge kind of what it means to me and I I call back to our Our Land acknowledgement statement in a way because I see um the actions that that Dan bnell has taken in our community to be one that is a longstanding um protection of the environment that I think ties in with the land acknowledgement and the care for our resources and our our Earth um Dan has is the person who identified the long what is now a 40y old um of a 14 dioxane plume in our groundwater that is approaching our drinking water source at the hon River um and so this this acknowledgement is just it is a small Point set a series of points and I consider this a barebones acknowledgement of the kind of work that he has done historically in our community over time he discovered the plum he alerted the or the community who then called in the um uh Public Health Department of the county um he started his career in public health uh and went off and worked for the EPA and for a long time including working on Super fund cleanup projects it's ironic but also shows a certain level of motivation and and what brought him into this um I believe and um so he has retired from the EPA and has returned to Ann Arbor we're very fortunate that he knows this literally from the ground up um from the professional perspective from a regulation perspective um and from knowing the land um and so he has um brought us to a point I think as a community um that I think we should all recognize and so um that's what this does and the point of this is to show that he has been in had this level of involvement um and that we are recommending that he be um given ACC Commendation by the city for his long service and so I'm suggesting through this that we ad Council as we do um to um prepare a more formal Commendation of him and then pass that on to other people who um could also acknowledge his long work I'd also like to say that Dan is a leader in this and his work is extremely important and and needed there have been a lot of other people in the community who have contributed to this as well and so this is just a very small acknowledgement of the the the big group work in the community of nonprofit groups elected officials um people just residents um that have been involved but we wouldn't get here without a leader and so this this is an acknowledgement of Dan so um with that I'll stop talking and and ask for any comments that you may have I'd like considerate I guess we have to do it sort of officially if we can get a second then yes would anyone like to um move this and I can I stop screen sharing do you all need to see this anymore because I I don't see any hands and okay I'm gonna stop thank you uh okay uh I there's a move in a second it looks like from John and from um Lisa um thank you and any discussion I I would just like to say um I I'm not personally interacted with Dan but um from what I've seen in his emails I mean there's what I see is a great combination of expertise and Um passion and professionalism in what he's brought to this entire issue and I think it's just been a fantastic service that he's provided to the city um and um many cases um you have maybe two of those three elements or maybe just one of them um and maybe I've missed a couple of others but I mean he's really brought together this as a package in just really a tremendous way and I I I'm really thankful that um we have them agree uh Kathy uh yes I want to personally thank Dan um I've had the opportunity to work with him and um sometimes I I may get called out for speaking with greater Authority than one would expect but that's because Dan has provided dozens of hours of expertise um and guidance for me both with the science of this problem but also the political process and so I guess Dano to to put it real simply Dano had my back and so I felt confident in what I'm saying because um because I'm relying on years of his expertise uh I also want to say that there are so many people who have worked on this project and um all of the people within the card group and we will we at least I'll I'll take the lead and I'm sure other people uh share my interest in this that uh once the EPA is finished with the um the designation phase and has started um well once they have taken over responsibility for the site and it's an official Superfund Site people keep saying it's already a Superfund Site with a small asset and and the only step will be when it becomes a capital S Superfund Site uh under the EPA leadership and at that point uh I hope that we can take the time to acknowledge all of the people who have worked on this over over the decades some of the people I recognize their names but I've I've never met them because it has taken 40 years um and I feel like we are almost there and so um thank you Dan we wouldn't have been able to do it without you any other comments I agree with Kathy and I would just like oh John did you have something to say yeah I was just gonna say you might share what you and I discussed um along the lines of what Kathy um mentioned in terms of recog izing um the rest of the people in card and the organization yeah um that that this is just the start really is what I would say um that that it may see feel um a little bit premature but at the same time with has been a 40y year time period And so uh a little encouragement along the way late along the way I think is an excellent thing and acknowledgement of uh some significant work and um I would just say that from my perspective I feel like my words are really um sort of minor and don't represent the full impact of of what I think that he has done um and as as well as others um so that um that's the end of what I'm going to say right now is there anything else and if there is not um would anyone like to move to um approve this Commendation see Kathy thank you um Lisa and Lisa a second okay um so uh those who in favor of approving this Commendation for Dan bnell please raise your hand or say I see physical hands looks like unanimous I have a question about formalities here do we need to have a first and second reading of something like this is that necessary um as in the C no not necessarily okay I I'm a big I don't know anyone else come an ordinance an ordinance yes but not a resolution and may I suggest that we um allow Dan to address the group uh would Dan like to do that right now and if so um gayen uh if you could recognize Dan bcell who would be the other phone number that's active all righty uh Mr Mell go ahead and speak hi I just want to thank you all very much for the recognition and it's been my honor to work with the local citizens and elected officials to obtain a proper Gman site cleanup protective of Public Health in the environment so thank you all very much and as you all are indicating it's it's it's it's a team effort that's been uh going on for 40 years to get this accomplished but um I appreciate the thought thank you so much Dan and at some point I hope that we all get to physically um acknowledge each other you and your actions um okay um we approved it now let me go back to this agenda um and may I ask is Steve Brown are you still on the phone with us would be so nice yes he's there okay great um well I guess what I'm gonna do um is oh hello no yes I am Rita did you great um I wondered if you wanted to uh have me continue with this agenda and I could go through the the various reports from the um subcommittees yeah would you sure I can pipe up and you know for the chair update and the U part of the solid waste after Lisa's done her part okay um so let's do for solid waste sorry you want me to go first yeah I'm not in my normal environment so okay okay so yes so uh the zero waste working group is the is the group that I'll update us for and what we've done is we have a mission statement we have recruited a number of members we have some student and Community stakeholders and um and Jenny py and I this week based on the expertise of these members and the interest that they expressed in our two meetings where we discussed the discussed the mission statement she and I drew up a an action memo memo or action men menu of possible projects that the team can work on and we've broken out um it it just got approved or I would have circulated it to you all but um it it was just late in the day so I will make sure that that gets posted to the Google drive but it's basically lays out a number of different projects the resources that are available for them if there's a budget um and sort of What kinds of tasks or strengths those projects involved so that people can identify based on what they like doing which of these projects would be the most useful and then alignment with things like the schw the zero waste and the mission of the zero waste working group so we will be getting those projects online and then we can attach some specific dates so that as John has suggested we can hold ourselves accountable that's um that is my yeah thank you I see Steve yay hey I got back maybe I'll do some troubleshooting I'll see if I can find out I don't I rarely have a problem with zoom okay okay so do you have anything else in solid waste that you'd like to add yeah you know I've been leading the construction and demolition recycling project and and um I'll just say that um at this point I'll just say we're I have the stakeholder group assembled they include people from the University people from the an Arbor Public Schools some people from the county and uh City staff and so among other people contractors Architects um and uh some um and Sean Adams from recycle and Arbor who manages is the uh current construction and de demolition recycling that's been done as part of uh Leed certification for a handful of projects here in the area and um I plan to have a zoom meeting with all these stakehold there's some 50 people um sometime in early March and then we can discuss uh people's concerns at that point I thought an important aspect of this is getting a pilot project so I've had discussions with both um recycle an arbor um with the murphrey build and with an Arbor Public Schools for all the outbuilding that they're doing you know because of the uh um the sustainability bond that was passed uh a while back and there um and so it looks like uh we'll be able to participate in a pilot for aaps that's moving forward quicker wow cool over the summer and so much of this involves um just acquiring some basic metrics so that we can uh we can um adjust uh so that we can estimate costs for contractors and so um so there are models for CN ordinances um San Diego has had one in place for 12 years now and um other cities as well and um and I just want to note as a final thing um MSU Michigan state has a department called domestic do do domy that's a very great resource um for this sort of effort um so uh you know a vital part of this is going to have to be emphasizing deconstruction or dismantling instead of the total demolition for future projects and a major a major a major thing that might involve City Staffing at this point is that it's seems to be important to have a city inspector that would come around and inspect buildings before they're demolished or renovated um to try to identify potential health hazards and other things because there's already been a project involved with the in public schools where they dug into they took out part of a wall and discovered that there's asbestos behind it so that significantly increased their costs so there needs to be some attention paid to that so that's something else that work group is working on so that's all I had to say right now I'll entertain any questions if anybody has any questions no I don't see anybody so uh I don't see any hands no okay so you can keep the floor Lita put it back to it's up to you I'm I'm happy to have you take it back I'll I'll take notes how about that okay all right fair enough um so next up is the natural features work group our monthly meeting regular monthly meeting is tomorrow at noon um there are a number of guests coming tomorrow not least of which is the city planner and Chris Chang I wrote some notes a couple weeks ago about what I thought might have happened uh with regard to the Packard property and how plans got passed through the system without adequate protection for some old trees um you remember Jack Eaton and and an banister came to our meeting more than a year ago um complaining about that project and complaining that we haven't got adequate Protections in place and that's started us off in quite an odyssey actually um I thought to begin with that the provision and the code that allows trees to be clear from a property if there's one single family house on it was the propelling ingredient to a very dense um development on that property much less an up zoning that occurred through the process to a denser development permissible and it turns out I was not correct about that um and I surmised it might have been the area plan process which is what the original petition petition um the original petition came to the city and because the area plan process does not require a really thorough review of natural features among many other things a key part of that is um the Alternatives analysis in the site plan process if you're going to disturb natural features you have to do three alternative plans that show your thinking about why and how you're thinking of natural features on the site and how you're treating them and I don't believe that's required in a plant process and might have been more Illuminating in any case uh the city planners are coming tomorrow it's good that they are um as we do the amendments to the UDC really very substantially rewriting protections for trees and woodlands in it um they're going to have to be Gatekeepers to begin with as we move up the process so also tomorrow um I think the person who's thinking of developing the property the Packer property in a different way um is coming he's thinking of a larger building in the back half where there very few natural features and a park in the front um I think he's coming to chat with us and so's a council member who's very interested in that idea as well as an um and then there are number of other guests who've been um interested in our work who are coming tomorrow so I don't know I doubt two hours is going to do it but that's that's our schedule so if you're interested in come at noon uh let me know and I'll send you a zoom zoom link a couple of you already have that so um I have uh been steadily working on the UDC amendments um it actually has turned out to complicated to really bring an understanding of native Force fragments into the code and uh I think I've got it figured out um and I'm nearly done to go back to Wendy and Hammer through it again we've probably been through it half a dozen times already it's getting uh Tighter and Tighter which is good and um I think I figured out how to do step two which is how to protect Landmark inh Heritage trees on single family properties in y projects um uh and I'm thinking that it will be modeled on how we're doing storm water control that is to say if there's a couple hundred someone goes to C the allall to get a building permit a grading permit to add a couple hundred feet to house um similarly if they went to City Hall to do that or add that much impervious surface they would also have to call out the landmark in Heritage trees on that property and go through the process of determining whether they're going to protect them or not and if not um how they going to mitigate him the loss and uh uh and if so then the procedure for trying to keep damage from the tree Roots uh from happening anyway I'm extremely sorry to say people who practice my profession and excavators and tree guys are I won't say without exception but substantially ignorant about tree roots old tree roots and old trees and a lot of the trees that we lose in the city go because of lack of knowledge they were not intended to be lost but they are driven on by skid loaders and wield vehicles and back and forth and back and forth to take brick to the backyard to build a Terrace or something and and four or five years later the trees die or sooner and the owners are going what in the world there's a $450,000 lot on the Arboretum that uh got tucked in among some of the old growth trees coming up out of the Arboretum into that neighborhood they built the house in the winter it was very wet um they left trees pretty close to the house and then wallowed around in up to their axles with skill loaders and four-wheel drive vehicles on right up next to the stems right on the roots of these trees every single one of them will die so this is a educational undertaking as much as it's anything else though we get it into the regulatory framework you'll see it soon I'm sorry it's taking so long Chris I I think do you want to mention um our se's project oh yes well we did get uh four GIS students Master students to join our C project we met with them first for the first time last Tuesday or Wednesday uh they're pretty exciting and pretty Sharp young people uh not undergraduates they're grad students and um the the predominant focus of the project will will be to get us some more layers in the in our natural features pages that also are new um the it manager one of the it managers in the city has created a uh whole page of our natural features which are interactive and uh uh it's I'm I jump up and down every time I talk about this I I don't know if I've sent you all link to to this particular site but I I'll turn right around here and do that um you can see each of the natural features flood planes Woodlands Street trees and there's a database hooked to the street trees so you can see any particular one and what it is um flood planes steep slopes um the only thing we had for the last 30 years until last fall was a big plot color plot that one could put up on the wall maybe some of you seen that in the conference rooms in City Hall over the years um we'll be meeting every couple weeks um uh and there'll be a I think a Google page where a lot of the data and so on are pulled together together and uh it's over my head how these guys are going to do this but uh not just guys how these young folks plus Jason and some of the other advisors are going to do this but uh I'm very optimistic that we have information about our woodlands in the city that's way more than than one polygon with some dots in it that won't tell us the difference between a native Force fragment and a Buckthorn ticket very excited thanks R for reminding me right and I just want to add that one of the there two things that I found really exciting um one is it's replicable so once you know our goal is to have something that we can use over time um and two um it's not only going to measure the the trees and their species or as close as we can get but we'll also get a measure of turf grass and since turf grass is one of the things that we're trying to um reduce um that could be really exciting to watch over time as well so okay okay let's see any other comments for Chris or Rita okay let's move on to the pollinators work group yes so um we met this past week and we were joined by um three ambassadors from the a20 program and we talked further about the goals projects that we are hoping to do this year so that's still being refined um we also had had a pretty productive meeting with nap um last week to talk about what gaps they're seeing or what support that they might need with um pollinator initiatives because they did have a pretty extensive list of things that they're currently doing or that they have done in the past in terms of P supporting pollinators in their habitats so we are continuing to look at that and also considering that for nap their scope is really um public areas public um I guess unmanaged areas so they mentioned that they would like to see more Outreach in neighborhoods and also with private businesses which um the a20 ambassadors will really help with um they are more of in on the ground in the neighborhood group and we also talked about updating um the pollinator website and really making that um a hub and a hub for information and resources on the different initiatives that are going on around the city and also point of connection for all the groups that are working on pollinator habitats around in Arbor anything else Rita no I you got it great thanks y thanks Gabby oh I see John mery's hand did you has his hand up Gabby have you any contact with uh the gentleman new um staff person in OSI that's leading the 10,000 tree initiative um you might do that Sean um gayin what's his last name Sean's last name is Sean Reynolds Reynolds right I know it was um so you know obviously um some trees um are um attractive to pollinators um there's you know a lot of trees that bloom um not just fruit trees but um that might be something that also might Advance what you do and he might be also a point of contact into the community as he launches that there might be something where he can um carry along the pollinator message and some of your objectives all right that'd be great thank you John yeah yeah that's interesting because I discovered a few years ago that actually Basswood trees are a major po um um excuse me a j Chris Graham was trying to make a point I don't know do you want to talk though quietly 7356 Michigan basketball okay go Blue all right um so I'll just also mention um thanks for that John um Sean Reynolds will also be joining the natural features meeting tomorrow um since trees are are our thing that we're talking about so we'll have a couple of connections with him I think it's great um okay that's all I wanted to say uh Steve okay any um any more comments about pollinator report okay thanks Gabby um so uh water quality um Bob isn't here so um well why don't we skip over that right for right now um um now let's proceed to other commissions um energy commission we had the first in the series of meetings that we're planning on having um to educate ourselves as well as the public on um options available to the city to be able to provide 100% renewable energy um the first of that was I as I mentioned in the last meeting um a presentation on um what would essentially be municipalization um of the grid um and for forming a municipal utility I should say a better say it um so there was a group a residence group called an Iber Public Power that presented um their presentation is on legistar um and I don't know but soon the video will be up um interesting we had probably 20 people call in which is I'm certainly a record as long as I've been on the energy or environmental commission um so there was a lot of uh interesting discussion and um more importantly or just as important going forward uh we will have a presentation in our U meeting in March um first by Valerie braider who is um the city's outside um energy attorney um talking about what essentially the legal framework is um that we're operating within and then we're going to have an expert that's going to be presenting on Community Choice aggregation which is in the a20 plan um and right now what the path that OSI is pursuing um but along the way we're going to have other presentations on things like um virtual purchase power agreements and a whole bunch of other options that are open to the city we've got a long list of topics that we're presenting um or planned to present I should say um over the coming months and I encourage you to take a look at those materials or reach out to me um there's only one other thing that I thought I might mention um it's actually not directly coming from the commission but from a meeting um between a couple of Commissioners Missy and someone from the community and that is um we agreed that we're going to try to form a group to do some brainstorming on funding and let's call it maybe carrots and sticks related to CO2 emissions that we might be able to use um in support of the a20 plan um so we want to do brainstorming of how could we access private Equity how could we um maybe apply um different types of um fees or taxes whatever that are allowed within the Michigan framework um to be able to be either incentives or disincentives for um burning um fossil fuels um and if anybody has someone who's um got a lot of experience in these kinds of areas Grant um seeking um access um to how we might be able to access Capital um in like I said um carrots and sticks for these kinds of things um please reach out to me um and we're going to try to pull together I don't know maybe you know 20 people or so put them together um in a zoom meeting and then breakouts and do brainstorming where we hopefully can feed off each other's ideas and provide Miss see some additional uh approaches on how we can um support the a20 plan thanks thanks John um so the next item is planning Shannon um the only thing that really relates to environmental commission is we had a a working session on Transit zoning and we had a kind of our first um big public input session on it and uh what Transit oriented zoning or zoning means is basically that you're taking uh highly traveled corridors that are well serviced by our AAA uh our AA bus system and concentrating uses and housing especially along those corridors in hopes that people will um will take public transit more and so there's going to be kind of a pilot area for that which is essentially out on the South State Corridor and where is West Eisenhower and East Eisenhower come into that area um and you basically can have much higher density in these areas and and mixed use um and so the idea is to try to get more housing in these kinds of areas um but that can be mixed in with retail or restaurants but not things that are super car oriented not gas stations stuff like that um but like office um or personal services restaurants bars um entertainment um so it really could apply to many different areas of the city but the first one that that planning felt like was a good place to start would be the South state area um there's not as many potential um kind of conflicts with uh adjacent residential areas in there and so it's kind of a good place to experiment in that way um there was some talk about including Brierwood or not too uh as that is trying to kind of figure itself out again in in in so many ways long before covid and then with covid and and all that kind of thing so um we had a lot of feedback a lot of people calling in a lot of people interested in it so I would say stay tuned because I think that that um you know getting people out of their cars is a big part of what the a20 plan is about and um these kinds of areas are trying to make that um to kind of Grease the wheels for that and make that happen more easily so John you've got a comment um wasn't there also um a discussion and presentation on adus um and if so what was you know the the one or two minute Takeaway on that and what's being actually considered yeah yeah that I didn't think to bring that up just because it's not as kind of immediately relevant to our group here um but it was mostly uh a lot lot of people weighing in on their thoughts about it in terms of people calling in from the community they they kind of showcased a couple that had done one um were considering some big changes from the last time around making it easier basically to try to be able to make one happen um and lots of people calling in lots of people interested some people you know kind of a little bit all over the map I'd say most people were interested but there were some people that were like hey you know this I thought that I signed up for a single family zoning area and all of a sudden you're adding more you know other people in but it was it was a real mix and I'd say in general people were curious and interested uh there definitely are some barriers uh out there um especially in terms of the way some of the things are taxed and um and the way Airbnb stuff is handled in the city um so uh I would we we had lots and lots of callers for each um for each um part of that agenda because we tackled those two items in one meeting and I would say that it's going to continue to be talked about so I think it's um I'd say it was kind of the beginning of trying to get a bunch of feedback and ways for people to weigh in so that then we can uh um revise the ordinance that went through to make it uh easier for people to be able to accomplish that may I ask one other quick question sure I'm I'm wondering again some of these things um actually have significant implications in lots of different um categories but if we frame some of these in the context of a20 I'm I'm wondering if there's a sense of urgency within the commission and in planning to be able to do some of these things that are really important quickly um as opposed to them taking um years to be able to do I'm you know I'll just take the the the the Tod case um know if you do a pilot on South State and let's say it's perfect um but you probably won't know it for it's perfect for 10 years um and and let's I'm just assuming that there's only good good things that come out of it um you know there's all kinds of wonderful impacts there's no resistance and everything else we won't know that in in you know in 18 months it may take years and years and years and if if these things are really important um in terms of benefits to the community not just necessarily environmental um what's what's the sense of timeline and urgency to handle some of these things I mean I'm also thinking of the lighting ordinance um that I was um working on and it's stuck been stuck for months in planning and it doesn't have huge implications on on the climate but it does have implications the climate and on safety and these things just are really really slow in being addressed yeah and we we have like our work plan is just ridiculous in terms of all the different things that we that we're tasked to do um and so I would say that the the Adu thing and the transit oriented development thing I would say are moving through more quickly because they had already had a lot of work done on them um and so I think those are uh going to flow through pretty quickly we definitely got some comments along the lines of what you're talking about uh with the transfit oran development some people were interested in like why aren't we just doing this in other places what's so hard about this um and I I will bring that back uh to the commission because I feel like um it is something that they're being very careful with and I I don't know that we need to be so careful with it I think I think the the South State Eisenhower uh connection again just doesn't have a lot of neighborhood resistance possibilities to it and so I think that's why they're wanting to kind of try it there but I agree I think that the timeline means that we probably should be trying it in other places too and and that we're going to have to kind of modify it along the way um so I will bring that back though because I think we did get some comments like that and I think that it's important that um that the planning staff hears that as well so thanks for that that's it though unless anybody else has any other questions okay sorry I didn't raise my electronic hand um I saw you it's okay when I thought about evaluating this first State Street Corridor uh pilot I was thinking like 18 months just to sort of get it started and making sure it was a relatively smooth implementation I I never thought we were we were talking about 10 years so maybe we should better Define what the expectations are I I think it's more about I think the the point that John is making is that you know there's not a bunch of developers all lined up ready to go to I mean by the time you make a a policy change it takes time for it to kind of follow in terms of the development and so uh I think that's what John was getting at is that I think that we can get it through that's not that's not the issue I don't think it's going to take 10 years to get it through the system sometimes it feels like I'm sure the with the ligh or it kind of feels like that um but I think it's just that you know you can't make it happen in terms of people wanting to put forth projects um so you can what we're trying to do is encourage that to happen but I think that that I think there's I think I think planning is Keen on getting this uh through the system um that's what I would say Rita um this is perhaps a little too micro and I'm not sure if it's the right form but I feel like there's something that's needed to make the the um mixed use stick um meaning that it seems like we get housing but we don't always get the the the services or the grocery store whatever and almost everybody says they want those things you know those ground floor things are not filling in or in so many places um and so I'm hoping that there's a way to incentivize I I mean I only think that it must be that the developers are charging too much per square foot it's it's that all those people that want it also order from Amazon it what we've been finding the retail environment is just tanking it is tanking and I think that we want these things we want to be able to walk to places we but we also I mean we're doing it too Amazon boxes are delivered to my house on a pretty frequent basis too and the places just in terms of my own professional life working for retail places they are freaking out they are freaking out and we can't make the market different unless we really change people's shopping an but even you know that I I just I think that it's there may be some ways that we can try to be creative about encouraging people to do that in that Arbor but there's only so much we can do to to I mean there are places that have had that mixed use that sat are on vacant for a long time too you know and so that's the thing that's tough about it is that it's um it's not an easy there's no easy answers on that one um and I think Co is only made it exacerbated the issue so I think people are even less less likely to try to you know jump in the game um given that so many people are now so used to having everything delivered right yeah um but I think um I guess let's just stick with a grocery store you know I mean so that's even hard with covid too but it's just there's there's you know it's just I realize it's a big challenge but maybe we need to stop calling at mixed use then you know yeah it's I mean I think that I think planning wants that I think a lot of people want that but I think we're also not necessarily voting with our feet too so okay um Kathy you had your hand up and then Chris um yeah I'm I'm just wondering if there's much developer Demand right now for other Transit corridors because uh my perspective from Council is that we want many things but the plans that are being brought forward by the developers are not matching not just retail but in other areas so it's like we've got this disconnect between what we want and reality yeah I think that I think that is the case to a certain extent I think part of the issue uh that um is a tough nut to crack is financing uh and something that we don't have much control over and that um and that uh banks are kind of comfortable with residential in certain areas and there's been some projects that have come through that we've completely approved and seemed great and they could not get the financing or there was another you you know the the financing the financial folks like there was another project in another place that was more of a slam dunk and why risk it when it wasn't in the downtown core you know um and so it's there's just only so much we can do around some of that we can do some things with carrots and sticks but there's other things that we just don't have a lot of control over so um they tend to go for the things that are really safe that's been my experience anyway just W working both sides of of that so okay Chris so maybe as with affordable housing we need to get in into the business of affordable grocery stores no I mean we've got enough hardware stores although I still miss s but the corner grocery deal is uh kind of a critical one and I guess I want to just say one other thing about that is a covid kind of thing it's like in a Transit Corridor um I guess I I don't have a good sense of where the aaata is today you know but certainly it's writers ship is different and and the roots are different and where's that gonna go you know that's this is a really hard they really are topic right now it's really tough it is really tough yeah they're they're hurting for sure I think they're supposed to be up from because I'm on the DD Partners committee I think there's their um their hope is to be at 90% by August the ATA is you know in terms of where their routes are and things like that I think that's their right but then you know what about the return of writers ship you know and the corers are dependent on that it's like this oh what's gonna happen that's right yeah okay um let's um if there's no more comments on this topic let's move John has his hand up quick question does anybody know anything about what's going on with main Mobility like um autonomous EV shuttles they had a pilot in um Columbus and in Grand Rapids it's an an arbor company you know that's the kind of thing where your operating expenses are lower and you're not driving around a big huge bus all the time it's a lot easier to um just just put another another thing on the road and or take them off is is does any is anybody know anything about if that's moving forward and and whether there's a I i' I've been told they're interested in doing a pilot in an arbor um nobody knows okay thanks okay um let's move on to the next topic Parks but Mike isn't here so so let's uh skip that and uh move on to council Cathy uh two things we um are working on a snow removal resolution and the goal there is not only safety but also increasing walkability um there's the short term goal of removing um some of the constraints and the the most important one from my perspective um um the snow and ice Ridges at the base of crosswalk ramps and then sometimes in the street because the streets are not always shoveled all the way to to the curb so we'll be bringing forward a resolution in the near future on on that uh and then looking at pricing uh comprehensive snow removal sorry I'm getting tired it's almost my bedtime uh but the the other issue that's um really exciting is I took a phone call a few minutes ago and it was an update from another intervenor that had just received a call from congresswoman Debbie Dingle uh she has been working with the EPA eagle and the AG's office and is in the process of setting up a meeting with all of the interveners within the next three weeks so um a lot of work has been happening behind the scenes along with uh help from Dan vickel and and we should have something to show for it very soon yay great thank you Kathy um um anything leis okay so um now we come to the chair report and I'm also only going to mention one thing and that is um on March 31st the city OSI has um set up a sustainability Forum on circular economies on the circular economy and waste minimization so that's going to be an online standard sustainability Forum it's being managed uh by um Zach was Smith in the in the department OSI and it's going to be March 31st Wednesday from 6:00 to 8:00 pm so um I encourage people to attend that if they're able I think there'll be a sign up uh sign up on the city's website on the a20 website um and then the other thing is appointments and recruitment uh many of our many of our commissioners uh the standard term is from um from June 1st until uh May 31st so we have two Commissioners uh we have two vacancies right now and uh we also have uh two Commissioners that are whose terms are expiring on May 31st but um they both expressed a desire toh be reappointed and uh the other thing I'd like to mention is the youth Commissioners they have they have a uh time of um they have a one-year appointment but because of covid and other delays um you know Gabby wasn't able to join us until July and Lily didn't join us until December so I'm hoping that we can extend that um we extend their appointments appropriately to when they were actually able to start serving on the commission um you know the process is that uh city council has to nominate candidates and I'm happy to work with um both um Kathy and Lisa on this front and um the um and so we have plenty of time right now so please encourage uh people um anybody who would like to serve on the commission please um apply um on this the city website has a page on the commissions I can't spell out the URL right now but I can try posting it in the minutes okay and so then it'll be in the public record um that's all I have to say and um so let's move on to if there's no questions or comments let's move on to the report from staff gayen all righty uh I want to report that yesterday the office of sustainability and Innovations held a a sustainability forum and that Forum uh yesterday was entitled um the natural world in an urban environment so um thank you uh chair for also reporting out on the uh one we will have next month on the 31st so that's all I have for the staff report okay sorry gayen um so um okay so um action items I only have two one is that any any anybody who can propose carrots and sticks to John you know on funding a20 uh please you know transmit your comments to him directly um John you had a you have your hand up had a real quick question um gayen was the sustainability Forum taped yesterday I missed it I believe so it was yesterday and I can send you the tape uh once we get it in from CTN and I can send it out to all the Commissioners yes please all right you you're welcome so um and then I will inquire about the autonomous vehicle status in an arbor and then report back to the commission next month um and gayen is going to be posting the uh uh the URL to access the uh tape for the sustainability form that was held yesterday so um are there any other is there anything I might have missed here in terms of action points for our next meeting okay so um items for the next agenda I think we've got the second reading of your ordinance um John any U anybody else would like to see something on the next month's agenda okay I I'm thinking about Solid Waste issues so uh for next month so um we'll um I'll I'll put together something um in the next week or so and send it out to people for comment um so uh the next schedule meeting is March um let's see it is March would be March 25th 2021 um and so now we'll pass to the second public commentary period um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call uh one uh uh 213 338 8477 or 888 78899 or 5247 and enter webinar ID 3979 7973 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established so gayen is there anybody on the line yet there are uh no callers on the line right now okay so let's wait a few minutes or a few SEC a few 20 seconds [Music] seconds I'm tired too I've been on my computer since 8 this morning it's all of our bed times okay well I think the 30 seconds is up so um I declare this meeting adjourned all right thanks everybody thanks everyone good night ni

[Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] stuff [Music] all right to call to order this meeting of the eastern township board of education pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given to the secretary of eastern township board of education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office emailing written notice to the browning county times and the courier post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of evsham township can i have a roll call please mrs cappello here mrs everhart here mr fizzicarro here miss fleming mr canton here this this is noel mr lancelata mr megan here mrs ryan we have a quorum thank you i need a motion to go into executive session whereas an njsa 104-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education of eastern township seems it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of education will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 p.m now therefore be resolved that the board of education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa104-12 that's items 2.32 through 2.4 do i have a motion motion by mister lanzalotta do i have a second second kapow any questions or comments seeing none let's go to a roll call mrs capalo yes this is everhart yes mr fizzy caro yes mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion passes we will be back at approximately 7 p.m [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] so [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'd like to reconvene this meeting of the eastern township board of education if we could all please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone for being here and thank you for everyone at home watching we're going to start out today with a with two presentations the first one being the new jersey school board member code of ethics training by our solicitor mr wildonia all right good evening everyone thank you thank you good evening to everybody i gave this presentation relatively recently so i'm not going to you know spend as much time on certain subjects one of the most important components of the board member ethics is recognize the difference between the school ethics act which is the rules or the law 18a about prohibited acts and this generally uh involves conflicts of interest and more specifically generally financial or other conflicts of interest including personal conflicts and then there's the code of ethics which is also in new jersey law 1812-24.1 and deals with how board members should conduct themselves as board members if you get anything from tonight though you know ask questions that's the most important role of a board member and one of the best ways to stay out of any type of ethical issue and to remember the general admonition that you don't run the schools you ensure they're well run the first point of contact in almost every situation should be the chief school administrator board members are advised to always go to the chief school administrator with questions and the sooner you go with a question more likely you're going to get your answer in particular one that might come up at a board meeting a very wise former board member of this board board member of the lenape regional and state board of education member who will remain anonymous um we used to come that's joe's dad by the way used to uh used to use the following formulation you hire one person that person hires everybody else so it's very important as a point of contact as a point of information as questions inquiry however you want to frame it talk to your t-school administrator here's the school ethics act i won't read it like i said it and this is all available it's on the board docs it goes over the prohibited acts um you have to be very careful it not only is about prohibited acts that might you have a conflict with family members might have a conflict with or others in fact there's a school of ethics commission opinion regarding who is in other and other can be almost anybody in fact is almost anybody including you know ex-spouses and and things along those lines people you might not think you might be acting in a conflict about um that doesn't mean you are prevented from advocating on your own behalf on your children's behalf again you just should be very careful of engaging in any type of behavior which a reasonable person might consider to be undermine your independence of judgment because of some other relationship then there's a code of ethics as i said this is uh written in the positive the school ethics act is written in the negative this is telling you really how you should conduct yourselves as a school board member a couple important ones i will confirm my board action to policy making planning and appraisal and i will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them i will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well run take a look at jay i will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and act on the complaints at public meetings only after the failure of an administrative solution those are really that's really the one that probably comes up the most uh and it's often uh discussed in the following manner you're at the supermarket or you're at some other uh you know maybe at the ball fields for the rec department or what have you somebody comes up to you with a question and you know this provision of the code of ethics really says okay thank you you know you are a public servant absolutely people should come up to you and feel that that they can and you should you know be very cordial but the main answer is all right have you seen the superintendent have you talked to somebody in administration and then absolutely then take it upon yourself to refer that to somebody in administration but you are not to be the one uh really in the middle of that one of the things you'll hear from me is that if you're in the middle you're probably in trouble because you really shouldn't be in the middle of any type of dispute or question really you should be directing everything to the chief administrative officer i've shown for you if you have any family members who are either employed in this district or in other school districts there's a chart as to what you are conflicted out of voting on with regards to the local district that was contained in administrative i mean advisory opinion some other cases an update obviously social media endorsements they're much like uh you know analog or you know paper endorsements you have to say that you're a board member but say that you're not representing the opinions of the board okay very important in social media because that is the new frontier of ethics complaints is about board member social media use of course saying something like now if we could only do something about our local terrorists that destroyed dreams and burn features supposed to be futures that was posted on facebook with a picture of the superintendent generally not a good idea to continue compare the superintendent uh as a terrorist and this was this board member was penalized um there's another opinion here about social media remarks that were vulgar racist sexist and beyond them and beyond unprofessional um you know there are people out there who enjoy just watching public officials social media presence and trying to you know call them out on it in in the language that is used in this case it was ultimately found that that wasn't a violation of the school ethics act or the code of ethics because the person had not acted in a manner or voted on anything which displayed an animus towards any racial group or gender or sexual orientation or what have you but the school ethics commission did you know really admonish the board member this might not have been a code of ethics but you really should temper your language be aware of your language be aware that you are a leader so eventually this case was dismissed um directing staff you have to be very careful in this case a board member wanted to see certain resumes went to the office where they were kept by the human resources director and the administrative staff but the person wasn't in so they directed a secretary to go get the key to unlock the door to go to the file cabinet to get the resumes and this school office commission said that was improper you don't direct staff in that manner best thing to do is make an appointment you want to see something make an appointment talk to the chief school administrator and get make an appointment for yourself this was a case in which a board member started talking about the qualifications of a staff member this really came very close the line ultimately found not to be an ethics violation because all the information that was discussed was public and it was public information that anyone in the public could have gotten but you are charged with the idea that you probably have access to confidential information information that's non-public so you have to be very careful public statements in particular with regards to staff only the chief school administrator can make a determination as to whether the board will actually discuss the terms and conditions of someone's employment you know issued a rice notice otherwise uh again go to school administrator if you have a question regarding staff um in this case and i mean it gets to from you get some very weird cases here was a survey that was being sent out to stakeholders this is very recent right we've been surveying stakeholders a lot over the last year just to see where we are and a caller came in um on the board line at the next meeting where they were doing their final day of live sessions and the caller came in to bash somebody running for the board the sad part it was it was the person who was running for the board's dad so you know without even addressing that that family dysfunction um the question was you know was that a violation by allowing that person to do that ultimately it wasn't um but again in a in a board where there are people who are you know very very uh anxious or or there's a lot of anxiety you know acts that are any type of out of the uh out of the ordinary can could lead to ultimately non-meritorious but ethics complaints um leave you with my rules to live by and just a couple things first under the administrative regulations there are certain evidentiary standards that are necessary to prove a complaint under the code of ethics so if you're ever bored have trouble sleeping at night or something like that check them out under title 6a because they will go at great length as to what is evidence of this second if you ever have a question clearly you should go to chief school administrator i'm happy to answer any questions but you also have the opportunity to get what's called an advisory opinion you can actually write to the school ethics commission and they will at their next meeting evaluate it and they will advise you in a confidential way um in addition sometimes board members get advisory opinions about other board members you can do that however you have to put the board member who's whose actions you're questioning you have to put them on notice of it so that they can also supply information to the school ethics commission um so along these lines you know wind your watch what does that mean well you know minding my watch right now slow down you know if you're wondering about whether you should take some type of course action slow down because when in doubt don't i can tell you this i have never had to defend represent or otherwise work on or work on behalf of a school board member who didn't post something however it's when they post something and it lives forever right because nothing is private you are recorded this is being recorded you may be familiar new jersey's uh wiretap act is a one-party consent only one party has to consent to the recording of a conversation who's that usually the party recording uh they can consent for themselves and they can record you so you are being recorded you're also being posted on facebook then and played so just you know be very much aware it lasts forever it really does last forever i know people think that well certain digital media now it lasts forever and there are ways of getting it because everything is awesome until it's not i used to sing that the lego version everything is awesome does not because you know just because someone is talking to you they may be recording you in in what they consider to be a very friendly way and then turn around giving it to somebody else that's not uncommon if you're in the middle you might be in trouble you are responsible for your actions and at the end get an advisory opinion if you really have a question of a vote a very important vote maybe that's coming up but there's some concern that you might be compromised in some manner with regards to your vote get an advisory opinion they give a very quick turnaround they always they look at them at the very next meeting they meet every month on the last tuesday of the month and there's a full complement of them and they take their jobs very seriously so you will get a response and having that in your in your pocket is is a great shield 10 liter claim so with that unless anyone has any questions anyone on the board have any questions to mr donio all right so you have just you know fulfilled your requirement under cusack under governance to discuss ethics every year so congratulations thank you mr donio thank you dr smith the floor is yours for the next presentation of the 2122 preliminary budget presentation i'm probably not the only one who um with so much additional zoom calling in our life i feel like my body is like literally becoming uh like its resting uh position is sitting which is not good um so i want to present the preliminary budget for next year and i just you know in doing this i'm thankful for the opportunity that our board has every year to do a presentation like this at this earlier date a lot of districts wait till later to do it but one nice thing about us doing it now is we get more information out so that we can consider it and our town can consider it and people can ask questions we can have conversations as we move forward because of all years this year is it's a longer process right we've got as our auditor has said to me who has worked for over 20 years with our school district we have never had to cut this amount this high end amount before in a single year a little bit of history um and you can see that the number we're looking at for our budget next year is lower than is actually less than what our budget was three years ago part of that is due to dropping enrollment so our projected enrollment for next year 4300 10 students which is over a thousand less than we had at the peak which i can recall back my days teaching at cherokee the hallways literally becoming less full over time as we went from 0203 which was actually my first year teaching there up into the later aughts and in the early 2010s state aid a little bit of history there and then a bit of background on why our state aid is getting cut we are currently in year four of the seven year reduction cycle prompted by what's properly called s2 which was the school funding reform act which basically is taking money from some districts or one of them and redistributing it to other districts that are considered to have been more underfunded over the prior years as the state funding formula was redone to account for more current student enrollment and since ours is dropped we are having our funding cut so the 1.7 million that were in state funding that we're losing this coming year will be followed by another 1.6 the year after that and then two more years of decrease after that as you can see in this chart here so the red number is the reduction we're facing this coming year the total reduction is close to eight million dollars as it so happens today the actual those are the projected numbers the actual state funding reduction numbers were released today we are hoping for a little um a little less reduction and it is forty thousand dollars less so one seven two two four minus 40 000 is what our number is as of the numbers that were released today so not really any relief other impacts just for these are contributing factors to our situation this year chapter 44 loss that is um an 800 000 yearly loss that we will we have already begun to incur as it went into effect on january 1st um as uh our staff are able to switch over to the new jersey healthcare plan and this our district took steps early to have a very balanced healthcare plan and as a result the impact for us is is greater because the new jersey plan is is puts more of a burden on the district the personnel costs this year were extreme as as all districts faced and i think uh anyone following my weekly updates week to week saw the increase is just in um daily sub rate alone from 90 up to currently 140 dollars miscellaneous revenue over a million dollars and that is that encompasses many things in a typical year we rely on miscellaneous revenue generated through our ecc program teddy bear kindergarten and in the during the pandemic our enrollment in those areas has dropped projected loss due to decreased free reduced lunch enrollment so you know a very nice program offered this year by the us department of agriculture has been that students could receive free meals regardless of their free reduced lunch status and that's going to continue for the rest of the year one side effect of that has been a decrease in freedom-reduced lunch enrollment statewide so we're not alone all districts are going to be impacted negatively by this we do get extra funding based on frame reduced lunch percentage and so we're hopeful that the state may use free and produced lunch numbers percentages based on pre-coded numbers um in terms of the aid they can give to districts as that is probably more accurate and that is still in conversation and then our 1.7 million in cuts that we talked about earlier so when it came to figuring out how to address our budget the number one question is it should be and it is in every district is how can we continue to provide an excellent educational program while costing less money and that's the driving question you know this these buildings all of us here we give our time our dollars for the kids you know for children that's why district exists how can it continue to serve those kids as well as possible but doing so through a lower budget and then those corollary goals maintaining instructional program adjusting staff keeping the focus on student achievement and trying to limit spending in non-instructional areas which leads us to kind of the proportionality of the budget so this is looking at our upcoming budget the proportions 82.46 percent go to salaries and benefits which is a really constraining factor when it comes to cutting over four million dollars is you know when it when over four fifths of the budget is going towards salaries and benefits is um you know a lot of the area you know that's it's hard to not look at salaries and benefits as a way of achieving savings the these are the changes from last from this current year to the upcoming year by department by area you can see staffing district curriculum going down special education is going up that is due in part to increased out-of-district costs which fortunately our finance committee got to hear a presentation on monday by our director of special services ms espenberg kind of talking about that those are all necessary costs going down in elementary middle schools up in transportation i would say that percentage um one side note that percentage is our transportation cost this year was higher than budgeted so it wasn't as much of a 13 increase as it looked as it was on paper in reality it was less clubs activities that increases just due to stipend increases per contract okay so now we're getting into the reductions so not first non-staffing and it would be great we would love to have all of our reductions if possible come in ways that are not related to staffing and also not related to impacting our educational programming so this number was achieved by our departments our school departments our curriculum department each department across the district looking at what it spends and finding ways to cut typically in the in the range of a five percent decrease per department sometimes more we also eliminate our outside media services so that in that case it becomes inside media services which means it's just it's us so next piece um so we have currently one sro per school and what we are proposing in this budget is to continue to fund seven sros not eight so shifting from one per school to one per school building so currently there is one for dimacey elementary and one for dimacey middle with this proposed budget it would be one sro for the demacy schools together they are they are essentially like a duplex one building um and then in november to propose this ballot question to our town to hopefully be approved meaning that starting on january 1st the funding for our sros would come through this additional ballot question impact um the numbers are up there so it's per rated for the 2021 2020 school year and then each year after that it would be 437 500 an additional impact on taxpayers the um the the bottom there just a note that i think needs to be known now and each time we think about this moving forward is if the question does not pass our district is not permitted to fund sros for the remainder of the year there we cannot um put forward a ballot question and at the same time provision in our budget for that item correct correct i'm sorry yes thank you well yes so the school sro stands for school resource officer here why don't we do this my name is justin smith i'm the superintendent here what's your name i'm sorry great great i'm glad you're here thank you so let's do this if we can yeah no no no it's this is important stuff and i'm glad you mentioned it if we can just come back to it at the end once we've uh thank you mr mark next piece is transportation changes so um we project a savings of 144 000 through mostly um changing a few of the busing zones from bussing uh courtesy bussing zones to walk or zones as well as a limited pilot of subscription busing and i'll walk through this change has a impact on each school a little bit so we'll walk through each of these we're going to go backwards alphabetically and so the this is a map vans ant is roughly there okay and this is green tree road 25 miles an hour these students currently are bust this would become a walking zone some of this area used to be walking and um with each of these walking zones that we walk through right now please know that we will be in communication are already in communication with the township and once the final version of the budget is approved any needs for crossing guards will be worked out rice so there's rice school this neighborhood right here is currently a busing area will become a walking area on this map there's rice school in these areas here which are currently walking currently busting will become a walking area so these students walk this way down crown royal and there's a cut through there for those students mms so mms is right here roughly this is the briarwood neighborhood the students are currently bust there is contiguous sidewalk from briarwood down tomlinson mill and if student you know with a crossing guard here students can cross and continue to have sidewalk all the way to school another way to look at briarwood this is mes same neighborhood same situation jagger this area this is evans here this area becomes a walking zone and students can cross there's two different locations where we could have a crossing guard and they would walk say along aaron darrell waverly up to westcott and then turn and these are less than a mile from here in almost all cases these these walks are less than a mile colts gate so this is a little different this is converted to a walking zone but this is our pilot of subscription busing and uh there are many districts that use subscription bussing we are starting it at 350 a year and what that means is that um it's it's it's optional so a parent can opt into that um and it's 350 per student or the student could walk and we will arrange for a crossing guard to be here same for des from coldscape beehler so this area right here this is greenbrook drive and the area west of greenbrook so this area is currently bused to biller this will change and these students will go to des which is des is here so they can walk to des it's less than a mile and there are some current fourth graders in this group who would be fifth graders next year at bieler and we will give those families the opportunity to choose either to have their child stay at bieler to finish out or to become a des student for next year all right and before i switch off of the transportation changes the uh just a couple words about um you know the thinking that went into this so the amount that we have to cut 144 000 might not seem like a lot but actually for one first of all every bit helps you know so even the forty thousand dollars today that we kind of got back from the state um we welcome welcome every bit um a teacher a step one teacher with benefits is about seventy five thousand dollars a year so that actually represents two teachers which is two additional very important people who can make an impact on students and maintain our educational program walking is and i i think anybody as we think to ourselves about those of us who were walkers at different points or our kids have been walkers there are a lot of positives embedded in that opportunity not just from a health standpoint but an independent standpoint as kids can develop a sense of leadership and growth through even how they get to school any questions on that part specifically staffing so we have talking about all these reductions is kind of like it's a very big project right so we have two opportunities we have tonight and we also have march 11th thursday march 11th will be our special board meeting when we have the vote on submitting this tentative budget to the county office my intent is to provide specific details to these to this slide at that march 11th meeting there's a lot to talk and go through tonight just in the changes that we've discussed so far and which are to come after this slide um but i would say just in general you can see from the reduction amounts here that this is the bulk of the the budgetary reduction unavoidably because if we remember back 82.46 percent of our budget is salaries and benefits what we tried to do as you can see is arrange the reductions and positions so that a we're maintaining the excellence of the educational program and b we are taking advantage of retirements and vacancies as they come along to reduce the negative impact by having to let go of staff that is the last thing we would want to have to do and because in part because this year has been like no other with the pandemic we have had a few retirements and um so you know the number of we have 45 fewer positions through this next budget but we have 32 current vacancies or retirements which means that at that at the current moment that would be 13 people we would be letting go not 45.

