 Good evening. I'm calling to order the meeting on the Arlington Select Board for September 14th, 2020. As a preliminary matter, this is John Hurd, the Select Board Chair. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahan? Yes, here. Joe Curl? Here. Steve Corsi? Here. Lynn Diggins? Here. And staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Tom Andrew, Adam Chaptelain? Here. Tom Council, Douglas Heim? Here. And Board Administrator Ashley Maher is participating remotely. Good evening. This meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12th, 2020, due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth, given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and reduce risk of COVID-19 illness, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the Governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely. So long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless us participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment. Even if members of the public do not comment, participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment, and those persons are not required to identify themselves. For this meeting, the Select Board is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also take care to adjust your screen or device name if you would like to speak in order for us to recognize speakers appropriately and develop accurate minutes. It is helpful for participants to see your full first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. All the meeting materials except any executive session materials are available on the Novus Agenda Dashboard. We recommend that members in the public follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless the chair notes otherwise. We are now turning to the first item on the agenda. Before we do so, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate minutes. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks. The chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comment, questions or motions. Please hold your name until your name is called. Further, please speak. Remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair. Yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If any members wish to engage in colloquy with other members, please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. This meeting will feature opportunities for public comment on certain agenda items. For comment on items after members have spoken, I as the chair will afford the public opportunities as follows. Please ask members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only once the chair has a list of all public commentators. I will call on each by name and afford three minutes for any comments. Please keep in mind that all participants and members of the public must be recognized by the chair before speaking. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call votes. And that takes us to our next item on the agenda. End of the budget report. I see cooler. Our time manager or deputy time manager. In either Cody our control. Thank you. Mr. Chair. And thank you members of the board. You and I are happy to be here and present our first. End of the year full report on the finance. I thought what I do is just go through some of the departments that are in the memo just to touch on them and then take a look at some of the figures. I also wanted to, but as an overall, give you a sense of what we see going on. In particular, we think that the general fund did well in FY 2020. Our revenue collection was generally on or above budget and our spending. Was always within budget or on the sheet you'll see in some cases it looked like it was over, but that really had to do with the timing of money. Coming in from FY 19 affecting FY 20 budget so it looked like we were maybe spending a little more. We saw nothing in the general fund that was a significant departure from our budget guidelines on the enterprise funds. We did have some deficits. Fortunately, there were sufficient funds in those enterprise funds to be able to make up for those deficits. We're able to go forward on a go forward without too much of a hit to our funds. I would also just note at this time, we are in a period of a lot of uncertainty around our finances. We know as I'll speak to specifically there are some revenue sources that will be hurt for us. Some of our local receipts in particular. I think it is my guesstimate at this point that during FY 21, we should be able to get through the year. All right, if the if the legislature comes through with local aid as they have initially voted. I am more concerned about FY 22 and the impact on both the state budget and therefore on our budget. We will see from ongoing slowdowns and economic activity, but I will also say that there's a lot unknown at this point. And so we have to keep watching things. Adam, if you could just go back to the first page. There we go. So I'm just going to note a couple of departments here on this page you see reference to the Department of Public Works. It expended 95% of its budget, which meant that there was a lot of unspent money in public works. It returned close to $620,000 back into the general fund by the end of the year, including about $210,000 from the snow and ice budget. So we had a good year in regard to snow and ice and we didn't really have to hit the general fund or reserve fund at all for DPW, which is often the case that we do have to hit it. And I skipped to the next page Adam. There were again, some minor variations in department budgets that are noted in the memo. Under the general fund departments under the category of other. These are things that are not in the town budget but are part of the overall municipal budget, including insurance, our minivan appropriation, our pension costs. Those all came in as expected within 1% of the budget. Probably the most important thing to note is that we had to transfer out about 19% of the reserve fund. Those were mostly for transfers relating to retirements where there were significant buyouts for people. We had about 300 low over $300,000 and kept about $1.3 million to be returned to free cash at the end of the year. Those specific figures are further along in the memo. So it was a good year for us in terms of not having to spend the reserve fund. On the revenue side. In general, our collection rate was was good. These were a little bit short. Partly because we transferred some of the fees that used to be collected under the fee category into fines and forfeitures. So those fell a little short finds and forfeitures also fell a little short. Fines and forfeitures fell short because of moving violations. And I think we will, I will continue to look at that with the police chief as we go forward. Our hotel tax was very strong in FY 20. We surpassed our revenue estimates. We will not see that continue to happen in FY 21. The third quarter hotel tax collections were short of what they had been in previous, previous months. So we will be paying a lot of attention to that. Our clear big winner was investments. The interest rate that we get on our investments. The treasurer has done a very good job with those interest rates. And I think so that's been a strong case for us. Again, on this page, meals tax also exceeded expectations. And again, I do not anticipate seeing that in FY 21. Medicaid at the bottom of that page where reimbursements from the school department for services that are provided by school personnel to our school population. They more than double the, the estimate we estimate about $100,000 a year. It came in at about $250,000. And so I would like to give a lot of credit to Mike Mason and the staff in the school department of doing all the paperwork and there's a considerable amount of paperwork to collect that money. And finally, I just want to mention taxes. We have a collection rate of 99% at the end of the year. That is fairly typical in any one year. You don't always collect all your taxes in that year, but the fact that we're collecting almost 100% through taxes is a good sign. We will continue to collect some of those tax monies in later years. And so I'm feeling, I feel that our tax collection rate is good. And if we go to the next page, I'll just talk about a minute about the enterprise funds and then go to the numbers and then take any questions you may have. So we, first of all, I want to acknowledge a typo in the water and sewer description. Joe Conley doing a lot of work with the comptroller to liquidate prior encumbrances. That is true. Joe did a lot of good work. But he is the director of the recreation and rink funds and that's where he did his work. It was Mike Rademacher who did the same work in the water and sewer fund. And then I will give Eda Cody a lot of credit for the work she did scouring old encumbrances from prior years and really working with the departments to make sure that they weren't holding on to money that they didn't need to. On an operating basis, our expenses exceeded our revenue by almost $700,000. But because of the work that Eda did with Mike Rademacher and his staff. We took a hit to our fund balance and we got $416,000. Given that there's a $6 million fund balance there, I think we're in okay shape. The ACA YCC basically spent what it, what its budget was. And they did have increased activity. There was a minor gap between the two. But it did show during this period that there was a high demand