TSO Approves Town Manager’s Nominations For Committee Appointments

Report On The Meeting Of The Town Services and Outreach Committee, June 14, 2021

The meeting was conducted via Zoom and was recorded.

Present
Town Councilors Darcy DuMont (Chair, District 5) , Alisa Brewer (at large), Evan Ross (District 4), George Ryan (District 3), Andy Steinberg (at large)

Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager) Mary Beth Ogulewicz (Director of Senior Services)

Highlights:

• Committee unanimously supported the Town Manager’s nominations for appointments to several boards and committees
• Reviewed the draft charge of the new Homelessness and Rehousing Working Group
• Heard a report on a grant application to create an improved pedestrian pathway from the high school playing fields to Kendrick Park

TSO voted unanimously to recommend the nominations by the Town Manager for reappointments and new appointments to several boards and committees.

Reappointments
Cultural Council
Three-year term (expires June 30, 2024)

• Nicolas Graber-Mitchell, South Pleasant Street

There are two vacancies for new appointments on the Cultural Council.

One-year terms (3) (expire June 30, 2022) as non-voting associate members (note: these nominees are student members of the Council)

Nandi Chivende, Bedford Court 

Sydney Mager, Crosby Avenue 

Leah Neuburger, South Pleasant Street 

Board of Assessors
Three-year term (expires June 30, 2024)

Ken Hargreaves, Henry Street

CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) Advisory Committee
Three-year term (expires June 30, 2024)

Rika Clement, High Point Drive

There is one vacancy to be filled on the CDBG Advisory Committee with the vacancy created by Andrew Grant-Thomas not seeking reappointment.

Energy and Climate Action Committee
Two-year term (expires June 30, 2023)

• Steve Roof, South East Street (resident)

Three-year term (expires June 30, 2024)

Dwayne Breger, Thistle Lane (resident)

There will be two resident vacancies on the committee once Sarah Durr and Ashwin Ravikumar complete their terms in June. There will be one Town Councilor opening available.

Munson Memorial Building Trustee
Three-year term (expires June 30, 2024)

• Alexander Neifer, South East Street

Profiles
The Town Manager provided the following biographical profiles of the nominees.
Cultural Council

• Nicolas Graber-Mitchell is a student at Amherst College and has served on the Cultural Council since February of 2020. He has brought energy and enthusiasm to the mission of the Cultural Council and was eager to participate in developing ways to engage students in Town cultural activities.

Nandi Chivende is a member of People of Color Unite (POCU) and is interested in serving on the Council to enhance the culture and arts that are already there. She has special interests in theater and museums, especially the Emily Dickinson Museum. She has served one one-year term on the Council.

Sydney Mager is eager to make the arts more accessible to everyone. She sings with the Hurricane Singers and the Hampshire Young People’s Chorus.  She has danced with Amherst Ballet for eleven years and is now dancing with the Massachusetts Academy of Ballet in Holyoke. She has served one one-year term on the Council.

Leah Neuburger has been interested in the arts for as long as she can remember. She is a dancer and visual artist, and hopes that she can work with the Council to create art experiences that help bring the community together. She wants to become more involved in the Town’s thriving art community and believes there are a lot of people her age who would appreciate the art that’s available if they knew about it. She has served one one-year term on the Council.

Board of Assessors

Ken Hargreaves has served on the Board of Assessors since 2017 with a term that originally expired in 2018. This will be his second “full” term. He brings 36 years of experience working in financing real estate. He has completed the required training to be an assessor.

CDBG Advisory Committee

• Rika Clement volunteered her services to the Advisory Committee after retiring as the Associate Vice Chancellor in the Development and Alumni Relations office at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is an experienced fundraiser at both the University and at Amherst College, and brings a diplomatic, respectful approach to deliberations. She is skilled at leading and working with teams of people and has shown her interest by attending meetings of the Advisory Committee regularly as a member of the audience since the beginning of this funding cycle.
  
  Energy and Climate Action Committee

• Dwayne Breger is a renewable energy and climate change professional. He is the Director of the Clean Energy Extension at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He was the Director for Renewable Energy for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources from 2002 to 2015. Dwayne has degrees in engineering, technology and policy, and resource economics. He currently serves on the Western Massachusetts CCE Group and co-chairs the UMass Carbon Mitigation Task Force. 

• Steve Roof is a paleo-climatologist and a professor at Hampshire College where he focuses on local solutions and adaptations to global climate change. He helped write the College’s climate action plan and helped create the Sustainable Revolving Fund at the College. He has been involved in the installation and monitoring of the College’s solar array. Steve has also served on the Town’s Energy Task Force.
  
  Munson Memorial Building Trustee

• Alexander Neifer returned to the community and lives near the Munson Memorial Building. He brings nearly two decades of fundraising and budget management experience and oversees the fundraising and grant writing activities for the Hilltown Community Health Center. He wants public amenities, like the Munson Memorial Building, to be  preserved for future generations.

Appointments
Human Rights Commission
Three-year term (expires June 30, 2024)
Philip Avila, Eaton Court

Profile
The Town Manager provided the following biographical profile of the nominee.

Philip Avila brings a broad range of experience through his work at the Survival Center, interest in pursuing a graduate degree in social justice, and through his lived experience growing up as the child of immigrants in the Los Angeles area. He knows first-hand the challenges of food insecurity and living in a disadvantaged community. He has watched meetings of the Human Rights Commission and believes he can bring a unique perspective to the Commission’s discussions.

Recreation Commission
Three-year terms (expire June 30, 2024)

Sanjay Arwade, Salem Street
Matt Cain, South East Street

Profiles
The Town Manager provided the following biographical profiles of the nominees.

Sanjay Arwade and his family are heavy users of Recreation Department services. He has organized Nordic skiing in Town, which now has over 200 people involved in activities. The group utilized the Cherry Hill Golf Course for ski activities and is introducing Nordic skiing in the elementary schools in cooperation with the physical education department. He is a good organizer, user of Recreation Department services, and interested in expanding winter sport offerings.

Matt Cain has experience serving on the Board of Directors of Amherst Youth Soccer, and dedicating his time to strategic planning, budgeting, and the organization’s finances. His children are involved in many activities offered by the Recreation Department, and he believes broader involvement of youth in sports activities is important.

Homelessness and Rehousing Working Group
Mary Beth Ogulewicz gave a brief report on establishing the charge for the Homelessness and Rehousing Working Group. The draft of that charge can be read here.

The working group will make recommendations to the Town Manager to ensure the operation of a seasonal shelter and explore the possibility of creating a permanent seasonal or year-round shelter with proper support services including rehousing.

Triangle Street Roundabout
The town has applied for a grant to support looking at an improved pathway from the high school to Kendrick Park. Bockleman projects that the work will create more definition for Pray Street, which is not well defined now, and will likely include crosswalk improvements across East Pleasant Street to Pray, and the addition of some flashing beacons in the area of the roundabout. Steinberg noted that Triangle Street and especially the area around the roundabout has been problematic for people with visual disabilities. Bockleman responded that the Disability Access Advisory Committee has already approved the proposed changes and that the project is really about establishing/improving the pathway of getting from one amenity (the high school fields and Memorial Pool) to another (Kendrick Park) and not necessarily to resolve the problems of the Triangle Street roundabout.