all right so i think we're gonna just roll right into the vaccinations well not literally roll into the back roll into the discussion regarding explanations i hope we don't roll into them ben because that is not an approved method of delivery and we don't want to waste anything ever ever or ever yeah exactly clear well maybe you could start um well maybe we can all start by thanking you first off for all the advocacy on bringing doses back into the community centers thank you um i know how hard you and all of the other local directors of board of health worked to make this happen so thank you um and with that maybe you can answer a few questions about how that is how that's going to happen like how where do people go what's their first what's the first thing they would do if they're looking to make an appointment yeah sure so um the massachusetts website uh i think it's now vaxfinder.mas.gov and that's the state website that'll have available appointments around and you can search by region you can search by zip code um i believe you can search um let me actually click on it right now so we're all being like informed and here you can see like the first one that comes up is boston and you can see what type of site they are if they have appointments listed or if they're full um for us right now if i type in 0102 we come up as as of right now it still says the amherst regional high school and all of our appointments are full because we haven't posted our new public clinics yet um but as of monday we will be transitioning back to clinics here at the bang center we are able to do 250 to 500 people a day we're going to be having clinics more frequently uh instead of like the two big clinics that we are having at the high school so we'll be able to have clinics about four or five days a week here so in anywhere from doing a thousand to uh 1250 vaccines a week here at the high at the bank center thanks and now um correct me if i'm wrong this is in coordination with northampton yeah that's exactly correct so northampton and us here in amherst the whole health department's partnered up for a regional effort northampton is the primary site we are the satellite site off of them um but we are really appreciative to be able to make this go forward and is this just for hampshire county residents or is it open to anyone who falls under the phasing guidelines yeah that's another great question so as of march 1st in order for local health departments to continue these are open sites all sites will be open in general sites for anyone in massachusetts um a general question um related to this um about how do you happen to know about how far the state is through the 65 plus and people with two oh my good that's a great question no idea i haven't been told that information i'm sure they must have a sense but i know that we just started it at least it feels that way yeah so still a lot to learn okay i'm sure when they have a sense sorry to cut you off krista i'm sure when they have a sense it'll be in the weekly vaccine report that they publish on the state site okay and i guess knowing the approximate percent of people they are through would require having a very good estimate of how many people exist in this pool and i think last time we talked that was something that was difficult to identify well i know i'm not sure of those numbers yeah um i know that they've been working that you know the census having have that be done and complete would be really helpful as well uh and i think they're still working on that okay great also to kind of take some of the pressure off of the local uh boards of health you really don't have much control over the state website uh you have no control over it no control and i echo um i think all of us in this moment are are having a challenging time on all sides with the technology that's out there to sign up and get people registered there are some challenges and some barriers um that i i know that they're working on in the state level uh they do have the two one one call line available for individuals that are over 65 and don't have access to internet to help people register but other than that they're really trying to align people with those natural base supports family members friends neighbors to help people register for appointments so um just as a follow-up for that for those people that have myself uh included trying to get my husband an appointment last last week like i forget how many other people um that you don't there's nothing that you can do on your end to facilitate the website so calling the local board of health is not going to help facilitate getting an appointment correct correct uh local boards of health and health departments because of health equity we have to defer people back were instructed to defer people back to those natural base supports to help them sign up and register and i think the next thing i wanted to ask because i know there's been some news recently about trials for younger individuals you have any information that you can share about that uh the no i wish i did we i've been so focused so focused on our vaccine clinics this week um by the end of saturday we'll have done over 1500 doses just this week alone um and by the end of this week we'll have done a total of over four 4 4 400 vaccines since we started so i wish i had more time to listen to some really good podcasts and get caught up on that stuff but i'm going to be honest gene that that i don't have that information i know that they have started some trials in adolescence not not very young children but some adolescents have started trials so i'll be interested to see how that progresses um me too now we the first time we talked about vaccines i think we were talking about 86 000 doses uh federally in coming into the state but that has increased correct yeah the last count that i heard it was about 120 but i think last week after there were those delays and shipments when we got when massachusetts i shouldn't say we but massachusetts as a whole had an influx of over 150 000 vaccines last week which is great that i mean more is better and the word that we hear is that that moderna and pfizer are committed to expediting their process so they will be able to roll out more vaccines quicker and in higher volumes speed up and improve production that's what i meant to say on that is since you you were getting the moderna vaccine sent is it still the same with partnership with northampton is it still the majorna that's a great question krista so we will be primarily obtaining the pfizer vaccine for the state to continue our programs we are hoping to continue a small amount of moderna vaccine clinics but those will be for second dose participants okay well i'm glad i asked so switching sounds like you're you'll be switching to pfizer then um okay yeah another question on that is and you might not know this because i know your your focus is on your own local work but is umass still providing a vaccine clinic at this time yep so umass will be continuing to be a vaccine site um i'm not sure if they will be continuing with moderna or pfizer vaccine but they will be continuing as a site for hampshire county as well so the three larger sites in hampshire county are uh northampton here at the amherst health department and then umass campus at the campus center and as far as you know this is going the regional the community centers for vaccine distribution should continue until for the foreseeable future as far as you right now it could change yeah until it changes right so the uh with us being designated as sites right now the directive that we begin given is that we will be continuing through phase three um for local health departments that are participating in terms of community health centers like the john muizante center or that's under the hilltown community health center uh they are also doing vaccines as well um i'm not sure as an organization they're primarily doing those out of their larger huntington clinic the john museum t center is obviously a smaller clinic here but i know that we've been having some preliminary discussions about how we can support their efforts as well here in the amherst community i don't have any more questions about vaccines for right now ben or krista i'm not sure if you do yeah i just have the the million-dollar question every time i'm just gonna sorry emma but i'm gonna keep asking that's all right i like it it makes me feel popular the so how far out approximately i know you can't say definitively and i know that things can change but but if we were to estimate about how far out are the the school staffs yeah i think that we've been seeing the phases come through quicker with those next stages i'm really really hopeful with the ramping up of the production let's see i'm getting my words right with the pfizer and moderna and then also hopefully that johnson and johnson coming on board very quickly i know that's going through the fda for eua very soon i think in the next few days so i remain really hopeful that within the next two or three weeks but that's me speaking um just on a kind of a gut feeling by how we've been seeing things progress uh how quickly we went from the start of phase two to those 65 and over um i am just really hopeful that it's gonna keep going like that for the rest of us and so for the record the optimistic view i just wanna we are we are the optimistic group um emma that third step in the second phase that's a fairly large group correct it is a large group so i think that step three will take quite a bit of time because it is such a diverse employment demographic with grocery transit teachers dpw and health inspectors so many others that i can't think of at this very moment but well like i said i'm i'm really hopeful with the increasing of the production the onboarding of the johnson johnson vaccine that hopefully things will move quicker than the pace of a turtle that i know i've been feeling things some things are going um i think i would be remiss if i didn't also give a shout out to our local state legislators who have been advocating quite a bit for us here in western massachusetts so for me and amherst that would be rep dom and senator comerford and they really have been amazing yeah they're terrific we're really lucky to have them so um some of the other issues i think that we wanted to talk about were contact tracing as well as um for lack of a better way of putting it when to stay home when you are not feeling well um why don't we start with that one first because that that is kind of a a topic that can be difficult to to to narrow down we know when you should stay home when you've had a fever for um 24 hours you know vomiting diarrhea all of that but when we're now that we're in a pandemic what are the recommendations for when someone whether you're an adult working or a child attending school when should when should um you stay home so let's see so um i'm trying to read so is it the things that i know with the season that we're in is trying to differentiate if is it covet 19 or the flu really things that they want you to do is if you have a fever if you're coughing having trouble breathing persistent pain or pressure on your chest then certainly those last few things are medical emergencies so you want to contact your physician or go to a hospital but things that they really want you to watch for covet would be if you have a fever and that would be a fever of 100 over a persistent cough extreme fatigue or muscle or body aches a sore throat or congestion those you can call your provider or an urgent care center so a lot of our providers are better now with the telehealth i think everyone like this is more comfortable with that so under their guidance you could see what their recommendations would be if you to get a test to quarantine at home until they could get a test or if they could if they had a sore throat or can just some congestion that was in alignment with their normal symptoms for spring i know i tend to get seasonal allergies in the spring as all the great pollens start so thinking about that and those regular conditions that some of us experience and really thinking taking that into consideration so i would say with the partnership of your medical providers um using their critical skills for medical assessments that's when you would want to stay home so to be fair to say when in doubt stay out something wrong well i think um that if people are i like to think that all of us are adults and professionals in our work and we would have the capacity and the ability to assess our own health and if you are feeling ill that you can't participate in work because you have a fever or some other new acute condition happening then you would work with your medical providers with that and not attend work so i guess next we'd kind of like to get a sense of if there have been any changes to the protocols around contact tracing um this is um the pandemic we've we've realized is has a lot of information that that comes very rapidly so are there any changes that you have seen in the last few weeks around contact tracing yeah so in the last couple weeks i know that the recommendations for uh quarantining after an exposure if you're vaccinated within that window of where they say you're you're fully immunized beyond the two weeks and within that 90-day period that you would not need to quarantine for an exposure other than that i i have not heard of any other changes gene all right this might be a bit i think this is a bad question um and we asked this a while ago um i remember we're that we're the hopeful group so i've been hopeful and an optimist since october i think and asking about return to in person and so um as we're looking to put more get more students and more staff into buildings does the district have a sen more of a sense of available empty spaces where staff can socially distance and have lunch because as we know we it makes no sense to have people using the spaces that they did in the past which are typically interior rooms with no windows and poor ventilations and fairly small so i think what we had asked for was a list of um available rooms by building and i haven't seen that yet but i know it's probably going to change because we're looking at moving more staff and students into buildings so i don't know if you can yeah i can actually as of today i can actually speak intelligently about this finally so what the important part is it so it's building by building is how it's being assessed rather than throughout the whole district which so building administrators have like identified specific rooms and i i think we can we can get them all to to give us as the jlmsc the exact locations of those rooms offhand i want to tell you the exact room number in crocker because it was it was actually set up today i did a walk-through over there today but um yeah so it's a building-by-building situation and so far the guidance that we're given in trying not to micromanage it necessarily but also trying to to maintain a safety standard is that that we are making sure that they are spaces where no more than two staff members will be in there at a time and that they will be greater than six feet apart with open windows so it's it's a building by building and i'd like to put the whole document together at some point early next week so i'll be bothering building administrators one by one starting with crocker following your follow up for that krista i kind of i have it's uh another really old thing that um now that we're thinking about more bodies and more buildings um back before the winter holiday we were having conversations that we would return to often about ventilation for time-out spaces and um it's been a long time since we've asked but um i last we knew the status of it was that there was um some work that needed to be done to find a viable way to put some ventilation into those spaces and we're we're curious if you have an update for us on how that's going and like i i acknowledge it's been a while since we've asked so it might be buried in your brain a little bit right right the uh so the most what i can recall the quickest i'll say is um without looking anything up is the the time-out spaces at wildwood have been completed in terms of the the ventilation we'd added the uh supplemental air purification systems to those rooms and they were we were in the process of doing that at fort river when we kind of shifted gears now so we're focusing back on crocker now and then we'll circle back around to fort river because of because of the prior we're prioritizing where students will actually be so is what whatever you developed for wildwood and fort river i know those buildings are really similar do you have i'm assuming that you have some ideas on how to move forward at crocker now from that process how how do you anticipate that going at crocker yeah so it's got to be slightly less tricky i suppose so the original systems that we had which were in ceiling mounted it's more possible i'll say that's the safest way to answer that that that those can be installed there without a whole bunch of like re-engineering or anything yeah it's it's one of those i don't want to want to say that we're that it's definitely going to be easier it looks like it's a lot easier to handle there and also i'm sorry go ahead oh sorry ben do you have a timeline for completion no the the other thing i was going to add on is at crocker the difference is that those rooms are direct vented as is so this would be in addition to that so but yeah and that that's actually the one part where it sort of does get tricky is doing the math on not kind of over ventilating the the room if that makes sense right we don't want to create a negative complete negative pressure room so so it's 428 i don't have any anything else krista do you have anything else just a question one just one last question about long-term planning um and we talked about available lunch spaces we're also curious if you have an update on numbers of subs and buildings or how that discussion is going or as we're you know thinking about people in buildings pretty soon what is what is the sub situation looking like right i i don't have any new information to add to that just the uh i think it's been probably a month now right since we talked about that that there are subs assigned i don't have exact numbers but we can we can i don't want to say press but we can request that information the uh be renewed i guess if anything by monday i think it's fair to get that by the end of the day monday and would it also be fair to say that the focus at the at least at the elementary level is on wildwood and um crocker farm and amherst pelham is its own district but as far as the amherst public schools the focus on uh everything is on wildwood and crocker farm is that correct yeah and and in order the order of priority it's crocker and then wildwood but yes those are those are two main focal points right now all right emma once again thank you for everything that you're doing please pass on also our thanks to the northampton director of public health because i know you do a lot of work collaboratively and it's much appreciated thank you so much gene i mean really we wouldn't be here with with everyone coming together at this time uh i really do appreciate meredith o'leary she's the director for the northampton but also our partnership with our local fire department here in amherst um has really been helpful they're they're with us every day for our clinics and then also my public health nurse jen brown rit department our facilities department here for the town the school too i'm looking right at ben and all of our partners that we've had with the school and and our countless volunteers that are coming every day um it's just a really special moment to be in all this together it's really kind of like turning a new leaf the new chapter so it it's good work perfect all right and so with that um have a great weekend everyone thanks so much thanks you too bye enjoy stay so i safe linger for three minutes to see if there's any comments worth answering not worth answering any comments that need answering i should say you