for a YCC services for youth in town. We needed psychological counseling. And we expect that that will continue into coming here. And then the COA Transportation Fund, Council on Aging Transportation Fund basically expanded only 67% of its budget because after March they basically shut down their operations. Both the RINC and the Recreation Fund had major losses of revenue from the, from what their budgeted rates were. They actually shut down in March and had to give a number of refunds. Joe Connelly did a great job, both in the RINC and the Recreation Department, working with people who had paid their fees and allowed them to carry over those fee collections into FY 21. So for many people who did not have to actually write refund checks. Eva did a lot of good work again, trying to clear out golden conferences. So our fund actually saw an increase of $26,000 in that balance, even though there was a major reduction in activity. We also did have to lay off our part-time workers in the RINC. These are people, most of whom have other jobs in that town, so it's not like they were out of work. But once the RINC was shut down, they really didn't need their services. On the Recreation Fund side, we saw a drop of about $4,000 in the fund balance there because there was no activity in the spring and we did have to issue some refunds. But there is sufficient balance in that fund so the fund could serve it. And so, unfortunately, it was a loss, but we still ended the year with enough money in the fund so that did not affect our pre-cash. Adam, if you could just go to the next page. Thank you. All of the departments, and I think that you can see here is that, you know, every most departments spent pretty much all of their budget. There are a few major exceptions, like parking, which really shut down and so forth, but otherwise, people are on budget. As I already mentioned, the other categories were pretty much on budget. And if we go to the next page, the warrant articles are small. They have no little financial impact. Those are varied and we allow those warrant articles, which are run by volunteers on various commissions and committees, basically to keep their money for two years. Because that's just basically what we need to do to allow those committees to get their work done. So, we think those are in good shape. I did just want to focus again on our general fund revenue numbers. Again, you can see them all laid out here. At this point, I think what I will do is stop and ask questions and also ask if either Cody wants to make any comments or if you have specific questions either either or I will be more than happy to answer them. Ida, give me any dad. Good evening, everyone. No, I think Sandy covered everything. If you have any questions, we are here to answer. Okay. I will turn it to the board. Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you to Mr. Poole and Ms. Cody for the comprehensive report. I know this is the first year that you've done this. This is the first, going into my second year on the board, but I find it very helpful. And just a question on the recreation enterprise fund and that of all the enterprise funds looks like it's going to be a struggle for fiscal 21. And I'm just wondering what the fund balance is on that in the event that we have further deficits there. Right now we're looking at about, I believe, $375,000. The retained earnings haven't been certified yet. So at this point, I only have estimates. But this is the number that I'm looking at right now. Okay. And I just a question, and this is just the town side, but do we know how they, what the end of the year numbers were for the school department in terms of where they were relative to their budgeted figures? They're turning back around $600,000 in the general front from this current fiscal year. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few things. I know what the, when we had, and thank you to Ms. Cody and Mr. Puller for giving us all the information that we've asked or to the utmost extent. For me, for readability and being able to migrate through the document versus, I'm not on Munis and I can do a search, and I'm pretty sure I mentioned this at the mid-year report. Is there any way, I'm doing the housekeeping questions first, is there any way either in front of the Munis, whatever number page report, there's a glossary. I just want to go look at building department revenues or whatever that I can, instead of literally having to go through page by page, I can find out where it is. Or another way that would remedy that is what you've provided the three pages where you list department, other warrant article, and everybody is listed alphabetically, if they maybe could be listed as they appear in the Munis report. So, if I know I'm looking for inspections, and I get to something that inspections is obviously after that I keep flipping. So that's just sort of a usability. Do you know, I don't know if I'm conveying what it is. Because I literally have to go through page by page by page to look for. And I'm using building. I'm sorry, thank you. I would answer that in two ways. One is, we do the revenue by revenue sources that the big blocks that we use to file with the state so we have fees and licenses and fines and taxes and motor vehicle excise tax and so forth. This current report does not break revenue down by department. If that's what you were looking for, I would say we will need to get wait until we redo our chart of accounts. And this is created a new chart of accounts that would allow that kind of reporting, but under our current chart of accounts that isn't so easy. So, depending on what sort of information you're looking for, we could produce it but it's just not as easy to produce as the reports that we put out here. Okay, I guess I'll leave that for you to figure but what I'm looking for is, I'm going to say I pick legal. It appears on the first three face sheets, all the departments appear alphabetically. Then when I go to the 3040 50 page mutants print out. It is an alphabetically, I have to go through page by page. So what I was saying two ways to remedy that is if, and especially in the departments everything else there aren't that many entries for. So, I'm just trying to find a way that I can get through that. So either maybe change in this mostly for departments I don't mind flipping through pages looking for other an enterprise fund because they kind of stand out on their own. But, and then the other thing is, perhaps with attorney Heim. And this is a way off to do thing. Similar to what we've done with the select man handbook the town bylaws town manager act. Just do a quick proof through this to make sure we are correct is, and we're still going through this process or everyone has to do it. You know, where says select men select board, those things. But I know attorney Heim has been swimming in that stuff. And I bet he's found a way of search words that he knows appear there often and you can help fix that it's not a big issue just since we're going through that we've done with everything else. So then my my last question is, when we have the mid year report. I had quarried about whether it was an optical illusion that it seemed as though it was producing revenue far more than we anticipated. Is it because everybody's home in their building more. And the comment was yes that is bearing out to be the case. I can't find it in here I'm sure it's in there are we still trending that we're, you know, 125 140% whatever the number was at mid year for the cleaning department I see there's a somewhere in units there's a inspections category, it's about 514,000 but so can you speak to that or get me the information later. So, on the screen, I think Adam has highlighted what's called licenses and permits. Those are all licensing permits in the town but the vast, both of them are building permits plumbing permits and electrical permits. So, we had an estimated budget of $1.7 million and in fact took in a little over $2 million. So, we did show a steady increase in revenue there. It means that people are continuing to do work on their homes. And we, and in fact, even into FY 21, just looked at the first two months this year and it's continuing to see activity through building inspections and issuing those permits. So that's sort of good news that that's still trending up. I think it's that I can see it's at 122% and you're estimating looking at the first two quarters and 21 that that trend is continuing, not dropping down. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Cooler, Ms. Cody. I really do appreciate all this information and I really do go as my colleagues through every single page of this. So, as we keep getting them, I'll get better acclimated to them, or if I have to, I'll hit up my FinCom buddy Mr. DeCorsi and have him help me find my way to it. Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And also, and I appreciate the report. The narrative was very helpful and the tables right under it. So I just have some curiosity questions. That's all I'll make these quick. So you had mentioned that the hotel revenue was was you expected to go down because of the third quarter was curious then why was it like the first two quarters that were so much higher than normal that we got such a surplus. We had, yeah, we were running at a very good rate. I think it was a combination of, you know, the economy being strong and business being strong. Our hotel had expanded its number of rooms so we were taking in probably more revenue than our original estimate had anticipated. Gotcha. Okay. So I think that was it. Great, great. On the meals tax, I mean that seems a little higher than expected to do you anticipate that falling off. So again, we saw that in the in the fourth quarter of the year that that number went down and just seeing activity in town I know some restaurants are are in operation but some are going out of business so that one makes me a little nervous. Gotcha. The investments. Hey, look, I understand a lot of the technical training stuff. I mean, if you could maybe just like in in two or three sentences, what did they do. Did they like me go long futures on interest rates right before the pandemic that is huge. It's a huge. I think it is in part. No, they didn't go into any kind of exotic. I don't know. So the public at home knows they are very limited. I don't know. So I just want to make everybody who's listening know that that is the case. So they do invest in bank accounts in CDs. They have been very active in doing that. They've been able to bring in a good amount of revenue. Because of that and because of some of our concerns about other revenue sources in FY 21, we did increase in the FY 21 budget. Our revenue estimate for interest and investments up to $241,000 because we thought it would get closer to what what we've actually been seeing. But I give Phyllis Marshall with treasure collector and her staff, including Karen Riley, a lot of credit for doing a lot of work to make sure that the tax payers money are being invested as best as they can be. Yeah, great job on that. Thanks for entertaining my curiosity questions. So that's it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Carl. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And firstly, through you, I'd like to thank the legal department for the $6 and 37 cent turn back. Appreciate that. Turnie high. No, this is a thing in all series just now, though, thank you very much. This is incredibly helpful. You know, you've spoken to a little bit of it. I mean, I guess I'm, I'm pleasantly surprised at how well we did given that the pandemic was was kicking in full force and, you know, three and a half months before the end of the year. And, you know, some trends in here that that are giving us pause to worry, and some that kind of went, maybe in our favor, I mean this tells a bit of a story when you look at CO a transportation. Healthy balance and expected, but of course, the other side of that is we weren't able to provide the service because we had to shut that down. As you look forward based on some of the trends in this quarter, and maybe some of what you're looking at in the first two quarters, what are one or two of your, your, your biggest worries, and maybe one or two of your, your areas of greatest optimism. Let's start with the plus side, 78% of our general fund revenue comes from property taxes so we are very property tax dependent which has its limitations as you all know, but it is a very consistent source of revenue for us. I think in the, in the FY 21 will continue to see strong property tax collections. I think if the pandemic goes on much longer past the first of the year, I would start to worry a little bit about people's ability on a larger scale to pay those taxes. In fact, we have not seen that, and we've been able to work with anybody who's had concerns. Again, the trader's office and the Council on Aging have both done good jobs with that. So the vast bulk of our revenue is from a steady source I don't see declining. I would also say on the positive side on our enterprise funds, particularly in the recreation and rinks. Joe Connelly has done a great job of readjusting, moving things around. You know the rink is open already. He's got a number of other programs working or in the works to be able to supply services to people who lost their after school care or childcare. So I'm very optimistic about those things on the water and sewer fund. I'm also optimistic because the board acted so quickly this year to set new water and sewer rates last spring in time to have them affect the bills that went out in August. And that is a very significant change in the timing that we've had here in town for the last number of two years, and it will mean that our rates, our collections will be more timely and I think help boost the bottom line there. So those are some of the positives. On the negative side, I am concerned about hotel motel tax and meals tax as we've already talked about. I think also our motor vehicle excise tax is subject to economic impact. And in fact, we level funded that estimate for FY 21 and for the next few years because we and the long range planning committee both saw that that had an impact potentially be affected. Other than that, and that is our biggest source of local receipts. The big question for me still is what's going to happen with local aid. We were basically level funded, essentially got a boost because of our rising enrollment so that was good. But I think it is a worry down the road if the state has significant hits to its revenue collection, how that's going to affect their ability to fund our aid. So far their collections or tax collections this year haven't been bad, but we haven't really hit their big months yet. So we're watching that. So those are just a few highlights and low lights, so to speak. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And I just want to thank Sandy and Eda for the presentation, all the work that goes into this report. You know, it's easy for us to look at this, but I know a lot of ours go into putting these figures together. I would just say that when this pandemic happened, we all expected the worst. And as of right now, we're getting through it and I think we know going forward that some of these revenue sources might be at risk as we forth in uncertainty, although, you know, where the enterprise funds lack as a business in the back end that's suffering too. So, you know, we certainly have to be cognizant of that. But thank you for the report. And with that, do we have a motion to receive Mr. Chair? Mr. Han, seconded by Mr. D'Corsi. Attorney Hyam. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Kuro. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. All right. Thank you. Sandy and Eda. Thank you all very much. All right. That brings us to our consent agenda. So we have meeting of minutes, August 30, 2020. We have for approval shop Arlington first banners in Arlington center in Capital Square from Alicara of the Economic Development Recovery Task Force. We have a request for a contractor drain layer license from Sean S. Tachi excavating ink of 72 Meadow Road towns and mass. And we have the appointment of new election workers. Susan Doctor 99 Westminster Avenue precinct 20. And from Mr. Diggins. Do we have a motion? I have a motion to accept the Senate agenda. And Mr. D'Corsi. I second the motion. And Mrs. Mohan. Any comments? No comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Mr. Carl. Any comments? No comments. Thank you. All right. On a motion to approve the consent agenda by Mr. Diggins seconded by Mr. D'Corsi, attorney. This is Mohan. Yes. Thank you. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Kuro. Yes. Mr. Hurt. Yes. Thank you. And that moves us to appointments. We have two appointments to the commission for arts and culture. Christine Noah, turn to expire June 30th 2023 and Sarah Morgan Wu. Turn to expire June 30th 2023. And I will go to. Ms. Noah first. Hi. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you just tells me a little bit about yourself and why you wanted to join the commission. Absolutely. So my name's Christine Noah and I moved to Arlington about five months ago. I was living in Cambridge previously for about four years. I'm originally from Kentucky. But I have made new England my home and when I moved to Arlington, I was really excited by how much of a community it felt. and their neighbors and wanting to make Arlington a better place and there's so many volunteers. And so I really wanted to be a part of that. And I have a background in the arts. I've done theater basically my whole life and I studied theater and English in college, did writing, acting, directing, producing and then I moved into arts administration after college and specifically did a lot of work in development. So grant writing and major gifts, special events, corporate giving and board management is what I do right now. I work at the American Recreatory Theater at Harvard and I also recently got my masters in management from Harvard as well. And so thinking about all that experience, it seems like ACAC would be a perfect fit for my passion for the arts but also my creative and administrative skills and a way for me to get more involved in the community. So I'm really excited to get more involved with ACAC and start helping to build, you know, make Arlington an even more robust and vibrant place to live. Thank you and thank you for your willingness to serve. Mr. Carl. Yeah, thank you very much. I mean, you bring phenomenal credentials. The commission is very important to us and it'll be even more so right now in this time as people need to have some access to the creative arts, I think to keep morale up as much as anything and hope. And I'm always just really thrilled to have the opportunity to appoint folks who have just moved here and have jumped right in to contribute to the community. So welcome to Arlington and thank you very much for stepping up and volunteering for this. Thank you. And Mr. Diggins. All I could do really is repeat what Mr. Currow said. I mean, I'm really happy to welcome you aboard. And I've done some work with folks on ACAC. They'll probably be seeing me in some meetings here and there. I mean, it's a good group. Look forward to working with you more. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Mahon. Sorry. I actually have problems unmuting myself and I won't comment on that. I wanna thank Ms. Noel Christine as my colleague said for jumping right in and volunteering your professionalism and your expertise. And we're always excited when we see people with experience in grant writing, whether it's for the arts or otherwise, as well as sort of looking at the other things you cited. I think especially intrinsic to the arts community in these current times, partnerships are vitally important. And you certainly seem to have networked amongst that world and that profession. And that's an added benefit to me. So I look forward to, but you'll be bringing to our agenda as well as working with your fellow commissioners. So thank you. Hey, Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also wanna thank Ms. Noah for a willingness to serve and for your enthusiasm. Thank you. And again, thank you for taking the time. We know that these commissions can take up some personal time from everything that you have going on, but we really appreciate all the work that everyone does. All right, and with that, I will move to Ms. Morgan Wu. If you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and why you wanna just serve on the commission. Yes, I have a gallery over in East Arlington and have been doing this for about 20 years. I apologize, I'm not much of a public speaker. I much prefer one-on-one or small group encounters. And I think the ACAC provides a platform for that kind of engagement. I appreciate what Mr. Kuro had to say about given the current time and how we might find other ways to engage with each other, other ways to communicate or, and I just, when we, as you saw from my background, we've lived other places in the world. And when we came back to figure out what to do, Arlington was very appealing as a place that welcomed all sorts of arts and would allow the kind of engagement that we were looking for. So I am deeply honored to be part of the commission. And I look forward to how I can contribute, whenever, however, and thank you. Thank you. And I'll go back to Mr. Kuro. Thank you very much. And I'll just say again, thank you. I'm always impressed with the backgrounds of folks who volunteer for our commissions. And I'm especially happy to see the background that you bring in putting forward cross-cultural programming as well through some of your businesses and initiatives. So I'm happy to move to appoint Ms. Morgan Wu and Ms. Noah to the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture. Thank you. And Mr. Dickens. I will second that. And once again, I mean, I can't really improve much on what Mr. Kuro said, but I have a question. You know, you mentioned in your letter that when you decide to come back to the US, you decide to relocate. And come back, relocate in Arlington in no smart part because of efforts of ACAC. What was that? What were those efforts? I mean, what impressed you? What about ACAC brought you to Arlington? I think we knew of Arlington because I've actually lived in Arlington post college when it was the hinterlands for downtown Boston. Things have changed a great deal since then. But when we were trying to figure out where to open and we knew we didn't want to go back to Boston, it didn't have the vibe, it didn't have the same sort of engagement, there was probably just that sense of, for Arlington in particular, how all age demographics seem to live in the same and are seen on the street and are part of. And just that sense when you walk through. And so part of that walking through is what ACAC has put up, the signage, when you go online to search for something, you encounter ACAC online. When I started asking what are all of these acronyms seem to be part of Arlington, ACAC, you know, ACAC, ACAC, there's just too many. It's easy to find people to ask what all that meant and how the town itself was making an effort to integrate that, not just in the arts, but in historical, part of my background with the Athenaeum crosses that art and history piece of it. So I hope that answers your question. There was engagement, both one-on-one and online. I don't know if you've seen it, but there's Sidewalk Haikus out. Right, right, yeah. And just that piece of it, no matter where you go, you're encountering something that ACAC has done. Well, that's great, because you would be like a success story at ACAC, so I'm sure you'll replicate more of that. So thank you once again for coming aboard. Thank you. All right, and Mrs. Mahon? Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to Ms. Morgan Moe. Sarah also, again, my sincere appreciation for stepping up in this way, because as you just spoke to, ACAC is a very active committee, like many, if not all of the committees, some committees, commissions, boards that we have here in Arlington. One of the things I really love about Arlington, we're so fortunate that we don't have committees or commissions just to put them down in name. They really are out there doing lots of things. I love reading about your art gallery and locating it here in Arlington. And what I would say to also both of you that the MIRAC developers, they own some land up at 165 Rare Mass Ave. I was unaware of this, it's quite a robust artist community, individuals who live up there and want to continue to have availability, not only to live here, but to be able to increase the arts and increase people's opportunities to see it. So once the proposal goes along, the board just took its initial vote. I just wanted to give you both a heads up and the ACAC committee may already be aware of it, but the MIRAC developers have committed to insert parts of their spaces to make it available to Arlington artists to display in whatever form inside and or outside. So I just kind of wanted to let you know that that's there and when that goes through, it sort of seems like a natural marriage between that development up there and in the town. So again, thank you so much. And I just echo my colleagues' remarks. Thank you, Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Movenwoo, for selecting Arlington, the objectories, Arlington, and secondly, willingness to serve on the commission. All right. And again, just thank you for your time, really, because we know everyone's time is precious. So your willingness to serve is just great. And that's what makes this town is the great volunteers that work for us. All right. So we have a motion to approve. Mrs. Noah, Mrs. Morgan, by Mr. Carl, seconded by Mr. Diggins. Attorney Hyde. Mrs. Lahan. Yes. Mr. Dacorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Curell. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. unanimous vote. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And that brings us to licenses and permits. We have for approval food vendor license, number one taste, 165 Mass Avenue, Jack Sy. Mr. Sy with us. Mr. Sy, can you hear us? What? Hi, can you hear us? Yeah, I can hear you. Hi. If you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and your application. Hi, my name is Jack Sy. We're applying for the food vendor license for number one taste. We started our business in Belmont and we've expanded over to Melrose and what we do is Chinese American food. And, you know, we have a lot of customers in Arlington and, you know, we have the chance to move over here to, you know, provide our service. All right. Thank you. And we do have our inspection reports posted on the agenda with no objections from all but the building department. We did get an inspection report today from the building department and they had no objections as well. So I will turn to the board. Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Move approval of the food vendor license. All right. And Mr. Carl. Thank you very much. I'll second the motion. I just, just one clarification. I think it might just be a typo on the application. Maybe I'm just not reading it correctly. The Sunday hours at 12 p.m. to 9.30 p.m., is that? 12, 12 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. Okay. Okay. Must be my eyes that look like 9.30 a.m. I know you do have two nights that you go past midnight to 2 a.m. But great. Great. Thank you very much. And thank you for investing in Arlington. Oh, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. And Mr. Mohan. Sorry about that. Did Mr. Curel second that? Yes. Okay. Everything looks great to me. I, like my colleagues have gone through everything. I see you have something from the Yankee Company. The only thing that I don't see in here, but I know you're aware of is because you've done this kind of business before, is a maintenance plan of what's gonna get done and when it gets picked up. But I know you're well aware of that and how to do that, especially in terms of what the bylaws are for when large trucks can come and pick up trash, things like that. And if you have any neighbors around, if you haven't already, you may have, it's always nice that you can meet each other and they know who to go to if there's something that they really like about it or something that they have a question about. But thank you so much and welcome to Arlington. