 Good evening calling to order the meeting of the Arlington select board for Monday, March 28th, 2022 This is select board chair Steve D'Corsi with me tonight in the select board chambers are John Herd Adam chapter lane town manager Doug Heim town council and our office manager and mr. Diggins is with us remotely and if you can confirm that you can hear us I Can't hear you a little muffled so but I can hear you fine with my headphones on Okay, thank you Tonight's meeting of the Arlington select board is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with an act signed into law on February 15th 2022 that extends certain COVID-19 related measures the act includes an extension until July 15th 2022 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12th 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting lot the governor's order which is referenced with the gender materials on The town's website for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely So long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting Before we begin permit me to offer a few notes First this meeting is being conducted via zoom is being recorded and is also being simultaneously Broadcast on a CMI Person's wishing to join the meeting by zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website persons participating by zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate You were asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting all Participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves Both zoom participants and persons watching on a CMI can follow the posted agenda materials Also found on the town's website using the novice agenda platform Finally each vote tonight will be taken by roll call We are continuing our warrant article hearings this evening So let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight I'll now turn to the next item on the agenda, which is the consent agenda this evening Item two is a request for a contractor drain layer license John Pandelina J. Pandelina and son LLC Item three is a request for a special one-day beer and wine license for April 9th 2022 with the Robbins Memorial Town Hall for a private event Okay, any comments on a motion by mrs. Mahan for approval seconded by mr. Herd, attorney. Hi Mr. Herd. Yes Mr. Diggins. Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes, this is my hand. Yes, mr. DeCourse. Yes Thank you Next item item four and five their appointments item four is for the elderly and disabled tax relief review committee Terms to expire 131 2025 with us tonight at Nancy Feeney Rick Fenton and James Munze And while they are brought up what this is is back in 2017 town meeting approved a Local option to establish an elderly and disabled tax relief fund There are five members to the fund pursuant to chapter 60 section 3d the treasurer the chair of the Board of Assessors and three members appointed by the select board and the three Applicants who have been recommended to us are here this evening And if you could each of you just identify yourselves briefly and tell us why you're interested To serve on the committee Let's start with you miss Feeney Hi, thank you very much I'm Nancy Feeney. I'm a new member of the council on agent and I'm looking forward to offer my services to help and Going over the tax relief fund and offering grants money. Thank you. Mr. Fenton Did you say me? Yes. Yes. Hi. I'm Rick Fenton and I've been a board member for six years and I'm currently an associate board member and been a volunteer for quite a while and I'm very interested in and joining with Nancy and and Jim to help Decide in terms of the distribution of the tax relief funds And so I'm very much like that. Thank you. And Mr. Munty if you could go now Good evening Nice to see Rick again. We used to serve on the council board for six years And I did owe everything that those two people just said I've been working with the council and aging for I'm in my 10th year Serving our senior population and it's very gratifying. I look forward to the work with these two people too Thank you very much. I'll turn to the board for motions or comments Mr. Hurd just want to thank All three you for stepping up being in agreeing to serve on this committee We've been looking forward to these to the elderly tax reliefs fund for a few years that it's been in place And I look forward to seeing what the committee can come up with to help our seniors. So I'll move approval Okay, Mr. Helmeth any other comments if the board members Seeing mr. Diggins I'll just say me. I really appreciate what you all do it seems like the council ages where all the cool kids are So I need to hang out there sometimes soon. So thanks for the second map Older than I look Thank you, mr. Diggins And just to add on the real estate tax bills There is a check up check off for this fund for voluntary contributions and the committee decides For those applicants who I believe there are applications available through the council on aging website and perhaps to the treasurer's office as well So in a motion by mr. Hurd seconded by mr. Diggins attorney Heim Mr. Hurd. Yes, mr. Diggins. Yes, mr. Helmeth. Yes, this is my home. Yes, mr. Dacorsi. Yes Thank you to each of you for your willingness to serve Thank you very much All right. Thank you. Thank you Item five is an appointment to the grants committee of the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture Nancy Gray waiting for Miss Gray to come up. I do want to thank the public. We are still We're in a hybrid format tonight. I understand there might be some issues on on audio with zoom we're trying to work through and Again, this is part of the experience of working in this new environment. We'll do the best we can on it Nancy if you just want to unmute your mic Unmute, okay. Good evening, Miss Gray. Yep Hello, can anybody hear me or see me? We can hear you Okay, that'll be sufficient Sure. Yeah, if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in serving on the on the commission on the grants committee rather Yes, I know we can see you I have I ran my own foundation for Not four and a half years It's Nancy H. Gray foundation for art in the environment the people I gave grants to were ones with degrees in art, but had given a Lot of thought to some part of an environmental issue And I ran it from 91 91 to 91 no 96 days 798 and Some one of the wonderful ones was an artist who said, okay a highway has come through in California in two different communities Why don't we create a? Garden community garden between these two and then they can intermingle like they used to in the old days before there was a highway and Another woman cleaned up the beach on an island in Maine And I thought she should continue with her work and it has gone on for years another created a place for art in Philadelphia Which was just charming and right in the middle of the poor neighborhood, so those are just some of the things that Given money for in my years as a grant or That's a while ago. I stopped it in Just as soon as the dot-com boom ended if you remember that Great. Yep. No, sure. No, no, thank you and thank you for your interest in serving on the committee here I'll now turn to Board members if that Mr. Helmut Thank you. Thank you so much for your work for the arts to support artists They are it is so important and the fabric of our community And I think artists have a especially important way. I'm having a hard time hearing you Yeah, sorry about that. Well, I'll try to talk louder. We're having some technical audio problems I was thanking you for your work to support artists and what an important role artists have and Talking about important issues of our time like the environment and I'm thrilled that you will continue your work to help Allocate grants for artists in our town, so I would be very happy to move approval. Thank you. Mr. Helmeth second seconded by mr. Herd any further comments Seeing none, so we're gonna we're gonna go to a vote now We just want to thank you again for your interest but on a motion by mr. Helmeth seconded by mr. Herd attorney. Hi Mr. Herd. Yes, mr. Diggins Yes, mr. Helmeth. Yes, Mrs. Mahan Mr. D'Corsi. Yes, it's unanimous vote. Great. Congratulations. You've just been appointed and thank you for your interest. I Appreciate your time, too. Thank you very much for doing that for me. Sure Okay, we will now move to warrant article hearings and we're gonna pick up pick up numerically Based on what's printed here on the agenda just a couple of comments before we start For presenters on the warrant articles we ask that you Try to keep your presentation to seven minutes or less. These are all public hearings and we ask that the Members of the public who wish to be heard Limit their presentations or their comments to three minutes For any comments that they want to make We've had some discussion at the last meeting and I believe on the first warrant article hearings that we had About home rule and the limitations of home rule. We're going to get into that a little bit more this evening And I may turn to attorney Heim To talk a little bit about that as well, but that is going to come up on the facial Recognition warrant article when we provide an update. It's also going to come up on the rodenticide article as well So we will try to address that When we get to those points, but I did want to make the just that the points on general timing So why don't we start with article 7 by law amendment youth and young and adult advisory board and believing and turn it to mr. Diggins to Make that presentation and there might be some speakers on that one as well Thank you, Mr. Chair. So yes, we're going to have two presenters Mr. Franz Jose And is Josephine You're going to join us in just a moment Good evening Hi, everybody. I get to see everyone here tonight. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen It says that it's disabled Mr. Maher is going to look into that Just in case you have problems hearing. I'm finding headphones help out a whole lot That looks like I have access pulling it up right now for all great. Can you all see this all right? Yes, we can Excellent. Okay. So tonight we'll be presenting in favor of the young arlington collaboratives formation So a bit about who we are I'm alexander franzosa co-chair of the study committee which was created from the 2021 warn article 17 Uh, which called for the formation of a study committee for the creation of another committee in turn Uh, a youth and young adult advisory committee So myself, uh, the other co-chair here tonight Josephine almond and the rest of the committee have worked at this study to come with a suggestion for a final committee A brief overview of the membership of the committee. We had 11 members a good mix I found of high school students as well as town government veterans and then myself something in between the two So looking into why we should create a group Here are some of the issues that we found most prevalent and required to consider when creating this group Youth issues and youth activism have become increasingly prevalent in society That is young people want to get involved and this would be an avenue for legitimate involvement Beyond just campaigning on the streets Secondly many important decisions made in local government do affect youth and young adults The best example I can think of is school committee decisions absolutely affect students In many cases in the town students are the end clients of town services Not only with the school committee, but the recreation department, for example Third young people do have the potential to develop skills in town government I see that this group could be an opportunity for interested youths Particularly younger people to get interested and get experience Working with that interest with real-time government issues and finally representation and government of course is Absolutely necessary to to make sure that every person has their voice heard and to ensure that laws are fair for all In order to make sure that we Created a group that that made sense for Arlington. We decided to do some research on other groups in neighboring communities We found that many communities in the Commonwealth from as far from places as Newton to Salem Had committees not unlike the one that we're creating Some of these were ad hoc committees for the purpose of creating one specific event While others were a permanent body, which would mirror more what Arlington is looking to do I find and the committee finds that it's useful to have other committees that have already done similar work to our own Not only as precedent to show that it can be done But also that those committees could be contacted by the committee to be formed For the development of new ideas and to share thoughts about common challenges between youth in different towns So our decision after deliberating was to suggest the formation of the young Arlington collaborative The name collaborative I find is a a round word that is welcoming especially to younger people who might not be Ready yet to get into a serious commitment But but have an interest and and what we're really trying to do is to feed into that interest So the structure that we're working with here will be Somewhat based off of the Envision Arlington model, which some of you may be familiar with in which there's a large standing committee composed of 21 voting members 21 non voting members And then beneath it. This is the Envision Arlington type style. There will be working groups that need not be formal members This allows for a broad number of people to to be involved in the group And by having more inclusivity we increase the chances of youth's voice Being heard within the group and then through the group to town government And the working groups I find will will allow for greater flexibility with the structure of this group Right now we're just looking at how to get things rolling the the way that it will roll once it's formed Is really up to the group itself Taking a closer look at some of the mechanics of the group and the membership We wanted to have people from across the town in a diverse set of precincts be involved We also wanted a diversity of age groups. You may have noticed in the original article Article 17 from last year which called for the formation of a committee or the formation of a study committee Pardon me Was for youth and young adults and we took this literally that youth would be an age range from 12 to 20 So covering high school and young college age and young adults ages 21 to 35 And by having one youth and one young adult from each precinct We ensure that there's a diversity of voices being heard um The members will be chosen or selected and will be eventually selected by lottery terms are for two years And the voting members and non voting members will switch each year based off of the respective precinct number So that might be an odd or even number. They'll be voting or non voting for youth or young adult given every other year And you can refer to I believe it's in the agenda as well the main motion as suggested For a closer look at some of the details there There will be a liaison chosen by the select board who will serve as the secretary And this will be a good contact point between the group and the select board itself On the subsequent member selections will be subject to the decision of the collaborative itself to decide how those members are chosen We set something up here to get the ball rolling and again what the collaborative ends up doing once it's in motion is up to them So we've done a lot of talking about the structure of the group Here's the mission statement to get into some of the the work that I And the committee would like to see the collaborative do So i'll read it off here the mission of the young arlington collaborative Is to invite the youth and young adults of arlington to get involved in their local government We'll provide an inclusive space where we can collaborate with our community let all voices be heard And what this is driving at is that this group will be a two-way communication channel, right? So for the youth and young adults who to date might not have seen a formal group Where they are actually part of town government and can present to town government Say the collaborative could make a presentation for town meeting or make presentations to the select board These youth would now have an opportunity to do so Furthermore, it's not only a one-way communication channel There's also the opportunity for town government officials to teach Those in the youth