 Good evening, everyone, calling Arlington's annual town meeting session nine to order on Monday, May 23, 2022. Let's close the attendance check in at this point again this is just as was announced earlier this is just a test vote. We'll just cycle through the screens here just to make sure that your vote did get registered if you think that you voted. And then after we've cycled through these screens for the test vote, we will move on to the star spangled banner. But before we get started with the business of the meeting. I have some quick remarks. We have seven articles until we start zoning articles. Then there are 15 zoning articles and lastly we have five resolutions. So there's still a considerable amount of business ahead of us. I send a letter to time meeting members this week to the time meeting member email list this weekend clarifying how I intend to handle notices of reconsideration since there was considerable interest in reconsideration on a handful of articles, given the limited time in which we can deliberate articles and the constraint that annual town meeting cannot be dissolved until all articles are disposed of. I will entertain motions to reconsider only after we have disposed of all 77 articles in the annual time meeting warrant. This will help ensure that every article in the warrant has time to be heard while allowing for a small number of articles to be reconsidered if time permits. I asked that those seeking to move reconsideration consult with me in advance. Next, the swearing in of new town meeting members, if any time meeting members, the newly elected or appointed and have not been have not yet taken the oath of office please contact the town clerk, Julie Brazil about doing so, as soon as you can. I recognize the chair of the select board, Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Miss moderator. It is moved that if all business of the meeting as set forth in the warrant for the annual time meeting is not disposed of at this session, then when meeting adjourns, it adjourns to Wednesday, May 25 2022 at 8pm. We have a motion from Mr. Diggins for Wednesday, and we have a second. Yeah, second. Second from Mr. Thank you. And if let's get raised hands enabled in zoom and if there are any objections to reconvening after this meeting tonight adjourns reconvening on Wednesday, May 25, 8pm, raise your hand in zoom now to register your objection. And seeing none of the motion passes and we will reconvene on Wednesday if we don't finish our business tonight. Thank you all for any announcements or resolutions. You can raise your hand and zoom if you have announcements or resolutions. Yes, Mr. Mark, let's bring him up. John. The Sims medical use nonprofit corporation is an entity established pursuing the voluntary dissolution of some health services incorporated which was operated the Sims Arlington hospital. Certain provisions of the dissolution agreement established by the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth set aside funds remaining for the hospital dissolution to be administered by the corporation. The Board of Directors which is appointed by the manager subject to the approval of the select man will be receiving proposals for a grant or grants to nonprofit entities whose principal function is to provide health related services to the residents of the greater Arlington community. Over the years since 2001 we have given out approximately $1 million worth of grants. In addition to the coverage of serving currently as the chair along with members Jackie cash in and Alan reading the particulars of the grandson. Solace solicitation will be in this coming weeks advocate and the following advocate, or you can reach out to me directly, or and my contact information can be gotten from the Board of Select. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mar. I had mentioned the contact and select men of the updated term just everyone's benefit is the board, the select board. Thank you. Any other announcements or resolutions. Okay, seeing none. Let's I now call for reports that are ready to be received. Yes, Mr. Okay, do we have a second. Second. Okay, so we have motion from surface get to remove article three from the table. So we can receive reports and a second from Miss Brazil. Any objections. Raise hands and zoom if you object to removing article three from the table so you can receive reports seeing no objections. We're now ready to receive reports. Raise your hand and zoom if you have a report to be received by town meeting. Going twice. Seeing none. Let's move on Mr. Fosco. Mr. moderator, Charles. I move that article three be upon the table. Okay, second. We have a second from Miss Brazil for Mr. Fosco's motion to lay article three upon the table so we can receive reports another time. Raise your hands and zoom if you have any objections to laying article three on the table. So we can get back to article 17 where we left off Monday night. I'm sorry last Wednesday night. Seeing no objections. Article three is now laid upon the table and article 17 is now before us so let's bring that up. And we'll resume where we left off on Wednesday. Okay, so according to my notes. We had a just started debate, I believe, and we had a motion from Mr. Benson for a substitute to the main motion. And I believe we had a second on that. And, and so let's now resume debate. So let's take up Mr. Wagner, please next. Thank you, Mr. moderator, Carl Wagner, precinct 15. Can you hear me okay. Yes, I can go ahead. Yeah. Thank you. So we're talking about article 17 the proposal to end the ban on self serve gas in Arlington for anybody who's just joining. I should say that there is no one in Arlington who would like to have self serve gas more than I know this because I was the town meeting member who proposed this exact change to get rid of the ban on self serve gas in 2013. I also have supported it at that time. The proponents of this year's article did not contact me, but I would like to tell you what I learned about this proposal from what I proposed. The problem I discovered in doing my research is in the unintended consequences by simply allowing self serve without additional changes to our bylaw. I've heard in many of our constituents who told me back in 2013 that they don't mind people like me having self serve, but they do not want to lose full serve. And as you can see in other communities full serve would disappear entirely if we vote yes on the article without protections. Further questions that are not answered by the article are about the effect on station size and location. Arlington is the second most dense town in our Commonwealth. There are also questions about noise and bother that many of the self serve pumps themselves could produce in self serve only stations. I have also heard that the sort of mini marts that would be added to self serve stations could hurt our existing shops and convenience stores, which are predominantly local businesses and not chain stores. Furthermore, I've seen recently and heard from some of the businesses that operate currently as repair and gasoline selling stations, that they are not all in alignment on wanting this in fact many of them are concerned that this will put them out of business. Back in 2013, after learning how much Arlington wants to keep full serve, and the concerns about the needs for other station regulations to be implemented at the same time as my simple resolution to allow self serve. I ultimately ended up having to ask the town meeting not to support my own article because of the unintended consequences that I learned about. I would welcome self serve gas in Arlington now as then, but in a way that preserves full serve is supported by our fuel selling and repair businesses, and those who live and work here, and especially in the vicinity of these businesses. The capital needs protections for full serve. It should cover size and changes of the large self serve stations that might potentially move in. And since it does not, I cannot support it, and I urge you to vote no on the article, until we have better protections for the want the ones that do want to have full serve. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr Wagner. Let's take Mr. Weinstein next name and precinct please. Yes, thank you, Mr. moderator Jordan Weinstein precinct 21. I'm going to keep it very short. I'm also going to be voting against this article. I also agree with Carl that there aren't enough protections in place to address the unintended consequences that might result from passage of this. And but in particular my feeling about this is that Arlington in its wisdom and keeping full serve gas stations also protects and supports a lot of jobs. So if we're interested in employment, I would urge you and continued employment I would urge you to vote against this because the likelihood of stations, even continuing to supply full serve services is very slim based on what has been happening in surrounding communities that have eliminated the mandate for full serve. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. Mr. Weinstein apologies for the pronunciation. I'll get that right. Yeah. Let's take Mr. Mills next name and precinct place. Oh, I'm sorry I missed Mr. Warden that was not intentional. I think the JW from Mr. Weinstein I elided with Mr. Warden so let's take up Mr. Warden next apologies about that. Give me Mr. moderator can you hear me. Yes I can. John John Warden precinct eight. Article 17. I also oppose the passage of this article, but I will say that if the majority does want to have this, we cannot do it without some protections, such as those put forth and Mr. Benson's amendment. And I also empathize with the remarks Mr. Wagner just made about the people who work there and I, I know that you know we talk about diversity and inclusion and all that good stuff. Most of the most of the men who do the gas pumping at our stations. My experience are immigrants, and we are providing with all this gas stations and island and we are providing jobs for these folks. And then maybe they'll be able to graduate from from pumping gas to fixing cars and so on and and beyond on their way to a somewhat better life and these are local people who Well they depend on these jobs obviously. I would like to. So I, and a previous speaker mentioned this issue. But I would like to ask, ask a couple questions of the chairman of the select board. And follow this through you, Mr. moderator of course. Sure. And the first question is now I don't want my time to be timed out so just to see yes or no question. Did you do any outreach. I mean, prefaces by saying we used to have a newspaper in this town. So that would tell you tell everybody who read it, which used to be almost everybody that there was an article coming up to do away with with our present system of gasoline stations where where the employees do the pumping. So I want to ask the chair, the chair person of the board of select man to you Mr moderator. What kind of what reach outreach did you do to the other business owners in Arlington who run gas gas stations. So, Mr. Diggins, what outreach did you do, but there were kind of two different questions there was yes no question did you do outreach but then also, right. Yeah, quite so. Okay, she wanted to be the yes no question so Mr. Diggins, can you answer. Was there any outreach and what did you what was there any outreach on this article, and one word, none. Thank you that that that certainly says that. So the other the other gas station owners have no way that knowing that this stealth attack on their business is coming at them. The, well, I don't get necessarily follows, but like, yeah. All right. Maybe they got it to the gate, the great fun. But the warrant is is publicly published. Mr moderator I'm well aware as you are the net warrant comes and that one advocate that people get everybody immediately goes to it says aha, here's something I'm really interested. But my other question is, if the amendment, if the articles passed with the amendment. And someone, let's say some elderly grandmother pulls up in her old Buick or something and wants some gas, and the attendant says a pump your own granny. What recourse will she have to get someone to follow the rules of the set forth in the amendment. So, in the absence of Mr Benson substitute motion or in the presence in the absence, in the absence of Mr Benson's motion, she can walk home I guess in the, if Mr Benson's motion were approved, then she has the right to have somebody pump her gas. But what what if they refuse to do it. What's a recourse on the right in the in the absence of the Benson substitute right. In the presence of either way, what is the recourse suppose it's an elderly person disabled person, a young teenage girl out late at night, or something like that they want to gas pump, but the guy refused to do it. What are they supposed to do to get their rights under our law right so since Mr Benson substitute motion does mention certain things like the Americans with disabilities act requirements. Let's bring up town council Mr Heim. Can you answer. Mr Warden's question, I guess in two parts. What assurances individuals would have that they can get assistance getting gas pumped with and without Mr Benson substitute motion. Good evening, Doug Heim town council. I think the best answer that is probably three full with respect to persons who have disabilities. Massachusetts and opposite disability. Number of other avenues. Massachusetts Christian against discrimination, our own local human rights commission, probably all have to varying degrees, some ability to receive complaints from a private business that refuses to provide a reasonable accommodation. In effect to more generalized declaration of service to somebody who's not within a protected class probably a little bit more nuanced to the situation. It would depend on whether or not the special permits associated with most of these businesses or I think all these businesses because they're all specially permitted under a slightly different definition. Under the zoning bylaw these the zoning bylaw and this provision aren't necessarily synced up and meant to. To some