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Viggins. I live in the East, close by. I'm looking forward to checking you out. I have nothing more to add. Thanks for doing business with us. Or excuse me, thanks for doing business in Arlington. Thank you very much. We're all very excited and ready to work. And again, just thank you for choosing Arlington to promote your business. We're excited to try it out. So on a motion by Mr. DeCorsi, seconded by Mr. Carroll, attorney Hunter. Ms. Mohan, Mrs. Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Carroll. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. And thank you, Mr. Sai. Thank you very much. So next on our agenda is item number nine on a discussion, Black Lives Banner. Tom Andrew, Mr. Chaplain. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be relatively brief as I know the board likely has thoughts and wants to talk about this issue. But what I would put before the board tonight, I guess to start is a word of thanks for leading and leading along with the Human Rights Commission and putting the Black Lives Matter Banner on Town Hall, what is I think several months ago now in what I saw as a move towards a clear statement of wanting to pursue racial equity in the community. And I think, you know, we're one of only really a small handful of communities that have put such a clear statement on the seat of government at a Town Hall or City Hall. But tonight, what my proposal for the board to consider is, is to remove the banner at the end of September, so after September 30th, and then allow me working with the Human Rights Commission, Jill Harvey, our DEI coordinator to work with yet to be fully identified group of stakeholders to figure out how that message or a similar message can be displayed elsewhere in town and when it should be displayed in town. So that would be, that's what I'm asking for the board to consider tonight. All right, so I will turn to the board for discussion, comments, motions. Mr. Crowe. Thank you very much. And I'm going to apologize the outset because I have a lot of thoughts, comments and emotion. So I've been thinking a lot about recent events in Arlington and lessons to be learned from the past, especially over this past week. And in particular, I've been remembering one Saturday night, 19 years ago, when hundreds of Arlington homes had hate literature dropped on their lawns by a West Virginia based white supremacist group, the National Alliance. The flyers targeted the lost boys of Sudan and St. Paul's Lutheran Church, which had arranged host families for many of the refugees. And Arlington police patrol spotted the literature drop at 3 a.m. and arranged for police officers to remove most of these obscene leaflets before residents awakened. So following this incident, the Human Rights Commission planned a vigil to show community support for the lost boys and resistance to these intimidation efforts. And then 9-11 happened. Suddenly the vigil took on additional meaning. Arlingtonians came together and shared our outrage over the humanity that could lead white supremacists to invade the safe haven that we had provided to young people fleeing war on the African continent. And we grieved deeply over the attacks by religious extremists, ruthlessly slaughtered thousands of American civilians, 415 first responders, 55 military personnel, 33 airplane crew members, and hundreds of individuals from over 90 countries. Our residents counted relatives and friends among the victims. Gathering in front of town hall, we were united. We stood shoulder to shoulder and it was the largest gathering I've ever seen in Arlington. This summer we felt the fleeting spark of such unity and shared outrage following the death of George Floyd and elevated awareness about the struggles and fear faced by our black brothers and sisters in this country. Not only in relation to policing practices, but also in the pursuit of housing and educational opportunities, economic advancement, and in the face of healthcare disparities and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19. Hundreds of residents stood in Arlington Center in a long mass ab of weeks and months and many continued to do so. We raised the Black Lives Matter banner on town hall and time for Juneteenth and we continued to display it on Black Lives Matter Day and throughout our summer series of community conversations. As our work has continued, we've learned a lot not least of which is that this work is destined to continue for years and that our sense of unity is fragile. Last week, unlike 19 years ago, residents were not standing shoulder to shoulder. Instead, we saw three competing rallies in Arlington Center. Many Arlington residents participated but each of these protests also drew the participation of outside groups with little connection to our town. This led to confusion and questions about the affiliations, nature or legitimacy of at least three or four organizations that announced plans throughout the week to come to Arlington and insert themselves into our local debates. This characterization of the simple phrase Black Lives Matter are and were, in my opinion, off the mark and do nothing to advance trust between law enforcement and communities of color. But at the same time, inflammatory language had seemed to equate our police officers and their families with fascists or beyond the pale and got no support or respect from me and adventure to guess any of my colleagues are the vast majority of Arlington residents who appreciate the work that our officers do on a daily basis. It's time for us to realize that both Black parents and public safety families in our country share a common and pervasive fear that when they loved ones walk out the door they will not return. When I chaired the Human Rights Commission I was an initiative to seek designation for Arlington as a no place for hate community. This campaign was put forward by Chief Ryan and included participation by the APD, HRC, Diversity Task Group and many residents including our then future Cindy Friedman was very active. The sponsoring organization was the Anti-Defamation League which had been and continues to be an important partner in the fight for justice and against hate. We encountered a dilemma though. At the time the ADL's national leadership resisted labeling the slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide and actively worked against congressional resolutions that would do so. This position seemed incompatible with sponsorship of a no place for hate program and we heard expressions of deep concern for many members of Arlington's Armenian community whose parents and grandparents had lived through the atrocities of the early 20th century. Our solution was to localize our efforts. We decided to jettison the baggage of a national organization and we withdrew from the no place for hate program but we maintained our local coalition under the umbrella of Arlington community threads. It is time to localize our discussions once again. I'm heartened to see so many Arlington homes and faith communities displaying signs of support for the idea that until we value black lives as much as all other lives we're poorer as a society. In my own home we display several signs which were handmade by my daughter. One of them is a list of affirmations. Similar to that found outside many Arlington homes. It says in this house we believe black lives matter, women's rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything. Everyone coming to our front door knows where we stand on these basic beliefs. Similarly, no one coming to town halls should have any doubt about the full breadth of our own municipal affirmations as debated and adopted by town meeting over a quarter century ago and enshrined with a number of amendments in our bylaws as the policy of the town of Arlington. I quote, to bring about the elimination of prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, unlawful discrimination, threats, coercion or intimidation based upon an individual's race, color, religious views, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, citizenship, age, ancestry, family marital status, sexual orientation, disability, source of income or military status. These are the words that you greet visitors to our seat of government and which should serve as the starting point for our discussions and debates going forward. They aren't catchy, they don't fit on a bumper sticker, they require the reader to stop and think and they contain the distilled understanding and compassionate commitments of several generations of Arlington policy makers. Accordingly, if it's appropriate, I move as follows. That the select board requests the town manager to cause to be displayed near the entryway to town hall, that portion of title two article nine section two subsection C of the bylaws of the town of Arlington as pertains to its purpose and enumerated protected classes. That's the piece that I just read. With temporary exceptions at the town manager's discretion to accommodate display needs for town sponsor sanctioned events or initiatives. Our challenge as we move forward is to live up to the letter and spirit of our bylaws not only in calling out and resisting hate crimes and incidents and promoting diversity but also in engaging in difficult substantive policy discussions. We must work to correct the harmful legacies of prejudicial policies and practices and to root out their present manifestations as we seek to further equity and inclusion in the realms of public health and safety, human services, education, housing and more. We're coming off a summer where we've had many such discussions which will culminate in next week's community roundtable with tenant Padrini who's quite frankly whose newsletter article set in motion many of the tensions we've experienced over the last two years. I expect we'll have further opportunities to debate policy choices at the upcoming special town meeting and over the years to come. And in many ways our young people are leading the way. Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to listen in to an online conference between leaders of the Arlington High School anti-racism working group and their peers around the Commonwealth. The passion, eloquence and sheer professionalism of our students as they discussed ways to make their school a better place for all. Filled me with a firm belief that Arlington is up to the challenges of today and for the future. So thank you for enduring my lengthy remarks and I respectfully request your support for this motion. Thank you. He's part of your motion, he's the motion to also remove the banner as requested by the time manager. Yeah, I support that. Yeah, we can add to support, support this. Mr. Diggins. The bylaw language should be language somewhere near the entry to the town hall. Mr. Diggins. Second that motion. And Mr. Diggins said a lot of good things and I agree with them. My goal here is to maximize the harmony on this board for this issue. Because as we all know, it's a result of a lot to this effort that I would say pretty much the vast majority of us in town or allies in the overall cause. And so I don't really wanna do anything to alienate the people who are fighting the battles against racism and all of the inequalities. And so I also know that a unity is fleeting at best. And so I will always expect there to be some tension, some disagreement, and sometimes more of it rather than less of it. And although I understand the motive, the very good motivations behind having signs on town hall, as I said, a couple of months ago or when we were first grappling with this issue since I've been on a select board, I feel that to have no banner on town hall is perhaps, not perhaps, I think is more inclusive. As I said several times since me, I feel that regardless of how race, sexes, homophobic, anti-immigrant, you may be, you need to feel that your government works for you and that it's gonna protect you. That's not to say that I don't support being having places that are owned by town, government property espoused the values of the vast majority of the citizens. So I'm all in favor of banners or whatever on light poles and other types of government property. But there are certain places like town hall, the police station, the fire station, the schools. If we had a courthouse, hospitals, there's just places where I feel that we just need to be more inclusive by not having any signs. And that goes not only for BLM, but also pride signs. So, but I very much think that what Mr. Kuro has come up with is a really good idea. Maybe it is encapsulated by laws. It would be, I think, much more permanent. Maybe not much more lasting. It's a great idea, and it has supported. Thank you. Mr. Han. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Was that, did Mr. Diggins second Mr. Carroll's motion and I didn't write it down? I believe so. Okay, thank you. I'm actually gonna go a little along myself, which means my new business won't be as long. I wasn't sure where I would address this appropriately. And I too want to thank my colleague, Mr. Carroll, for obviously taking a lot of time and thought and reflection in his remarks and his proposals, which I agree with wholeheartedly. What I wanted to talk under new business, but I think it is applicable under this is, as all my colleagues know, my daughter's third and final, meaning third planning wedding was on Labor Day. So I wasn't really on top of all agent events, checking my email and things like that. When I checked back in on Tuesday after Labor Day, I was so dismayed and disheartened at what I saw the current state of Arlington, first with the misinformation that tied back the blue local group to a national hate group. And I did have a conversation with the town manager that there should have been some fact checking there. And that unfortunately, in my mind, set up the untoward events. Up until then, all the Arlington groups that have gathered at Arlington-based have been pretty peaceful. Sometimes there's some charged emotion in terms of language, but nothing beyond that. I did ask the town manager, especially with this similar group of people that provided my opinion misinformation to not take them at their word and not let that happen again. I was hoping that the same way the message got out with the misinformation tying this group to a national group, I think the acronym was ACT, to make that correction, the manager would make it the way he got it out, which was on his video message and a statement on behalf of the town. And he chose not to do that, if I disagreed with, but he did provide me with four lines that I'll read that he provided to yourarlington.com and I believe Arlington Patch. So it just went through that audience. In the first paragraph, I think it's positive, but then I think the second paragraph just totally negates it and I'm not happy with that and I've shared with the town manager that it's a response to that limited press and I read your Arlington all the time. I'm glad to hear that Thursdays event organizers are disavowing any affiliation with the HAKER. And I'm adding here, that's not an affiliation that they said they had, it's what our town manager stated. And then he continues, I hope that these statements lead to a peaceful protest on Thursday. I can tell you they didn't and I'll speak to that in a second. That's me editorializing again. And this is where you do the second paragraph and you kind of take that all back in my opinion. I'm saying this to the local chapter, similar to when Arlington residents came to me and were pleading with me to take down the Black Lives Matter banner and they cited the national organization, which is a socialist political group designed to create disobedience, especially against our law enforcement officers, which sometimes leads to violence. But the manager said, I further add that the group organizing Thursdays event may want to consider operating under a name that is nearly identical to the name of a HAKER group. In this world of dog whistles and virtue signaling, we all need to be careful with our words if we want our messages to be heard clearly. And so what I would say to that is when I got those calls from people, Arlington residents who have supported me and some of them said they won't anymore and that's their right to do, that Black Lives Matter banner that we've displayed probably in front of Town Hall had no affiliation with the national group that they cited of Black Lives Matter. Nobody owns the words. And I defended that vigorously and I will do that to this day. But I was extremely upset and in the manager's words are heard by many and taken as he is the person speaking for the town doing the day-to-day business. Unfortunately, what they did was instead of having two Arlington-based groups that demonstrated peacefully in front of Town Hall and down by Whittemore-Robbins, the group across the street, and I viewed all the dash cam video and people were posting on Facebook and things like that, for the group of 75 or 100, so across the street, I saw one Arlington resident a younger resident. And I know law enforcement, they understand that part of their job is to go out there, part of their job is to listen to people saying things that we probably wouldn't say to any other employee, part of their job is to get pushed and shoved, part of their job is to have things pushed in their face, like one woman had a little pig squeaky toy that she kept pushing in officer's face and saying all cops are pigs, all cops should die. I heard it on the video. And unfortunately, they understand sometimes, they're gonna get spit at and things like that. Unfortunately, because of the misinformation, in my opinion that got out, that crowd that came in went beyond. And we had several officers who were attacked and assaulted. One who I think, if it leaves a bruise or cuts skin, I think that's something that should be acted upon. But if you ask any Allington police officer, they're just gonna keep taking those attacks and assaults because in my opinion, I don't think they're being supported as much as they should. I think it's, and to that end, I will give the manager credit. He did send a memo to the police station on Friday to all the women and men of the Allington police department. I am writing today to express my most sincere thanks and appreciation for your commendable efforts in the face of a very difficult circumstances yesterday. From what I have heard and observed, you all dispatched your duties with professionalism and care that has long