is [Music] um [Music] so [Music] of course yes if you messed up [Music] so [Music] every year traditionally we award seniors a superlative award at the annual homecoming dance for something extraordinary but this year there is no dance so we had to do it a little bit differently due to the pandemic we aren't able to have an official in-person presentation thanks to the hard work of our senior class representatives and the powerful technology of the dhs tv media we are able to bring you our very first virtual senior superlative award show live from the library of the dartmouth high school now here's your host senior class president christian sylvia [Music] hi i'm christian the senior class president and on behalf of the class of 2021 i would like to welcome you to the first senior superlative award show our grade has voted upon 25 superlatives and the royal court today we'll be announcing the winners the top four finalists will be brought onto your screen and the two winners of each superlative will be announced tonight we'll be recognizing the senior class not only by announcing the winners but by also looking back at our favorite high school memories friends and teachers although this pandemic has been difficult we've come out on top as a class whether it be our senior athletes or musical performers we have all been working so hard and deserve recognition our first category of the night is going to consist of the seniors with the best hair smile eyes laugh and dressed our first superlative is for the best hair our top four finalists are elaine browning carla d'amour kevin kaiser and emily fantasia and the winners for best hair are kevin kaiser and lane browning [Music] the most notable memory shared between a lot of us seniors would be the kobe bryant memorial in the bathroom seniors shared that it was a fun time to see the boys of all grades come together and celebrate someone's life our next superlative is for the best smile our top four finalists are joya alves kristen medeiros catherine seguin and daniel wu and the seniors with the best smile are joya alves and kristen medeiros senior kim nguyen wants to thank mrs kelly for being there for her every single year of high school she was her first teacher here at dhs through fitness and dance mrs kelly teaches us all not to be so hard on ourselves with school and to take some moments to ourselves because we all deserve them up next is for the best eyes our top four finalists are hannah bouvier jamie ganat paige jacobson and logan piva and the winners are logan piva and jamie [Music] gennady senior hockey goalie jp wants to share the memory of beating our archrival bishop sting in the hockey playoffs to go to south to go to the south sectional finals not only does the hockey team share this memory but they share it with so many other community members who go and watch their games no matter how far they are next up is the best laugh our top five finalists are joya alves daniel barachina long miles de barros kristen medeiros and cole perry and the seniors with the best laugh are joya alves and miles de barros seniors share the memory of dartmouth's finest last year right before everything shut down even though no one could come and see it in the audience a bunch of people came and parked in the student parking lot and watched it at the end of the show everyone came outside and celebrated and it was so much fun the last superlative of this category goes out to the seniors who are the best dressed our top four finalists are jillian garcia emily ribeiro catherine seguin and landon soares and the best dressed seniors are emily ribeiro and catherine seguin [Music] we're going to take a brief intermission and play some videos to commemorate the senior class enjoy [Music] hey seniors i just want to take a quick second to let you know how impressed i am with how you've all handled this crazy school year you truly have made the most out of all of these challenges and have led this school by example i am so happy that i got to be your teacher and your coach throughout the past four years and i really hope you know how awesome each and every one of you [Music] are [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello my name is ainez ferris and i'm the senior class treasurer for this category i'll be announcing most musical most artistic most athletic and best dancer our first superlative is for most musical our top four finalists are noah angst emerson clark jacob gervais and taylor olympio and the winners for most musical are emerson clark and jacob gervais [Music] a senior wants to recognize their algebra ii teacher mr donohue who has influenced them the most when going through some of the toughest times he always has the best words to say and it's always keeping people positive our next award is for most artistic our top four finalists are megan camaro leah esplana jaffa haradono and leah wilkins and the winners are jaffa hirodono and leah splana [Music] a senior would like to thank miss lassie for influencing them to be a hard-working and overall better student as a previous student of miss lassie's i can agree but i also want to add on she not only inspires her students to be better students but she also inspires us to be better people to be the best versions of ourselves and to also get involved with our community our next superlative is for best dancer our top four finalists are audrey french jamie ganat isaiah nichols and maya pinto [Music] and the winners are jamie gennad and isaiah nichols unfortunately isaiah couldn't be with us tonight because he's busy performing his solo at a dance competition my personal favorite memory to share tonight is of the pep rally our last our last pep rally we had raised enough money to see teachers dressed in clown attire we got to see christian buzz mr gill's head and transform our assistant principal basically into a new person and we were also able to dump a whole container of ice cold water on principal tebow i remember the crowd going wild for that one and our last superlative for this category is for most athletic our top four finalists are kelly madirus audrey morin cole pimentel and kylie wheaton and the most athletic seniors are kelly madeiras and cole pimentel now we'll be showing some appreciation videos of the girls volleyball and girl softball to the seniors dartmouth volleyball seniors jamie hall hannah bouvier ashley liones bailey spardella haley korea julie garcia and ek bailey i miss you guys so much i'm always going to be sending you love in any form that i can i keep pushing through and doing what you're doing obviously this isn't how you expected things to go for your senior year but i know you're all going to keep a positive attitude and get through uh keep working hard and enjoy every moment that you can make the best of the situation we're in stay positive love and miss you [Music] i'm mia clark senior vice president and in this category i will be awarding most likely to make a difference most likely to succeed and biggest heart our first award in this category goes to the senior who is most likely to make a difference our top four seniors are jonathan carnes aines furious christian gibbous silvera and miguel pereira before we announce the winner we are going to share a memory from our for our years in high school senior cassie would like to share a memory of her performing the national anthem at a pep rally both our freshman and junior year not only were we graced with cassie's performance but we also got the chance to see the teachers performance of thriller and the dance team's performances um i think we might be experiencing some technical difficulties so please stand by i'll announce the winner once um the zoom is all set up [Music] um i tell a joke [Music] okay [Music] so sorry about that um so just to remind you guys we're on the category who is most likely to make a difference and our top four seniors are jonathan carnes ernest ferris christian gavis silvera and miguel pereira and the winners are christian governor silvera and john carnes [Music] something that i feel like is really special to our grade is once we went into high school most of us already knew each other from middle school although i feel like we all made a lot more bonds with each other and created a lot of new friendships in high school that i think are i think i have friends for life that i've made my last four years so i think that's something that we can all kind of reminisce on together just the friendships we've made so our next category is most likely to succeed and in this category the top four finalists are jonathan carnes aines ferrius christian governor silvera and sarah hartman and the winners are sarah hartman and jonathan carnes [Music] some seniors would like to thank miss no khan who had such a kind and caring soul for always being there and helping some of us through tough times um as a class we would like to thank the social workers who has always been there for us and helped us throughout our mental struggles so thank you social workers the next superlative is biggest heart the top four seniors in this category are colin demanche jaffa herrerdono and kimberly newman and also lauren nielsen and the winners are colin demanche and jaffa haradono thank you my good shot over here my good chip's over here i hit the shot while i eat it is that food yeah not food i love my friend i don't like john like this gives he's ugly and smells like a horse that's like diddy tennessee acts like [Music] probably thank you thank you thank you thank you please please no food no this side or this side now will be the dance team's performance followed by the boys hockey video and actions [Music] [Applause] make you do a double [Music] everybody [Music] everybody here get it out of control [Music] [Applause] [Music] music make you lose control [Music] coach cappello here with a senior shout out you guys remember this i know i do one of many moments many great moments that you guys had in your four years here at dartmouth high school you get to a division three south final you've won six tournament games you've won numerous tournaments including staying born dartmouth you guys have really accomplished so much in this program and you know in the process have mentored a lot of young players along the way so i really can't thank you guys enough for what you've done so to james and lima and kyle chaveno and sam caniff and johnny gamache and joey pacheco and jp kearney and ethan carpentier thank you guys so much for what you gave to the program you know i wish you the best in your next next adventure and i hope to see you around the rink whether it's alumni games or popping in for our practice good luck to you guys and congratulations on your graduation our next category of the night consists of class clown most dramatic and class flirt in the class count superlative the top four are ali hajazi kristen medeiros jonathan oliver and colby sylvia and the winners are ali hajazi and colby sylvia senior paul pimentel would like to highlight his four years of playing boys basketball really we would like to highlight any sports this season whether it be the new friends you made on the team or bonds being strengthened or even every game we watched our next award goes out for most dramatic our top four finalists are grace george maya leonardo zendi massey and maya pinto and the winners for most dramatic are my leonardo and maya pinto [Music] my personal favorite memory here at the high school has honestly been working alongside the other class officers as well as our two amazing class advisors if it weren't for us working as a team none of this would truly be possible our final superlative of this category is for class flirt the finalists for this are nick barnes mariah veniquez hank cornell and savannah freitas and the winners for class flirt are nick barnes and savannah freitas now we will take another we will take another break to watch more senior videos [Music] enjoy [Applause] [Music] so [Music] coach susie here i'd like to take a moment and acknowledge our seniors for cross country we had a great season and when we thank you for your dedication uh to the season and also to the sport for our boys uh captain kevin kaiser eric letos and john carls for her girls uh captain cassidy leary mia clark laura nielsen julia gonzalez jenny scott amy parker and caitlin sullivan best of luck and we will miss you our next category i'll be presenting most likely to be president most likely to be late to graduation most likely to survive the hunger games to find the cure to covid stay in dartmouth and to become internet famous the first the first the first affiliate i'll be announcing is most likely to become the president of the usa our top four finalists are jonathan carnes grace george christian gavin silvera and miguel pereira and the two students most likely to become president are jonathan carnes and christian gavin [Music] silvera [Music] taylor olympio would like to thank mrs franco she had mrs franco for just about all four years in high school and is probably the one teacher that has seen her grow into the person she is today mrs franco is trustworthy easy going and very genuine taylor would just like to thank her for being there when she needed her advice or to help her in the years that's she's known that's what she's known for she's very appreciative of mrs franco the next superlative i'll be announcing is most likely to be late to graduation our top four finalists are abigail kelly kevin kaiser joseph pacheco and emily rivera and the winners are emily ribeiro and abigail kelly [Music] owen quigly moa would like to thank mr charest for his dedication towards all his students through all his 20 years of teaching he went above and beyond to make sure every student would succeed and be comfortable in his classroom whether you had charest before he retired as a teacher or as a tennis coach he always found a way to make you smile the next superlative i'll be announcing is most likely to survive the hunger games our top four finalists are tyler brown miles de barros kevin kaiser and eric ledos and the winners are eric letos and tyler brown [Music] aiden morgado would like to thank coach forts for being a great coach and friend he recalled the memory of coach forte buying the entire team ice cream because she was proud of the team's dedication and coach forts made it clear the team wasn't limited on the size of ice cream they wanted the next category or split i'll be announcing is most likely to find the cured covid and our top four finalists are grace george sarah hartman jason silva and ella will and the winners are sarah hartman and jason silva emily fantasia's favorite senior memories are any of her memories in mr lima's classes at any time that she was at her low or felt like school wasn't worth it she was always reminded he had always reminded her of not only how fun learning can be but how fun life can be she says she's going into miss learning with him mr lima's first year teaching at dhs was our freshman year and some of us have had him for three years and all loved his class thank you mr lima for everything you've done for our class the next superlative is most likely to stay in dartmouth our top four finalists are john gamache miguel pereira logan piva and catherine rosen and the winners are john gamache and miguel pereira [Music] max west says that some of his favorite memories have been with mrs vera and miss lemieux after school he'd be the delivery boy of their jokes and gags to each other sometimes he would get so invested he'd actually miss his bus they will definitely be missed lastly we'll be awarding most likely to become internet famous our top four finalists are mark good ali hijazi zendi masi and savannah pacheco and the winners are ali hijazi and zhendi massey [Music] [Applause] senior jacob gervais shares the memory of going to world language day at bcc and going on stage in front of everyone we all laughed and had a good day that field trip this also brings up just the idea of being able to go on field trips whether you were at the science museum for anatomy or the i think we were sophomores at the time the sophomore salem field trip and also trips to our county jail we've all created some memories at our last field trips and we're gonna cherish them forever now we're going to watch some videos from boys track and girls basketball hi dartmouth high school i'm boys spring track and field coach coach wallacha as i stand here near the alporter track i think of all of the previous spring track and field alumni and all of the adversity that they have faced their challenges included close track meets injuries upsets and victories but none of them have quite encountered what you have in what our current class of 2021 has our seniors commitment class resilience positivity and drive to excel over the past year in previous years at dartmouth high school is truly admirable i'm here today to say thank you to our many senior boys track and field student athletes who are the epitome of dartmouth pride and excellence thank you very much for your dedication to our program and i look forward to coaching you in the spring thank you class of 2021 congratulations you made it i want to send a special shout out to samara terrigen audrey morin the two seniors on the basketball team this year thank you for everything you've done the last four years for girls basketball here at dartmouth good luck in the future i'm sure you'll be successful in whatever you guys do you've brought a great work ethic in school and on the court um for four years so that will serve you well moving forward so again congratulations audrey and samara best of luck in the future over the past four years we have grown to love and respect each of the four students who are being honored in the most involved category each of these students has dedicated countless hours to class fundraisers and events and has served as an officer for our class they are all dedicated members of the dartmouth community and go above and beyond to consider the thoughts and feelings of their peers for this reason we have decided that all four honorees will receive the award for most involved this year even while accepting an award for being involved the class officers are busy behind the scenes running the show and maya is at work the most involved members of the class of 2021 are christian cavalcivera maya leonardo inez farias and mia clark next we will watch a video for the girls soccer team [Music] let me tell you a story about a girls soccer team with heart the year was 2020 and late september was the start with goals of the state championship we were going to go for the ring until covert hit us and then our hearts had to be set on another thing our defense was experienced and talented girls like sav kate ellie and hannah our three goalies never had a worry as we chased our first south coast banner with the wonder twins kelly and kristen tough talented and fast midfielders like annika logan jenna and paige i knew other team's luck would never last maya and ella helping the team when we needed a strong boost and let's not forget our top scorer kylie which always gave the offense juice we battled our competitors always with dignity in class and we won the first sec title while wearing our masks while i am as old as hoyle say 30 years from now i look back on the season and i'll always have to say wow in closing let me say this and make it clear and loud you seniors were a pleasure to have and you will always make this coach proud next i will be announcing the royal court and royal finalists these students were nominated by dhs staff and teachers and then further voted on by the senior class so this year's royal court is jonathan carnes mark good taylor olympia miguel pereira aaliyah marie stevens colin demanche and jaffa haradono these seniors were then further voted on to choose dartmouth royalty class of 2021 dartmouth royalty winners are colin dimanche and jaffa haradono [Music] thank you thank you please please please no no photos please please what's my on the good side of this side or this side i'm confused my head's gonna bleed thank you my good chops over here my poor guys except for alex couldn't vote for me he probably did vote for me if he did i would like to thank all of you for tuning in to our first support superlative awards show this year was made especially tough trying to fundraise and set up events for the seniors but with everyone's support it made it possible we'd like to thank dhs tv media as well as dc tv for their contributions towards making the show a reality we truly couldn't have done it without you lastly we would like to thank our class advisors miss burningham and miss taylor you guys have put a lot of hard work into making our class have the events that we could and we really couldn't have done it without you so we just like to thank you um also seniors the officers and class advisors will be sending you your awards during pace it depends on which day you're in school but it's either going to be monday or tuesday if you're fully online then we will be trying to get those to you but there is in your email a form where you can fill out that will help us find you so thank you for tuning in that's the end of our show [Music] you