degree they are harmony with each other but they're not necessarily meant to rely upon each other so I think that the two primary things would be if it's based on disability. There are some state and federal offices as well as locally. And then if it's not based on that I guess the question would be whether or not there are conditions about that place the special permit. Thank you. Mr moderator, please, that's not really an answer my question. It's late at night. The commission wants gas. What, what can they do. Can they call the cops. Can they call Mr. Dickens at his home. Right, I mean, I think the same that they can complain to the sun commission tomorrow or next week, but they want gas right now. Tonight it's dark. It's snowing. She doesn't have enough gas to get home. So Mr. Warden we I'm sorry we are at the seven minute mark. Some of that time was my own confusion. I have to allow so leave Mr. Benson also may be able to answer about enforcement very briefly because we are over time now. But again part of that was my fault for repeating a question. Mr. Benson. Eugene Benson precinct 10 thank you Mr moderator. If my amendment passes it gets added to the bylaws, and the bylaws can be enforced as any other bylaw is enforced in this case. The police have the authority to enforce the bylaw now whether they're going to come out and do something in the evening. To them and what their priorities. Okay, so I think I think we'll leave it there and if folks have further questions we can get more into the details by doing it. Keep us on time here. Thank you, Mr. Warden. Thank you, Mr. Benson and thank you, Mr. Heim. Let's take Mr. Mills next. Mr. Mills, I just point out that you can read from Mr. Benson substitute motion. They propose change that makes to add section one. Number three speaks to the situation that's relevant to that recent discussion. Mr Mills name and precinct place. Let's see are we able to get Mr Mills connected. It appears that he is not here with us now so let's take Mr. Tosti next. Thank you Mr moderator Alan Tosti precinct 17. I moved the previous question on all issues involved in this article. Okay, we have a motion to terminate debate on the main motion and the substitute motion in this case. And so do we have a second we have a second from Mr. Hamlin. So let's take a vote now on terminating debate on article 17 and the substitute motion. Okay, so we're still voting in waves here in three waves. You might get a message that says your voting controls will be enabled in two more waves or in the next wave so just be patient while we allow different waves of precincts to vote. And if your wave is open already, please vote as as quickly as you can. And we're voting on whether to terminate debate on article 17 main motion and substitute motion. And so if you want to terminate debate vote yes if you want to continue debate vote no. And if debate is terminated then we will proceed to vote on Mr Benson substitute motion. And then after that we will vote on the main motion, which may or may not be substituted at that point. But right now we're just voting on termination of debate. Okay, so I'm pretty quickly we already have about over 200 votes cast. So have several outstanding votes. So try to get your votes in as quickly as you can all all precincts should be enabled for voting at this point. So let's just give another 15 seconds and then we'll close voting on termination of debate. 10 seconds, five seconds, and let's close voting on termination of debate. This is a two thirds vote. And it passes so 174 in the affirmative 49 and negative, which exceeds the two thirds threshold so we're not going to wait for these screens are going to go straight to voting now on Mr Benson's amendment. So, well, well first open voting on that. And then with that open, we can bring up the text of Mr Benson's substitute motion. And so it again will be voting in waves here so if your wave is open feel free to vote at any time if you're waiting to vote. This we're showing here Mr Benson substitute motion says would replace the main motion, the main motion just to review strikes that article five that you're seeing here. The main motion strikes article five entirely just removes it from the town bylaws, Mr Benson substitute motion instead rewrites article five, according to what you're seeing here the the underlying sections are added by Mr Benson substitute motion, the strikeouts remove that text. And let's just scroll down to show all of that. So you can see sections one of the original sections one and two are stricken, and then there's a new section one, and a new section two. And so if you're in favor of Mr Benson substitute motion replacing the main motion to have these edits rather than striking the section. Or striking the art the article five from the bout the bylaws entirely. If you want to substitute with what you're seeing here. You vote yes, in favor of Mr Benson substitute motion. And if you want to leave the main motion as is to just strike the entirety of title five article five from the town bylaws, which is what the main motion does. If you want to retain that then you would vote no. So we have a point of order from Ms Garber. Take it up and name and precinct please and your point of order. Judith Garber precinct for I apologize, I really want to clarify what happens if this substitute motion passes, versus what it happens if it does not pass because it's not an amendment correct. Right it's not it's not a motion to amend it's a motion to substitute. So it's, it's sorry if this is voted yes, then we still vote again on it. That's right if if if the current vote that's currently open if if the outcome is that it passes with a majority vote, then the main motion will be replaced with the substitute motion that you see described here. And then we all vote on it again. We then we vote on the substituted main motion as substituted by the Benson substitute motion. Yeah, and so it is very confusing. And so I'll just clarify. There's kind of three different states at play here. There's the current state in the bylaws, which has an article five or title five article five, which discusses the or outlines the restrictions on pumping of gasoline by any person other than an authorized attendant. That's the current state of the town bylaws. If you vote yes on the substitute motion here, then, if we scroll up for a little bit and show the actual edits. If voting yes here on Mr Benson substitute motion means that the text to the edits here become the main motion for article 17. They supersede the original main motion for article 17. The other piece is the current unsubstituted main motion for article 17, which just strikes the entirety of title five article five without replacing it with anything. It just strikes it and just removes it without anything added in its place. So, if you want to replace title five article five with what you see here, then you would want to vote yes on the Benson substitute motion. If you did not want this to become the main motion which will vote on next, then you would vote no. And then the main motion, if this substitute motion fails, then the main motion will continue to be to just strike the entirety of title five article five and replace it with nothing. Okay, so we have plenty of votes in at this point. Let's just give folks another 15 seconds, it looks like we're just about done anyway so 15 seconds before we close voting on the Benson substitute motion. Five seconds. And this is just a majority vote, and whether to substitute the main motion with Mr Benson substitute, and let's close voting on the Ben the Benson substitute motion. Okay, and the boat passes 78% 170 and we'll wait here to watch through all the voting screens. 175 in the affirmative nine in the negative. The extensions don't really figure into the quantum of vote at all. And so, with Mr Benson substitute motion passes. And so now, Mr Benson so now the main motion is is now Mr Benson's is the result of Mr Benson substitute motion, the main motion is substituted by Mr Benson substitute motion. So at this point there's no longer an option to vote to remove title five article five from the bylaws. There's only an option to either vote for the substituted main motion. Or to leave and vote yes or to vote no and leave the bylaws as is. So let's bring up a vote now on the main motion for article 17. The voting is starting to open up at least for some waves of precincts. And so now we're voting on the main motion for article 17, as substituted by Mr Benson substitute motion. So what we're just viewing last time when on the last vote, we're viewing the text of Mr Benson substitute motion. If you're in favor of those changes to the town bylaws in title five article five vote yes. If you want to leave the town bylaws as is unchanged in regard to article five or title five article five then vote no to leave them as is. As is being the status quo of that only attendance or employees of a filling station are permitted to pump gasoline. If you want that to continue to be the case, vote no on this main motion. If you want to change it, according to Mr Benson substitute motion, then vote yes. We have about 220 votes in just a handful remaining so let's just wait another 20 seconds. So we close voting on the main motion as substituted 15 seconds, 10 seconds, five seconds until we close voting. And let's close voting on the main motion as substituted by Mr Benson substitute motion. And the motion fails. This is required a majority to pass and 105 in the affirmative 119 in the negative, the motion fails. So we'll just wait for the screens to cycle through. So the bylaws will not be changed in title five article five. After these screens are done cycling through to the end, we will take up article 19. And we had already started article 19 and several nights ago, and it was laid upon a table as we took up the finance articles and we're not running back through it. And so we already had introduced article 19. And we, Mr Schlickman introduced his, his substitute motion, and we had a second from Mr Weinstein. And I don't believe we'd actually started debate at that point and it looks like we have a speaker to that's been reconstituted from when we were discussing this earlier. Just to summarize since we kind of we stepped away from this in the middle of things. This is a, this was originally article 19 was originally on the consent agenda. It was pulled off by Mr Schlickman, who has offered a substitute motion to name the unnamed public way located between 49 spring street and root to frontage road as Magliosi Boulevard. So that's Mr Schlickman substitute motion. And so, let's resume debate here let's take up Mr ruderman first. Thank you Mr moderator Michael ruderman prec nine. Mr Schlickman has introduced the matter. I'll say a few words about, about the, you know, the, the, the principle concept. And then for the, and then for the rationale. Tom and Ray Maliazzi, known to fans of public radio around the country as click and click the tap it brothers invented a form of radio entertainment. They were invited by a producer at WB you are to come in one day and answer questions from the public with other auto mechanics on matters of auto repair. And maybe they were the only ones who showed up, but they were so engaging and so humorous so personable, so friendly and inviting to their audience they were invited back 10 years, they were invited back on WB you are to handle questions from the public. After 10 years on WB you are the program was syndicated for another 25 years. WB you are sold this program to public radio stations around the country. If you're unfamiliar with their form of humor. Let me say that it harkens back to the great days of radio drama and production and scripted programs of the 1930s and the 1940s. They truly created an art form. Wildly we do. Mr. Ruderman, let me just interrupt. Is there is there anything relevant to article 19 that members could not find say, for instance, off the Wikipedia page for car talk, for instance, I'm just trying to make sure that we use our time effectively here. No sir. The gentlemen that we wish to memorialize in this in this article are truly pioneers and and heroes of a of an art form of public radio. While they were at their peak. They were heard by 3 million weekly listeners across the country on 660 public radio stations. They were both residents of Arlington. Tom has passed on Ray is still a resident of Arlington is wholly proper and fitting to honor them with this name. We have the ability to do this. It is it is meet and proper that we should honor them with giving and in the spirit of the humor of their program. The tiniest most insignificant road in the town, the grandest and most glorious longest name that we could possibly bestow upon it. I ask for your support on this article. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Ruderman. I'm ashamed that your Italian front station is better than mine. Let's take a Mr. Slickman's point of order, please. Mr. Slickman, we adjourned in the middle of my turn as I was introducing it. I made the motion to substitute, but I didn't have the chance to speak. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Slickman. I guess I had the second in my notes and so I assume that someone was probably just putting that up there, maybe preemptively so. So why don't we take you Mr. Slickman out of turn. And to, well, it really should have been your turn and I apologize for that to actually introduce your motion. And I don't recall. I didn't have it in my notes whether I allowed the chair the select board. So why don't we take you Mr. Slickman first since you're here. And we'll save the gymnastics of actually getting you from the speaker queue to speak now and we have your timer going. So why don't you just go ahead and introduce the substitute motion please. Thank you. Paul, Slickman, please. And for the record, the chair of the select board spoke before I did. There is a little write up in the annotated town meetings. So, given that we're already do what session nine of the meeting, I'm not going to speak very long, but there are a couple of considerations. First of all, not having a name for this road is a public safety problem, and that if something were to happen at or near this location, and it's a very busy location by the route to on ramp. There's no signs no way for somebody to call it in and report it. Mr. Ruderman talked about how beloved the Maliazzi brothers are. And as Jason Street is a cut through and and Tom lived on Jason Street. It's the classic don't drive like my brother street, but I want to refute a couple of points made by the select board. First of all, they questioned whether we have the power to name a street. And if we go back to the 2012 annual town meeting. We know that the select board came to us and requested us to revise a bunch of street names which were spelled differently in different databases. So, apparently, 10 years ago, the select board thought we had the authority. In fact, we were necessary for, for naming streets and the other suggestion was, well, we want to do no action because it should go before the Public Memorial Committee, which may not be a bad idea, but the terms of the members of this committee expired in 2016 2017 and 2018 they are select board appointees. So the select board could have reconstituted them and sent this to them, but they did not so seeing that this within our authority. We should do it. We should bring joy to the town, which is much needed after two years of pandemic. Please vote for the substitute motion and vote yes to name Maliazzi Boulevard. Thank you very much, Mr. moderator. Thank you, Mr. Selectman. Apologies for not giving that opportunity to introduce. Let's take Mr. Jefferson next name and precinct place. Bob Jefferson, precinct 12. I'm actually going to speak against Mr. Schlickman's substitute motion and ask that you vote for the no action vote of the Board of Selectman. Mr. Schlickman actually just covered some of it, but there is a process in place when we do memorial namings, you go before the Board of Selectman. They refer it to the public memorial committee and then there's a process from there. That's the problem. I've been in town my whole life. I've been a town meeting member for over 30 years. That's the process I recall. That's what the Board of Selectman recommended. Select board, Mr. Jefferson. Yes, I'm sorry. My correction, but again, being around that long sometimes you make that mistake. And I also agree with Mr. Schlickman that we shouldn't be spending a lot of time on this article. So I'll be very brief, but I really, I really feel that there is a process. And although maybe, you know, 10 years ago, the select board came back to town meeting and wanted our endorsement of some name changes of some streets. Most memorial namings are done through the public memorial committee. I believe this is a very worthy naming of that street, but there's a process. And I don't think we should be circumventing the process that's been in place for quite a while. And the select board did say that they would send it to the public memorial committee and then have them respond on it. More than likely there would have been favorable action. So that's it. My recommendation is that we stick to what is the normal process that town meeting doesn't overstep its bounds that we stick to the business that we should be handling in that we vote on Mr. Schlickman's subsequent motion and vote of no action vote of the select board. I do have one question. I'm not sure who can answer it, but hearing at article 19. It says Meg Leozy Boulevard, and I've heard it pronounced differently from both Mr. Schlickman and Mr. Ruderman. If I could just be, you know, if someone could just clarify what the actual name is. Mr. Well, I mean, I imagine there's just multiple pronunciations as there are with many kind of immigrant immigrant names over the years where there's the probably the original Italian pronunciation. I believe it'd be maliazzi and the anglicized pronunciation would be Meg Leozy. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Take Mr. Jalcat next. Daniel Jalcat facing six. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you. Looking at this proposal, I think it would be easy for a lot of us in town to want to support it for the emotional reasons that we just loved car talk we love the maliazzi brothers. We want to honor somebody who evidently, you know, one of them still lives in town. There are a lot of compelling reasons to support something like this, but I'm concerned, as others are that the process is not best suited for us here at town meeting. I think it's worth noting that by making a decision now in favor of honoring them in this specific way. We would pretty much be making it very unlikely that we would choose to honor them in any in any other specific way. I'm not sure this specific choice of a street is exactly the right way to do this if we are going to honor them. I get that there's kind of a joke aspects to it. It's not just this tiny little street being named with a preposterously grand sounding name, but it's also, it really isn't even a street if you if you look on Google maps and take a look at this it's really just like, you know, it's just like the connector to the frontage road. I think that for anybody who gets the joke it will be hilarious but I think it is just as likely to kind of go over people's heads and it's one of the things that would probably be discussed more carefully by a committee that was dedicated to really making this through. So, I will be voting against this not because I don't love car talk in the memory of that show, but because I'm concerned that we might end up making a mistake by choosing to honor them in this way. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Thank you Mr. Jock, let's take Mr Palmer. Next, I will just add that there is an old Latin saying parvus and potens. I believe that is an exercise exercise to the audience to translate that Mr Palmer name and precinct please. Mr Palmer, precinct to motion to terminate debate on this article and all matters before it. Okay, we have motion to terminate debate from Mr Palmer do we have a second. We have a second from Mr McCabe. So let's bring up a vote to terminate debate on article 19 and all the matters before, which would include the substitute motion from Mr slickman. So if you are in favor of terminating debate on article 19 and the substitute motion vote yes if you want to continue debate vote now. And the waves of voting will be opening up by precinct. And as always, termination of debate as a two thirds vote, if you're in favor of terminating debate on article 19 and the substitute motion vote yes if you want to continue debate vote now. There's about 200 votes and now just waiting for about there's about a dozen or so outstanding votes from recently active folks in the portal. So let's just wait another 20 seconds and voted up please vote now 15 seconds is a vote to terminate debate on article 19 and the substitute motion 10 seconds. Five seconds. Okay, let's close voting on termination of debate article 19 and the substitute motion and debate is terminated with 199 votes in the affirmative 23 and the negatives. So let's now move on to Mr slickman substitute motion for article 19. So now voting on Mr slickman substitute motion for article 19. So if you're in favor of substituting the main motion. With Mr slickman's motion, which is to name the unnamed public way located between 49 spring street and route to frontage road as Mel Yachtsey Boulevard vote yes, if you want to substitute that as the main motion. If you want to leave the main motion as is which is no action, then vote now. And after the vote on whether to accept Mr slickman substitute motion as substituting for the main motion. And after this will be another vote regardless of how this vote turns out. But for right now we're just voting on whether, whether substitute Mr slickman's motion for the main motion. So we're sitting here because we're about 200 votes and can we bring up the text of Mr slickman substitute motion. So if you want to substitute this motion. In place of the main motion make this the main motion effectively vote yes. If you want to leave the main motion as a no action, meaning that nothing happens, then vote no. Okay, we're just about done here let's take another 15 seconds before we close voting on Mr slickman substitute motion. 10 seconds, five seconds. And let's close voting, and Mr slickman substitute motion fails 87 in the affirmative 143 in the negative. We'll wait for the screens cycle through here. And after we run off the end of the precincts we will vote on the main motion, which will not be substituted but will remain a no action, almost there. Okay. All right, so let's bring up the main motion. Again, it'll be not substituted but it'll remain the original main motion, which is a recommended vote of the select board of no action. However you vote on this, nothing is going to happen as a result, but we have to vote on it anyway for procedural reasons. Okay, so voting is now open for the main motion for article 19, which is a recommended vote of no action by the select board. See a message about waiting for your, your way of a voting to be enabled and just sit tight but if you're able to vote please vote. And we're voting here on the main motion of article 19, which is a recommended vote of no action, meaning that however you vote. Effectively nothing will happen. Yeah, it's over 220 votes in so far. Let's just wait another 15 seconds, 10 seconds, five seconds. And the motion passes. So therefore we will do nothing. Given that this is a no action, I will take the liberty and exercise my discretion to say that we will not wait for the screens will just move on since it doesn't really matter. All that matters is that we have disposed of that article. And at this point and we're moving on now to article. So we'll bring that up. And article 20 is also a no action recommend voted no action by the select board. So let's bring up first, bring up Mr. Diggins chair the select board just introduced this article and the briefly discuss the select board on this. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. moderator. The select board unanimously recommends no action in this article, not because the concerns on which it is based, like merit, but because it conflicts the top manager act. There are ways to influence how the time manager deploys resources, those ways include direct appeals to the town manager appeals to the select board and even resolution at town meeting. So the force to hand of a town manager in good standing to select board or beyond the scope of town meetings authority. And I say this as a fellow town meeting member who deeply respects the versus excuse me deeply respects this institution as authority. Essentially, we are wrestling with the separation of power in our town. To that end, should town meeting members want further input from the town manager and town council regarding the role of the manager in the enforcement bylaws. Through the amount through the town moderator, they are willing to elaborate further. Thank you. Thank you. And so we have a substitute motion that was submitted in advance by Mr. Selectman. So let's bring up Mr. Slickman to introduce his substitute motion and to actually move it so that we can consider it. Mr. Slickman got a name increasing I moved substitution under article 20. Okay. Mr. Slickman's moving his substitute motion on our article 20 do we have a second. We have a second from Mr. Weinstein. So, Mr. Slickman go ahead. Introduce your your substitute motion please. Thank you. Once again, in the annotated warrant, there's a couple of pages of description of why this is before us. As well as town meeting members who have been with us for a long time, have an annual tradition, not not just to ask how much thought we used every year, but to wonder why our bylaws aren't being enforced and we sit here and we debate to the inch to the hour. All sorts of things within the bylaws then we set them in motion and sit here and watch a whole bunch of them, not being enforced. So that's the ultimate no action. It is, if we're talking separation of powers, I think that the votes of town meeting need to be respected. The laws that we work very hard to craft and and pass need to be enforced they can't just be set aside and ignored because without enforcement, all we have is a code of municipal suggestions. Let's talk about what this substitute motion does which is not very much at all. It does not create a position in any place in town government. Although we could add funding into the town budget for a position. We can't force the town to create it. We are not adding any money to the budget because this is not a budgetary position. We are not overstepping our bounds whatsoever. All we are doing is essentially putting a box of badges on the desk of the director of community and planning and development and giving them the authority to do some enforcement by designating the city and that division as a code compliance officer. Now, what does this mean? It means very simply the town could do nothing. Or they could use it to have somebody send out letters to property owners, suggesting that they might be in violation of the town bylaws, and they might want to correct it. If the problem persists they can send another letter certified mail saying, you know, we talked to you before, please view this as a notice of violation. Please come into compliance with the town bylaws. The town has come up with no no plan to enforce these bylaws and by urging us to vote no action. This is exactly what we're going to get. This is planting a seed in our bylaws, allowing for some enforcement, if the town chooses to. And if we're still looking at the same violations we were this year and every year before this when we come back to town meeting next year, we can come in and do something more significant. This is the select board to do something more significant. Now, I view myself as a legislator and not an executive. All I'm trying to do is use what little legislative power we have to get the executive branch of this government to pay attention to the bylaws we pass and enforce them, or come back to us and make a suggestion