committee about the way the town government works I find that there's excellent opportunities for education here as well as the empowerment of youth So this mission statement, which would be something of the the billboard advertisement to get members to join and get interested Is a good place to start as to what our work will be So with that, I'd like to wrap up here. I hope I've kept it within the time limits Thank you all for listening and myself and joe are open for questions that you might have Thank you Thank you very much for the presentation and for the work you did as as part of the Study committee and leading leading up to this recommendation I'll now turn to the board for any questions comments motions I think may be appropriate to start with mr. Diggins on this one since he was so involved with it Of course, I am going to make a motion to Vote positive action on this being and I'm going to reserve comments until after the hearing and after the vote Okay, I'll help answer questions who should come up. Okay. Any other members? Sure. Mr. Helmuth Thank you. I'm very happy to second this welcome back. Mr. Franzosa. We saw you Our last meeting I believe Having joined the community preservation act committee as a young adult and I'd say that you are Practicing what you preach by your involvement in that committee. Thank you for your for your help I hear great things from the chair about your work there Um, and I just want to say that uh last week I had the opportunity to speak with a Student group at Arlington high school that was work works in government and politics And with some help from mr. Diggins. I On talking points. I described this proposed commission to them and their response was Where do we sign up? They were really interested Really excited And uh, so I will hope that we move this through a tell meeting and then tell meeting gives you a resounding vote to Create this this group Thank you. Mr. Helmuth. Mr. Herd Thank you all for the presentation and your work on the committee. Um I'm happy to support this. I think it's exciting to see what can come of it I think last year mr. Diggins had an idea right mr. Diggins, but When we first talked about it, we didn't know quite what it would be What the group would accomplish, but he knew he wanted to get youth of Arlington involved and put Community together and I think the product That's come out of all the work that you all have done this year Has come up with a group that will be very beneficial To both the participants in the town So i'm very happy to support this and i'm glad to see this coming together Thank you. Thank you, mr. Herd. Um, thank you. I'm not going to repeat what my colleagues have said I was just wondering um In terms of the Youth that you'll be encouraging to apply and that you've already done the outreach for and others um I was just wondering for Young adults on the sort of the high functioning end of special needs Um, where do you envision them? I'm not saying um Young adults adolescents who aren't on the high functioning end Don't have a spot on this committee, but i'm just wondering for that group high functioning to low functioning Sort of where you see Fitting them in or is that something that's going to be discussed at the first few meetings and then make a decision on that going forward Sure, if I could speak to that, um I think that the the more inclusive the group the better right and hopefully the the working group model Will provide as many opportunities for membership as possible Um, and to your point there might be room for decisions to be made Once the group convenes for the first time Our mission here really was to get the ball rolling and you bring up a good point that I hope should the collaborative be formed Will be considered in depth Thank you. Very happy to support this. Thank you. Mr. Chair Thank you. Mr. Pond. Mr. Diggins Yes, I was just going to ask mr. Friends. Those are or someone in zoomland to repeat what the question was because I didn't quite get it From mrs. Mahan mrs. Mahan I was just um, this is sort of pardon the pun and its infancy, but the question was concerning um youth with That run the spectrum On on special needs High functioning to you know the whole gamut. I'm not trying to eliminate anyone. So that was the question Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. No, no, no. Okay. So I understand and now I understand My colleague's response. My colleague's done a state committee response. Okay. Thank you Great. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Diggins Oh, go ahead No, I just want to say that's a great question though. Um, because our group does focus a lot On inclusivity and I really hope that it's something that the future group will consider more All right Thank you. Um, yeah, and I also want to add I'm I'm happy to support this and and appreciate the comprehensive nature of the Proposed bylaw here just one question and perhaps it's from mr. Diggins There also was an article 21 To extend the term of the study committee if this is um town meeting votes favorable action and creates the bylaw Is there any further need to Extend the committee or and and I'm wondering maybe we should take a a contingent vote in the highly unlikely event that There isn't a vote at town meeting. Would you want to continue the committee? If I think it's highly unlikely, but I just just procedurally Right, right. Well, I I guess maybe Mr. Hyme can Can um address this If we were to take this This article seven to town meeting and town meeting had Some issue with it. I would imagine that town meeting itself would create me The amendment that would allow the group to continue for a year unless town meeting just wanted to We not have the group period But so if that's not the case then we could do 21 just as a backup Me but but we had that just in case we couldn't make it to the goal line This this for for annual town meeting. We got a bit of a late start, you know, but but We were so close to me that we just pushed through and did a whole bunch more meetings because to prolong this for another year You know, I just think would be counterproductive because because we wouldn't get much more out of it So I hope that answers your question. Mr. Chair. All right. Yeah. No, we need to make a recommendation That's why I was asking on mr. Chapter lane Thank you, mr. Chairman. I just thought maybe a will report Okay, sure. Okay, and that that way when the chairman can get up and say if for some reason articles have it doesn't work out Here's our motion if it does work out. No action. Perfect. Yeah, I'm not concerned it won't but just in case That's the way to do it. Okay. Thank you, mr. Chapter Lane. This is a public hearing So I don't know if there's anybody who wishes to be heard on this article Okay, all right. Well, great. Well, thank you very much So on a motion by mr. Diggins for favorable favorable action seconded by mr. Helmeth attorney hind Mr. Heard yes, mr. Diggins Yes, mr. Helmeth. Yes This is mahan. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes, it's unanimous vote. Thank you very much Mr. Diggins Yeah, and I just wanted to say because I didn't want to make it emotional I'll make it a little emotional. I I'm just really so proud of this group meet And and me not only the high school students and the the young adults. There's the second one It was our dei director And It's actually her first chance getting to vote You know in the committee seeing that she's been a part of it. She was thrilled with that, you know and and also the liaisons from from other groups seen and And I I think this really gives me a lot of confidence that we're headed down the right path because when I campaign Me there was the notion that the select board just could have created a group like this Me but then I thought it would be really be better if this were something that tom meeting created and Bringing a bunch of people together to work on it. I mean, it ended up being something very different than I Imagine it would have been And I'm happy for that because I think I think it's a better a better It's better concept at this point and I have no doubts that we when The group is committed. Hopefully it will be me With more people that it'll become Even better. So so So Thank you all but really thanks to everyone on the committee and all their hard work But no, thank you for your hard work. Mr. Diggins. Uh, Turning hind. Did you want to add something? This is of course. See just before we move on This is just a minor thing. I just want to confirm that The intention of this is to place this in title two committees and commissions under a new article, correct? Correct So this will be codified in the town by-law. It won't be a creation It'll be a creation of town meeting but by the town by-law is not as a standing committee of town meeting, correct? Correct. Thank you, sir. Correct. Yeah Okay, great. Thank you very much Thank you All right Moving on We are next going to take up article 13 again Or continue our discussion on article 13 By-law amendment To prohibit the use of face surveillance. I believe mr. Fisher Maybe with us tonight and just to update The public we This was the last our warrant article hearing that we had at our last meeting And we got to a place where we had talked about Part potential preemption issues Because of the geolact and we also talked about potentially going down the road of a Of a resolution because of a commission report that was actually Came out On tuesday the commission report, um, which I have here. I want to get the name Special commission to evaluate Government use of facial recognition Technology in the commonwealth their final report came out on march Was dated march 14th, but it was published last week. So in talking with mr. Fisher On friday he has sent a proposed resolution to us As opposed to a by-law change in light of the final report and our discussion Last week so mr. Fisher if you want to add anything on the proposed resolution and we'll take it up for for board discussion But I want to thank you for reaching out to us after the meeting and thank you for What I consider productive discussion last week is part of the warrant article as well Sure. Thank you so much Just a couple things I guess first of all, I I think from my perspective the The issue that's pushing us towards a resolution is not state preemption because I think that Was worked into the proposed by-law pretty pretty clearly that any Change to the state law would have adjusted our town by-law But more the issue around the town manager act in the particular way that our government Our town government is chartered And so I think you know a resolution Will be a positive action supporting and also sort of gently pressuring our state representatives to Continue their work on facial recognition um And you know, I think on the side of town government the resolution will provide really clear if non-binding direction for the town manager and town government And I think it's right for us as elected officials to follow the letter and the spirit of of our town charter Even if we could theoretically maybe win a vote at town meeting creating a ban But it's not from what I understand from mr. Hyman from you all who have who have helped me understand our town government It doesn't seem like it would follow the letter of of how our government was created um and so while I'm I'm the only other thing I wanted to say was that while i'm generally sympathetic to a strong town manager because I think Government, especially local government is really good and can do more when its power structure is clear and more direct Um, I do find town meetings current inability to constrain town government to be somewhat problematic I understand that in theory the check on the town manager is the select board And the check on the select board are the voters, but that remedy seems pretty indirect and slow And discounts the the great power of incumbency So I I understand you all are thinking about this. I've talked to mr. Diggins a little bit about it And it's a tricky not to unravel, but my hope is that we can all find a way to allow for some Potential to create bird rails for town government without reducing its ability to set policy So thank you very much Okay, thank you, mr. Fisher and before I turn it to to board members to mr. Fisher brought up that the second issue that we run into With preemption and there's an issue of state law and what the legislature? Whether there was an intent to preempt the field here But attorney heim had brought this up in memos to us earlier on There also is the interaction of the town manager act with actions of town meeting and if I could turn to attorney heim Just briefly on that issue. I think mr. Fisher summarized it But just in terms of what we need to be mindful of When we have these proposed bylaws in terms of what's already spelled out in the town manager act and the limitations on that Thank you, mr. Chair and I want to thank again, mr. Fisher who I've enjoyed having a lot of dialogue with about Both the specific Warren article that he's brought But also about these larger issues and I guess so I just want to convey to folks is that yeah when we talk about preemption typically what we're talking about is The idea of what powers have been delegated to towns and other municipalities under the home rule procedures act and there's a long history involved here, but the There's two facets of it. One is about what powers of municipality like a town or a city can exercise relative to the state And there's some very specific things. We're not allowed to do which is regulate taxation or regulate elections through local bylaw But also this very general clause that we're not allowed to regulate something that's already regulated by the state But there's also a second part that we don't talk about as much And it's that we're not supposed to regulate something that's inconsistent by a local ordinance by law City ordinance that's inconsistent with what's essentially here in arlington our town charter And the attorney general's office in theory would take a look at that But that's very difficult because every town has a slightly different form of government And arlington has a strong town manager act and it's very specific There's also another piece of that's a little bit more nuanced specific to arlington because we have a sort of proto charter It's that the town manager itself actually is state law The town manager act is a collection of state laws that were passed special acts over a period of time before the home rules procedure Act was passed. So it's kind of funny But in a way, we're not only sort of dealing with the sort of constitution of the town and how it separates powers but we're also dealing with a Sort of very nuanced preemption issue in the sense that the legislature agreed that this is the type of government The town would have and it passed these different Modifications to the town manager act over time. So I know that that's a mouthful It's a little bit hard to state too concisely, but if folks have more questions about it I just want to recognize all of the folks who have brought some really important ideas before the board It's not a commentary on the quality of the ideas at all It's a commentary on the way our government is is set up and it ranges everything from On the resolution that I believe will have before us tonight about diversity in town appointments to facial recognition technology to integrated pest management Devarying degrees and it can be sometimes a close question when it comes to interpreting the town manager act and I appreciate mr. Fisher and the select boards Patience and consideration of these matters. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you attorney Heim So I I'll now turn to board members any questions comments Uh, mr. Diggins Yes, thank you, mr. Chair. Yeah, I have a question. My apologies. Mr. Heim me for not getting to you earlier You know, it's just been really really busy. I didn't really want to interfere with you last week because I know you're busy I'm doing um records for us but If you have to buy laws handy, I mean I'm looking in title one article 16 where we talk about construction projects and I'm trying to understand me why it is that that article doesn't conflict with the town manager act Because it seems to me like the town manager. You could do all the things that this article Me is is prescribing I yeah, what what particular Are we referring to It's on this channel one me. So it's article 16 on construction projects. Okay. Okay, attorney Heim so, um Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Diggins is a good question If you look at the town manager act The town manager act outlines the town manager's many duties and authorities And among them and I believe I outlined this in the initial memo and maybe I should have Reproduced it for each one article. It was just quite long It was like seven or eight pages before we even got to the substance of the hearing But if you look at section 15g of the town manager act You'll see that there's some specific things that are sort of carved out relative to the town manager's specific authority and duty over The use of town property and construction projects So, um, I'm quoting here. I'm sorry. Most folks probably don't have section 15g of the town manager act in front of them but it says Quote except as otherwise voted by the town Uh, the school committee shall be responsible for the study of considerations recommendations as to construction reconstruction Alterations improvements and other into undertakings partaking to school buildings except as otherwise voted by the town The town manager shall be responsible for the preparation of plans and the supervision of work there to authorized by the town Except as otherwise voted by the town The town manager shall be responsible for the preparation of all plans And the supervision of work on all other reconstruct construction Reconstruction alterations improvements and other undertakings authorized by the town So there's some very specific language inserted into the manager act about the manager's overall Authority relative to construction reconstruction and alterations and improvements and uh Town meeting has passed some by-laws that talk about Quote-unquote except as otherwise voted by the town how they are essentially Expressing those qualifications in the town manager act So, um, again, as I said, some of these things can sometimes be closed questions But some of it has to do with the fact that in order to engage in public construction We're usually talking about a borrowing authorization or other things that require town meetings approval And some of these things are essentially conditions on town meetings approval The general management of the day-to-day operations of the town and day-to-day policy Are a little bit different and generally involve Departmental functions where there is more Discretion invested in the town manager where you'll see in section 15a of the town manager act And section 15b we talked a little bit about 15b the other day when we're talking about the power to create positions There's very little qualification And it's extremely clear that the town manager is the only one on the town side of government that gets to create a position So i'm sorry again for a long-winded answer. It's just hard to Respond to the detail to these important questions without going into a fair amount of detail, right? Okay. That's great. That's great, mr Mr. Hyde, you know, so so thank you very much. I I get it. I get it. So, um, all right Okay, thank you. Mr. Diggins and before They get into further discussion. So mr. Fisher had sent us a proposed resolution There are some language in there and then there are three items proposed to be resolved and Uh, the first one is to follow the recommendations of the special commission. The special commission had 13 recommendations That they issued with their report and I do want to say specifically They were focused on the, um The they devoted their attention to the law enforcement use of facial recognition And the possible further regulation thereof is a threshold matter. They did say in their report, however Um, and I'm just going to read these two sentences because I think it helps frame the discussion on the resolution The commission is not in a position to recommend specific regulations on other government use at this time It strongly recommends further consideration of this area Following the implementation of the law enforcement focused recommendations contained in this report And so what's contemplated there is they will move on to some of the other issues that mr. Fisher Perhaps that he raised maybe they won't we don't know where they'll go with it But they certainly didn't see this as the the final step Also goes to the question of what their intent is in terms to regulate this field Um, but there is a proposed resolution I think we may not have all seen the language But I think we could have a discussion tonight whether we would support a resolution that we can work on final language Through attorney hind. So that's where perhaps we should Center the discussion for tonight's purposes. So anybody who wishes to be heard mr. Heard I'll move positive action on the proposed resolution to and we can work out the final language Um, I know In the when we had the hearing Last week I was a little ambivalent on on the request regarding facial recognition But I certainly think we had a good presentation and It's further research. I I thank mr. Fisher for His presentation and I think by the end of that discussion if it wasn't 11 o'clock I might have Said this then that you know I was happy to support what he's doing with the article and I think it's a In the form of resolution. I think it's a good statement of values for the town Thank you, mr. Heard For the second second second by mrs. Mahan. Uh, mr. Helmets Yeah, thank you. I'm happy to support this and I also want to express my appreciation to mr. Fisher for his, um Time and and an interaction and collaboration with us on this You know, I'm happy with this and I don't know that this has to be the last stop But I think that given that, you know, the town is not using this even considering using this technology now Um, given that we I would like to I think perhaps with my colleague, mr. DeCorsi like to see what the legislature does with this commission's report on what if to further clarified their intentions about about addressing the field And and I think it would be useful to get town meetings views on this And um, you know, I think depending on where it goes depending on what the legislature may or may not do You know, maybe we do want to revisit this in the in the short term future One of the things that I was concerned about was just that we take enough time if we're going to Ask invite tell me to make policy, uh, notwithstanding whatever issues there may be with local preemption with the town manager act I think if we do that that we need to really take the time to have a full process with Way in from everybody Avaluing ourselves of all the expertise that we have Both with people who work for the town people outside the town and I think Um, we have a little bit of time to do that if we need to um, so that's another reason why I like Where we've landed right now. I think it's a really good place Uh to land and maybe as a starting place, but um So that's kind of my thoughts on it. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Helmuth and um, Also want to point out that our representative Rogers was a member of the commission as well So he would be a good resource um to talk to about the um where they came out and perhaps any future work Okay, so um I don't see any further hands So on a motion uh for approval by mr. Herd seconded by mr. Helmuth uh, uh, oh, well Yeah, so I don't here's the thing on this. We we had the public hearing last week I viewed tonight more as a continuation of our deliberation on it. So um, I wasn't planning on taking public input Um, given that we had it last week perfect or at our last meeting just wanted to make sure. Okay. Thank you Thank you. Um, so on a motion by mr. Herd seconded by mr. Helmuth attorney hind And mr. Corsi just to make sure I understand my instructions here I'm to work with mr. Fisher's resolution. That's what the uh, uh motion is on for mr. Herd, correct? Correct Right. Yeah, and and we will Work on final language. I think that's our starting point on that. Thank you. Mr. Corsi. Thank you Mr. Herd. Yes, mr. Diggins. Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes, this is mahan. Yes, mr. Dacorsi. Yes It's unanimous vote. Great. Thank you, mr. Fisher Okay, now the next is article 14 vote to establish a committee on insurance costs and issues and uh, Mr. Another mr. Fisher will be joining us tonight and hopefully he was successful with his root canal from uh Earlier uh at the beginning of our warrant article hearings This is andrew fisher who's joining us for this Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Good evening, mr. Fisher Good evening. I I kept rejoining. I don't know if I did something wrong or what Well, thank you for joining. We can we can see you now I'm still recovering from a heart attack because I joined a little late Right when you were saying that mr. Fisher is here Uh Okay, shall I go ahead good go right ahead. Thanks. Um Thanks for your time reading material I've sent you in here in this article tonight Oh, no, what's that? What is this? I'm sorry I I did not where how did you find that I did not submit that I I seen on my screen self-insuring Arlington first steps I think that was submitted before the very first hearing. Um, and we just had it. Okay I don't I don't intend to use that. I'm going to be very brief. I apologize All right, we can take that take that down and go right ahead Okay, I I can see you now Okay, the update is that I'm going to do this project with the citizens engagement group of envision Arlington, so I I don't need to ask for a An actual separate committee for the project Um The project being to conduct a survey of Arlington's total auto and property insurance costs of premiums and claims As well as investigate various issues related to insurance um I would like to ask if you think if you will support a resolution endorsing this investigation Into our insurance costs To learn if there really is so much inefficiency in our system That would make sense for towns and cities to offer a self-insured community based public option Is there enough waste in today's system that a statewide self-insured network The community based plans could pay for both claims And a substantial portion of the town's prevention services Meaning part of police and fire departments budgets This might be possible given that each of Arlington's small precincts Pays about a million dollars a year for auto insurance and this I think is a low estimate The change to self-insurance could mean actually changing norms about what we expect of insurance And what we expect the premium accomplished to accomplish Does insurance promote the unity and financial strength of the town of towns and cities? Could it provide greater service as a community function compared to what it offers today? I expect the first steps of this project are to conduct a pilot survey for one precinct Based on those results. We would refine the survey and can't canvas another couple of precincts and so on The results could show that the current system delivers great value and End of story It could lay the groundwork For establishing that that a self-insurance system needs to be considered I wanted to close with a couple of comments one is that we'll be looking At established self-insured plans and how they work British Columbia has 3.2 million cars which approaches the number of cars massachusetts as 4 million Their sales is accomplished through a contract with the British Columbia Brokers Association Some 900 offices handled all of their sales And in 2019 They earned 490 million dollars in commissions So much of the same infrastructure would exist Probably the current companies would shift over to being third-party administrators And then finally I wanted to say some of this boils down to does the public have the right to Shape how we do the social contract Insurance policies are social contracts They are actually carve-outs of the social contract at large And it happens that they will only manage the easy risks if you have an oil spill in your basement And you have comprehensive insurance. It's like The words mean nothing the oil spill is not covered. There are other examples of this So I wanted to be very brief Um That's That's basically it for now Okay, thank you for considering this. Thank you, uh, mr. Fisher. I'll turn to board members Questions motions comments anybody? Mr. Herrick Based on mr. Fisher's presentation. I'll move no action on the article. Okay. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second and if we could just include in the remarks The first several sentences that mr. Fisher explained that this is going to be incorporated It's going to get done by a different vehicle if we could just include his four to five sentences beforehand Okay, and this is a public hearing do we have any Members of the public that wish to be heard on this article? No members of the public at this time. Okay. All right so on a Motion by mr. Herd seconded by mrs. Mahan Attorney hind Mr. Herd. Yes Mr. Diggins Yes Mr. Helm yes, this is maan. Yes, mr. Decorsi. Yes It's five zero though. Okay. Thank you, mr. Fisher Thank you Right next article 15 Bylaw amendment noise abatement and again, this is a continuation of a discussion That we had I believe we had a vote on this too Did we have a preliminary vote on this where or maybe there was a discussion about notice It shows on this attorney hind mr. Chair my recollection and maybe I'm wrong about this But was that the board wanted us to come back With a discussion that was guided by some language about what a notice might look like I apologize if that what we got to a place where this is supposed to be a Sort of vote in common, but I didn't I didn't think we wrapped it up yet I thought yeah, we might not have I thank you for that clarification So I I drafted something to try to insert into mr. Schlickman's overall Sort of Worn article for the board's consideration Basically a new provision of butter notice So I left open just for folks edification the distance and the number of days in advance that a That a notice might have to do let me say a word about how I envision this function And this is just your schlickman's article. I'm sensitive to that. I I don't want to Speak over mr. Schlickman. Here's the propellant. Well, I mean at the end of the day It's our recommendation on on this provision I think we got to a notice that that's what we wanted to hear back on so I think it's it's fine if you want to go ahead and just um, let us know what Talk a little bit further about the language, of course, so essentially There's essentially there's a qualifier put on the authorized exemption for public and private way projects That just inserts the clause following transmission of an a butter notice that's set forth herein That's basically the only adjustment to part a and then there's a sort of sub paragraph that says and a butter notice Is going to be required Uh for non-emergency public worker utility projects On public or private ways outside of the allowed hours And that it can be satisfied by mail hand or electronic delivery of a notice basically setting You know the date and time and the expected nature of the work being permitted by the town manager under the exception And it sort of leaves blank. You know, what do we think in terms of a butters? How do you want to do the traditional like 300 feet? Um, that's a lot of that can be a lot. It can be very few. Um, it depends on the area of arlington And how many days in advance one of the things I like about the way this is constructed is that it doesn't necessarily mean that The notice could go out Before the manager it might not be the best use of resources But before the manager decides whether they're going to allow the work or not if it's a really pressing thing And dpw or a you know utility needs to get it out there They could say hey, we're noticing you that we've requested this permission for this work during these hours the manager might Say, okay, that sounds good. The manager might decide. Hey, let's let's not put these notices out until after I've already decided that it's okay But I can understand that sometimes the deadlines for these things can be a little bit tight And so, you know, you might want to have that flexibility I also understand that part of what mr. Slickman is asking for is hey, look if this project is really going to be disruptive I want to be able to talk to somebody about it before it happens because I think that this Shouldn't shouldn't happen during, you know, the exempted hours Or that, you know, I want to see if the select board will say something to the manager about