okay god you're so angry [Applause] 15 minutes in the final chapter okay you really had to yell that in my ear yeah i mean i am you should be able to hear me 15 minutes in the final chapter spartans and brownies in a great old-time hockey battle 2-1 the score shots 25-18 in favor of east long meadow brownies were all first period spartans were all second period so we'll see what the third brings and offside nine seconds into period three aguam senior night we remind you honoring andrew grasso cannon grover dean katanaga and steven steinbeck spinning away from shea he's chased by grosso around the net shielding it away dick shoots away one on four and spartans gonna win that one nine times out of ten loose puck unable to be kept by katanaga he'll skate it back and flip it in i mean it's just been 30 seconds but that's what i was talking about at the end of the second oh throwback a bit of a late hit by connery there i do and he has some words for the referee the official keeping the whistle in his pocket and dobo dilback's gonna go for talking to the official but yeah definitely a late hit by connery and dobeck yelling at the official he's gonna go to the box what's that for referee not having any more from him and reid just saying go to the box i agree there should have been a call but they haven't called one yet and they didn't want to make that the first one i mean [Music] comes all the way down to prior on the clear so dobeck will get two for jibber jabber i've never seen that before high school hockey and fans are trying to create something bomb from connery is blocked by nero and he's in some pain katanago is so mad that he did not score right there and i don't know why his chance was like he didn't even have a chance 1350 to go go back another minute 39 to serve on the minor connery can't keep the zone buffoon keeping away from kun but chobe will send it the length of the your brother's ice friends with their friend down there and me and the pa announcer our friends everyone's in the family your brother's friends with them too now hanes getting it to cune hops over a stick spartans on the shorehand we remind you now katanaga trying to create an opportunity puts on the brakes and tries to go on the short side wrap around and haynes sends it all the way down right angry katanaga wants that goal i mean for obvious reasons it's um his senior night last period and he's moving it over to grosso and now out to the point shot comes all the way on to sherwood from i believe buffoon and it's gloved and held 32 seconds to go [Music] face off tied up shea couldn't handle it and it's clear spartan penalty kill has looked pretty good if you ask me loose puck nero in front now fisher oh stoned and i don't think pryor even knew he had it he has the puck i think it's yeah he knows it's in his club now i mean did fischer have enough time to go to his backhand because it was just a bang bang because he was way out of the knife [Music] brownies get away with a bad turnover there now katanaga playing it back to buffoon buffoon fisher taking it away and he gets caved in from behind nero entering his own shot oh wide on the glove side go back out of the box now even strength and la flesh i don't think he knew that the penalty was over and coach reid obviously displeased with that contemplates life oh that was funny that was funny he just needed a second to recuperate and grab his tongue ah coach reed keeps me entertained and loose puck sure would try to dive on it but shoot it out haynes over to cune teddy kun backhander save loose puck haynes following payne's still loose and a kick save q spins and scores one spartans teddy kun's second of the season it seemed like a never-ending scrum and then obviously ends in the way the spartans wanted it to but i feel bad for that goalie he was getting curved stomped teddy kun makes it three to one spartans they have a little bit of breathing room here on ago i'm seeing tonight with three unanswered now with the loose puck dannick trying to work it over across ice to the damsik now out of the reach of kuhn travis arnold cycling the puck around kun couldn't let that one stick to him now hanes over entering the offensive zone shot glove save by pryor sherwood 19 of 20 in net for a 95 save percentage on the other end of the ice brandon pryor 26 of 29.

