Pickleball, Historic Preservation, And Other Recommendations From CPAC

Report on Finance Committee and Town Council Meetings Of February 8, 2022

This meeting was held on Zoom and was recorded. That recording can be viewed here. The most recent posted minutes are from January 19, 2022. 

Present
Town Councilors: Cathy Schoen and Michele Miller (District 1); Lynn Griesemer (chair) and Pat DeAngelis (District 2); Jennifer Taub and Dorothy Pam (District 3); Pam Rooney (District 4); Ana Devin Gauthier (District 5); Ellisha Walker (at large)

Finance Committee Non-voting Members: Robert Hegner, Matt Holloway, Bernard Kubiak

Staff: Sean Mangano (finance director ); Sonia Aldrich (comptroller); David Ziomek (assistant town manager and director of conservation and development) and

Community Preservation Act Committee Chair: Sarah Marshall

Chairperson of the Finance Committee Andy Steinberg was absent; Council President Lynn Griesemer chaired the meeting, which started at 9 a.m.

Recommended Community Preservation Act Funding
Sarah Marshall presented the recommendations of the Community Preservation Act Committee (CPAC) for spending an expected $2 million. About half of this money comes from Amherst taxpayers and the other half from the state government. Funding recommendations have to fit regulations for specific permitted categories, and the committee recommended the following:

Community Housing, $1,275,394

Recreation, $557,400

Historical Preservation, $456,700

Open Space, $31,860

Administration, $25,000

Budgeted Reserves, $533,105

Some of these funds will go towards previously authorized CPA projects for which bonding was required; $488,720 is needed to fund fiscal year ’23 debt payments on past projects, such as the purchase of land on Belchertown Road for affordable housing, South East Street Rock Farm property, preservation of 41 units at Rolling Green as permanent affordable housing, modernization of Groff Park, Valley CDC supportive studio housing, Kendrick Park playground,Kieras land, and rehabilitation of Ann Whalen housing units. The town has not started debt payments for improvements to the space for the library’s special collections. Other payments will include funding a part-time housing coordinator (non-benefitted) for three years, funds to rehab the John C. Nutting complex at Chestnut Court, acquisition and development of transitional housing, additional funding for the Affordable Housing Trust, and affordable housing at EastStreet School and on Belchertown Road.

Bernie Kubiak said the Affordable Housing Trust should try to find outside funding to supplement town funding, and that Amherst should press for regional affordable housing. Other towns’ affordable housing efforts, he indicated, should be comparable to Amherst’s,  and added that “if we build it, folks will come.” 

Historic Preservation Funding
CPA funds for historic preservation include:

Conkey-Stevens house, Salem Street, $240,000 for repairs to the chimney, roof, wrap-around porch, dormers, and exterior granite steps

Simeon Strong House, Amity Street, $18,800 for an engineering and structural assessment before demolition of the adjacent section of the Jones Library and/or construction of a parking garage on North Prospect Street

Alice Maud Hills House (Amherst Woman’s Club), Main Street, $135,000

West Cemetery fence and signs, $50,000

A significant discussion took place about ramifications of awarding CPA funds for work on privately owned structures. The privately-owned Conkey-Stevens house, for example, is divided into condos, offices, and at least one rental. Who is responsible for future upkeep and repair needs? What if an owner or group of owners request rounds of funding? Does an owner or should an owner have to reimburse the town for repairs and restoration when the improved structure is sold soon after for a significantly higher price? How much later? How much of a sales price can be attributed to CPA-funded improvements? Michele Miller asked whether CPA funding can be expedited if someone is awarded funding but due to cash flow problems needs the money relatively quickly.

Funding for Open Space Preservation
Beside housing and historic preservation, CPA funds can be awarded for preservation of open space and for recreation. No applications were received for open space preservation this year. 

Funding for Recreation
CPAC recommended the following recreation-relative disbursements:

Crocker Farm elementary school playground: $50,000

Plum Brook Fields (Potwine Lane): $38,000 to drill a new, larger well; remove the system of stationary sprinkler heads, which are sticking up out of the ground, endangering athletes and other users of the fields (but leave the underground pipes in place for now); create a new watering system using moveable water canons; and address other irrigation problems

Hickory Ridge Trail: $150,000 for trail work, benches, perhaps kiosks in a small part of what is hoped to become an extensive network of heavily used and enjoyed recreational trails (contingent on town purchase of the property)

Other town trails: $50,000 for repair of a backlog of needed repairs to Amherst trails and their bridges, bog bridges, perhaps adding accessibility features

Pickleball courts: $120,000 to construct pickleball courts in an as-yet-undetermined public park

Pickleball courts? One of the longest and most down-to-earth discussions of the morning addressed the question, “what is pickleball” and “are pickleball courts an appropriate use of town funds?”