it In advance and maybe withdraw that permission if the if the manager initially gave it So I'll leave it to the board to see if you like this if you don't like it fine But how many days in advance and what sort of radius you'd like to provide There's just one way of trying to skin this particular cat Okay, and and again this is for non-emergency work. So it's it's you would think there would be some time in advance I do see mr. Slickman is With us the this evening. I don't know if you've seen That language mr. Slickman. I mean it's it's again. This is more of a board deliberation But I had mr. Fisher come back on the face surveillance So I don't know if you've seen this or if you have any comments further comments for the board, but when we did Have the hearing with you. I think we all understood the concern that you raised about The need for notice for some of these projects I'm very appreciative of the work of council And I'm certainly willing to work with What the town did to get it done in this manner Great, okay. Thank you very much. Uh, any Comments from board members that there were two open items that attorney hind left the The number of feet for butters in the the number of days so Mr. Helmuth just a question To the town manager through you mr. Chair if you have any Concerns about this framework is laid out and any specific suggestions for how we might fill in those planks That would be practical and also sensitive to the protections for residents. Absolutely. Mr. Chairman. Yes Thank you, mr. Chairman through you to mr. Helmuth I think the easier one is to suggest 500 feet. I think that's a number we've used quite regularly for other construction projects I think about the high school when we've notified of butters about construction impacts. I think we've used a 500 foot radius For days in advance I feel like two days is workable The challenge is until you get too close sometimes it gets canceled or sometimes it gets postponed So you don't want to you sometimes it's hard to give more notice than that because of the vagaries of weather Or whatever might happen and then you might have to notice again So I would say two days and 500 feet if that sounds amenable, but you know anything within that range. I think is workable And then um, thank you And then, you know, I think to For the comments in the memo from our town council, you know One of the functions of this could be that the town manager could take the resident feedback upon receiving notice and decide Not to do the project trying to do it during the daytime do you feel like that? Knowing the operations as you do that two days would be enough time to change those plans and receive that comment and kind of change course Kind of kind on the on the flip side of that of that question I mean, it's enough time to cancel the work. Yeah, right. It's not like you always pull the plug if ultimately The feedback is such that Work that we thought was going to be best performed at night Is not going to be tenable at night It'll mean that more planning will have to be done Um, so it's doable, but it probably you know, I guess maybe another way to say it is It doesn't mean that it'll get done the next day during the day, right? It might take some further planning to figure out How to do it safely during those daytime hours and if we're in an emergency, of course, you can Authorize it anyway. So, right, thank you. I know for the questions Um, oh, do you want motions right now? Do you'd like to make one sure? Yeah So I'd like to move approval of the proposed amendments outlined in town councils memo with the Numbers that were suggested by the time I have a hundred feet and two days. Thank you Let's do it a second second. Okay. Is that my mr. Hurd any further comments or board members? Mr. Diggins I just have a question. I'm through you to mr. Slickman um So, um, so mr. Slickman when when you were talking about me the three times that this has happened in 10 years Me and and you were saying that this is kind of regular in And I was saying well, it's 99.9 percent of time It's not an issue and I was using the denominator of the days of the year So my denominator was like 3,000. I mean was your denominator like 10 years. So like you're looking at like three Three years out of 10 years and that's how you got to regular because I was just trying to understand How it was that we had such different notions of the frequency of this issue I mean, this is an annual occurrence and and and it's disturbing to this level. I'd say it's frequent Especially when you go and try to make it known that this is a problem you try to type the bylaw and it still happens You know, uh notice is really an important part I think because you know In the evitably this has happened on a night where it's just a beautiful summer night where it's about 65 degrees As oh, it's a great night to leave the windows open and the next thing you know, you're on the floor because you're thrown out of bed um total surprise Emergencies happen, you know and I live in a busy street I got an ambulance company on the next block in the police station two blocks down you still a lot of noise That's okay Ambulances go by police go by fire trucks go by Trucks go by lots of stuff happens You know it comes the territory of living in a convenient place in the middle of our length But when something really extreme happens like jackhammers or those suction Things in the sewers That's way beyond any expectation and It's a violent wake-up that really is very dis disconcerting It's frightening So two days is enough time for you To that yeah two days was fine. I mean, you know That that puts two barriers up, you know that you've got time to go and say do you really need to do this? And you know you can close the windows or maybe schedule a trip to Maine Or or or make some kind of arrangement not just be No, it's gonna happen No, you're not gonna happen uh is You can throw in a white noise machine close the windows Play the vs. Oh, I don't know There's there are ways there are ways to To be prepared for something like that if you know what's gonna happen Gotcha, mr. Slickman. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Diggins. Um, okay So on a motion by mr. Helmuth seconded actually before I do that Consistent with what we did on the facial recognition. We already had the public hearing aspect of this This is more of a deliberation. So I'm going to go right to a vote Um on a motion by mr. Helmuth seconded by mr. Herd To insert the about or notice provisions Attorney hind Mr. Chair do you mind if I just clarify with mr. Helmuth that two business days is is what we mean by two days Is that all right? Yes Okay, uh, mr. Herd. Yes Mr. Diggins. Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes, this is mahan. Yes Mr. De Corsi. Yes Okay, thank you. Mr. Slickman Thank you Next article 18 Bylaw amendment phase out of certain toxics wrote wrote denocides on public private property With reporting requirement and public education I believe we there will be a presentation on this. Um, this crowd or I believe is with us this evening Question mr. Chair. I use mr. Helmuth. Do you um, how do you plan to address article 77 which is related to that? Sure. Yeah, I want to I think the print well, yeah, the presentation actually is going to cover both. So we'll take article 77 Out of order take it together. Thank you. Thank you. Article 77 is a resolution establishing And a proposed resolution establishing an integrated pest management policy for townland Prohibitions and public education about road denocide hazards. Uh, good evening, mr. Crowder Yes, I can hear you Yep, go go right ahead with your presentation Okay, uh, my name's Elaine Prouder. I'm a TM town meeting member from prec 19 and, um Carrie Yeah, uh, carry teal on lake east street in orlington Uh, so, um In articles 18 and 77. We are trying to Thread a particularly complex Set of needles. I might use my own version of this. Um So just hold off on on displaying it yet. Um, I'll display it Um, and we are trying to solve a local problem that affects Human health and wildlife and I'll let Carrie begin to give a little bit of the background of how we developed these articles But thank you very much Carrie teal. I'm very grateful to Speak before the board today um I come at this issue Personally from an animal welfare perspective I have a background in in doing policy development on animal welfare issues And so I I was concerned when I heard about the death of of the e blitt wildlife issues are personally important to me Uh, I had reached out to a mr. Heim over a year ago and Uh, told him that I was interested in developing something on this issue for the town to consider He referred me to town meeting member prouder who has done unbelievable work on this and really become an expert So I've been very blessed to have her as a partner on this you know, our goal was to identify a set of policies around this issue that Uh, were legally viable And taking into account both the town manager act and also that there is a state law that restricts What local communities can do to combat this problem? Um, things that would have a positive impact And that that fit arlington and made sense for arlington. And so we had many conversations over series of months with with uh Town leadership and and I'm I'm really grateful for Not only mr. Heim, but jenny rach and feney natasha and her incredible team at the board of health And everyone's this was a collaborative process for us Uh at the end of that we we are bringing to you Uh a set of policies that does the following number one it requires Uh companies to report when certain identities are used in the town to the town That is something that apparently is not restricted by the state by state law Second and and later we'll go into great depth in all of these points. Um, second, um We're encouraging the town to do educational work on this issue There's already tremendous educational work happening. In fact, we're talking to all these town leaders I was so impressed by the work that's already being done on this issue And we're really trying to create just more tools That will help third The creation of an ipm policy, which can only be done as I understand it Via the town manager Issuing a policy and so at the conclusion of this warrant article process It's our hope to work with the town manager To do that and then finally We do in these in these warrant articles phase out the use of redenticides completely I just want to touch on that and then i'll close um It is possible this will be uh rejected by B train general That i'll go ahead sorry sorry about that. Uh, it is possible that that that final piece the phase out will be Rejected by the train general. That's a possibility and doug and I had very constructive conversations about that possibility I I do think there are some things in in our proposal that Are different than the the similar items that have come for the train general previously The fact that this is a phase out to 2024 the fact that there are exceptions Uh may make the ag think twice on this Uh, if the ag does Uh, reject this particular component the other pieces would not be harmed And and the town would have the option of, uh Appealing that that specific decision if it chose to One thing that's interesting is that the town of chillmark a decade ago brought a similar Local ordinance it was rejected by the attorney general. They did appeal it They they believe they had a very strong case and during the appeal the pesticide industry essentially blinked and agreed to Uh, a special law addressing addressing this issue and allowing the chillmark provision Terminate in place and so I I I I I think that's interesting But it certainly wouldn't commit the town in any way. So I I think these are a good set of reforms They're well thought out. I think they'll have a positive impact and I would ask all of you for your favorable support Ms. Crowder, did you want to add anything or is that? Thank you. Carrie. Um, yes, I I will share my screen now. Do I have the sharing capability here? Okay, um Has it is it showing Now it is Okay, so just a sec. I have to rearrange my screens. I don't see it Um, and I will start the show here Everyone can see it Yes, uh, yeah, it's blank screen right now It's blank screen. Okay. Yes All right, I will try sharing one more time If we have the same presentation could It's not exactly the same, but I might just I might just do it without it if it's not going to show Do you see it now now we see it Okay, I'll just I'll just do it from there Show screen Running it this causal problem so, um We already know a bit about the the wildlife that we are hosting in in Arlington the Arlington eaglets that are nesting in Arlington and The problem that happened with this little guy here of Ingesting enough for denticide to kill it by the time august came around Um, it's not as well known that we also have for denticide issues that are effecting human health in east Arlington We had a squirrel that a resident saw she woke up one day and found eight bags of first strike soft bait on her lawn And uh, this is a second generation or denticide um, she found she took a picture of the squirrel that was sitting happily eating it in the tree and these are For denticides that are placed in bait boxes that are supposed to be tamper proof, but but the squirrel managed to get by that And of course she was very concerned about the neighbors Neighbors kids that this was causing a problem For human health the escars continue to threaten human health According to the epa as well This is a chart from epa's human health risk assessment 2017 and We can see that this top red line although it's trending down is is the escar Uh Incidents of human poisoning and at about 5000 Incidents It's over half of the total incidence of human poisoning And it is five times more than the next most common, which is the anti non anti-coagulants So in addition, um, the uh So Just a second So what you might um so unfortunately, um The mechanisms for preventing Such incidents are not particularly robust in this case the human uh, the board of health was called and um Didn't really have a whole lot that it could do in this case Um with the neighbors that could talk to the management company of the neighboring apartment complexes it could, um Make them aware of the issue, but there really isn't the mechanism for being able to say Uh, it let's not use poison in this particular instance um The board of health can make a suggestion, but um not really Have any kind of of a of a local control effect Yeah, in in in this credit if I if I could because we're getting up to about 10 or 11 minutes I I just want to clarify And mr. Teal had had mentioned this you had submitted written materials to us and there's basically three things you're looking for through um article 18 right one is the phase out two is requiring Written notification to the board of health whenever certain rodenticides are being used within the town And three is is an educational component Sure so we It's those three items because I I would like to hear from the public and hear from board members too But just to to summarize it's those three Those those are the three items in the proposed bylaw. We don't have a specific bylaw Uh Language from you, but we do have the three overall points. Is that is that fair to say? Yeah, that's correct. We did provide uh, mr. Heim with draft language as well and we're going back and forth with emma mad Okay Okay. All right. So why don't I turn to board members at this point for any questions I know there's members of the public that want to be heard as well So start with questions from the board and then we'll go to the public if any members have any questions at this time Uh, mr. Helmuth Thank you. I have a question. I think my questions really revolve around, you know, I'm inclined to to move in this direction I think I've been not just the presentation tonight, but the preponderance of Of learning about this, but I think one of my questions is really the best way if the town and the town meeting Wants to let me move this mic closer um town meeting, you know wants to restrict The use of the of escars on private property The best way to do it and I know that uh, you know, mr. Teal Outlined, you know one one strategy would be to put this in a bylaw that we're pretty sure would um Would get an off the cuff rejection that in that part by the ag because of the preemption and state law Um, and I guess my question may be for the town council, mr. Chair or the town manager your