[Music] and we're set to go for period two devin dobeck alongside brennan mclaughlin spartans trail the brownies one nothing now cology maneuvering into the neutral zone kun goes cross ice hanes hanes with a fake shot puts on the brakes trying to get away from the pressure oh ow now dobeck clojie shot on goal save made prior [Applause] [Music] good pressure from both sides [Music] go back on the draw opposite of him is danic kun gets run into a little hit from grover and grover throws another one on dobeck or haines rather now keeping it alive is caloji gobek takes a run at grover or haynes i keep mixing them up hey you can mix up your own brother yeah and now shot on goal not sure i think it was wide on the short side kind of a weird bounce there and now haynes trying to break it out to cune queuing with speed entering the zone he gets knocked down and running into a little more physical game liu kane throws a few hits teddy really went after number 18 on agalam and now walking in cology gets wrapped around sherbin now picking it up is ryan maloney and he'll go the other way arnold able to take it away from a damsic now fischer he gets run over and arnold can't clear the zone and chris sherwood now second line for the spartans nero trying to throw one on goal o'brien keeping fisher gets kind of shoved over and now tied up is nero seems like the start of the second period is going way more physical yeah spartans don't want to be down to the bottom team in the division that's for sure especially after coming up such a strong performance as grover's shot is covered by colin sherwood who has 12 saved on 13 shots he's faced i mean the spartans don't want to hear this this like this is a pretty evenly matched game shots are the same literally the chances have been the same only agamon has cashed in i'm one of them spartans will hit their stride and now cune getting space teddy cube walking in on a breakaway shot wide on the blocker side but another great chance for the spartans generated tell you you gotta use their speed right there cune did it again tune over to dovak dobek shot it's deflected looks like i got a piece of haines go back coming away with it gets it out to the point le flash shot never got through all the traffic still a free puck dobeck flips it back in brownies clinging to a one-nothing lead spartans are out shooting 14-13 sure with the backhander loose yeah liu kane just took a big hit and you know he's not going to like that it'll change out but next shift expect to see him come out with some firepower 11 33 to go in the second period [Applause] sherwood over to nero now arnold trying to get it back to neuro throw shoving connery away from the puck now nero shot is deflected up and into the webbing we'll get a face-off nero on the dot opposite of him is panic apparently our our live stream is once again working so happy to have those of you who are able to tune in i um not sure what was going on our computer was saying it was live but apparently it wasn't getting to the viewers at home as o'brien gets tied up with someone but yeah scores one nothing ag shots 15 13 in favor of east long meadow pretty even steven game if you ask me yeah same here [Music] just seems like aguam's the lucky one to cash in yeah on a rebound nothing sherwood could have done about it a lot of traffic in front and agawam was just able to bury it that was payton buffoon's first goal of his high school career another shot on sherwood blocker saved loose puck in front and now around the net mouth keloji kun dobek now two on two luke haynes puts it in reverse and now it dumps it down to dobeck but they can't connect katanaga poked away by le flash puck shoots up in the air and it's batted down by a damsik if the flesh didn't get a stick on that puck cannon woman go oh on that one takes a funky bounce oh gets caught in a weird part of the netting get a big man yeah yeah keep looking at you got it oh he's not gonna get it 10 21 to go oh 10 21 to go in second period shots are 15 14 in favor of the spartans lou kane's gets tied up but now a two on one potentially it's luke takes a huge hit loose puck three and now dobak off the play from kyung don't know what happened lou kane's took a huge hit hopefully he's all right but what a save from that goalie a leg check on hands you gotta think that's targeting but we haven't had a penalty and i don't think we're gonna get one now and no it was inadvertent contact yeah the kid didn't mean that luke did try and make a move so 1008 to go spartans get a great chance generated by cuny dobeck following that play lou kane's taking the hit to make the play now calogi clear lane shot steered up and out 105 to go yeah luke haynes lily just did a helicopter that was that was interesting shades of the hickey copter [Music] shot wide short side the flash in front loose puck fischer couldn't get there clojie tries to let him go it's knocked down and now fortunately for the spartans shea not much speed and koji with a big hit knocks down shay sparzy used their physicality in their skates as caloji tries to hit shearwood but deflected off his stick sherwood and grover kind of tie the race there now out to the point cj calogy trying to leave it down for fisher comes behind the net for nero nero space to pass puts it in front a lot of white jerseys not much bread looks like cheryl was the one in the area it was a good idea but i don't know at that time 9 17 to go period one you're watching spartans hockey live on lcat shots on goal 17-14 in favor of the spartans who have just had a flurry of chances luke haynes doesn't seem to be moving much jeff differently so that's a good sign after taking he did it like a barrel roll in the air now shot steered away sherwood for 13 of 14 in net we are in the second period of action under nine minutes to go spartans trail the brownies 1-0 on buffoon's first high school goal just watching haynes he's not afraid of contact kid literally just got lit up and he's just looking to hit people and i love it now o'brien loses the race to a damzik they get tied up behind the goal arnold clearing the zone now kuhn over to haines luke haynes trying to work his way to annette walks in lou kane shot covered and saved i don't know if he had room to get to the back end but he would have a wide open net the goalie was a little far out but there was someone also on haynes back side so it might have been tough to make a move well let's say reed liked what you saw i wouldn't say he's happy no no no no before like looks pretty angry right now no before like no literally before he looked like he was actually like happy but i think he's telling haynes he should have went to the back end and the flash redirected puck's still loose maybe an early whistle there and a little late contact by connery on the row refs are keeping the whistle in their pocket shots are 1914 spartans and coach defranco getting a little animated over on the bench not something you see every day but got some good pointers for his team you can see him and now calogi glove save made by pryor he's answered the call on all 20 shots he's faced why didn't defranco get frustrated that was i mean not frustrated but animated that's crazy gesticulating is that the word the sticky i mean that wasn't the word i had in mind but not like you said when you're like using your hands yeah yeah gesticulation yeah i mean that wasn't the word that was gonna come to my mind for obvious reasons but it's tied up in a row trying to kick it out of the red dot calogy hit his own guy in a row nero goes down slow to his feet and hopping trying to get back he's going to get to the bench yeah that can't feel good visibly in some pain now the other way connery loses it fisher over to sherwood sherwood gets run into by grasso dangerous skip pass cross ice katanaga there though now connery dropping it back to katanaga [Music] jumps over his stick and loose now too hot to handle by manser he tries to run into kaloji koji swim moves his hit katanaga brownie's able to keep the zone manser walks in shot goes over the net and now it's spun in front i believe it's under sherwood a lot of bodies in front some pushing some shoving and well flesh will step in and and take care of business nothing wrong with a little physicality they're just protecting their goalie tiny cameras early and a headlock yeah i think there's multiple players see they see they're fine 704 to go in the first period of action i mean that's what majority of the time high school hockey and there's little scrums like after they just laugh it off but then there's other times for obvious reasons that they don't laugh enough and they could get ugly tossed out of the dad as manzar coming in to take it i believe maybe grosso yes gobek wins it to arnold arnold turns it over and now with space shay walking in gets a shot save rebound attempt by grosso no good doveck tapping it over to haines and now haynes walking in is negated if you're just joining us it is the second period of action it is 7 30 at mother and now arnold walks in and gloves save made 6 28 to go [Music] i'm just do you think rita has no voice after every hockey game well it's probably gotten used to it with over a decade of coaching experience i feel like that's that's just you hear him every time now haynes trying to break it up the other way now the goal scorer peyton buffum o'brien breaks up the play now arnold we're working to teddy kun teddy kuhn avoids the contact dobeck shot on net loose he gets thrown into the goal under six minutes to go now in the second period bam bam 22-16 are the shots in favor of east silk meadow it's just like it's it and now in front sure with shot scores chris sherwood first of his high school career knocks up the game see i was about to say the spartans have had so many changes this period and they couldn't cash it in but i stand corrected even before i said it sherwood with a nip to the top right corner chris sure would what a better time for his first and he'll go to the face-off dot stay out there i believe this will be a makeshift third line with tom garvey coming in at wing a big t shark and kaloji throwing a hit now i think the physical element of this one is sort of picked up is we have a one-on-one hockey game now calogi walks in his shot on net fisher he's in the back of the net getting worked a lot of activity going on sherwood now caloji shot knocked down loose puck garvey tom garvey makes it 2-1 two first goals of their high school career oh my god and he says thank you for the puck takes it out of the net yes sir he's gonna skate that one back to the bench and a 2-1 lead for east long meadow court greed doesn't even know what to think over there right now did i just see t-shark score gold that this that just made my year spartans with a next man up mentality and they got a 2-1 lead to joe for it even the spartans are in shock the makeshift third line pays dividends here in the second period 5 13 to go score is 2-1 east long meadow and also two to one in favor of the new york islanders playing the bruins right now we're gonna throw that one in huh oh yeah gotta keep everybody watching this game on on pace you guys know what's going on got any stakes on that game no and now cology trying to work at the hanes haynes tries to chop it to himself katana now cune puck shoots free o'brien was able to keep the zone for a second and a rolling park is batted away by hurley now arnold working at the dobeck braden dover potential breakaway just out of his reach he gets it back to haines haynes shot blocked by katanaga a good play made by him ruse puck club save prior prior flashing the leather right in kun's face teddy kun gets robbed i don't know you can definitely feel the momentum after that first goal just the spartans seem to be flying all over the ice yeah it's been all red this second period that's cat now guys right now obviously his senior night trying to motivate his team over there and he's only not sure what that was for but nero ties it up loose puck sherwood around the goal puck is way up and into the upper deck of stands out of play i do gotta say like how the refs are letting them play is that no delay a game no no there is none in high school we we learned or college i think i don't think there is in college either it just works as like an icing and comes back to your own zone now over to sherwood and arnold gloved down by a brownie now arnold working at the fisher fisher spins it around the boards for sherwood to chase so actually now that i'm thinking about all three goals have been first of their high school career one from peyton buffoon one from chris churro one from tom garvey so how about that statistic arnold's blast goes wide on the other side we just love to see it and hopefully that leads to a bright future for both these teams as agawam picking it up grosso walking in on a breakaway backhander great back check by arnold and ned is off its peg arnold really um causing it causing for that agawam forward to only be able to go to his back and really shutting off really making that the only option making it kind of an easy save for sherwood i had a real tough time getting that out i now haynes into the middle area of the ice is where dannik and thrown in loose puck batted at by buffoon and now again pops over the stick of a damsik buffoon run into by haines puck sent in la flesh throws a little cross check into the back of the damsick now puck shoots into the agawam zone 2 30 to go shots 24-17 spartans oh a little neutral hockey right here coming away with it is teddy kun though he tries to sauce it over to payne that's picked off the other way for maloney he tries to work it back to buffoon who's had a long shift and able to stay on side of the damsek now buffoon backhander goes wide well nice set of moves there now cology trying to retaliate going coast to coast cj cloche drops it in front for sherwood just out of his reach cj likes to do that from time to time calogy lays a big hit on damsik said that at least two or three times tonight keloji with a big hit and now breakaway walking in sherman glove save colin sherwood wow sherwin takes out his frustration on the spartan captain and we're gonna get a whistle colin sherwood making this remain a one goal lead for the spartans yeah colin shield really having a great second period stay tuned for our second intermission report following the final minute 22 to go here in period two nero winning it back to the flash arnold sends it in nero will go and chase katanaga also there the flesh is shot steers wide takes a funky bounce off the glass and now fischer getting worked out by connery fisher trying to spin away from a lot of pressure from a lot of white uniforms under a minute to go now ag warm on their senior night you know they're gonna be resilient and relentless and not let the spartans pull away here like that 5-1 victory they had way back when now the flash can't retain possession under 30 seconds to go in the second period now nero connery and now haynes picks up the loose puck gets caught in his skates he can't do enough and katanaga comes away with now haynes coming away again lou kane's a deep move on the backhand he's unable to stay on his feet there five seconds to go haynes spins one on that i don't think the goalie was expecting it and now in front nobody home and that concludes our second period shots 25-18 and the score two to one in favor of the spartans brennan we saw an interesting first 30 minutes the first 15 went and i will upset at least 15 absolute dominance by the boys in red what'd you like from this second period they used their skates i just keep saying this liu kane's used their skates and then obviously in front of the net just getting put just puck movement that's how shearwood found the back of the net and then just getting hungry right into the crease that's why garvey was right there on the doorstep and cashed in it's just well expecting in this third period sentence being agwa i'm senior night i i feel like they're going to come out with a little bit of fire so momentum might be on agawam side to begin the third period i'm excited to see how the spartans handle that we got a final 15-minute frame spartans you know hanging on two to one but it is aguam senior night i don't expect them to go away as you said brennan but how about tom garvey and chris sherwood each with their first high school goal to pick the spartans up ah i just love it as i was trying to say before that hopefully that's just a key into their future a little bit if they can produce like that and obviously scoring their first goals they know that they can do it now but hopefully that just gets some confidence in them and on to next season almost after this game yeah they have a game saturday long meadow yeah so i agree with you brennan i mean that was you know all you can ask for from guys next man up mentality definitely a bright spot in the future but you got to wish the spartan fans were here for those two goals unfortunately an away game but hopefully the uh quality to some extent is is all right at home thank you for joining us you're watching spartans hockey live on lcat we'll be back for the third period action momentarily stay tuned you

[Applause] over to doback throwback two on two hanes he tries to knife through them unfortunately doesn't work out now qnf pain turn 30 seconds to go in period one again with a one nothing lead and a one shot lead uh 12 to 11 to the respective teams [Music] and we're going to get an icing this one will come off naro bats at it now into the neutral zone the flesh playing it back to kaloji he flew in under 15 seconds to go now it comes boards and nero now alec girl puts on the brakes makes a few moves two seconds left he gets a shot on and it's steered away at the end of one at the end of the first there shots are 12 12 and um leading one to nothing over the spartans not quite what we expected after a 5-1 spartans uh winning game one brennan but here we are yeah and as i've been saying before the sparring

you [Music] [Applause] wow [Music] andrew grasso [Music] [Applause] [Music] we would like to send special thanks to his family teammates and coaches joining andrew tonight for his parents [Music] [Applause] let me go for 13 years he is joined by his parents jason tracy his sister kiana and his brother dave all right we'd like to send special thanks to his parents joined by his parents reporting three stephen stand up [Applause] his future plans are to join the us navy and become a state police officer we would like to extend special thanks to his parents and grover family and exchanges [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] seniors thank you and then [Applause] oh welcome into olympia eye center tonight devin dobeck alongside brennan mclaughlin here on agawam senior night as the brownies look forward to their matchup with the spartans spartans coming in off a great 2-1 loss well i say great 2-1 loss because it was probably one of their more sound and better games of the season uh you know just few bounces didn't go their way and they took the 2-1 loss against a strong westfield club another nevertheless here they are set to go with the agua and brownies their second meeting oh first meeting with them was the first game of the season where spartans took a 5-1 win braden dobeck trying to get something in front it's

yeah they just go to that table and wait there's one if somebody's already there just yep all right yes oh [Applause] back [Music] don't leave [Music] thank you all right nothing avoid again [Music] wow [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] okay [Music] middle [Music] oh come on [Music] oh uh [Music] many hours okay go ahead okay let's go oh [Music] yes oh [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] questions [Music] back back [Music] hey thank you you're good right there [Applause] okay [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] um okay uh oh thank you [Music] oh [Music] uh [Music] hey all right [Music] thank you all right [Music] [Applause] hey okay [Music] oh i hey oh [Applause] oh [Music] thank you oh thank you [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey caller [Music] hey run by side [Music] oh [Music] oh six [Music] oh [Music] huh oh [Music] oh [Music] thank you [Music] to the roof [Music] three [Music] oh [Music] okay [Applause] [Music] good job on this right thank you [Music] hey [Music] oh [Music] all stay right there there you go [Music] uh [Music] hey here we go 33.