that, we shouldn't be enforcing this bylaw. Why don't we repeal it. What we have now is ridiculous and short of running for the select board myself I just prefer to having some time meeting support in terms of moving things forward a little more this year. Thank you. So while we have Mr. Slickman there and this won't count against your time because it's a procedural matter. And I did, I tried contact you in advance but I didn't get a reply about the wording of the substitute motion and I apologize should have brought this up before we actually moved the substitute motion and seconded it, but in the last paragraph Mr. Slickman the, if we can bring up the text of the substitute motion for article 20 thank you. So that last paragraph record of all complaints and request for enforcement of the bylaws including the data the request the data the finding and this position of the complaint shall be maintained electronically as a public document. My reading of this is that that last paragraph applies to all of the enforcement officers, not, not specifically the code compliance officer but would also apply to the police department of scope to police officers. Is that the intention of the substitute motion because then that would, in my reading would fall out of scope of the text of the, the main motion of the of the warrant article. Thank you Mr. moderator I did receive your email and I'm neglectful for not responding. I looked at the ruling by the town council that this might be a question and it was my assumption that you'd be adding a word or two in here is a is a friendly amendment to relate it to the code compliance. You would accept that as a factor as an administrative change can we bring that is that correct. Yes, I would. I didn't want to argue the point I and I see the point that you're raising. Great, thank you. So this is this is just what I put together kind of administratively to make sure to bring this into the scope of the four corners of the warrant article, which we need to remain in scope of. So, the highlighted areas here, just bring it into scope by restricting it to the record of all complaints to the code compliance officer specifically, and requests for the code compliance officers enforcement of the bylaws so on and so forth. So Mr. slickman accepts that as a friendly amendment or effectively and we're just we're just gonna make that change administratively to save us some votes. So otherwise this substitute motion would be out of scope for the warrant article. Thank you Mr. slickman. Thank you. So let's go back now to the speaking Q. And so let's take Mr more next. Thanks for moderator, Christopher more precinct 14. Could I ask through the moderator for the town manager to speak to the current staffing strategy for code enforcement and any future plans. And also, whether or not this bylaw change would be necessary or helpful in improving our code enforcement. Thank you, Mr. chapter lane. Yeah, do you have answers to Mr. Moore's questions about staffing and whether this would actually help with enforcement in your opinion. Thank you, Mr. moderator, Adam chaptering town manager, I'd be happy to try to answer that question. To answer the first part, I would say for the past couple years we have struggled with maintaining full staffing in the inspectional services division through a combination of retirements and transitions out of the department. And that has resulted and I should say that's actually been coupled with an ever increasing workload based on the number of building permits that we've seen pulled in town for everything from small buildings renovations all the way up to home reconstructions, as well as reviewing of plans at the high school reviewing of plans in the new DPW facility. There's been an increased workload placed upon that department. With some of that workload especially related to the high school DPW now having passed by, as well as the department being fully staffed. I feel that we're in a position now where inspectional services can begin to more proactively address some of these code compliance issues that have been spoken about tonight. In addition to that, town meeting members may recall under the operating budget article. That increase approved in the ZBA budget, and that actually directly correlates to enhancing the time that can be put towards inspectional services code enforcement. As it was a shared position between the inspectional services division and the ZBA, giving the ZBA that dedicated staff, while also retaining funding and inspectional services enhances our code enforcement capability. So I think we are actually now adequately funded and staffed to begin to do better enforcement in the manner in which the proponent of this substitute motion spoke. More generally, I would say in response to the second part of your question that putting this requirement in the bylaws as being proposed is an increase in funding that is not, it would result in an increase in funding that's not currently contained within the budgets. There seems to be an underlying assumption that there are, you know, is a person or a position or more than one position in the planning department that has the time and bandwidth to do external code enforcement work. I don't currently believe that is true. By creating this requirement in the bylaw would sort of tacitly assume that next year we would have to add this position in the budget. And that would be all well and good but I think it gets the process backwards. This town for decades has had a very robust budgetary process, whereby in the fall, it considers internal departmental budget requests, then submits that to the select board and the finance committee in January. So this is a very long months long public review process of the budget where the finance committee considers all of the matters that end up getting recommended to town meeting. So should there be a desire to add workload and or a new position. I do think it should go through the budgetary process so all factors can be considered before recommending it. Overall, I would say that I do think we are now in a position with our inspectional services staffing to meet the demands and the needs as described by the substitute motions proponent. Thank you. I think we haven't heard from Miss Baron, I think, perhaps this entire town meeting so let's take Miss Baron in position nine just out of order because I think we've heard from everyone else in some capacity or another, or now number yeah. Name and precinct please. Sherry Baron precinct seven. Do you hear me. I do please go ahead. Thank you great. I'm wondering if Mr. if you could ask Mr. Schlickman to give us a few examples of violations that have not been recognized due to this lack of staffing or ability to find out what code violations are happening in town. Sure, Mr. Schlickman. If we can bring him up. Looks like he's available to speak. Do you have any examples. Paul Schlickman precinct nine sure the most obvious one is the gentle dental which is right across the street from town hall. And we have mentioned this on this in town meeting for years and years and years. And my presentation goes back 10 years with the pictures from of Mass Ave. From Google maps that this is persisted and persisted and persisted despite the fact that several years in the budget session, people are asked how come this exists across the street from town hall, and nothing, nothing seems to happen. Understand the zoning by law prohibits signage and windows to occupy more than 25% of the space. That's the biggest most obvious one. There are many others around town that have been existing for years and years as well. But this is the classic example and the fact is that if we were in town meeting in many occasions bringing this up. I would think that if the town was serious about doing any kind of real code compliance. And doing something about enforcement, knowing this article was coming up the way to prompt a no action vote would have been between January and now to go and make sure that the owners of those signs took care of them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schlickman. There are some budgetary constraints about adding staff but you know rules are made and I think we need to find some manner in which to deal with code violations or they'd simply become something that's written on paper and ignore them. I mean I know in terms of, for example, fences that by code are not supposed to block a driveway they're supposed to decrease down to four feet at the base of the driveway, so that you can see when you're backing out. And I made the mistake of having a fence put up that violated that at the time I was told that everyone does it. So that's a safety issue. So I am concerned about this and I am going to vote in favor of Mr. Schlickman's amendment. Thank you. Yeah, okay. Thank you, Ms. Baron. Let's take Mr. Jefferson next. Bob Jefferson precinct 12. I'll try to be brief but for the same reasons I spoke in the last article. I just feel that there is a process in place and there's a process in place for town meeting warrant articles. That process was that Mr. Schlickman and I watched his presentation to the select board. And they listened to it and they understood it. But then they made a decision, no action vote. I think that a warrant article of this type, similar to some of the other articles that we address, should be addressed in different venues and where they should probably be taken care of. A warrant article like this brought before the board of select men quite often. Excuse me again, but in front of the select board. They take action on it. They tell the manager to look into it and usually get some type of results. I think Mr. Diggins covered it very clearly in his opening remarks. And I think Mr. chapter lane covered very clearly as to why he feels that, you know, they're moving forward in the right direction. And I think that it's not town meetings position or responsibility to be telling town management how to run the town. I understand what we're doing here is we're trying to put a little more emphasis on some bylaws that are being forced. I've been in town meeting for over 30 years. Every time you've asked the inspections division head or police chief about certain things that should be enforced. They look into it, and they take care of it to the best of their ability within the scope of their job and having the proper manpower to do it. I don't want to waste any more time on this. I recommend you vote against Mr. Schlickman's substitute motion and vote positive on the select board's motion of no action. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jefferson. So remind folks that this isn't like targeted at any, any individual speakers at this point just going forward. If you find that you're, if you're going to be just repeating what folks have already said earlier in the speaking queue and not at anything new, you can always remove yourself from the speaking queue and save us some time and bring up speakers who might have something you just saying again I'm not targeting at that at any individual speaker. Let's take up Mr. Benson next. Thank you Mr. Moderator Eugene Benson precinct 10. If I might through you I have a few questions about this for town council. The first question is, this is not in the zoning bylaws. This is in the regular town bylaws, but it appears that Mr. Schlickman intends this to apply to the zoning bylaws and I'm wondering from town council, whether this is actually in the wrong place, being in title nine article one of the town bylaws and it really belongs in the zoning bylaws. So that's the first question. I don't want to, I don't want to speak to Mr. Schlickman's intentions beyond just the plain text of his substantive motion but Mr. Mr. Heim, do you have an interpretation or an opinion on where it would be most suitable to have this bylaw change? Doug Heim town council. Mr. Benson is correct we're talking about two different things. The code enforcement that most people are talking about or thinking about with respect to the zoning bylaw has to be inserted in the zoning bylaw. The building inspector in Arlington happens to be the zoning enforcement officer. It doesn't have to be, but in Arlington, our zoning bylaw has the building inspector serve as the zoning enforcement officer. So that's the first place to go when there's a complaint about zoning. Mr. Schlickman also enforces the state building code and I don't think that Mr. Schlickman is suggesting necessarily that the state building code would be enforced by anybody else because that would be quite difficult. That's really only within the value of the building inspector and license inspectors. The second thing Mr. Benson is alluding to is the town bylaws do contain a whole number of provisions about all kinds of things and there are a number of folks who are authorized to enforce town bylaws. The police department can issue a fine for violation of town bylaws as low as $20 or as much as $300 depending on the bylaw. And our health department agents are authorized to enforce some things as well. But they're very specific. So, I think what did you answer your question Mr. Benson, you're correct that this would not change anything with respect to the enforcement of the zoning bylaws. It would however in theory create a position that if created and funded could enforce certain aspects of the town bylaws that are enforced by police, inspectional services and a couple of others. Thank you. If I might continue then I would recommend that town meeting vote no on the substitute motion for as the town council said what Mr. Schlickman has said he wants to do and what his example was gentle dental is a zoning bylaw and he's chosen the wrong place to do it. This would not do what he intends. Second is we're not asking, we shouldn't be asking planning and community development to do code and compliance what he's asking them to do is zoning bylaw compliance, which is something else. I'm a member of the redevelopment board I'd be happy to work with Mr. Schlickman for next years town meeting about inserting something in the zoning bylaw to accomplish, not designating a code compliance officer, but at least getting an annual record of complaints. The other problem with this substitute motion is the second paragraph is in the passive voice. It doesn't tell us who is required to do the record of complaints, which when you're writing law is just just something you don't do. So for those reasons, I am going to vote against this and ask town meeting to do so also. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Benson. Let's take someone out of order, who I don't think we've heard some from in some time is Ms. Atlas, who's currently in the eighth position. Hi, Aliyah Atlas, Precinct four. Thank you very much. I just like to raise the concerns about the risks for basically biased enforcement of this. And where all we're talking about is fines. The police also has the risk of unfairly impacting those who may not be able to comply or pay a series of fines that were targeted at them. I recognize that at least the police are nicely trained with unbiased in training and such to try and avoid doing this. But that is not generally and I don't see any precautions in here that wouldn't turn it into. This is the equivalent of a nightmare for somebody who is accidentally violating one or can't afford to correct it immediately. Yes, we have to respect the town bylaws. But I don't see a problem. I also obviously share the concerns about venue appropriateness. Thank you very much. Hey, Ms. Atlas. Let's take Mr. Revlak next. Hello, Mr. Moderator Steve Revlak, Precinct one. As Mr. Benson happened to ask most of my questions, I'll skip to the one that he missed. I was wondering if there is anyone for you, Mr. Moderator from the Department of Planning and Community Development that would care to provide commentary on this article. Thank you. Ms. Raich from the Director of the Planning and Community Development Department of anything to weigh in on this article. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Jennifer Raich, Director of Planning and Community Development. I don't have anything to weigh in on this particular article. I did not have an opportunity to review it with the petitioner or the substitute motion as now proposed and being discussed. And it as it relates to the upcoming fiscal year, this is not something that has been considered as part of the upcoming objectives of the department and would need to be further discussed for some point in the future. So perhaps at that point in the future it should be considered by the department and further information can be provided to this body at that time. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Revlak anything else. Nothing further Mr. Moderator thank you. Okay, thank you. Let's take mixed pressure net next name and precinct please. Thank you, Mr. Moderator David Pretzer precinct 17. I move to terminate debate on this article and all matters before it. I have a motion to terminate debate by mixed pressure. Do we have a second we have a second for Mr sienna was quick on the second button. So, let's bring up a vote to terminate debate on article 20, and the substitute motion before. For the record we are at the 15 minute and five second mark into this article. Okay, so voting should be opening shortly and they may already be open for your precinct. If you're in favor of terminating debate on article 20 and the substitute motion. Vote yes. If you want to continue debate vote no. If you see a message and the voting portal saying that your voting controls will be enabled in the next wave, I just sit tight should open up in short order. And once you're able to vote, please vote. We're voting here on whether to terminate debate on article 20 and the substitute motion by Mr. Selectman, if you want to terminate debate vote yes if you want to continue debate vote no. I have over 200 votes now that are in still waiting for several more. If you haven't voted yet please vote on whether to terminate debate on article 20 and the substitute motion. Okay, let's just get folks another 15 seconds before we close voting on termination of debate. 10 seconds, five seconds. Okay, let's close voting debate is terminated on 203 in the affirmative 14 and negative will now open voting on the main motion on amended. This is a recommended vote of no action by the select board. So we have been voting on that for article 20, or voting on the, the unamended, unsubstituted main motion with a recommended vote of no action from the select board. So we have to vote on it. So we have a second vote from Mr. Slickman. Let's, let's take that. Paul Schlickman preset nine we voted to terminate debate but we skipped over the vote on the substitute motion. Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Slickman. I'm so sorry about that that was unintentional my mistake. Let's, you know, we'll just cancel that and we'll have a second vote that will be tallied will ignore the first I'm really sorry about that. Let's open voting on the substitute motion by Mr. Slickman. If that's what the other point of orders are about feel free to remove your request for a point of order. So we're voting on Mr. Slickman's substitute motion I apologize for that confusion. If you are in favor of substituting Mr. Slickman's substitute motion. In the place of the recommended vote of no action vote yes. If you want to leave the wreck the main motion as a no action vote then vote no voting yes, in favor of Mr. Slickman substitute motion with grant power to a code compliance officer in the Department of Planning and Community Development for provisions of the town bylaws and zoning bylaws that do not pertain to building standards. So if you're in favor of that substitute motion vote yes. If you're opposed and you want to leave the no action recommended vote as is then vote no. And can we clear Mr. Slickman's point of order over 220 votes in now. We have the substitute motion up on the screen. We did make an administrative change that last paragraph so that it is specific to the code compliance officer and not other officers thank you. It's just a few stragglers have not voted yet to have been active in the portal recently, such as with another 15 seconds, 10 seconds. So we close voting on the substitute motion. Five seconds. Okay let's close voting. The motion fails 43, excuse me, 43 in the affirmative 182 in the negative. We'll just wait for the screens to cycle through here all the precincts. After we're done seeing the votes from all the precincts we will go to vote on the main motion without substitution. And after that we will take a short break. Okay. So let's open voting now on main motion, which is a recommended vote by the select board of no action, starting to get some connection errors with the server hopefully that's just intermittent and goes away. Okay so voting is now open for the main motion article 20, which has a recommended vote of no action. So if you're in favor of no action vote yes. So no action vote no, but there will still be no action. We just have to vote on it procedure for procedural reasons, which are not very interesting. It seems like we are starting to get these connection error screens. Bit more than we have been recent meetings. So hopefully during the break we get out someone who can look into that thing about 150 votes cast so far. It's going a bit slower than it has been. So we need to focus a little bit more time, because we still only have about 170 votes in 209 votes they are, they are trickling in. So if you're seems like a number of folks are having trouble voting through the portal by getting that like the connection error screens. That's continuing to happen for you. You can enter your vote by typing it into the Q&A. And also someone's noting in the Q&A that they notice they had two browser windows or tabs open that were participating in town meeting that could be increasing the load on the server. So check your, your kind of desktop environment on your computer to see in your browser if you have multiple participate windows or tabs open in your browser and please close all but one of them and that might help. 224 votes. So let's give another 30 seconds. 20 seconds until we close voting on the main motion of article 20. 15 seconds. 10 seconds. Five seconds. Okay, let's close voting and main motion passes. Okay, so this is what we're looking for in the affirmative 31 in the negative. Let's actually just cycle through the screen so everyone can, since we're having some issues with voting so folks can confirm whether the vote was actually showing up or not. Again, this is a recommended vote of no action. So stakes are significantly lower than they are for for votes that are not no action, but just as a test of the system, since we were having some technical difficulties there, please confirm that your vote actually did get in. So we can assess whether if you had any issues where your vote was not showing up, please let us know in the Q&A. And we have a, we have a point of order from Mr. Rosenthal. Let's just let's take that before we go on break. Apologies, I did not see that sooner. Mark Rosenthal, precinct 14. I actually raised this point of order, quite a long time before you closed voting, because I realized that your description of, you know, of the significance of voting yes or no, I realized I really didn't quite understand it. I would be saying that whenever, whenever the recommended vote is no action, that there really is no way for us to say yes we want to do this in spite of the fact that the recommendation is no action because that was what it sounded like to me that it didn't matter whether we voted yes or no because, you know, because either way. If we voted yes, we'd be agreeing with the no action if we voted no it was meaningless. Did I misinterpret you. I think that that's basically correct. Maybe we could bring up, since we're kind of heading into break anyway, folks can feel free to go and break for 10 minutes if you don't want to wait for the answer but when I ask town council Mr. Heim. Is there any distinction between voting yes versus voting no on a motion that has recommended vote of no action. Doug hometown council. There's a difference in so far as developing a clear and coherent record. When you support a vote of no action you're supporting twist, you're essentially making a clear vote, you're not that that you're supporting the recommended motion. So vote no, when the recommended voters no action and there's no pending substitute motion. You're essentially suggesting that there's something else to be done, but under town meetings typical protocols, unless there's a substitute motion that's already been drafted and transmitted to town meeting members before the start of the meeting. So there's really not something to do. So the article isn't disposed of it's just sort of hanging around as saying okay well we disagreed with the vote of no action so now what there's not even necessarily a clear signal what happens. So, the bottom line is that functionally speaking, you're correct Mr. moderator that when you vote no on recommended vote of no action, there's no substitute motion pending or substitute motion is failed. You're kind of spitting in the one, if you will. And if you vote. Yes, I mean, you're making a clear record that this is what's happening town. I mean to suggest that people can't make a statement about what they believe in support by voting no, it's primarily symbolic for you to vote no to a vote of no action. Thank you. It's a fair point though Mr. Rosenthal that like, if a lot of folks for instance, like, if like 98% of town meeting members voted no on a no action it's probably a signal as Mr. Heim is saying that there's more to do there and someone could use that signal. So, for instance a political case for doing something. Okay, may I ask a question to help clarify it for my understanding. This is a question we can take offline so folks can go and break or. Sure. Let's take that offline and, and so yeah let's go and break for 10 minutes that come back please at 955. And we're now going to we now have article 24 in front of us. The rules 21 and 2223 were already disposed of so we're now at article 24. This home rule legislation involving financial estimates and budget documents. And so, while we're bringing that up. Let's, let's. Let's go on the chair of the select board Mr. Diggins to introduce the recommended vote from the select board on this article Mr. Diggins. Thank you Mr. moderator by combined vote of 14 to one the finance committee and select board recommended favorable action. And in which we can have our cake and eat it to think I can get whatever preliminary budget information that it wants in a court with our current schedule, but the formal and more accurate budget presentation select board can wait until after the governor's budget is released. Many thanks go to the previous like board chair Steve Corsi and his 25 years on Fincom for crafting a compromise that came near unanimous support of that federal vote committee. Right. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And I see that we already have someone in the speaking queue. Mr. Dennis, let's bring him up speaking we have. We have no subsidiary emotions on this moment so take up Mr Dennis name and precinct please. Greg Dennis precinct one. I'm in favor of this. I just do have a question Mr. moderator. The main motion is a homo amendment to the town manager act. I have some familiarity with the homo process and I know it to be a very slow, opaque and unpredictable process. So I'm wondering about the thinking here of enshrine this in the town manager act which requires homo as opposed to trying to encode in the bylaws which would be easier for us to change in the future should we want to tweak this again I just wanted to take for us to go back through the homo process with each tweak. You know that some of the existing language we're modifying is already in the town manager act so perhaps part of this needs to be a homo but when we did the fossil fuel infrastructure motion a few years back. If you remember we voted for a combination of homo legislation that delegated some of the details to a bylaw. So that's my question Mr monitor just the thinking here between bylaw versus homo. Thank you. Mr. Diggins you have an answer for that. I, my answer is, is that I would like to ask the town council. Mr. Heim, can we redirect that to you. Doug Heim town council. The reason is that I think we opted for a fairly straightforward approach to this the town manager act contains this provision. It's meant to be a sort of part of our constitution if you will and to some degree the manager act sort of controls I appreciate what Mr. Dennis is saying which is that the sometimes there's some things that are nice codifying bylaws because they're easier to change. If you'll indulge me for some commentary. There's a little bit of a difference when Arlington is voting on its own governance procedures and structures. It tends not to be as difficult to foresee the way the legislature will handle it it's just a matter of time, the sense that if town meeting votes to support a change in the way in which we do something at the very local level, something of this nature. It's not really as complicated of a process forward from a legislative standpoint. So, while you're right that it will take more time to see the town manager act amended that typically takes to see a town bylaw amendment. There's usually not a lot of difficulty with debate. It's just a matter of trying to make sure the legislation looks right from the perspective of house and center council. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Heim. Mr. Dennis anything else. That's all thank you. Thank you. Let's take Ms. Weber next. Janice we've a precinct 21. May I ask who dissented on the vote. You said there was one dissension from the select board or from the finance committee. Mr. Mr. Foskett. Do you have an answer to that question who dissented on the actually don't recall I can look it up and find it in a second. Thank you. Continue and I'll come back to you. Okay, thank you. Okay. Let's take Mr. Wagner. Next. Thank you, Mr. moderator Carl Wagner precinct 15. Can you hear me okay. Yes, I can. Great. Thank you. I just had a question for the moderator perhaps to pass on to the finance committee if the representative is willing to speak on it. On page eight of the finance committee report to town meeting for article 24. It says at the bottom and bold, a finance committee, the finance committee will report on this article at town meeting. Did I miss this in the earlier reports or will it be in future reports if if the town meeting is not going to hear the finance committee representative right now. Thank you. Right. So Mr. Foskett, can you clarify whether, like, that finance committee will report a town meeting. Is that just submitting the report or is that actually kind of speaking at town meeting about this point. Well, we provided a report which is in the annotated, Charles Foskett precinct 10 chair, chair of finance committee, we provided a report, which is in the annotated warrant which says that the finance committee voted to support the commission of the board of selection. The select board. I'm sorry, select board, and, okay, and Mr. Wagner, do you have anything else. I don't really think that answers my question but in the interest of time. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Mr. Fox get just a circle back to you. Do you have an answer to Ms. Weber's question but who dissented yet. Okay. Let's take Mr. McCabe next. Mr. McCabe, please. Let's say we have really had Mr. McCabe up. I don't see Mr. McCabe among the attendees and zoom. Trying to get in. Can you hear me now. Yes, I can. Go ahead. I stand to terminate debate. I'm sorry name increasing place. I'm sorry. I stand to terminate debate on article 24 and all matters before, okay, we have a motion by Mr McCabe to, and before anyone before I entertain any seconds, I will note that there is no one else in the speaking queue. So if I do not recognize a second, and there were no more speakers then we can straight the voting without voting to terminate debate. Yes, Mr. Foskett. I have the answer to the members' question about the negative vote. The negative vote was by Vice Chair Deschler. Okay, okay, so thank you, Mr. Foskett. Seeing that we have no more speakers in the queue, I will not recognize any seconds and there are no more speakers. So we will move to voting on the main motion. Thank you. Okay, so we're now opening voting on the main motion of Article 24, which is home rule legislation related to financial estimates and budget documents. Okay, so voting should be opening now. And this is home, so if you're in favor of introducing home rule legislation to amend the Town Manager Act, so that first draft budget and revenues are presented. This is a summary from Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. Then vote yes. If you do not wish to introduce home rule legislation for this purpose, then you would vote no. And while we're waiting for voting, maybe we can just bring up the text of like the vote language for Article 24 from the annotated warrant, just so everyone can see it. Thank you. Just over 200 votes have been cast. This is for the main motion of Article 24 to introduce home rule legislation for financial estimates and budget documents. And you can find this in the annotated warrant so you can see everything on your screen and scroll at your own pace. Otherwise, you can watch the scrolling by on screen. If you're in favor of these changes to the Town Manager Act, you vote yes. If you're not in favor of these changes, you can vote no. We have 215 votes in. Still missing about 14 from folks who've been recently active in the portal. Let's just give another 30 seconds, 20 seconds. If you're in favor of these changes to the Town Manager Act, vote yes. 15 seconds. If you're not in favor, you can vote no. 10 seconds, five seconds until we close voting. Let's go ahead and close voting on the main motion of Article 24. And vote passes 210 in the affirmative, seven in the negative. We'll just watch the screens go by. It is a positive vote. And after we've gone through all the precinct screens to show all the votes, we will then have Article 25 before us. And just two more screens. And so let's now open up Article 25. This is home rule legislation related to early voting for town elections. And so this was on the consent agenda. This was removed by Mr. Leone. And as we've been doing so far, we'll give him the first chance to speak after we hear from the select board chair and from Mr. Dennis, the proponent from the Election Modernization Study Committee chair. So let's, Mr. Diggins, chair of the select board, can you speak to the recommended vote of the select board? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. That's like board at five to zero to recommend positive action on the EMCs. That is the Election Modernization Committee's article that would request and authorize the select board to file home rule legislation allowing for early voting in town elections. We hope that the state will pass the local option statute that would permit voting times to specify this article. But rather than just waiting to hope, we applaud the EMC for encouraging Arlington to show our state reps and senators that there is a strong desire here to make voting easier for everyone. The select board also expresses a deep gratitude to all of the members of the EMC for their hard work during this extended existence. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Okay, thank you. And let's not bring up Mr. Dennis, the chair of the Election Modernization Study Committee who this article was requested by. Thank you. Greg Dennis, precinct one and chair of the Election Modernization Committee. Article 25 proposes home rule legislation that would allow registered voters to vote early in town elections much the way they can in state general elections today. The Election Modernization Committee has been interested in creating early voting options since our very first meeting back in 2019. But when we learned how similar home rule proposals from other communities stalled in the state house, we had turned our attention to other matters that we felt had a higher likelihood of success. However, in the years since we think the tide has shifted in our favor. The pandemic has created an openness to more flexible voting options and there's substantial support in the state house for early voting in local elections today. So in short, we think we have a better shot than we would have three years ago enough to make it worth this article. And even if this home rule stalls like those older attempts submitting it represents an important statement on behalf of the town to Beacon Hill of the importance we place on the issue. The motion specifies a minimum of three days of early voting. The select board in consultation with the clerk is authorized to offer additional days beyond that minimum. Early voting hours must extend to at least seven PM on at least one of those days. And if the election is held on a weekday at least one early voting day must be a weekend. The other rules about the designation in public notice of early voting sites mimic those rules for early voting in state elections. And the clerk's office believes early voting in town elections can largely be absorbed by existing staff meeting making any financial impact minimal. And finally, I'd like to acknowledge that as of this town meeting the election modernization committee has reached its end of life and we thank town meeting for a very productive three years and ask you to read our report to learn more about efforts over this past year. Thank you. Great, thank you, Mr. Dennis. And thank you for your work on the election modernization study committee and everyone else who served on that committee. Thank you for your service. And I do want to give Mr. Leonie the opportunity to speak. He did remove this from the consent agenda. So, but first, before we take Mr. Leonie I see that we do have a point of order from Mr. Jamison. So let's take that first and then we'll go to Mr. Leonie from the speaking queue. Mr. Jamison, name and precinct and your point of order. Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. Do we have to move to dissolve the election modernization committee or is that already in the cars? I'm not aware of that being in the business of this annual town meeting but something we can- The gentleman suggested that the committee is we can do that without a article, I believe. Do we need to resolve them or are they dissolved as of the end of this meeting? Right, so since there's about a 0% chance that this will be our last meeting of this annual town meeting I would suggest that we take that offline to work out the procedures for that. Perhaps Mr. Dennis could comment. I'd rather discuss it offline, but thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Moderator. Perhaps you can resolve that by the end of the meeting, thank you. Well, I will resolve it by the end of annual town meeting for sure. So let's take Mr. Leone now. Good evening, Mr. Moderator. I'm not sure that I took this off this consent agenda but if I did it was by mistake but I'd like to thank the election modernization committee and who I appointed for the work that they've done for the town over the past three years and I'm wholeheartedly in favor of this article. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, name and precinct for the record. John Leone, precinct date. Great, thank you, Mr. Leone. Okay, so let's continue on through speaking queue. Let's take Mr. Kepline. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mark Kepline, precinct nine. Yeah, my initial question was about call. I'm sorry about what? Mr. Kepline, you're muted right now. Mr. Kepline, did you accidentally mute? No, I did nothing and it muted on its own. Okay, apologies for that. I said the moderator muted me, whatever. So my initial concern was cost but I guess there's no additional cost. Is that correct? Let's, Mr. Diggins, you know, is there any additional cost? Mr. Moderator, I would say this would be a question for the town clerk. Yeah, Madam clerk, do you have an answer? Will this increase costs to support early elections? Julie Brazil town clerk. I don't believe it will have a very substantial cost in the early years. And then if it does, that can be revisited during the annual budget process. Okay, and this is orthogonal to mail-in voting? Ms. Brazil, is this separate from independent of mail-in voting? Yes, this is in-person early voting, which is not currently allowed for local elections. Okay, I had a curiosity on mail-in voting. Are the signatures checked on mail-in ballots against the voter cards? Ms. Brazil? Yes, there are a variety of sort of steps in the process. Okay, actually let me know. This is a question about mail-in voting where that's not affected by, I believe it's not affected by this article, right? We're dealing with early voting, not mail-in voting. So, questions about early voting, as far as I can tell, are out of scope. I'm sorry, about mail-in voting, yeah. Okay, so is there still gonna be mail-in voting? I believe Ms. Brazil said that it was independent of this. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Let's take Mr. McCabe next. Name and precinct, please. And while we're waiting for Mr. McCabe, I have been informed that the election modernization and study committee ends automatically per prior town meeting vote, so there's no need to have a separate vote to dissolve it. So that should address Mr. Jamison's concern. Is Mr. McCabe able to connect? I don't see Mr. McCabe in Zoom. I know. Oh, there, is that you, Mr. McCabe? You get me now? Yes, I can. Name and precinct? Mack McCabe, precinct two. I stand to terminate debate on article 25 and all matters before. Okay, so we've motion to terminate debate, but given that there were no more speakers in the queue, I will not entertain any seconds to that motion because we can just go straight to voting. So let's, since we've exhausted the speaking queue, let's go straight to voting on the main motion of article 25, home rule legislation to enable early voting. It's home rule legislation, so it's not automatic upon us voting for it. It still has to go through a request to the state legislature to approve this type of change. But this will initiate that process through home rule legislation. So if you're in favor of home rule legislation for adopting early voting for town elections, you vote yes. And if you're against that change, if you're against that home rule legislation being filed, vote no. So we did make a quick change to some of the server settings, which should hopefully resolve some of the server errors that we were seeing earlier. By just adding a few seconds to the waves of voting to space things out just a little bit. And hopefully that addresses those, those server connection errors that we were seeing earlier. Okay, so we have about 200 votes in, things do seem to be running more smoothly, likely because of that change. Okay, so if you are in favor of the main motion of article 25 to introduce home rule legislation for enabling early voting in any regular or special town election, vote yes. If you're not in favor of introducing home rule legislation, vote no. Here we have 215 votes cast so far. We still have about 18 votes from members who are waiting on 18 votes for members who have been recently active in the portal, so we'll get a little bit more time. This is a majority vote. Let's give another 20 seconds to get your vote in on the main motion of article 25. 15 seconds, 10 seconds, five seconds until we close voting on article 25. Okay, let's close voting and article 25 passes. 214 votes will leave up these screens until we've gone through all the precinct screens. So we can show all the votes, 214 in the affirmative, four in the negative. This vote passes or this motion passes. Okay, so article 25, we've now disposed of that. We're now moving to article 26, which is in front of us. And this is endorsement of the CDBG application. That's the community development block grant. And so this, let's bring up Mr. Diggins as chair of the select board to tell us about the recommended vote from the select board. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Ms. Moderator. So did you notice, we feel so strongly about this article that the unanimous vote isn't a simple five to zero, it's six to zero, but that's because the time to manage against the vote on this article as well. I hope that you read or will have the opportunity to read the report submitted by the community development block grant subcommittee. Because in it, you will see a plethora programs in the areas of public facilities and improvements, affordable housing, planning and public services. They make 1.1 million go a long way and hopefully in a short while, they'll get your yes vote on this article. Thank you. All right, thank you, Mr. Diggins. And so the speaker queue is now open for anyone who wishes to speak about, let's take Mr. Rosenthal. And while Mr. Rosenthal is coming up, we have no amendments or substitute motions on this one. Mark Rosenthal, precinct 14, my apologies, I hit that by mistake. Okay, no worries. And so we have no one else in the speaking queue. And so if there are no speakers, let's just go straight to voting on article 26, the main motion. Okay, so we're now voting on the main motion of article 26, endorsement of the community development block grant application, also known as CDBG. And so this is about the endorsement of the CDBG application. Annually the select board applies for federal funds available to Arlington in the form of community development block grants and the select board endorses this application. Thanks again to Mr. Jamison for that concise summary. So if you're in favor of the select board's endorsement of the CDBG application vote yes. If you are against it, you can vote now. About 190 votes in, 200 votes. And this is a majority vote. Okay, we saw about 20 folks who've been recently active in the portal who have not voted yet. If you have not voted yet, like all waves of precincts should now have voting enabled. So please vote as soon as you can. Okay, folks another 30 seconds to get their votes in. Seems like things are running smoothly with the server connections, 25 seconds. You always put it into the Q and A if you're having trouble voting for the portal. 15 seconds until we close voting. 10 seconds until we close voting on article 26. Five seconds until we close voting. Let's close voting. And the verdict is that article 26, the main motion passes 220 votes in the affirmative one vote in the negative. So let's cycle through all the screen since this is a main motion, which we'll do for main motions and subsidiary motions but not votes to terminate debate. And then after we cycle through all these precinct screens we'll move on to article 27, which is now before us. Article 27, which is revolving funds. And while we're bringing that up on the screen, let's bring up Mr. Diggins, chair of the select board to tell us about the recommended vote of article 27's main motion. Thank you, Ms. Moderator. Well, this one got me because this was pulled off the consent agenda there's just no way I can make this one interesting. So I'm just gonna read a little bit from the expert excerpt of the slide board's report. Essentially, the summary that you got represents the annual vote to receive reports on expenditures and receipts the various town revolving funds and to authorize and reauthorize such funds in accordance with state laws, state law. These funds must be authorized annually in order to enable expenditures from them. So with that, I hope that you'll vote positive action on this. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And so, yes, this was on the consent agenda. It was removed, at least according to my records by Mr. Warden. So can we bring up Mr. Warden? And the only thing that I'll consider in scope to speak about at this point is a substitute motion or a brief explanation that there was some error in this and then we can move on at that point. And if there's no substitute motion we'll move straight to voting on the main motion. Since this, actually, this is not a, is this a no action? Let me just double check that. Maybe I'm jumping the gun here. So this is a favorable action. I take that back. We do not require a substitute motion. This is a favorable action, not a no action. So we do not require a substitute motion. Apologies for the confusion. Mr. Warden, did you want to speak to Article 27? Let's say, Mr. Warden, are you able to unmute your computers? Mr. Warden, I see that your, that speaking is permitted in Zoom. For your account. Can you hear me then? Yes, I can. I can hear you now. Name and precinct, please. John Warden, precinct eight. Mr. moderator and town meeting members, I did not knowingly take revolving funds off of the consent agenda. Another one of those electronic glitches. Okay. Well, thank you for the brief explanation. And so we do have a speaker in the speaker queue as well. Mr. Keplein. Yes, Mark Keplein, precinct nine. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, thank you. How did town hall rentals lose so much money? Mr. Chaplain, do you have an answer for that? Is this covered by revolving funds? Thank you, Mr. Moderator, item chaplain, town manager, as we've still been struggling to come out of this pandemic, we haven't over the past year really rented out town hall as much as we would have in the past, but we still, as we have in the past, relied on that fund for paying certain expenses related to town hall. I would expect in the coming year, if we hopefully continue to, you know, try to find some way back to normal that we will begin having a heightened ability to rent, rent the hall out for various users, thereby taking an income and balancing off the fund in the future years. Well, give me an idea what some of the expenses are for that $40,000 disappeared. Mr. Keplein. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Adam Keplein, town manager. So I'm looking at, if you look actually on page A17 of the select board report, there is a categorized listing of the expenditures in the town hall rental fund. And so you'll see supplies are $2,726.40. Personnel, which is related to the coordinator who manages the rentals $2,875. Utilities $6,068.39. And then the largest of the total $17,207.44 for contracted services, which directs related, excuse me, relates directly, excuse me, to the contract we have with a cleaning company that maintains town hall. Okay, so if it wasn't rented out, I don't know, does it need to be cleaned as often or coordinated as much? Whatever, thank you. Is there a question there? I mean, there was a question. Well, yeah, I mean, how do you incur these expenses when you're not renting out the hall? Mr. Keplein. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Adam Keplein, town manager. We have utilized again for years, these funds for the general maintenance, cleaning and utility costs associated with town hall. So the cleaning costs are not directly associated with clean up after events that did not occur, but rather the general cleaning and maintenance of the building. All right, thank you. Yeah, I'm just frustrated that the town didn't save any money while closed down during the pandemic and we're still seeing repercussions. So thank you. Great, thank you, Mr. Keplein. Let's take Ms. LaCorte next. Annie LaCorte, precinct 15. Mr. Moderator, through you, I'd like to direct another question to the town manager. My understanding is that revolving funds are similar to enterprise funds. This is money in money out from financial activities related to whatever the revolving fund was developed for. So am I correct in that assumption? Let's direct that question to Mr. Keplein. Is that a correct characterization? Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Adam Keplein, town manager. I generally would say, yes, these are programmatic accounts, programs that generate money and then have expenses related to the actual operation of that program. The only additional thing I would add is, if there is a balance in the case similar to the prior speaker, you are able to spend that balance without incomes matching. You just have to make sure that you're not ever driving the fund into the red. Right, so you can spend those monies on activities that are related to the ongoing purposes of the revolving fund. Regardless of income, you can't spend money without from the revolving fund that isn't in the revolving fund, but none of the money in the revolving fund, for example, comes from tax dollars. Is that correct, Mr. Keplein? Adam Keplein, town manager. Yes, that is correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Ms. LaCorte. Let's take Mr. Leonie next. Even Mr. Moderator, I have the same question for Mr. Keplein regarding, not the only precinct thing. I have the same question from Mr. Keplein regarding the life support and the ambulance services. And that one, we're out of whack by about $140,000. If we keep that up, we'll run out of money of that fund within a year and a half. What's going on with that fund? Mr. Keplein, what's going on with that? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Adam Keplein, town manager. I suspect that that is in relation to the timing of billing around the closing of the fiscal year, as again, historically, receipts and expenditures from that fund have always been very close to one another. But Mr. Moderator, if it so pleases you, I would ask if Deputy Town Manager Sandy Poolein might have a more detailed answer on that particular question. Sure, Mr. Poole, do you have a more detailed answer about the life support services fees? Sandy Poolein, deputy town manager. I think there are two things. One, I do believe that there was a decrease in some of the ambulance runs during the COVID period. People tended to use less medical services. And so they called the ambulance less. Two, we are looking at the fee structure that we have for ambulance services. We haven't changed those fees in quite a number of years. So I think it could be that it's just not catching up with the ongoing expenses. And we are looking at that now. You're seeking to get those ambulance fees at a higher reimbursement rates from the insurance companies in the state? Mr. Poole. Essentially, Sandy Poolein, deputy town manager. Essentially, yes, what we would do is we would raise our rates in relation to a multiple of Medicare rates. It wouldn't change what we get from Medicare or Medicaid, but we would get more money from the private insurers. Thank you very much, Mr. Poolein. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Leonie. Let's take Mr. Jamison next. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator Gordon Jamison, precinct 12 on the town hall revolving fund. Perhaps Mr. Poolein can elucidate whether I've noticed in my now visits to the assessor's office on a regular basis that the floor and town hall was replaced during the last year or so. Was that part of the cost used, those funds were used for? Mr. Poolein, were these funds used for replacing the floor and town hall? Andy Poolein, deputy town manager. That's an excellent question, but I don't know the answer. I believe those were capital funds, but I would have to check and look into that and report back. I'm seeing a message from Mr. Feeney that is saying town hall renovation account. So I don't believe it's a usage account. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. And to the members, Mr. Poolein has been very cooperative to my past requests to elucidate more information about these funds over the years. And that's why from my perspective, there is now an appendix at the back of the select board report that elucidates the cash flows. And as I recall, when Mr. Poolein completed that, they found that, including in the, particularly the largest one, which is the ambulance one, which we accrue funds from Armstrong and other related activities, that they learned a lot about different funds. And so I thank him for their work and that. And as a side note, the Celtics are up 84, 57 in the fourth. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. That is out of scope, but let's take Ms. Malofchek. We don't have an enforcement officer, so there's not much I could do about it. Ms. Malofchek? Beth Malofchek, precinct nine. Just before COVID, I attended a select board meeting. And so I'd like to know whether, since then, and since everything had been closed, I haven't been to a select board meeting in person yet. Has the room and the entrance to the select board, I don't know if you call it the hearing room or the public room, but has that been made compliant? So you cut out a little bit. Has it been made, was it ADA compliant? Was that your question? Yes, has it been made ADA compliant? Let's ask, let's see. I mean, is that covered in revolving funds? Well, it's gonna, Mr. Poole, is that something that would be covered in revolving funds to make that ADA compliant? Sandy Poole, deputy town manager. No, generally ADA compliance is funded through the capital budget. Okay, so that would not be in scope. Thank you, apologies, Mr. Moderator. Great, thank you, Ms. Milovchuk. I'm sorry, Dr. Allison Ampey next. Hi, I'm Kirstie Allison Ampey, precinct 13, I rise to terminate debate on this article in all matters before it. Okay, we have a motion to terminate debate. I will not entertain any seconds seeing that there are no more speakers in the queue. So I think we'll just leave it there and go straight to voting on the main motion of article 27. Thank you, Dr. Allison Ampey. Okay, so we're now voting on the main motion of article 27 for revolving funds. If you are in favor of, if you want to wish to approve revolving funds as outlined in the main motion for article 27, vote yes. If you're opposed, you can vote no. The waves of voting by precinct is still opening up at this point. If you're able to vote, please vote. If you're still waiting for your precinct waves to open up, please sit tight, it should open up momentarily. We're voting on the main motion for article 27, revolving funds. Okay, we have 200 votes cast so far. We still have nearly 30 members who have been recently acted in the portal who have not voted yet. Now it's 22. So please get your votes in. Once we've had enough votes come in, I'll close voting. Let's give another 30 seconds until we close voting on article 27. 20 seconds until we close voting, 15 seconds, 10 seconds, five seconds until we close voting on article 27, revolving funds, and let's close voting. Okay, and our main motion of article 27 passes. 216 votes in the affirmative one in the negative. We'll just leave these screens up. That is the seventh article that we have disposed of this evening, which I'll still wait for the voting screens to go by. But that actually brings us now to the tranche of zoning articles that we have ahead of us. Seven articles in one evening, other than the consent agenda, seven articles in one evening is tied for the most articles we've disposed of in an evening. Okay, so that's now, we now have article 28 for us. So let's bring that up. This is our first zoning article. And so let's bring up Ms. Zembury from the chair of the Redevelopment Board to tell us about the recommended vote from the ARB. Good evening, Ms. Croninger, Rachel Zembury, chair of the Redevelopment Board. I'd like to request that the prerecorded video for article 28 related to enhanced business districts. Hello, I'm ready. Great, so let's play the video. Looks like we already got that going. Let's bring that up. Hello, I'm Rachel Zembury, chair of the Arlington Redevelopment Board, also known as the ARB. And I will be taking you through more in article 28 a bylaw amendment related to enhanced business districts for the 2022 annual time meeting. This amendment would apply to properties within the business zoning districts and proposals for new development or redevelopment. Existing commercial spaces with frontage exceeding the dimensional requirements are exempt. In enacting this additional requirement, this would be following local and regional precedent, including applying the expanded requirements described in the site standards section of the industrial zoning district amendments adopted by 2021 Arlington Town Meeting to business districts, complying with neighborhood-based recommendations from the Congress for new urbanism and following standards and examples from other inter-core communities. The purpose of this amendment is to encourage pedestrian activity, maintain an active street, and encourage the development of active ground floor uses. This would apply to properties subject to review by the Redevelopment Board with reasonable exemptions, including those applications solely requesting signage approvals. The amendment provides minimum requirements for transparency of ground floor facades visible from the public way, prohibits blank facades in the public right of way by requiring articulation for a minimum of every 30 feet, requires a clearly defined primary entrance that faces the principal street through an accessible surface to the public sidewalk, and requires that lobby entrances for upper-store uses be clearly articulated and limited in scale to preserve floor space and facade frontage for active commercial ground floor uses. Through the proposed standards, this amendment will encourage vibrant usage and storefront design in Arlington's business districts. The ARB voted five to zero at our April 4th meeting to recommend favorable action on Article 28. Thank you. Hello, I'm Rachel Zember, Street Trees. Okay, we'll talk about the street trees another time. Anything else, Ms. Zember? No, thank you. Great, thank you. So the speaking queue should now be open for anyone who wants to speak to, or is it Article 28, Zoning By-law Amendment related to enhanced business districts. Do we have any speakers? Seeing none, let's go straight to voting on Article 28. The main motion, we have a, before we do that, we have a point of order from Mr. Wagner, let's take that up. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Carl Wagner, Precinct 15. I would point out at least in my case, while you were speaking, asking for people to vote to raise their hands for speaking, there was no ability to do that, and I actually would like to speak on it. So I hope I might be allowed to speak on it before the vote begins. I also would ask that the technology not get ahead of the vote, thank you. I think that is a fair request of voting because I can't see in my screen a button since I don't have the view of a time meeting number. So let's close that. Since there was clearly an intention to speak, let us open up the speaking queue for that. Apologies, I was under the impression that it was open the entire time, but I clearly might have been mistaken there. So apologies for that. Can we reopen the speaking queue for Article 28? Someone in the Q&A is saying that they're still seeing the voting page and not an ability to speak. We need to reopen Article 28. Apologies for the technology issues. Okay, so let's take Mr. Wagner from the speaking queue. Apologies again for that confusion. Mr. Wagner, I'd name it Precinct 15. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Carl Wagner, Precinct 15. Can you hear me okay? Yes, I can, go ahead. I just would point out as point of order before I speak that I noticed the page refresh has gone to 21 seconds, which might be for technical database issues, but perhaps that's what the latency problem was. I just wanted to very briefly say that I did review in its entirety Article 28. And I think this is, which was proposed by the planning department is a good thing for us to go forward on and we should vote yes on it, I hope you will. However, it points to a problem in what we voted for in town meeting a few years ago, the mixed use law. We have not been able to create the vibrant business districts with accessory apartments that we hoped for in the mixed use law. And I think this is a great start to fixing that. And I hope that town meeting in future years we'll find ways for existing mixed use businesses to better meet our goals of the original vote we took several years ago. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wagner. Let's see, I see at least one report in the Q&A that someone doesn't see a way to raised hand feature for this article. I think that means a request to speak. If anyone else wishes to speak, now's your chance. Seeing none. And now that we have evidence that the speaking queue was actually open as, oh, actually we have a sake of Ms. Nathan. Hello, Mr. Moderator, thank you. Name and precinct, please. Oh, sorry, Michelle, Nathan, precinct 11. I don't want to take up a lot of time. I know you're trying to end the meeting on time. I just have no background on this. I write it also, but without background it's hard for me to vote. If somebody could just briefly summarize what the motivation was for this. Yeah, Ms. Zemberry, can you give like, perhaps like a 30 second or less summary? I know it's hard because there's a lot of technical detail to do this. Can you do your best to give like a very brief summary? Sure, Rachel Zemberry, Chair of the Redevelopment Board. The main purpose of this article is to encourage in mixed use developments more active uses. So restaurants, retail, services that encourage people to come in and out of the first floor of multi-story buildings in town. This is like a new kind of classification of kinds or category or something of this enhanced business district to get at those particular types of uses of businesses. Is that accurate? I wouldn't say it's new. I think it's encouraging just a more robust use of those particular types of businesses within the first floor, the street level of those spaces. It's something that the Redevelopment Board has tried to do in practice, but there's nothing specific as of yet in the zoning by-law which we can point to. So this allows us to be able to point to that in the zoning by-law. To these specific uses. Yes, that is correct. Anything else, Ms. Nathan? No, thank you. Okay, thank you. Let's take Mr. Jamison next. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator Gordon Jamison, Precinct 12. I'm in favor of this article and I point Mr. Wagner to Article 39 where it helped them join me in voting in the affirmative to help enhance our mixed use zoning, not enforcement, but activation for the things that were discussed just recently for a more vibrant lower level commercial with apartments above it along our business quarters. Thank you very much, Ms. Moderator. Let's keep the discussion to this article and I hope that wasn't an intention to have Mr. Wagner vote for something but to trade votes or something. And I don't think that's what you were trying to do, but let's just be careful with that. Let's take Ms. Stamps. I don't think we've heard from her in some time. Name and precinct place. I'm Mr. Moderator, Susan Stamps, Precinct three. Reading the warrant article here for this particular article, it says that the, I'm so sorry, that the town wants to amend the zoning by-law to encourage pedestrian activity, et cetera and limit the amount of ground floor retail space occupied by banks, offices, lobbies and other non-active uses when feasible. And I was just wondering if Ms. Zembury might be able to point to the language in the proposed zoning amendments that would limit the amount of space taken up by banks and such. Ms. Zembury? Rachel Zembury, Chair of the Redevelopment Board. The Redevelopment Board discussed how specific we wanted to be in the wording of the definition of active uses rather than specifically call out banks or offices. Instead, we settled on the wording that is included in the section that is specific to maintaining an active street and active ground floor uses. There are times in which banks and other service oriented retail can be considered active. And again, the Redevelopment Board wanted to be able to encourage as wide a variety of usage as possible. Thank you. Ms. Zems? I still don't understand how this proposed language answers, speaks to that question. Can you point to me something specifically in this language which does what you said? Ms. Zembury, is this under 5.5.2b? Correct. Rachel Zembury, Chair of the Redevelopment Board. 5.5.2b, section one refers to active uses. Thank you. Maybe the question is, I think, if I can kind of interpret what Ms. Stamps is saying, is in what, like, how does it encourage or discourage one use or another, as opposed to just saying that it encourages or discourages? Is that the question, Ms. Stamps? Yes, thank you, Mr. Moderator. Ms. Zembury? Rachel Zembury, Chair of the Redevelopment Board. There are several ways in which it encourages active use. So, under standard section four, there are several ways that the building, not only in its usage, but also in the way that it's designed, can enhance these business districts. So it includes several design principles, the limiting of the size and scale of lobby entrances and the articulation of storefronts in order to continue to encourage active storefront usage. Thank you. Anything else? Okay, thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. We are coming up on 11 p.m. Mr. Moderator? Yes, Mr. Posca? Yes, I move we adjourn. Okay, before we head down that path, are there any notices of reconsideration that anyone wishes to give on any of the articles that we voted on tonight? The caveat that you need to be on the prevailing side of that vote in order to give notice of reconsideration. So it's enable raise hands and zoom for anyone who wants to give notice of reconsideration, which means that gives you the right, this is your last chance to have the right to later on move to reconsider at a future meeting of a motion that we voted on tonight that you were on the prevailing side of. If there's new information or you want more time to reflect, now is the time. Seeing no notices of reconsideration, I will now entertain Mr. Foskett's motion to adjourn. Do we have a second? Are there really no seconds? Okay, we have a second from Ms. Phelan, the second to Mr. Foskett's motion to adjourn. Let's keep raise hands enabled and zoom. If you object to adjourning, you can raise hand and zoom right now. I see two votes and that's not gonna do it. So I declare that a majority vote in favor of adjourning. So this meeting is adjourned and we will come back on Wednesday, May 25th at 8 p.m. Thanks everyone, have a good night.