discretion is if you know your views on that as a strategy Compared to a home rule petition that we could Invite or suggest the town meeting would file Um to do that if you could kind of compare and contrast both both approaches Um, I think that the end result, you know, it's unpredictable because of the preemption and state law, but I guess what I'm looking at is what's the best way to make the point You know, do you have a chance to make a public point? Maybe apply some pressure To people who would oppose it and you can get perhaps a positive result similar to the one that mr. Teal Cited in another community attorney heim Thank you, mr. Chair. I i'm not sure i'm the right person to ask about what is the better strategy from a political standpoint I'll defer to folks who are more experienced from working with the legislature than myself You don't necessarily have to choose either or But I think mr. Teal's summarized it well, which is that when we submit a by-law to the attorney general's office We should And and we're fairly confident they're going to reject it. We do have an opportunity to appeal I don't know how I how good I feel about the odds of success on something that's relatively straight Forward in terms of a pretty clear preemption issue. It's not really a close call if you will The other facets of the by-law I think are very creative and well designed in terms of the licensing scheme Reporting scheme things like that that are adding Something to what the state law sort of provides but not telling people in one community You're allowed to use a certain or deniside, but in another community or not So I think they kind of serve different functions to be frank with you I think that and I think that this crowd or mr. Teal are And welcome to talk about that as well, but I'll let the manager speak to Let the head is any insights. The only other thing I guess I'd say is that we do Just generally speaking my experience with the municipal law unit is we should pick our spots when we want To say we're we're submitting at least if you were to take positive action in this direction We would probably be submitting two votes This year of successful town meeting that would be At least courting a challenge to the preemption on very different issues our sort of multi-person domestic partnerships on one hand and This on the other so it's something that I just think that we should be thoughtful about When we're going to do it now off. Thank you. Thank you I would only add I think town council is right that it doesn't have to be one or the other I think strategically I'll try to choose words carefully. I think the bylaw to the ag process is more administrative and internal and thereby doesn't necessarily get That public attention around the issue whereas a home rule petition We would assume would have a hearing before the state legislature or at least before a committee Where our members of the the community and maybe even the select board could go testify before the legislature And it also it doesn't mean there's a lot more attention, but there could be right and it could raise the profile of the issue Thank you in some further questions To town council if I may mr. Chair Are you comfortable with the severability of The bylaw that if the ag tosses out at least in its in its administrative review You know tosses out the regulations on private property the rest of the of the article Proposal bylaw would stand Mr. Chair, thank you. Yeah, I always think that's why it's mr. Helmeth I mean I think we've got a couple of instances here where you want to take special care to craft a bylaw that will make Sense if a portion gets stricken, but yes as a general idea. I think that the licensing If you're asking me if we submit this bylaw with both of these facets of this proposal a phase out and a Licensing scheme. I do want to make sure I understand the phase out. Well, but If it was the phase out piece of it was sort of stricken by the attorney general's office I think the licensing scheme could stand alone and make sense if we construct it the right way Okay, thank you And then my final question I think is back to the proponents It goes back to my first question Which is you know, you're suggesting that that we do it this way to to Put it in the bylaw that with the anticipation of having to appeal Instead of a home real petition and I'm wondering if you had any comment on on the home real petition as a as a strategy instead Mr. Teal do you have any comments on that? Yeah, I mean I I think we we were trying to find a balanced approach that that that gave the town several tools to address this That made that made sense. And so, you know, I I think the reporting requirement is is a very beneficial Change. Um, I think that the educational work And encouraging that is important The one maybe the most important piece to me Is the adoption by the town manager at some point presumably after this process of a policy And so, you know, I think Elaine and I are already Looking forward and trying to figure out Uh, and she and she's provided written written comments about even even as detailed as Some specific models that we can use to go about crafting that in a collaborative collaborative process And bring it to the town manager for his consideration I know that's not before us today, but it is referenced and in the resolution And it's a really important piece of the puzzle for us You know, I I I understand no one wants challenge state preemption Even though as someone who has challenge state preemption in different contexts one I understand why that's that's never a preferred option. Uh, I I do think that there's so much Passion Just among uh, Arlingtonians for this issue that that taking a stand and saying You know, we should have local control when eagle died in our community on this And kicking it up to the aging and seeing what happens And and then deciding, you know, it doesn't appeal makes sense or not I I do think that's appropriate and and appropriate in the broader context of of this larger package Um, it's also worth noting that there is a bill in the legislature that would Uh abolish that preemption and for all we know that bill could pass by the time The 2024 effective date comes comes into you comes around so I You know, I I I think we weren't simply intending to create Uh a toolbox of tools here that that fit the town and and would help and make sense I hope that answers your question. Mr. Chair. It does. Thank you very much That's all my questions for now. I think that after we hear from the public I may have some things to say on the merits as well, but I was kind of going to get some of those mechanics out of the way Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Helmeth. Um before I Go to the public any other comments from board members? I I'm going to make a couple comments. Um And and this goes to the first aspect of of your Proposed by-law. I've had a number of discussions with attorney heim um I I think the preemption question is very clear on on on this and and The chapter 132 b which is that the mass pesticide control act attorney heim and I've talked about it But that that the final sentence of section one of that acts is the exclusive authority in regulating the labeling distribution sale um In disposal of pesticides in the commonwealth shall be determined by this chapter that that's what we would call that's classic Express preemption. We had this issue earlier with the facial recognition Whether there was implied preemption because it wasn't specific statutory language couldn't be clearer Here in in my mind But the the article or the the bill that you're talking about I believe is house 910 Which would create a local option that's that's pending in the legislature right now So that to me is even further evidence that the legislature is controlling this field At least on the regulation and so I I think it makes sense to parse out two and three But and again, I want to hear from the public here from you further, but To me One's a non-starter in terms of us trying to do something through a bylaw because of the because of state law and and um Not that's a lot of cold water on this, but I mean I think it's just We had a discussion last week about the constitution. This is this is a matter of the massachusetts Constitution too. The attorney heim mentioned the the home rule amendment. That's article nine to our constit Article 89 to our constitution We're bound to follow that so Before we got too far down the road. I just want to make my feelings felt on that not not You know whether Nothing to do with the merits. It's just how the legislature has determined. They want to regulate this So with that, uh, if there are members of the public who wish to be heard Mr. Diggins Yeah, well, thank you mr. Chair, but we also have the the issue with the town manager act preemption, right? Me so so me so then I understand that the resolution me kind of gives us the same thing It gives us me the points two and three being in resolution format me so so I um I don't know. I mean, um, we understand the desire to Make a point, you know, I'm fine with that me but but um Me but in part in terms of doing stuff things in town I mean it's really up to the town manager and it seems like we are Well down the road of um working with town manager on it seems like the town manager's amenable to um to Doing an IPM am I Right about that. Mr. Manager through you mr. Chair. Yeah, mr. Chapterlings nodding. Yeah. Yeah, thank you mr. Chairman yet That's accurate mr. Diggins. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Mr. Tilder. Would you like to say something there? Yeah, I just wanted to say um Chair uh Remember Diggins. Um as these two by board articles are currently drafted and I mr. Heim can Confirm or deny this but it's my understanding That there is currently no issue with the town manager act as they're currently drafted um The in fact the reason why 77 is is a resolution as opposed to a bylaw is Our preference would be to have a requirement for town IPM policy in bylaw However, we're not doing that with this warrant article instead Town meeting would be essentially asking The town manager to consider adopting a policy which he of course has the right to do and that that that was you know One specific suggestion from mr. Heim which which which I thought was a great solution Okay, thank you mr. Teal Okay, so at this point I believe there are members of the public who wish to be heard So why don't we hear from the public and then we'll continue the discussion The first member mode is john Okay, and and again while we're promoting the speakers. I would remind everybody There is a three-minute limit on the presentation. So I'd ask that you Keep to the three minutes Thank you so much. Um, could I share my screen briefly and and also how much time do I have three minutes Three minutes. Yes Would you mind starting that once I have permission to share my screen? Yeah, yes. Uh, yeah, that's fine. I'll reset and start when you put your screen up Thank you so much appreciate it. Um, so this is kind of an amicus brief as it were Uh in support of this these motions, which I think are really really crucial I teach animal ethics among other things at wpi and I I thought that It's really important not to lose sight of the ethical stakes of this and even if we're only making a statement I think it's an important statement to make So in my two and a half minutes I wanted to just briefly go over some of the reasons why or the main reasons as I see them why the town of Arlington should stop killing rats You've heard about The impact of rodenticides on a variety of animals Including domesticated animals. These are this is a bald eagle a great horned owl and a domestic cat who poisons Die because of rat poison But I really want to focus on this creature here, which is our great great great great great great grandmother This is where we came from. We were actually mammals and this is what scientists believed to be the first mammal So we are related to rats and our equipage In terms of our cognition and our feelings come from this little creature and we share with mice rats elephants dogs and so forth all mammals basic Structures of consciousness. It was Darwin in 1871 Who said this among other things that the senses and intuitions Various emotions and faculties such as love memory attention curiosity imitation reason so forth of which man both May be found in other species as well And darwin believed that um other animals to exhibit the bless you high mental power such as the formation of general concepts Self-consciousness and so forth and in fact if we look at qualities of personhood In mammals and in other animals we find a consistent repertoire of behavior experiences emotional Capacities across the phylogenetic spectrum, okay, and you know at the bottom here I'm going to put in vulnerability to suffer and that's very very important one And that's what we yet this is mostly are concerned about is how our actions affect others who are vulnerable Rats are extremely intelligent. They have fantastic memories scientists discovered a few years ago that when you tickle them they laugh they giggle They dream at night scientists have been able to determine that they dream about what happened to them during the day They've been experiments a lot of experiments with rat empathy They get very distressed when they see another rat suffering even the stranger and they will sacrifice their own interests in order to help them There are a number of initiatives across the country making statements like the one that's been proposed to state authorities. Whoops For uh, uh urging a ban on poisons. This is one 57 groups and municipalities in california Um, so just I have three seconds. This is my summary. It's just wrong to cause excruciating suffering to other beings And to kill our fellow males. So I hope the uh, I support these Warrants, and I hope the select board does too. Thank you. Thank you Hello, good evening. Thank you so much Um, so I just wanted to join you today. Um, I'm originally from massachusetts, but I've Um since been in british columbia I have a master's in pest management and have been pursuing my phd in rodent ecology Um, so I wanted to lend my expertise today. I've already sent you written testimony. Um, outlining Um integrative pest management Um, and I'm sure the um committee already knows a bit about that um But what I really want to highlight today is the contrast between integrative pest management in theory and what's actually been practiced. Um, so in theory, uh chemicals and pesticides are supposed to be used as the last resort specifically rodenticides Um, but in practice they're often used as a preventative measure Put out when there is no sign of rodent activity at all um And also in 2015 there was a survey of massachusetts-based pest management professionals Um showing that many are not aware or underestimate the environmental harms of rodenticide use So the impacts of this, um are We we know some of them are very clear like death of an individual mammal. Um, that's a non-target Um, but some of the impacts have not been studied yet. So the Um population level impacts of a species for instance, we don't know if that's compromised By this widespread exposure to rodenticides. Um, so what I really like about the proposed articles The first aspect of reporting, um that will let us get a handle on how much is out there And also help researchers figure out how much is then getting into the mammal non-target populations um That'll be vital information in itself Um, and hopefully help prevent uh the use of rodenticides as a preventative Um education the next point is massive because uh as that 2015 Survey showed uh pest management professionals often don't know The harm of the rodenticides they're using. So if you educate the consumer, then you've Uh negated that issue Nipped it in the bud. Um, the third uh implementing a ipm policy Um, I would love to help in any way I can there Um as that is my bread and butter. So please feel free to reach out with any questions Um, and then phasing out rodenticides completely. Um, obviously is Um, what I support the most Um, if nothing else Um, yes, I will conclude then. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Hi everyone. Good evening Taking the time My name is adam karachi and I'm going to be coming at this a little bit differently than everyone else here I am the owner of pest and exterminating and I am also a member of the national pest management In the wingland pest management association I just wanted to hit on a couple of topics that were brought up First off, what alana was just talking about was exactly right Go back to 2015 and There was a lot of people who weren't doing things the way they should have And if you go back even further than that, we were called baseboard jockeys and we just sprayed everything we could every time we went That is not what our industry is anymore. I can tell you personally between the new england chapter and the national chapter This topic is Talked at nausea. Um, there is so much training specifically on the proper use of rodenticide and what else we can do to Eliminate a rodent problem from a house or a restaurant or a school without using rodenticides This is a public health concern Uh, there has been states that have gone through Ban rodenticides and the rodent population has just exploded and it just creates more issues So I do agree and understand that there needs to be training on all sides And that's something that I think the towns and the pest control industry need to collaborate on But I also think it is very difficult when you eliminate A tool from our toolbox that we're no longer allowed to use With a pest that has caused many Plagues throughout the the history of our world So it's something that I think we just need to be Aware of in terms of what we need to make sure that we have available to all of us I think the public education is is very important because Uh, a trained professional who's licensed and goes through these courses I know what I need to do and how to protect the wildlife The general consumer who can go and buy the same product at the store doesn't And we all get lumped in together unfortunately But there are a lot of times when some of these off target treatments are not performed by professionals And just on the second part of of this discussion on the board of health I'm also concerned with the Lack of resources that certain departments may have And if we need to submit written testimony or written descriptions of how we're going to use this to get approval That can be very overwhelming to the board of health So just to keep that in mind When we're dealing with again restaurants and food Supply chains These are sometimes things that need to be done more quickly And again as an owner of a company that we do practice IPM And we also have a lot of other options that we go to first before rodenticide There are sometimes where it is necessary to gain control of a population So again, I appreciate everything and uh, best of luck with the rest of this discussion Okay, thank you very much. My name is Laura Kiesel Um, I've written the select board, but I'm going to also be commenting briefly It might be a little redundant to what I've said today Um over the weekend. I mean, I want to mention that I have a master's degree In natural resources management and sciences. I'm actually going to turn my video off because it's slowing down My thing um and a background in wildlife biology So to address some of the comments that were just made Um, I believe his name was adam There is no data that I've been able to find and I've reported on this issue extensively as an environmental journalist I could find no data that actually Supports that second generation anti coagulant rodenticides are at all effective At reigning in rodent populations There are only a couple of very small studies that exist in laboratory settings for small tropical islands over the short term There's nothing in in our kind of environments There is a lot of data extensive data on their adverse impacts on wildlife They have these rodenticides have failed every single EPA ecological assessment they've had over 20 years. They've performed very poorly And for me speaking as someone with a wildlife biology background when you start messing with the predator prey dynamics You're going to artificially inflate the prey species So rats are very prolific breeders a single pair can have 2 000 young in one year They can out breed any poison But they are predators which are more efficient and effective at predating them They only have two to four chicks a year say an eagle And if you wind up extirpating them you wipe them out of the area and then in the absence of those predators Those rodent populations explode and if you're putting down bait you're baiting them into the area And they can build resistance because they're Rapidly having so much young that within a few generations they've built resistance to the poison Whereas their predators do not so that is why these poisons have not managed to rein them in Also studies have shown even though they haven't done causality Eskars use has exploded in recent years with rodent populations in the boston metro area So there's no indication that the exponential rise of these rodenticides have led to a decrease in rodents in the area I do hope that the select board will consider supporting these warrants the state preemption I know does have some hindering on the ability to phase these out on private properties But I do think we are completely within our rights to Phase these out on municipally owned land and properties which in turn could help set An example and a precedent for private businesses and residences to take example of I know when I filed a public records request to look I was Very disheartened to see that we're having a lot of construction and out of the 32 demolition sites We had the past year 30 of them use these rodenticides The board of health right now Requires these lands these Construction sites to have bait stations and though they make no requirement about what's in the bait stations It kind of incentivizes the use of these rodenticides so 30 out of 32 use these rodenticides Even though quite a few of them. There was no rodent activity and as Alana said earlier They're not really meant to be used as a preventative using them actually can draw rodents into the property I've also lived in affordable housing in arlington and I've actually Excuse me. Ms. Kiesel if you could just wrap up your at about 3 15. Okay. So just um, just to wrap up I just want to say that I've been told by by Exterminators that they don't have impacts on wildlife repeatedly different companies and that is not so my experience has not been that There's a lot of responsibility in how they are put down. Thank you for taking my Comments. Thank you Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can good evening Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to keep my camera off because I always have such a bad connection Um, my name is robin bergman. I'm on park avenue in precinct 12 Um, I personally have had two issues with rodenticides myself At my own house in the last six or so months and I just wanted to point out um, both of them I went outside with my dog. I have a fenced in yard so that he can run around He's a puppy. He's a pomeranian I noticed that there was a squirrel Riding around on the ground in my backyard The dog was starting to go after it to try to eat it or pick it up I got nervous and I brought the dog in I went out and saw that the dog that the squirrel was riding around in pain and Looked like it was really ill. I reached out to the animal control officer Who was unavailable? I reached out to all kinds of places. No one could help me but I eventually Did get a hold of the animal control officer who told me that all the symptoms I was seeing Was the result of rodenticide poisoning and she told To make sure that I kept my dog away from the squirrel until the squirrel perished It took more than two days for the squirrel Riding around in pain in my backyard to die. And so during that time I could not let my dog out fast forward Only a couple of weeks ago Suddenly my dog brought a dead bird into the house And I had had an issue my dog likes to hunt stuff I had had an issue with the dog trying to eat a bird before that So I noticed that the bird thank god the bird the bird was frozen so that my dog couldn't eat it But he brought it into the house And it had blood coming out of its mouth And it was obvious to me that it had had rodenticide poisoning Now I have no poison anywhere in my house my yard anywhere, but I had I when I have talked to my neighbors They're very unaware Of what rodenticides do and I know that I'm in the heights I know that there's been a rat problem in the heights for the last several years But we have to do something else Um, you know, this is when I talked to the animal control officer She told me that a lot of pets are getting poisoned also by eating Things out in the yard that have been poisoned with rodenticides So I just want to also advocate that we definitely need a huge educational campaign I'd like you to support these warrants I think it's really important Thank you very much. Thank you One more person, okay Okay, okay Yeah, that that that will be it Thank you. I'll be very brief. Sure We weren't worried about preemption on april 1917 75 We should push the envelope a little on this as much as we can The eaglet the pets there was a beautiful long-haired black cat On the yarlington cat a cat list who was dying from rodenticide We've got to do more and I'm very grateful for the folks who put this forward and I hope that The town will do everything it can to go and curb the Unwise and unsafe use of this. Thank you. Thank you Okay, that concludes the public hearing any Comments from mr. Hurd Thank you all for the presentation um I think I would say I support everything that this these warrant articles are looking to accomplish I think this and if attorney hind told us right now that we could pass by lauren in ban rodenticides based on what's been suggested by the proponents. I would support that as well um I'm a little hesitant just because of what has come up with the preemption challenges, but Again, I think us as a board With some of these warrant articles Whether we pass them don't pass them they warrant discussion in town meeting and They could be to avoid the administrative barriers of having to submit an amendment or a men in mended article. I think It's fine. I'm fine passing this through as is recommended in Letting town meeting as a complete body decide whether or not They want to send this to the state for review again, I think this is Long overdue. I think it's something that Even if it we can't do anything at the town level we need to band together to push our estate delegation in this direction I had a very similar Uh experience a couple weeks ago to miss bergman Where we had a squirrel in our backyard that my six-year-old Discovered and ran back inside and they couldn't use the backyard for a while while the squirrel went through what looked like Pretty excruciating process of dying And I don't think that any Regardless of what type of animal is should have to go through that process and I think The main thing that we should take out of this is the public education aspect of it because If you talk to people about banning redinocides, I think the first Question is well, there's nothing. Well, that's it. That's all we have at our disposal is redinocides in order to Fight pest problems, which is not the case. So I think if we can educate The public as to what additional options we have In the toolbox. So we say and there's always more than one solution to a problem I think that is very beneficial. So I would be I'm open to other comments from Board members where I know there's some concerns about the preemption But I would be happy to move approval of the recommendations. Thank you. Mr. Hurd. Mr. Helmuth Yeah, I'm very happy to second that One suggestion I might have depending on how the rest of my colleagues feel is if the preemption state preemption issue is a barrier that we could Assuming and I'm going to assume here that this would be in scope under the take under any action related There are two clause of the of the warrant article that we could suggest a homeral petition instead of the of the preemption if I mean, I like mr. Hurd's suggestion, but if that would be something that could get us the votes here tonight to move this forward I'd be open To contemplating that myself just a couple of questions Um Does the state law and mr. Chair you I think you can decide whether you want to answer this for or refer this town council Does the does the preemption restrict? The town from enacting regulations for for for public town use of these agents or just the private I defer that to attorney. Hi Thank you, mr. Chair. What the state law says is the state law is the exclusive authority for Regulating the transport deployment and use of basically what pesticides herbicides or denisides One can use The issue with respect to the town's property is where the sort of town manager act comes in Are you saying that the town is the only entity that can't use these things that everybody else can use because town meetings going to tell The conservation commission the town manager Their parking recreation commission what they can and can't do over the properties that they have jurisdiction over So they're slight they're parallel things But but the the long and short of it is what I am hearing from the proponents is that they're proposing a warrant article that would phase out second generation and a collage lens That would create a licensing and registration scheme And that would encourage I think through the resolution I could be wrong about this That the manager develop a policy of integrated pest management for town properties Which is my understanding of how they're navigating the the town manager part of the issue. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Yeah, and I just would further note that I think that you know, I was I was impressed that Working on this that there's a safety valve of sorts You know that the board of health can can still permit as guards if they feel a public health situation Warrant said and I think that's a realistic You know compromise in this that gives me more comfort in pushing for a phase out You know, frankly, I think that I have real questions and actually pretty persuaded that that just in terms of effectiveness of the goal of Controlling problematic rat problems when they exist That not eliminating the natural predators Is the way to do it we have I've been observing a pair of great horned owls in our neighboring trees And it's it's a magnificent thing and they're working for us And I want you know, I want that to happen And I think that you know, I have um, I think there's a reasonable path forward We can do this the legal questions need to be resolved, but I personally favor Pushing on this I think on the town side the town managers inform me that you know The town is already there and in practice that we have an IPM strategy in place You know and and this is opportunity to correct me if I'm wrong understanding from our conversations Is that you know that the restrictions would not present any practical problems for the town with the safety valve in place with the board of health And I think it's important for the public to understand that the town is already taking good leadership on this that Through the town manager policy right now, and I'm happy for the for the resolution on this Um, you know that that is what we're doing that we are trying very hard as for to the extent the town has control Not to use these agents So, um, so that's where I am and I refer to the rest of my colleagues on how you might want to handle the vote Thank you, mr. Thomas anything further Mr. Diggins Okay, so um, I think me I'm fine with things. I'm just trying to understand so then the The article 18 is going to be a by-law change where that does what mean. It's just going to Um require registration, you know or license license application Well as proposed I'll turn it over to attorney ham. There's three components to the proposed by-law Attorney, how might if you could summarize I don't want to speak for the proponents But my understanding is that they're proposing a by-law that identifies Probably in public health and safety Chapter that would propose to a require pest management companies to register in Arlington to operate Which we believe they can do Number two that they would have to report the deployment of second generation Anticolleguant rodenticides Anytime that they're using them so the town could essentially Have a database and potentially like a map of where they've been deployed And then three the part that we're sort of debating a little bit is Propose the phase out of all use of second generation rodenticides in Arlington That part of it could be done in a by-law where Maybe it gets I'm not going to say maybe I think it probably gets rejected by the attorney general's office And I think what mr. Teal is outlined is that does that rejection provide an opportunity for an appeal or some sort of negotiation of some kind? The other possibility I think mr. Helmuth has noted that you could try to achieve a similar thing by Passing special legislation on that specific score and keeping it out of the by-law And then finally the resolution that accompanies this the article is it 77? 