you're with me okay [Music] all right [Music] up [Music] oh [Music] um [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] um hey sean john go inside for that yellow [Music] hello [Applause] all right [Music] shot [Music] go over there [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] up all right hey [Applause] [Music] my god hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay [Music] yes [Music] let's go don't force it go side to side one five [Music] come on all right [Music] all right there you go oh yes [Music] hey good job come back oh yeah okay [Music] oh shoot it yep somehow okay now all right okay [Music] going over your is [Music] yes [Music] oh [Music] hey [Music] oh string the right person all right [Music] okay [Applause] [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] okay [Music] hey [Music] okay [Music] okay [Music] there you go [Music] call the ball max [Music] oh there you go [Music] [Applause] there you go [Music] up oh what [Music] all right oh over there [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] next today [Music] oh 15 seconds [Music] right [Music] hello oh right um [Music] all right um all right [Applause] i foreign oh uh [Music] oh uh [Music] uh [Music] together [Music] oh [Music] all right stop trying to jump with the white [Music] oh [Applause] oh [Music] hey [Music] hello there you all go [Music] um yes [Music] okay all right [Music] foreign everybody okay all right um [Music] alex [Music] oh okay [Music] thank you [Music] hey [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] okay all right [Music] oh [Music] oh i [Music] um okay all right okay right well [Music] one two three together [Music] oh [Music] my yes [Music] goodbye okay [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] all right [Applause] [Music] thank my you [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] oh all right okay [Music] workout [Music] oh uh god [Applause] [Music] oh all right [Music] oh okay hey welcome each time one five is [Music] yep oh [Applause] all right [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey we

45 fewer positions out of that amount within the paraprofessional support staff restructuring i do want to add that that number the bulk of that number comes from the phasing out of our paraprofessional benefits on january 1st of 2022 and that is done with great reluctance as all the steps in this budget are knowing that when we talk about numbers in all cases we are talking about names we're talking about bases we're talking about people who whether it's secretarial positions custodial teachers paraprofessionals support staff special services um they are that it is the people of a district who make it what it is and it's only out of necessity that we are discussing any of this going back to our primary question of how do we maintain the excellence of our educational program the benefits piece is a huge part of that a step one teacher with benefits is seventy five thousand dollars the cost of benefits for one paraprofessional is twenty five thousand dollars so we currently have 66 paraprofessionals who receive benefits if you do the math on that without that step that's 22 teachers lost additional beyond what you have listed on this slide other steps explored and considered but not being used and i want to emphasize i made it a different color because i really uh this is important because some of the things on there um you know that they're very big but we tried we've been trying to turn over every stone as we go through this process so we looked at the elimination of the middle school house system we looked at grade moving all grade five to middle school eliminating an elementary school none of those steps achieve savings that i discussed on this prior slide the goal behind those steps is in part to capitalize on increa being able to increase class size to need fewer teachers to serve more students but the savings do not justify the um the the the tremendousness of the the change represented by those steps our class size is increasing we are increasing our class size but not through those steps cutting educational programs at this point we have mostly avoided that solar expansion we looked into that there's really no feasibility at this moment for that if we had interest in report from accompanying a poor cell tower we would certainly be glad to talk about that but at this point we have not um established any interest in that facility use increase we did not opt to do that this year in fact our facilities this year have we haven't been you know in order to prioritize in person learning we haven't been running extracurricular activities and haven't been um allowing any outside guests so our facilities have gone have not been used this year as they have in prior years we did put out a survey to staff this was the idea that came out of our staff conversation so we went as a cabinet myself mrs mcgulick mr dentine mr shinty we went to all the schools and met with staff to collect ideas one idea that came out of that was putting out a survey to our staff to see if more staff would opt out of their benefits if they were reimbursed at a greater amount than we currently do so we provided a couple possible reimbursement amounts and the results of the survey did not show that we would not we would actually lose money if we were to change our current practice some additional steps that are being used so well some have already been taken so this year we eliminated four positions totaling nearly half a million dollars each of these positions is huge curriculum supervisor in other words an administrator learning disabilities teacher consultant school counselor media specialist and sale of property so we continue to look into selling any of our properties that would be a one-time revenue generator but again every bit helps bus advertising we are planning to move forward with that we anticipate 25 000 per year in revenue from that cell phone reduction we saved 16 000 in that method um activity increase our activity fee increases here have occurred roughly on a yearly basis so we continue with that again middle school will go from 100 from 150 to 165 elementary from 100 to and then that last step is an ongoing step and um so the superintendents of the lenape region districts like us um including us that have been affected by the sfra state redistribution in other words the reductions for us that i explained earlier so we have met with we had two separate meetings we had one with senator diego another with assemblywoman stanfield and some of them peters to explain you know our our not just the impact of s2 on our district but um just the financial cost of being in person this year you know um the aid that's been distributed to districts this year has not distinguished between those districts who've been open for in person in those districts who have been all remote and the cost of in providing education in person is greater flat out this year general fun comparison mr shinty i think there's a couple slides in here that we're going to tag team on so good evening everyone i'm john roshan i'm the business administrator for the school district and i'm going to go over a few of the slides this slide is showing a comparison of our revenue streams from last year 2020 2021 compared to our preliminary revenue projections uh for this year are for the next budget year 20 21-22 and you can look at the first line the miscellaneous revenue is down a couple hundred thousand dollars that that's due to the impact of not not being able to collect as much revenues that we have in the past from some of our programs that we have going here in the district the next line the fund balance that we're looking to move forward from this budget obviously is down because our expenses have been up greatly compared to previous years so that that's down as well a little bit the next line is the access surplus that's generated from our budget when the auditors do the um the audit at the end of the year uh any dollars over the two percent surplus that we're allowed to have have to be put into the next budget in the current budget we were we were able to put 925 000 in and at the end of this year's audit in june there's only 357 thousand dollars available to put in so that's another decrease in our revenues for next year the withdrawal from our maintenance reserve is up this year and that's partly because we put more money into the miscellaneous into the excuse me into the maintenance reserve however the capital reserve we didn't put anything into that so if you look at the two numbers together actually the amount is less that's going into the reserve accounts uh for the budget for next year um the emergency circle the emergency emergency surplus reserve there's only two thousand dollars left in it um we're putting that into next year's budget as well and obviously that's less than what we had to put into the current budget that we're working in i already talked about the capital reserve state aid as dr smith has said with s2 we're getting less state aid every year and this year we're being cut 1.7 million so the the amount of aid available to us is down external extraordinary aid is uh we're projecting to you know get the same amount of money there and we don't know that number until the end of the budget cycle which we won't know that until june of the end of the budget cycle so we don't we don't really know what we're going to get but we're usually safe with projecting 250 000.

[Music] and now calogia shot love saved but not covered still loose [Music] nero coming across ice to show hurley what's going on now closing all western mass second teamer shielding the puck and working it to sherwood sherwood with a little no-look pass and chases it himself he lets nero get to it nero going short side and it is held 31 shots on net for the spartans yeah spartans have definitely found their groove ever since the start of the second period would be completely honest [Music] that's what i predicted to happen and they're using their skates and getting pucks on net and the score shows it now sherwood making moves he lets one go it shoots free for a second i thought it was bouncing toward the goal but my depth perception must be off now laflash keeping it sends one in it bounces into the webbing of love 1002 in the final period [Music] dobeck loses the face off commands are the assistant captain and now a blatant grip and call fisher goes down hard that's her brother nope i i can't i really just not i guess i'm just calling wrong names today your brother literally did a superman dive on the ground that's an easy call to make and manser will head to the box i don't know how you can argue that i don't know how you can argue that call dude you tripped i mean if the refs aren't blowing the whistle and then they do i mean it must it must 100 be a penalty i mean i respect the candy cane tape that he has on the stick i respect that and now it comes out to arnold sending it back down to kung chasing it shea loses the race spartans able to keep the zone dobeck over to haynes haynes couldn't work it to cune kun sending it back to arnold over a caloji caloji shot save see he's got to have seven shots on goal or so no roll show for it this season and he's definitely got a hard shot but unfortunately nothing to show for it this season he only has one goal on the career right yeah one or two not sure and now dobak in the slot shot spits up and he gets tied up and now spinning away from shay dobeck connery with a one knee play to make sure braden went around the goal now sending it in front and it's redirected what a great play set up by the spartans power play [Applause] their power play against the bombers looked really in sync the best of the season in some people's eyes caloji not wanting to get off the ice he enters the zone sends it back arnold back down to cology couldn't work it to fischer and that one cleared i was waiting for keloji just to fire one when he went over the blue one arnold over to neuro 40 seconds left on the manser miner sherwood into the back of nero's skate and brown is clear once again 8 20 to go in the final period now cology [Music] absorbs the hit stays with the puck maloney tries to run into him loose puck nero nero shot and a pad save by pryor oh and fisher takes a big hit from danick hands are out of the box he'll get to the bench sending one back on sherwood easy pad save spartans shot totals up to 37 now with still half a period to play maloney shifting gears arnold trying to run into him maloney absorbs the contact and keeps going but without the puck now danic shot blocked by kung and now loose puck in front hanes the other way he's got killing far side he'll take himself luke haynes gliding in and his pass is deflected up he gets it back though looking for dobek out of his reach and now bomb by o'brien glove save spartan's puck movement has been insane this these past four minutes there's this first line for the spartans of toback cune and haynes really seems to have their chem down 705 to go now cology rashad deflected into the netting of pryor's glove 39 20 are the shots now in favor of east long meadow i mean i'm just saying this their first sign that they have out right now are all sophomores right correct so that's just they're losing kaloji and johnny rocky cune and that's about it well yeah i'm just talking about the first forward line out there right now they're literally all sophomores so i feel like the potential to the roof of this team yep that loose pop shot goes wide that was grover not getting knocked out trying to find his footing and work into cune kun does a slide and sends it down to be dumped in and takes a bounce it's under the goaltender stabbing at it how did that one not go back nightmares about that one loose puck on the goal line and me i don't know why you didn't dive at it i can't wait to talk to braid sauce about that one he'll walk home as i was saying the first line of kun haynes and dobeck all sophomores sherwood looking good at net he's only a sophomore yeah there's there's definitely an outside for the spartans after contending with teams like springfield and minichog and we'll see how they fair with long nether who absolutely dominated them but they got their last meeting of the season on saturday what do you think about all these teams have a lot of seniors so fisher shot over the net yeah no you're right yeah so i feel like the spartans team uh sky's the limit yeah now the other way manser six minutes to go in the final third period manzo's shot is blocked o'brien runs into him blast shoot connery goes wide sure wouldn't even see that and he sees that one and grabs it out of the air all right he took that line right out of my mouth there you go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 5 52 remaining cologney chipping it out of the zone teddy kun's gonna have a breakaway teddy kun walking in stick handling shoots what a save by pryor [Applause] slamming the door shut on trying to keep his team in it the kid did the dirty bird i love that human made a great move but prior an even better save little hockey term that i learned from my nhl on the xbox base go back wins a calogie wrist shot block or save kun banks it to dobeck now dobeck sliding it back to haynes haynes going around the net now and turned over sparta or brownies can't keep his own culture let's run into go back in front haynes shot and another save by pryor pryor's standing on his head right now he's got 39 saves tonight let's go ahead that one turned over and now buffoon could be in all alone we'll flash working on him and that's i don't know if they're going to count it as a goal i believe they will should have been penalty um east long meadow but instead the brownies cash in while the net was off its pegs and i believe it's going to be 3-2 i mean i believe that should stand because luke haynes really shoved the kid um shoved buffoon right i think it was a flesh or the flesh but i can see either way if they count that goal or not which it looks like it's going to be counted so maloney credit him the goal but buffoon i believe he'll get a point out of it his second of the night so brownies not going away quietly shots 42-21 in favor of east long meadow and the referee is going to talk this one over i mean i can see both ways the net was off its pegs and then a bunch of contact and i go on batted it in i don't know i believe they're going to let this one stand because there's no video review and calling the ice was a goal but yeah there's too many elements to it too like 3-2 hockey games we're taking a real long time about this no goal is the signal on the ice but i believe the spartans are going to go to the kill if they don't get the goal or the power play i'll be genuinely shocked yeah that was at least a hook or a slash or a trip there's some there's a lot of things that could have called on that one but maybe they just said it was a shove in the back and he lost his footing and went into sherwood i believe we're going to play some even strength hockey goal taken off the board by the officials yeah at the end of that call you weren't gonna it was up there though it said 3-2 but i guess they took it away i mean you're not going to please anybody on that call and it's fanned at by eggleston i actually didn't pay attention to reid during that i would have been interested to see what his reaction was just as classic put his hands up in the air and uh wasn't too pleased but if they called that a goal reed would have been really mad obvious for obviously for obvious reasons aguam's mad since it's a no goal so you weren't going to please everybody surprise no power play though at least yeah i'm shocked by that too i mean it was i don't know the officials had not liked blowing the whistle they blew one on doveck for mouthing back and then dobeck went for a superman fly that couldn't have been a more obvious penalty i mean that's it dobeck definitely deserved the penalty that he got so and now walking in or shoving away and now newsome shot is blocked nero has been taking a beating out there and he's visibly in some pain and i think um i don't know who's that but it's fun to definitely go into the box for a trip i think it could be sherwood yeah it is and chris sherwood will go to the penalty bench yeah he just he got a stick tangled up in the skates of a brownie so 401 to go but the brownies will have half of that time for a power play if need be now i'm forgetting the name catan not katanaga shot yes i was thinking how to pronounce it connory sending it cross ice katanaga a little move behind the back but hume says i'll take that go back avoiding the contact trying to create a chance for himself out bouncing up and he couldn't really create an opportunity there the puck was bouncing around kyung takes down katanaga that easily could have been penalty in my mind ah i think it was just playing the puck i mean i'm gonna go with a good no call there actually well they haven't really been calling much all night so which i i personally like honestly but connery dropping it back to kannaga just let the kids play and now grosso connery katanagar flesh able to clear the zone fisher is going to win the race there and coach reed very happy with the penalty kill fischer trying to kill some time off penalty clock connery ties him up i mean what do you call in hockey is it it's definitely not special teams right what do you call it walking in drops it back shot on goal rebound connery unable to find it past sherwood who's 22 of 23.