been the hallmark of the Allington police department. Without question, you all highlighted the value that you provide as members of the Allington community. I also understand that some of you are subjected to both verbal and physical attacks. And while I am very sorry to hear that this happened, I am also proud to know that you maintained your professionalism and integrity in the face of these assaults. I am proud of the Allington police department in good times and bad, I had to throw that in. And you showed the whole community yesterday that you are more than deserving of that pride. I want you all to know that I support you in the work that you do and I appreciate all that you do to keep Allington safe. So I will give credit for that. The one I'm extremely upset about besides the assaults which now for some reason outside groups feel comfortable doing that. They don't even get restorative justice but there have been several incidents. The women and men of the police department, they understand they're doing a job where they might not come home that night and their families know that. But what they don't accept and I don't accept when they're doing that job, they understand these assaults and harassment and verbal attacks are powerful of course but that doesn't include their families. And I am so upset that there have been documented reports and I've discussed this with some human rights commissioners. Some, I guess you could say on the lower end, children of police Allington police officers who have been harassed, bullied, threatened, told their mother or father is a Nazi, is a murderer, should be shot. And we also have, and I haven't heard one Allington police officer complain when those remarks were directed to them. They get it, but it's gone beyond, it's gone to the family. We even have videos of, and I haven't seen the video and I don't wanna see it but I know it exists, of a gentleman going up to one of our Allington police officers and I think he even did it at the Allington police station saying what he said about the police officer but then talking about his wife and how she should be treated. And I won't repeat what he said. And what I'm just made about is no action has been taken on any of those reports. We have reports in there, we have video statements. I know if it was anyone of, if anyone said to my husband what this individual said they wanted to do to me, that that would stop right there. So I'm imploring through the town manager, please continue to get the message out that was just sent to the men and women of the police department. And I'm not getting from people who are out there, they're asking why the town doesn't support the Allington police department anymore and it's skewing over into the fire department. I told them that is not the case. I know the board that I sit on, what the managers put out, I've indicated to them that I've had a conversation with them. Pretty much I've said what I've said here because I like to say to the person first, I wanna get back to Allington used to proclaim how proud we were of our Allington police department, put it up nationally against any police department in the country, whether it's the opioid crisis, whether it's a decade ago hiring a mental health professional to go out on these calls with officers as requested by that professional. Allington has been ahead of, we started two years ago, Campaign Zero, adopting the points, de-escalation courses. So I'd like to get it back out there that, through our town manager we do value the police department that these actions, alleged actions that have been reported and videotaped will be looked into. They won't be tolerated anymore. And I guess my personal feeling is if in the future, any one of our police officers or anybody, a town employee, union or not, is assaulted to the point that is bruising or cut skin, that A, they don't feel afraid to seek medical help, and B, they know that we will take that seriously and deal with that in the future. So I understand the Lieutenant Padrini issue and people rightfully so are dismayed that he's still on our police force, going on three years now. But I would beg the residents of Allington, whatever your feelings about the racist remarks that Lieutenant Padrini issued, it does not apply to the entire Allington police department. It happens sometimes in professions. I was on the board when we hired a town manager that I begged my colleagues and pleaded then colleagues not to hire because he was not a gentleman. I'll leave it like that. We did hire him in both from and sign his contract. And unfortunately he left under shame and embarrassment. Now does that mean every town manager that I interviewed in the future, I painted with that brush? And no, that's not what it is. I always look for a town manager that falls more on the side of unions and working people, but town managers, they come from management. So it's gonna lean the other way. So I just want to express these thoughts and I'll have something else in new business because when I spoke with the town manager, I think that his words to me was, I'm pretty clear about my thoughts, but necessarily didn't have that clarity with my colleagues, which I know at least on one of the issues I've spoken about, I know at least one of my colleagues shares similar view, it's something I'll speak to on the new business, but because we're precluded under the open meeting law, I can't, I have a sense of my colleagues and their commitment to all our town employees. We've done, I've done the exact same thing when the town manager twice was ready to go to another city or town and we made an image because of the effects of the job, not so much on him, but his family, and we made sure we took steps to take care of that and I just want, we do that for our police officers and now it unfortunately seems like it's trending into our firefighters and I'll speak to that in the new business. And thank you again, Mr. Kiro, I mean that with all sincerity, you articulated and captured this in a fine better format than I could and like everyone I know who is a person of color, including my close relatives, the signs and the banners and the statements are great reinforcers, but it's the actions like the students actions, like the former Metco high school students and students of color who lived in Allington who have been trying to do mentoring programs since 2010, which I've been trying to work on. I brought it up again with the manager in June, I wanted to raise it with Jillian Javi, he ensured me he'd be following through on that. So while I understand the value and I want to get the message out in as many forms as we can, it's our actions that really are going to define if there's a difference now than there was in 1991 when Rodney King was assaulted and brutally beaten, whether it was back in the 60s for that civil rights movement and before. So I'm excited to be a part of this. Along with my colleagues, I'm committed to doing everything we can. Big thing I think is conversations and changing habits. So thank you, Mr. Chair, for letting me say those remarks. I can't hear Mr. Hurd, sorry. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also support Mr. Cura's motion. I just want to say a couple of words. Back on June 8th, we had voted to display the Black Lives Matter banner. And at that time, I said we shouldn't be doing this to pat ourselves on the back and we should be doing this and be taking action going forward. And what that will require is a lot of difficult discussions and getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. And we still have a ways to go with that. And as Mrs. Mahan just said, we need to keep talking and we need to have conversations. We have to try to move forward. And at that time, it was understood that there would be a period of time that the banner would be displayed. So it's support that the September 30th date. But I do want to say a couple of other things. And one of the things that I've learned personally is we've, over the past few months, to me, this isn't a zero-sum game that if you support Black Lives Matter, which we did as a board to put the banner up, that does not mean that you don't support our local police department. And Mrs. Mahan said it, Mr. Kerr said it. We do support the work of our Arlington Police Department. And I'm sorry if there are those that feel that that has not been the case, but I know last week was a very difficult afternoon for the police department and formed admirably in very difficult circumstances with a lot of unknowns in terms of what was before them that day and I spoke to Chief Flaherty after that and thanked her for that and thanked the entire police department for that. But I do want to say, I think as we go forward, actions will matter. And actions, no matter where you are in your feelings, we need to continue to have discussions and recognize issues that affect us on the national level, on the local level and in our daily lives. And this isn't the end of the discussion. This discussion needs to continue and we need to be willing to have those uncomfortable conversations and understand things and move forward. Thank you. And I guess I would start by just ask Mr. Kerr, I just want to clarify as to what we're talking about because I mean, whether it's something that you would anticipate being fixed to the building, which would require the board's approval or just something in a