77 is saying hey We want to make sure it's very clear to the town manager and these other entities that control property to some Differing degrees in Arlington that we want you to use integrated pest management And I think everybody's understanding is the town manager is extremely receptive to that and already has a Practice in place that may be informed and tweaked in some ways as suggested by the proponents So that's that's my understanding Thank you. I think what's going on in my mind is that I was getting the third component of that in um requiring the promotion of integrated of ipm as as part of the um the Resolution but this would apply to Um companies that are using pesticides in town. No in townland Townland. Yeah, the resolution is no that the resolution. I'm sorry to interrupt that the resolution 0.3 of of 18 means so Requiring promoting ipm as a best practice and provided for educational opportunities regarding the same that's for That's that's for uh the public and the public and and uh Considering construction workers and folks like that as as members of the public The idea is that that the education Can best happen at those intersections between the public and town functions like licensing and permitting and inspections that happen Okay, I'm just i'm trying to understand where does that So who the town does require me requiring And that's enforced where? Or when when they The resolution mr. Diggins No, it's not the resolution piece means so i'm finding the resolution piece. I think I got that that's in 77 Okay, involves what the town manager does you know with with respect to town property me, but it's the third point of the article of 18, uh, which is only going to the bylaw It requires Requiring or promoting ipm as best practice for providing for educational Opportunities regarding the same I I I think mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Diggins Chair I think what we're looking at doing there and honestly the town is already doing in a large part Is simply encouraging continued education efforts and In fact, the board of health has a webinar in a few days on this topic that we're really looking forward to and And you know one thing that was really amazing to me is as we navigated this process is not only did Everyone in town leadership already know about this situation already care about this issue, but they're already working on it Um, so I I think we we wanted to incorporate educational piece as well Um, just because as other speakers have said that really is the heart of this in so many ways Um, but I I was saying in terms of a change From today versus, you know post passage of these warrant articles that that is the piece that that is Not to say at least consequential, but but you know has has less um, you know less of a tangible Uh, you know skeleton around it and if that makes sense This is simply a requirement or it's simply a requirement for the town to continue doing the educational work They're already doing All right, thanks. I guess we'll all get flushed out in the main motion when we finally see it. So thank you I'm in board with the whole concept. Sorry, mr. Chair. Keep stepping on you. Sorry about that No, I'm sorry about that attorney. Hi, I think wanted to add something. Yeah, if I could just make this very clear for everybody Thank you, mr. Chairman. I think what the proponents are contemplating is like we do in a lot of different bylaws There's sometimes a statement of why we're why we're doing this And one of the things that might be a part of that statement is, you know, it's the town's, you know Uh belief that, you know, secular generation You know wrote in the sides pose a health risk to the public in wildlife And you know encourages the use of alternatives wherever possible And then you'd have the meat of the bylaw saying this is what the regulation says Okay, thank you. Thank you. I guess I was interpreting Requiring a little literally. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Diggins. Um, yes Just a comment on basement what mr. Helmuth has said I I I see a little bit of an analogy here with what we did last year with the real estate tax transfer Where we sought special legislation There's also a local option pending in the legislature for that and and In here to me I don't see the point of trying to do this through a bylaw I do see the point of trying to do this through special legislation one is a means to get the legislature's approval But two also to send a message that maybe house 910 should be approved And to the extent that other communities are trying to do this Maybe that gives a little momentum towards that so Listening to to what you said mr. Helmuth and attorney heim's answer I'd be comfortable parsing that out as a separate piece of special legislation And going along with the bylaw for Two and three because I think from from what we heard from attorney heim that probably would Pass review and it seems like that's the best way to to acknowledge that the legislature regulates in this area, but to ask them Um to allow us to do it Mr. Herd Yep, I would just say um to the To the extent it needs clarification. I'll extend I'll amend my motion As just suggested by the chair Okay Attorney heim does that I don't know if you have any Comments on mr. Joe down that road. I think what I'm hearing. Uh, I could be wrong. Please correct me But is that we'd essentially have uh a multi-part vote that essentially says bylaw with respect to Items two and three special legislation with respect to the phase out of These sort of denocides and then finally a resolution I'll be at under article 77 to support and encourage integrated pest management for town property. Well said Okay, um, all right, so on I believe we're we're at a spot. We're ready to vote so on a um Motion I have this one motion by mr. Herd seconded by mr. Helmuth. This would cover both articles 18 and 77 uh, attorney heim Yes Mr. Diggins Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes, this is mohan. Yes, mr. Decorsi. Yes, shenanigans vote. Okay. Thank you for your time tonight Thank you Thank you very much Okay, uh next is article 27 uh revolving funds Mr. Chapterland you're gonna present on that. Sure. Thank you, mr. Chairman So this is the annual article where the board votes to send forward a town meeting The authorized amounts within revolving funds that we can spend up to So the town comptroller working with the deputy town manager prepared both the The vote language that puts the voting caps in place As well as the addendum language, which the board had established Quite a few years ago now that provides greater detail about the expenditures within each fund that goes at the back of The select board's report Those were actually added to novice today I think I think this year they're they're fairly straightforward Some of the larger accounts have been slower because of the pandemic though. We expect them to rebound Hopefully in the coming year but Happy to answer any questions, but would ask for your favorable action on this tonight Okay, thank you. Mr. Chapterland any Okay, second. Okay any Comments from board members. I don't see any any members of the public wish to be heard Not at this time then Okay, so an emotion For approval by mrs. Mahan seconded by mr. Herd turning on mr. Herd. Yes, mr. Diggins Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes, mrs. Mahan. Yes, mr. Of course. Yes, unanimous vote. Okay Next is article 47 endorsement of parking benefit district expenditures Mr. Chapterland, thank you, mr. Chairman. So we're actually Putting one final refinement on the spreadsheet and you should be ready by wednesday night. Okay. All right Motion to table that or so move. Okay. Second. Second. Okay. It's a motion to table until wednesday Made by mr. Herd seconded by mr. Helmuth turning high Mr. Herd. Yes, mr. Diggins. Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes Mrs. Mahan. Yes, mr. Corsi Yes, unanimous vote Okay, next is article 75 propose resolution commitment to increase diversity in town appointments The witness stray is going to make a presentation on that Good evening. Thank you for the invitation. Good evening. Mr. Ray. I was asked by about a half an hour, but here we are Just ran up. I've been watching the uconn game. They're in double overtime triple overtime So I'm out of breath from running upstairs. So it was fine with me. Thanks. All right Go right ahead Great, elizabeth ray uh community member in precinct 10 I'm uh, I wanted to thank you for inviting me to be here tonight I'm here to ask for your support of the resolution to increase diversity in town appointments As the select word well understands resolutions are not only a public statement of a town's values But also the town's aspirations Recent examples are the land acknowledgement and the honoring of indigenous people's day and prince holiday This resolution serves to focus our attention on our commitment to building a community where everyone is heard respected and protected And it's another tool for the art for our diversity equity and inclusion toolkit It asks the pointing authorities to identify and actively break down the barriers that maintain the status quo And prevent us from benefiting from the rich diversity of experiences Perspectives and ideas found in our community and furthermore It intentionally creates space in our public bodies for people from typically underrepresented groups This resolution is just one tool that we can use to create committees and boards That more accurately reflect the diversity of our linkedin residents This resolution is supported by the our linkedin's diversity equity and inclusion division Envision our linkedin standing committee and envision our linkedin's diversity task group our linkedin has repeatedly Affirmed its commitment to diversity equity inclusion most recent recently you voted Um, you acknowledged that our public bodies do not reflect the true and rich diversity of our town And you demonstrated your commitment to tackling this challenge by voting to approve the dei director's proposal for an equity audit In part to identify barriers to access and engagement and with the goal of bringing unheard voices to the table The results of that audit a year from now will provide a roadmap for our linkedin to follow This resolution is a tool that will support that effort as we wait for the results Increasing diversity in our public bodies was so important to the select board last fall that it voted to significantly redraw Redraw precinct boundaries to create a political landscape with a specific goal of increasing the diversity of town meeting This resolution builds upon that work With the same goal but in our broader public bodies And it asks that special attention be paid to the goal of identifying and breaking down the barriers that inhibit diversity Just as you did with your votes to redraw town meeting precincts It asks that when appointing authorities have two qualified candidates For public bodies that they consider diversity and representation of underrepresented residents and making their final decision Arlington's dei director jillian harvey identified barriers to access that include outreach engagement and education And while there are no quick fixes she believes that one possible solution Is to begin to build relationships with community and religious groups and ask them to spread the word in their networks And to keep positions open for a set amount of time before closing the application process Resident education could include topics such as why resident engagement is important How it benefits both the individual and the community? How our town government works and how to learn about and apply for open positions And appointing authorities should be encouraged to consider lived experience along with professional qualifications In preparation for this evening. I sent a brief survey out to chairs of public bodies Um asking them about their experience with diversity I'd like to thank the the chairs of the 14 groups who responded for taking their time to help me tonight While the committees who responded were diverse They were some very interesting commonalities And the overwhelming majority said that they would like to have more diverse boards They also identified similar barriers that to access that align with miss harvey's observations Common themes were the lack of a development of a pipeline For them to recruit from the need to focus on educating residents about the importance of volunteer work And how much this town depends on volunteers and that many residents don't know where To look for openings or how to apply for them The chairs understood understood that for many of them using their personal networks to find new members While effective often contributes to the lack of diversity There was also an agreement that volunteers need amongst amongst other things the luxury of time Sometimes topic specific knowledge Perhaps childcare transportation and the energy to take on additional work that's uncompensated The survey shed a light on another barrier, which is the lack of a standardized and transparent recruitment process in arlington The vast majority of groups limit their outreach to the town's website and their personal networks Several say that the appointing authority does all the outreach and selection And only two groups conduct the outreach and selection on their own and that ask the appointing authority to approve it And only two groups do media outreach beyond the town's emails and websites Diversity in our public bodies will benefit arlington in many ways It will make arlington more welcoming and inclusive to a broader swath of residents Which may lead to increased diversity of those who choose to live work or own a business here In addition research shows that diverse teams are often more innovative productive engaged and are better problem solvers There will likely be long-term benefits to engaging a wider group of residents to serve on our public bodies Membership on those boards and committees is often an on ramp to further political engagement Today's committee members may be tomorrow's town meeting members and maybe Maybe to select board members eventually and this will help achieve the select boards represicting goals of a more diverse town meeting This engagement is especially important as town meeting members declined running for reelection as many have done this year While lack of diversity in public bodies is a concern shared by many here in arlington. It is not a unique challenge Boston is working on closing similar opportunity gaps and summerville recently announced a new initiative to create a standardized process For recruiting community members that is inclusive and transparent There are no easy answers and arlington is taking steps to improve diversity. Yet progress is slow This resolution focuses on the one group that is uniquely positioned to most quickly move the town towards meeting the school Arlington's appointing authorities Thank you for your time. Thank you. Mr Any questions or mystery at this time? Okay. Why don't we see if there's any public comments? Okay All right, I'll turn to the board Mr. Diggins All right, so I'm so I would like to move positive action on this and do you Mr. Chair? I have a few questions Mr. Chair Thank you. Uh, so, um So first off meet up well two requests being one is if possible I'd love to see that survey the survey results from the committee's meet on that that sounds very interesting fascinating and second I believe what you said about diversity making for stronger groups also But if you have any recent research on that, I'm also interested in that I mean, um, I could go looking at myself, but if you have something handy me I'm always interested in that especially if it's something peer reviews will host to uh, uh business review because The business review stuff you have to find to be a little weak on the methodology to tend to be more case studies You know, so that's just a request mean if you have it and or if you find it and can