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Hi,

I'm Jeremy Frosby, and I'm Nick Bouchet.

We're your host for the program that's all about your city, Talking Fitchburg.

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First item on the agenda is roll call.

We will start with our member Alder Lepper.

Present.

And our Vice Chair Elder Herbst.

Here.

And our chair Alder Reichstead, I'm here.

We have a quorum.

Next up is public appearances for non-agenda items.

Both of our folks, one online, one in person are here for agenda items.

So there are none.

Which moves us to item four, the consent agenda, which includes the approval of minutes from September 22nd, the approval of routine license operator license report, and approval of sound permit applications.

I would entertain a motion on this item.

I

will move approval.

Okay.

Moved by Alder Lepper.

Before we uh get into the approval vote, um, we're we are slated to have a discussion on one of the items that's in here, um, which um has Sherma is here to talk about, which is the uh Diwali event that we have.

Um, so I guess I'll turn it over to you really quickly to give us kind of a brief summary and then uh check with Tracy and make sure we're covering everything we gotta cover here.

So

we good evening, everyone.

Uh I think this is our fifth year uh of Diwali.

I'm the chairman of American Hindu Association, which is just on Fish High Shiru, about two miles from here.

And uh this year the Diwali is kind of a function.

It's uh we do it's a uh festival of lights, which we light up and we do prayers, we sing bhajans and songs, and then we do fireworks at the end.

And our calendar this year, just like we have a Chinese calendar, that's how we have a Hindu calendar also.

So this year it's kind of a fall in November.

Usually it comes in October in past.

So why because of this Hindu calendar, we have a different kind of a calendar's fallen that day.

So this year uh I've been requesting for the parking.

Usually we accommodate enough parking at our parking lot and we have a big ground here.

But this year, what happened is they what it rained that time or snow.

So for that backup, I just requested that if we can use the veteran park for like three, four hours or five hours.

We'll put in small generator, uh, a portable and put some lights there so people can park.

Uh we have a couple of vans, uh uh, which I own it.

We'll be running that from the veteran park to the temple, which is less than a half a mile, and we'll bring in and you know, uh bringing folks from that parking lot to the temple and temple to the temple to the parking lot, just so we don't have any backup.

And uh uh the other thing is we're gonna hire a cop from 5 p.m.

to 9 p.m.

for

four or five hours because our prayers, I mean our functions start 5 p.m.

And we did have a I mean flyer and agenda ready, which is shows here that uh we're gonna have a shuttle service and everything.

I did not publish it until I get approval.

Okay,

once you give me approval, then it goes to the community, we'll publish on every single thing, which says that we will have a parking.

So if you can allow me to do that, then we will publish it.

It says all the details also.

It's the same function which you're doing year to year.

Uh this is our uh eighth year of the temple, but doing a Diwali is a fifth year.

And I've been managing that one, so I've been I'm pretty much aware of it, what needs to be done.