Following is the Zoom transcription, lightly edited.

Pat DeAngelis: I’m interested in why the pickleball players aren’t raising money to support this. When people wanted a dog park they did an incredible amount of work to fundraise for the proposal. I haven’t played pickleball yet so maybe it would change my mind, but I don’t understand why we want to spend $120,000 to make a pickleball court when there are so many other things we could use, and  $120,000 for that would benefit a lot more people. I’m curious about why they [ pickleball supporters] are not funding it themselves— why isn’t that the first step that this group of people looks out for—fundraising—before they ask the town for money.

“I think that’s the reason [pickleball is] so popular—it’s so easy to learn and it’s so easy to play for people who can barely move.”

Town Councilor Cathy Schoen

Sarah Marshall:. I don’t know if they have considered that. I would think one or both of these two things: one, pickleball is a popular sport at all ages and why shouldn’t the town add this to its recreation assets? You know, why build tennis courts, why don’t tennis players raise money for tennis courts.. Maybe once there are courts, and it builds an actual Amherst community for that, they can leverage that into fundraising but I don’t believe we addressed that.

Lynn Griesemer: David, did you have a comment?

David Ziomek: No, I guess, I would just build on what Sarah said, and Pat, I think it’s a good question and I’m not sure we really did explore that with them. As Sarah said, they’re a very passionate group, they’re organized— I give them great credit for doing the work they did to pull this all together…I think we might have received more letters and emails on this pickleball proposal then I can recall in my time with the town on any CPA proposal. 

And to Sarah’s comment, pickleball is sweeping the nation, really, as it is an extremely popular sport for all ages, and I think to some degree it’s now incumbent upon us to look at it— we have tennis courts, we have basketball courts. We have pools, we have baseball fields. We have all sorts of recreational facilities, and to create two or three courts for this new sport seems reasonable to me. I’ve talked to the DPW and the planning staff, and we all came around to it to say, yeah we should find a place for pickleball courts in Amherst. 

And perhaps we could take a message back to the group, from this discussion—that it would be wonderful if there were maybe some funds raised to help support the pickleball courts because they will need maintenance over time.

Lynn Griesemer: Before I call on anybody, I just need to disclose that my husband was one of the signatories to support this proposal, so—it does not require me to recuse myself, it just requires me to. declare that.

Bob Hegner: Sorry, I didn’t want to talk about pickleball—in fact, I had to look it up, I never heard of it before. I want to talk about Hickory Ridge, but if other people have pickleball issues, let them go forward.

Lynn Griesemer: Okay Cathy, is it a pickleball issue? 

Cathy Schoen: I’ll just speak quickly to this. First it’s my understanding that this isn’t one court. They can get as many as three courts into a space, and the amazing thing about pickleball is that it’s across ages but across  bad knees and bad backs. It keeps seniors outside, and little kids can pick it up— we can get our kids out and playing this. I think that’s the reason it’s so popular— it’s so easy to learn and it’s so easy to play for people who can barely move. It goes to the little kids but also [people who] stand there. I think, the more we can get everybody outside…it’s a real public benefit.

Dorothy Pam: I need just a few more things. I don’t know what pickleball is. If somebody could explain even what kind of a ball you use and what you do with it, it would be really helpful.

Sarah Marshall: I’ll explain unless there are any actual players.

Cathy Schoen: I just learned it a couple years ago…I’m a tennis player, and [pickleball uses] a racket that looks more like a ping pong racket, it’s short. The ball doesn’t bounce very much. The court is much smaller, which is why they can divide a tennis court into two pickleballcourts. And it has the most weird rules you ever heard on scoring, so I think it teaches people math skills in a bizarre way because it is totally non-intuitive.

But I think  why it’s attractive is that the ball doesn’t have to go very far and it’s a double, two people play against two people normally, so it gets four people out on this pretty small court.

Lynn Griesemer: Pam Rooney— 

Pam Rooney: Hi, I’ve got a couple of different topics, but I could focus on this one. I was thinking about the comment about the dog park, and I suspect that at some point, there may be sort of an ongoing maintenance fund structure that the supporters of pickleball can chip into. Certainly with the dog park, the town has contributed a fair amount, in addition to whatever the dog park devotees have contributed. I think in the long run, everyone will be well-served by user support.