[Music] oh [Applause] oh [Music] here we okay [Music] [Applause] oh hey don't worry [Applause] all right [Music] oh [Music] okay all right [Music] hey [Music] uh [Music] yes everybody [Music] i got my nails oh [Music] oh let's right go [Music] there you go okay i [Music] okay goodbye [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh chicken um right here [Music] hello um so good okay hey mark ryan here we go thank you [Music] ready one shoot okay hey forty-one [Music] oh all right [Music] foreign [Music] okay oh [Applause] thank you [Music] with a hole [Music] wonderful oh um oh my god [Music] ready oh uh [Applause] [Music] all right oh he's got three thank you [Music] come on [Music] here we go ty that's right [Music] [Applause] there we go one more [Music] oh huh [Music] i'm oh okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay [Music] oh [Music] oh thank you [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] down [Applause] oh yes thank you back [Music] okay adam oh [Music] oh all right i'd like to take this moment hold on all right thank you everybody for watching nba i'd like to take this moment this is our last game of the season to honor our seniors we have four of them tonight uh one could not be here uh ryan but i do still want to say a few words about him real quick um ryan bourbon is one of those 100 competitors whenever he's on the court he's competing and giving you everything he's got on the court um excellent defender he's one of those players that does so many of the little things they don't show up in the box fort um but it's important to a team and their success so i just want to you know ryan can't be here i want to make sure i express my appreciation for him um first up that i'd like to call out for the floor is uh captain brian arnis [Applause] brian's in our landscaping shop here i have the things i'd like to say about ryan is i approached precious few players who've understand understood the game of basketball better than him he has a high basketball iq works hard on himself in the game on and off board and has developed into a great leader by example for the team [Applause] all right next up dylan's in our machine tech shop here he's a quiet leader all right and he's proven to all of us that he'll do whatever the team needs but he has still been a leader throughout even not being out here playing in these games dylan's in our funny shop he has one of those work ethics and energy just inside of him that's infectious and when he gets going his team gets going um and your leadership on this team is second but not anybody i've ever coached well done thank you of these players not just the seniors but our entire team um to support these kids coming in here every day for practice every day for the games you know it means something and it helps them make it happen and so i salute your parents too thank you very much

we get some money back from federal uh programs for the medicare reimbursement and that's pretty well flat too this year compared to what we have in our current budget so when you get down to the last line that's the tax levy uh increase and that's at two percent the maximum amount that we can increase um and when you add all those numbers up the current budget we're working in is 79 million uh 656 and this budget will be 77 million 799 000 so what it's approximately 1.8 million dollars less well that's the that's that's the law that they passed that okay the next slide that we're looking at here is the um the revenues if we looked at different scenarios as far as the tax levy increase the first column is if we had no tax levy increase our budget would be approximately uh 76 million five five five two if we just went with a one percent tax levy increase um our budget will be at 77 175 and at the two percent where we're at at 77 799 um this year there that we were not eligible for any waivers and we've used all our cap all of our bank caps so we had no money to move forward as far as from previous years where we did increase the tax levy to the two percent so that's where we are in the last column with the 77 799 066.

and now shot by maloney pad saved nobody there on the rebound and katnaga got he's down on the ice slow to his feet now i want to go for an icing with some words for the officials and the senior gonna go [Music] i don't think naga knows he's gonna go but he is going to he tries to hide in the box we'll see if the referees are good at hide and seek do the same exact thing and they're going to seek now let's see if they find him i mean i've never seen so many penalties he pleads guilty well he doesn't plead guilty but he is not happy oh no i'll go to the box and he's ejected from the contest on his senior night for talking back to the official so his last time in a brownie's uniform and he'll be from the game that is you never like to see that but unfortunately that's how it goes i feel for the kid serving the penalty will be number 21 shane kendall definitely ashamed to see the captain go but on a senior night too gotta respect the officials they haven't been blown away all game and they're not going to start now oh that must have hurt his hand he just punched a brick wall but enough on him jobeck sending it back in four on four hockey for another second i'm sure it'll come out and give the spartans power play two minutes ago comes to arnold sure would spitting it to dove back to sherwood good no look pass now o'brien at the point wrist shot glove save by pryor best five skaters arguably out there for the spartans with arnold palace dovak kun and haynes haynes getting it back to kaloji kun dropping it down to go back go back over to kun now kun out to the point arnold arnold slaps it down and now dobeck behind the net spartan power play where has this been all season and cology redirected and now haynes in a battle with it i hope yep it is haynes and we're gonna get another penalty i believe it's gonna be a brownie and it will be sherwood goes to the bench cology shot stave made prior so spartans are gonna have a five on three for the remainder of the contest well almost they're gonna have a power play for the remainder of the context but a five on three for another 48 seconds and that one's going to be danic i believe i have no idea maybe connery [Music] i have no idea what is going on i mean they both can't be in the box there's one white jersey okay now here are the others i don't know who the penalty is going to go to it's it's on a brownie but to the coach unsportsmanlike conduct we're actually hammering down yeah they don't like the talking back you got to respect the officials whether you agree with the call or not part of the game and dobeck now wins the draw hanes cology now haines under a minute to go arnold with space shot save prior 41 saves for brennan pryor tonight i mean i'm not going to say it like as this is a good thing but i've seen way less way worse things happened to raph's up i've been luck up but i don't know something just isn't sitting right with me but i don't know loose puck couldn't get a good stick on it and now hops over the city hands to do back calogy back to doh back 24 seconds on one of the penalties and cune taken down they go into the boards hard hewn taking a few hits from grover and what are we gonna get a face off go back trying to get a shot away it's blocked and now out to the point arnold able to keep it with the glove sends it down to cune queuing out to caloji cj kologi unfortunately he's keeps his own one brownie out of the box it'll be a five on four hanes to the front of the net now cune two one and haynes one last save for prior and that'll do it the final score from the ice center the spartans three the brownies won spartans back in the win column 12 30 on saturday they will face off for the season finale against the lancers we hope you enjoyed our broadcast any final thoughts brennan oh no i just as i predicted just the spartans need to um just cash in some chances and use their skates and russia did and came out here came out here with a victory three to one so 3-1 the final congratulations to chris sherwood and tom garvey on their first goals of their career and teddy kun with his second of the season spartans 3-1 victory we'll see you 12 30 on saturday thank you for joining all of us on behalf of brennan mclaughlin and myself devin dobeck the voice of the spartans we'll see you next time

so the next slide the reason why we went through all those numbers is if you look at um our tax levy and compared to what our actual projected appropriations are right now um going from right to left uh where the arrow is we're we're balanced we're you know we're zero the next two columns is basically the same thing because the two percent is all we have available to us so the next two columns are both zeros as well if we wanted to say we only wanted to have a one percent tax levy increase we'd have to cut an additional six hundred and twenty three thousand dollars from this budget that we've already cut millions from if we wanted no tax levy increase we'd have to cut 1.2 million dollars to get to that point okay so probably the slide that everybody's waiting for how how am i going to be impacted how much of my tax is going to go up so when you're looking at this the first column is uh half of last year's budget because our budget's on the fiscal cycle and your tax bill's on a calendar cycle so it encompasses half of for the um coming uh 22 year uh it encompasses uh excuse me the 21 year encompasses half of last year's uh tax levy and half of the projected 2122 tax levy so uh half of the totals from each one gives you the total for the for the calendar year of 63 million uh 623.09 now the next line below that is the ratables and the raidables are up a little bit in the township which is a good thing it's always good when the rate levels go up because that helps offset some of the um the tax increases to the taxpayers it's not as up as much as it has been in the last two years but still it's up so if you look at the tax levy increase for our tax levy rate at 2021 it's going to be 1.2013 the current right now is 1.1838 so the difference is 0.03 i'm sorry 0.0175 so on the average assessed house in marlton which is 271 900 the tax increase to that that house will be 47.50 per year so if your house is worth that that number which is the average the total increase to your tax bill from the school district will be 47 and 50 cents for the year and i'll turn it back over to dr smith now thank you mr ashinti so um we're near the end the timeline so today 25th district's got their state aid notices and that's part of that's another contributing factor to why we did not embed specific details about the staffing reductions into this presentation it might have you know it didn't turn out that way but you know we always hold out hopes that the state aid reduction would have been less and if it had been less today than it might have been they might have been able to make some adjustments with the staffing reductions that i'll be talking about on march 11th and because there wasn't we got it we've got pretty much exactly what was projected um there isn't going to be any ability to change the reductions we anticipate but had there been i would have rather not ended up talking about a reduction that wasn't going to be needed um and then march 11th that's our next quarterback meeting send the attentive budget to the county office and then may 6th is our special board meeting to adopt the final budget i would add um you know just just one last piece and um the um it you know it's the painfulness of talking through these cuts is on so many levels from very personal and local most of all and it also makes me incredibly sad for our state because i feel so strong i mean you know many of us here in this room are products of new jersey you know i grew up my kids are products of beef sham i'm a product of cherry hill and maple shade i i i feel like i owe a debt to the educational system of the state for helping me achieve my goals and we want to we work every day to provide that for every single child texas has oil florida has sunshine what's our resource here it is our educational system which is number one in the country and it's the human resources of our state that are our greatest resource and our human resources are part of our educational system and when i see the funding for schools get reduced um it is we are chipping away what makes our state as great as it as it is and i'm going to get off my soap box but i just need to point that out because um you know it is i i feel i feel like we can put this budget forward in knowing that it represents the best possible path at keeping our our education system here capable of preparing students to achieve their goals better than any other that could be presented and um so i welcome any questions thank you uh before we go into that i want to go through the board the board questions first all right and then from there uh that'll move it'll segue right into public discussion for agenda items only which will obviously be questions uh for the budget but i want to give give the board of education uh their first shot at questions that they have uh and any comments that they have as well okay so uh mr land's a lot of the floor is yours thank you mr fitzgerald um dr smith i have two questions for you um you spoke about your meetings you and the other superintendents of the surrounding school districts meeting with the senator adiago as well as assemblyman and assemblywoman stanfield and peters when you met with them what was the outcome of that and i know that you said that there's not much of a change possible a possible change in this budget but after meeting with them was there any anything that made you um think that there's possible um possible additions in future revenues for us or you know not as many cuts in the future for us um i i would say uh i'm glad you asked about that about those meetings because um it speaks to the complexity of the situation you know um so the 170 districts that are having their funding reduced through the um sra so our reductions in state funding are actually going to other districts you know who've been who are considered to have been more underfunded so that's the challenge is uh we're in a situation where this timeline um you know other districts are depending on increases that in part come through our decreases if that makes sense so um and and those um elected officials represent a combination of those two different types of districts what i was optimistic about from the meeting is that we were able to convey i think in ways that you can only know if you're living it every day the way you know education administrators and people um working in schools can see the costs of this year in particular so while s2 and the state funding situation is well known to them less well-known i think is um the cost of this year in particular you know and i harken back to uh i remember in september writing to the states to the um to the senate testifying at that point we could see the costs you know developing and it's only become more um true over the course of the year um so like for example like the one piece we expressed which uh and then they listen throughout and and have genuine concern um that that it's cost more for districts to provide in person learning this year than for districts to provide all remote learning you know the districts that haven't opened their just take ppe costs alone so you know districts that haven't had anybody in the buildings what have they needed their ppe for you know um yet there's been no accounting of that in the way aid has been distributed so you know that piece yes i i'm i felt i have i felt good that that um we were able to underline that for them did they say that there is a there could be future reductions in our reduction in our state reductions um i i felt like we helped them be able to go back and have more specific conversations about these differences um you know we here just just for example i mean and i'll i'll get to it a little bit more later in my uh traditional superintendent's comments but um we've been a full-day district you know all year so we've been a shortened day january february but from the first day of school in september up through winter break and starting again on monday we're full day one of the few districts has done that so you know a little nuance of that though is if you're trying to find someone to come work for your district as a substitute let's say and every rule has needed substitutes this year you can earn the same amount work in an earlier dismissal day in a different district than you can in a full day district so we've had to actually pay more for that now it's worth it because a full day is good for kids you know so we we did it but this has definitely been a year where there is a lot of nuance behind what looks to be the same on the surface district to district if that makes sense a second question if you don't mind oh okay i thought dr smith last month the city passed a bill the city council passed a bill very thankful to mayor vizi and the city council which will share the pilot funds future pilot funds with both the school district as well as the fire company for security purposes if the if the question on the ballot does not pass in november could we possibly use those those city pilot funds to fund our sros so um i'm glad you brought up the pilot funding because that's been i hope everybody here has heard about it but so our township has embarked on creating a program that would be able to set aside a certain percentage of what's called pilot funding for use by either the fire district or the school district that we could apply for in the form of grants to support public safety expenses really the public safety which would be our school resource officers so yes i do think um now the question is there's a couple there's a lot of unknowns there right so how much how much would accrue in the pilot fund would it be enough to sustain on a year-to-year basis a staffing cost like school resource officers those things we're not sure of yet um but certainly knowing you know we are thankful for any additional help and so even if we can't use it for school resource officers we will be able to use it there we have plenty of uh need so even if it doesn't go to that specifically thank you mr lanzalada other questions from the board dr smith i have a couple questions uh if you could help me out and just clarify a few things for me um talking about the busing zones correct we talked about saving roughly about 144 from from creating those those busing zones for those new walkers and pardon me if i start getting into an area where i can't talk about in terms of contract or something just please let me know when we look at this and again i just want to verify with you we are looking at reducing routes of a private bus company all right that's that's the goal correct yeah yes so if we work backwards the ultimate goal of those changes would be that any bus capacity because we have our own transportation office they're fantastic but our current our bus capacity through our transportation office is not enough to meet all of our busing needs so we do have to engage with a third party hillman in this case our third party this year um we do pay more to the third party for those bus routes that would cost us if we could do it in house so by freeing up busting capacity it will enable us to have fewer third-party routes and save us even more money yes okay because that's reiterating what i what i had personally talked about in august uh based upon what we had to deal with in terms of costs from that i would like to see that down the road just keep reducing all right and be able to rely on our own people all right and and allow our own people to be able to work all right so if this is going to save us 144 000 and pulls us away from that serpent i i i appreciate that move i appreciate that move thank you for that um second question and i apologize dr smith i have a couple um we the idea in the conversation was about covert relief that came up in a it came up a little bit but we did receive covered relief earlier in the year correct correct and how much do you recall remember how much that was mr shinty might know the exact number yeah i don't it just can be an approximate for me i i could while he's looking i can tell you that we have gobbled up every cent that we've been able to with regard to different forms of relief yes and and we've needed every penny along the way so um and it came in different forms cares act there was a digital divide grant that we were able to use to buy chromebooks 184 000 was that grant um and that that covered relief is he's finding a number that covered relief it's not blanketed if i recall wasn't that specific to certain things so it had to be really like for example uh some of the money had to go to pay for things to reopen school so like our thermal scanners that we bought that we use every morning at the schools the students come in yes it paid for that for example so so for the carers funding we've received a little over two hundred thousand dollars we also received the kovac grant from the state for 169 000 and we've put into fema for reimbursement of 95 000 and change which we're not sure when or how much of that we will get back um so that's kind of where we are right now and there's the possibility there's a possibility but again i don't count on money that i don't see there's a possibility that we have another bill being passed through the house and it's going to the senate and i believe there's school funding in there but will that even would that theoretically would that even affect this budget or we might not see that money until until the next budget so all mr shinjin i were talking about that money the other day and i'll let him speak to that but i know one purpose we talked about for it was um to help pay off the ionizers that we purchased yeah that we we gauge a four-year lease to purchase those ionizers which by the way is uh helping this air in here be safer and cleaner but um do you want to talk a little bit more about that well yeah we we have a 431 lease on the ionizers um that if those funds become available we would be able to use them to pay that lease off but also with the ionizers there there is replaceable parts that have to you know be replaced every so many years the bulb and the filters more frequent more frequently than that so we can buy those supplies through that grant as well so the uh that would offset some budget costs going forward because obviously the supplies wouldn't have to come out of our budget and then obviously the lease payment would have to come out of our budget for the next three years as well but you know that the funding isn't finalized yet yeah yeah yeah we have plans for to forget it put it that way but yeah i mean i look when it comes to federal funding and and state funding until i see the exact number and i know the check is coming to us to me it's never a guarantee so i i always i wait with dated breath but i was curious that if it were to come when and how it would be used so i appreciate i appreciate the clarification on that um going into and again if someone else has a question i i don't need to have to take up all the time right now so if there's someone else on the board who wants to chime in please i i don't want to take up everyone's time here um talk about the um obviously you mentioned the 84 of our budget is is staff salaries benefits all right you use the number 45 of the amount of staff that would need to be cut but you reduced it based upon you reduced it based upon the amount of retirements correct yes i would i would um i'm glad you brought came back that uh 45 positions positions okay oh yeah i should make that clear that's i don't want to i don't want to put any any any um unnecessary verbiage out there um so 45 positions but we were because of retirements and and leaves we were able to take that down to you said 13.