send it. I'd appreciate it Uh, the other the other thing is more of a kind of a question comment It um, so in a town mean that is two percent black it um The do you think it is enough to simply go for the representation in proportion to the population or do you feel that you need to maybe aim higher? Than that means so that me there's more of a chance of people seeing You know people of color me now, man, so I I'm sorry. I do is black is kind of a short time You know, but if you just need to kind of be maybe aim higher so that people then see what See see themselves mean Because if you just aim for the percentage then it's going to be pretty low And and you can walk into a room mean and then you know like there's 100 people in it And there are only two black people like people say we're all the black people Well, it's like well, really that's all there is in terms of percentage mean it so you kind of need more I mean, what do you think of that just comment, you know Well, I mean I I would love to see boards have a wide variety of representation And even just beyond race like, you know, I think that there's boards need to have a variety of voices on um on the housing experience right renters versus homeowners You your age right seniors are going to have different perspectives and needs than young families or for people who live here without children Gender identity. I think there's so much more Diversity in Arlington that goes even beyond race But to get back to your original point I would love to see a huge number of People of different races on different committees because I think that's representation is really important And so fun. So just a couple questions. So when evaluating how successful We may be in this or without shortfall is I mean, do we look at the composition of the committees in the aggregate so that we We then like put all the members together and look at it that way to see how How we compare to the population in town My first response would be no because I think it's really important to have a variety of voices on On a variety of different topics, right? If we put everybody in the same room on one particular topic, we're getting we're losing those perspectives on on on trees unopened spaces on transportation We need to have the voices integrated into all areas of of Arlington and all topics I got it because then we've kind of back to that kind of math issue though, right? Because if you have the Let's say five slots on the tree committee Let's say seven slots on the tree committee. I mean then you have only two percent black in town I mean, you're just not Chances are you're not going to get that on the tree committee, but you see what I'm getting at kind of yeah But we can get other kinds of diversity on on the groups too, you know I think that there's um It's not I think it's not realistic to say that we're only going to be successful when we have a lot of Asian residents or black residents Serving on boards. Okay. Gotcha. I understand we coming because I also think that those other voices are important gender identity sexual orientation your housing tenure those are also Diversity that needs to be brought to the table whenever we're talking about these groups We need to have the people at the table making the decisions That affect us all right. Gotcha. And so a couple suggestions. One is that mean Um regards what happens to the resolution Me I think one of the solutions that we can have me force getting more diversity is the way that we construct Me the the bylaws me or whatever creates these committees mean and so we can we can instruct Me how the members are selected me so for instance me the p-cap study group Me me that had selection that was done by groups as opposed to me One or two people made and and as you may see with the hopeful youth being an adult Board collaborative me that's going to be done kind of ran by by lottery at least initially You know and and and so And it spread out across all 21 precincts mean and and and so there's just ways that we can kind of increase the chances that it doesn't get controlled by being a small number of people and the last is Um, if there's any way the civic engagement group can help in this process, you know where we are Thank you. And I do think p-caps is it was a great example of a creative way To ensure diversity of different perspectives onto a committee and I think that's a great model To follow if possible for future for future groups and yes, I think that the CEG has a lot on his plate, but I I'm happy to work on this because I think it's important Well, the more people we have at CEG the more we can take on so We outreach to do more outreach. All right. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you, mr. Diggins. Um, mr. Hurt Thank you. Thank you, mr. A for the presentation. I'm happy to support this resolution. Um, I think that's what this resolution does is really state Something that the town has been engaged in for the past number of years at least the years that I have been On the board under the Guidance of this board our town manager and our dai director jillian harvey and her staff So I think these are ongoing efforts that we've Are currently engaged in but I'm happy to Reiterate our commitments to increasing diversity on town boards Thank you, mr. I'm mr. Helms. Was that a second mr. Hurd? I think yeah, I took that a second And very happy to support this as well. I might suggest In our refinement of the resolution. I think it looks good to me, but We might the board might want to contemplate Refining its description of its motivation on the precincting And also maybe slightly expanding the acknowledgement which I appreciate of the town's existing work, but I'm thinking particularly of adding personnel to to assist director harvey in in the effort And I'm really really happy that the intent of this is to do a lot of things but including Support the equity audit. I think that is a really important Initiative and the director harvey has made that A very persuasive case for why that is a really crucial step for us Even though we have a lot of changes going on this year I think this resolution and town meeting putting this in front of town meeting will be helpful to keep that At top of mind along with everything else we have to keep top of mind. So Those are just my suggestions on the final form of this Thank you, mr. Helms. Um, yeah, and and I I was going to say something on that too No, no, no, no, no not at all. I'm glad you brought it up. It just and it's just a little bit of words Um The way it reads now it was our specific all it was one of the Considerations that we had but we'll we'll work on language on that that just is a small item in the overall Proposed resolution. I want to thank you mystery for Bringing this to us, but also working with town council because I know this Started a little differently in what's been brought to us as a resolution that I think You know town meeting can can can take action on and and It's an appropriate form to do that. So thank you very much for that So on a motion by mr. Diggins Seconded by mr. Herd attorney hind Mr. Herd, yes Mr. Diggins Yes, mr. Helman. Yes, this is mohan. Yes, of course. Yes Thank you. Thank you. Mr. I didn't have did you did you con win the game or? Yes, they did they pulled it out by three. Okay over south carolina. Good. All right. Thank you Thank you so much for your time this evening. Okay. Thank you all right So Next that completes the warrant article hearings For this evening. I think that we're just about done with them as well. There's a couple of stragglers, but final votes and comments and Turning how you had sent us we didn't vote on this last time because of the the lateness, but there was Some proposed votes that you already sent to us and I don't know if you want to summarize that for us It's been sent to us in our packets Sorry, mr. Sorry, of course. Thank you So you've got Votes and comments on article six. Thank you, mr. Chair. Sorry article six updating the human rights commission by-law Quite sure Article eight the civilian advisory Commission, which I think Um, I'm sorry Yep, uh, which you had Previously talked about, um, but We were waiting for some further discussion points on that Article nine Which is Sorry My apologies. Article nine, which was the net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Um 11 The revised domestic partnerships We also submitted as new ones 12 the single use. I'm sorry the revised domestic partnership wasn't ready I apologize. We needed to look at the tape to make sure we understood the discourse there a little bit But we have single use plastic water bottles Conversion of gas dispensing pumps to self-service Uh magliozzi boulevard and mr. Slickman sent me a nice note correcting that both magliozzi magliozzi lived in arlington So I will fix that. It wasn't just one And then code enforcement Overnight parking impacts Early voting in town elections endorsement of cdbg and resolution on true net zero I guess what my suggestion would be mr. Chair is if the board wants to flag which ones it would like to have a more Robust discussion on if there are other things that there are like administrative Amendments to be made. I'd be happy to receive those from board members Individually if they're not like substantive changes, there's a typo that you noticed or something just like a word change from that to Which or something like that? So if you guys want to just identify the ones maybe we could read them off again And if you guys went almost like hold them for discussion. Yeah, okay That makes sense. Yeah, I think that's that that's fine because there's gonna be a few of them I think that we can Approve this evening, but some others we mean we may need more discussion. So why don't we do that and Attorney hymn will read them if there's anybody who wants to hold it for further discussion We can do that. Otherwise. We will vote final approval Okay, article six updating the human rights commission by-law Article eight Civilian please advisory there's a hold on that one. Okay article nine achieving that zero greenhouse gas emissions from town facilities Article 11 No, sorry strike that article 12 single use plastic water bottle regulation um Yeah, why don't we hold that one? I just want to Uh article 17 conversion of gas station dispensing pumps to self-service Article 19 Uh street name magliozzi boulevard understanding the all okay Article 20 code enforcement Article 22 town committee on overnight parking impacts Article 25 home rule legislation early voting Article 26 cdbg Article 73 true net zero Okay, that's all okay, so so Oh, yeah, mr. Diggins. I was just going to summarize for a second and then I had hold on 8 12 and 19 Okay, we're very okay All right, any further Comments don't have much ever held Are we anticipating that vote those wednesday night? I I hope so I Because we have to like when do we have to go to the printer and get everything done? I know we keep putting things up My understanding is is just that you're holding these for a discussion if you're ready to Tell me specifically how you want to fix them tonight. They'll be done But if you want to have further discussion once tonight, I I understand what you're saying is small I I was almost thinking there may be a need to For members to even get back to you and and have a final vote on wednesday as opposed to have a discussion tonight on Okay, because the what my understanding is Everything else but then we get a vote those three Right and and I was thinking there may be a desire to to to have A discussion and and maybe we can all take a further look at it and then Put it on the agenda for wednesday as opposed to doing it right now That's fine because we had it and it was on last week right and then We could have done what we're doing now, but we're not so as long as they voted by wednesday night I'm just trying to explain how Okay So please whatever. Okay. So so if I could have a motion of mr. Helmuth, did you go ask your motion? Yeah, I was going to ask for a motion on the ones that we didn't hold for for so moved. Okay. Second. Okay. All right Um, any further discussion? Okay, so any motion by mr. Helmuth seconded by mrs. Mahan and mr. Herd It was a tie. I couldn't tell Uh attorney high mr. Herd. I think mrs. Mahan has seniority in a tie Yes, mr. Diggins. Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes, this is mahan. Yes, mr. Of course. Yes Okay, great. All right, so that um Yeah, mr. Helmuth So, um, and this is I think at the chair's discretion and my colleagues Uh, I know that for article eight. I had just one very small clarification that uh be prepared to explain tonight I believe my colleague mr. Diggins Um sent us sent around a um, you know in addition to our comment, but not in the vote Uh, so, you know, we could do that Wednesday night if you want to it I think it's just a question of how we want to spend the time tonight versus Wednesday I know we have a you know full plate on Wednesday as well, but Okay, I would I don't have a strong feeling Okay, yeah, I mean I what I was thinking is I don't know just to revisit these these other votes I felt like might be good for everybody take a further look at and and then and then I will Make time for on Wednesday. Okay. All right Um, thank you. All right, so that uh leads us to new business, uh, Mr. Mark Very briefly, mr. Corsi the special town meeting warrant opened and closed today Uh, the ARB had three articles You have a very small number of articles that we will need to schedule They are on fairly straightforward things including a takings for a safe routes to school Which has to be approved by the select board and um Potentially we've discussed this quite a bit publicly about whether or not We'll be ready to have a discussion about Arlington great meadows for town meeting Or we're just going to have a discussion with some members of the conservation commission But other than that the special town meeting warrants pretty light for the select board So we're really talking about one to two articles to be added to your slate Okay, thank you. And that that's within the annual town meeting and Just while you mentioned it is great meadows. Is that going to be on Wednesday night or no? I don't believe so. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, mr. Chapelling. No new business today. Thank you. Mr. Helman Mr. Hurd, I just wanted to report. I'm sure at some point we'll get a report from tack on this but The first as you might remember the the down school We voted a couple weeks ago a uh, a new pickup and drop off procedure And so far from my perspective, it's been a wild success and Really has increased safety. So Just an initial glimpse. I think it's it's been really successful. So I want to do thank everyone that That was involved in putting that together Great. Thank you. Mr. Hurd. Uh, mr. Diggins No, no business. Thank you. Okay. I I have two brief items and and I meant to bring this on Up last time but because of the late hour did want to congratulate the Arlington high school girls hockey team For making the state final Unfortunately, they lost to austin prep, but they had Up until about two and a half minutes left in the game. It was a two to one game And they had lost to them earlier in the season. I did at least six to one here in allington So they gave them a great game And they had a fantastic season. So congratulations to the girls hockey team The other thing I had a march madness theme earlier This year is talking about wpi and rpi, but for those of you who watch the men's tournament The university of miami had a really great run. They made it to the elite eight. They just got knocked out yesterday losing to north carolina Benzley joseph who grew up in arlington Is a member of that team. He's a freshman place For them he's a point guard and I wanted to congratulate benzley on an outstanding season and and for playing In the national tournament and the division one level it's quite an accomplishment He actually played at allington high for a couple years Before he left allington high school, but grew up in allington started in the town travel program Back in fifth grade and uh, he's on miami and They had a great run and uh, we're really fun to watch the bubble burst unfortunately for them yesterday But they had a great season. So congratulations to benzley with that. I will take a motion to adjourn So moved second Second, okay motion by mr. Hurd seconded by mr. Helmuth attorney. Hi mr. Hurd. Yes mr. Diggins Yes, mr. Helmuth. Yes, mrs. Mahan. Yes, mr. Diggors. Yes