[For more information about pickleball, see What You Need to Know About Pickleball]

Earlier in the meeting, the Finance Committee discussed the recommendation for $150,000 for trail work, benches, and perhaps kiosks on a small section of what will likely become a heavily used network of trails at Hickory Ridge, contingent on it being purchased by the town. Ziomek explained,”We’re kind of on the one-yard line when it comes to that property…we are extremely close” to finalizing the purchase, but it is hard to estimate costs for potential trails, bridges, and so on until the Conservation Commission studies preliminary plans. Developing north-south access as well as east-west access is particularly important.

No one had comments or questions about $25,000 for administration or $533,105 for budgeted reserve, and there was no clarification for $31,860 for open space, in the summary.

Public Comment
Meg Gage thanked various individuals and committees for their dedicated work and then updated them about the proposed history project for North Amherst to highlight when North Amherst was at the height of industrialism, ending with a request for CPA support. In 1775, she said, there were already six mills on the Mill River between Montague Road and the Cushman Common, including a pencil mill and at least one lumber mill, but the remnants and artifacts from these mills are  disappearing. She noted that people are still finding artifacts such as Civil War coins and urged the town to help save the industrial history of North Amherst. A community group has formed to shepherd the process along. “We’re using an approach called ‘community archeology’ in which the community becomes the docents, guardians…We all know that people working together, communities, are better protectors of historic treasures than government.” The group will also look into the river’s pre-colonial history and people who were living here before colonization. 

She said the group applied last year for $160,000, which was rejected, and suggested that a more modest $12,900 that was recommended by CPAC will enable them to find outside financial support from foundations and institutions.  “We are confident we can find outside funding once we get tax-exempt statuI’ll just give you an example. While you’re playing pickleball at the Mill River park” you might be interested to know tht the berm alongside the park was once used to divert water to a water-powered grist mill nearby.

Toni Cunningham then commented that the initial square footage proposed for the elementary school building project, 114,000 square feet, is 28,000 square feet beyond what the MSP recommends for a school for 575 children. “And what this means, if my math is correct, is we’re proposing an approximately $100 million school project, potentially $90 million, which I think is at least $20 million beyond our budget.” 

She urged councilors “to get involved at this point to push to have that building proposal scaled back. And from my math, anything beyond 90,000 square feet is going to exceed our hoped-for budget, but it’s on the agenda for the school committee tonight—and the plan, as far as I’m aware, [is] to submit this to the MSP in the next few weeks….”

She continued, “It’s urgent that the councilors get involved at this point and push to get this building scaled back or we’re going to have another overly sized building proposal that’s going to have trouble passing at an override. And it’s going to take money from the fire station, the DPW, Crocker Farm and any of the other needs the town has if it ends up being $100 million instead of $70 or $75. Thank you.”

As the acting chair of the Finance Committee, Griesemer suggested that they postpone the vote on the CPA proposals until the next committee meeting, February 15. There was a general round of gratitude to Marshall and the rest of CPAC, as well as Comptroller Aldrich and Finance Director Mangano.

Aldrich went on to present complicated details about the town finances and budget so far, including a Covid-related decrease in recreation revenue this year, uncertainty about the effects of Hickory Ridge Golf Course’s closure on the town-owned golf course in North Amherst, a higher than expected count of permits for electrical and building this year, a positive trend for various licenses and permits, including recreational cannabis, although income from water and sewer, and parking fees and fines have decreased, She provided information showing that expenditures have been largely as expected. Michele Miller and Ellisha Walker asked about future funding for the two new departments (related to the Department of Equity and Inclusion and the community responders program) once Covid-related ARPA relief funds are no longer available. Mangano said he will provide them with additional materials about the future funding plan.

Town Manager Paul Bockelman, Mangano, and other Town Hall staff are in full preparation mode forthe FY 23 budget that will come to the Council on May 1, Griesemer noted, “and we must pass a budget by June 30” so May is especially intense. “It’s when we hear from the various departments and we get an opportunity to ask questions.” Schoen urged people to get their comments and questions to the Finance Committee early so that department discussions can include or even focus on them. 

Sources of revenue and regulations about funds and town accounts, how the town attempts to predict state aid, school budgets, and more followed, 

The next Finance Committee and/or Town Council meetings will include a report from outside auditorTanja Campbell from Atlanta and a proposed parking plan. 

The meeting adjourned at about 11:15 a.m.