freestanding like easel type format, which is generally in the management's discretion because it would change the way it is. The wording of my motion is near the entry. So whether it's above or it's on one of the boards out front or once we're back to normal life on one of the bulletin boards as you walk into town hall like large enough to be legible, that's what I'm talking about. Because I just, I want to clarify to people that are watching that I don't think the intent is that we're going to have another large banner hanging in above the doors where I anticipate this is something more permanent would be in some sort of freestanding stand that we could even build for the specific purpose or once we put it inside the banners. But I don't think we're replacing one banner for another banner. This is sort of a separate issue from the banner that we're taking down. No, but the intent is ideally, I would like to see that portion of the policy of Arlington displayed somewhere near the entry by the time that the manager takes down the current banner. That's where I'm at. All right, and I certainly think that's feasible. And I certainly think those words are important and it's certainly a statement of values of this town. And I'll support the motion. I, you know, we back in June, we all gathered, we all voted to raise the banner. We all gathered to raise the banner. We did so with the town manager. We did so with the chief of police and we did so with a number of members of the Arlington Police Department who supported our efforts and we raised the banner in response to a really horrific event that happened, the murder of George Floyd. But we also have been doing this work for years and it came in the midst and this was a statement that this town, it wasn't, we were never ascribing to any specific group when we raised that banner. It was just a policy statement that we've identified. We've been working with racial equity training and we've been dealing with this and we were affirming that we as a town understand that institutional racism still exists at many levels and structural racism exists at many levels. To me, that we never raised that banner to direct that towards the Arlington Police Department and quite the opposite. I think it was always our intent to say to other people, we affirm that Black Lives Matter map, that Black Lives Matter into the rest of the country where there are issues in policing, look at our police department because our models of community policing that we have instituted over the past so many years have really been effective and we have many officers that are just shining examples of what it means to serve a community, a lot of whom grew up here. Just to pull one officer out particularly, someone like Arcana and Officer Officer Hogan, you go around town, you can't run into somebody who Officer Hogan hasn't done a favor for or helped out or gone done something beyond what is in his job description to do and we have many, many officers that do the same that even in the midst of adversity, go out and serve the community and do so in a really stand up way. And as Mr. Corsi said, we keep getting into this mode where it's almost like you have to pick a side and that's not the case here. We as a community should be able to say, we affirm that Black Lives Matter and while at the same time saying we support men and women of only the police department, those two notions are not contradictory and people should be able to, we get so caught up in banners and signs and someone is trying to interpret that someone else's motivation for putting a particular sign out and it's just not right. And someone in town should be able to put a Black Lives Matter banner out in front of their house and they should be able to put or we support our local law enforcement banner in front of their house too because those two notions should work hand in hand. We have an amazing police department and we've all been back and forth and up and down with in the wake of the writings of Lieutenant Padrini but those writings don't reflect on the work of the other officers. The men and women that have been for so many years but particularly in the past few years going to work and might not have been treated with the respect that they deserve. And it is time for us to declare as a board, as a town that we still affirm this notion that Black Lives Matter we are still gonna commit to identifying instructional institutional racism anything that we can do to continue to implement and work on policies in town that help to fight that but at the same time, we need to as a town show respect to the officers and we need to recognize that we have an amazing police department and again, we really have the type of policing that they should be teaching in other parts of the country that where things aren't going so well. So I'll support the motion. Mr. Diggins, do you have anything to add? Yeah, I have two questions which are just points of clarification. So my understanding is that the banner is going to be up until the end of September. September 30th. September 30th. So here's a couple of questions. So why 16 more days? Because I think we have a good sense of what's gonna happen in the interim and the second is, is there some kind of ceremony that we generally have when we bring down banners? So the answer is, I think no to the second. I'll go to the town manager for the first question. I simply offered that as a time so that it didn't seem like the town was acting in any haste in taking it down. Should the board want to pursue a different date? That's fine by me. I think it's just for a deep certain and while we're in the middle of September right now, that's probably just the appropriate transition date. Right, so can I continue? Sure. Well, I would like to advocate for maybe sooner and maybe a little bit of ceremony in taking it down. But I'm gonna defer to you all with more experience. On this because it comes up, it would require me more involvement, but it would be something along the lines of affirming that this is not me being taken down out of fear and that we do mean here to me what was the intention, what is meant me by BLM. So that's it. I put it out there as a suggestion we can go with the current motion, but if anyone who made the first motion wants to amend it, that's fine if they don't, it's fine too. Mr. Carl. Yeah, Mr. Diggins, I'm actually comfortable with the town manager's timeline for two reasons. The first is it gets us, we kept this banner up through our community conversations and it gets us past that final one. The one that really I think has garnered the most attention. And the second reason is if we do adopt my motion and we are able to arrange on one of the surfaces, either the sandwich board or whatnot out front, the display of our policy, I'd like to see that in place before we take down the banner. So I'm feeling comfortable with the motion as it is in the timeframe that the manager has put forward. Mr. Diggins. I'm totally fine with that, I get it. So thank you very much, Ian. All right, and any further comment by wave of the hand? All right, so we have on a motion by Mr. Carl, seconded by Mr. Diggins. That's right, Ian. This is Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Kearo. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Jan, Ms. Fo. Thank you. All right, and it takes us to our open forum, except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established. It should be noted that there is three minute time limit to present a concern or request. So anyone wishing to speak under the open forum right now can use the raise hand function on the Zoom app. And I apologize, I always forget, is it star 67? Or nine. Star nine on your, if you're calling in by phone. Wasn't star 67 the number you used to call somebody back if you get a missed call? Is that star 69, I think? It was in my head. I used to have a lot of prank calls as a kid. So there's two hands raised so far. Yep. Jordan Weinstein. And Donna Kelly Williams. There are no other hands raised right now. All right, you can promote Mr. Weinstein. There, can you hear me? Yep, with me, you can just say your name and address for the record. Yeah, I'm Jordan Weinstein, 23 Lennon Road in Arlington. I wanna thank Joe Cureau for his well-written talk and agree with him that Black Lives Matter was an appropriate banner to put and that the town supported it. And I also feel dismayed that the town doesn't seem to be standing shoulder to shoulder that it might have in the past. And Joe gave some examples of that. However, I feel that where I began to disagree with Joe was his taking issue with accusations of fascism or the word fascist being used about at least one member of the police force. And that is Lieutenant Rick Padrini. And I agree with Diane that actions speak louder than words. And she made that point very well. But what's missing here is that a lot of people are being used to say how abhorrent white supremacy is to this board and to the town and how much you all support the goals and the meaning of the term Black Lives Matter. But if actions are truly what count, then what's going on is that we have a cancer upon the politics or the political process here in Arlington by the name of one police lieutenant, Rick Padrini. And as long as Rick Padrini remains on the force and is protected by you all for whatever reason it is. And I know that a lot of reasons have been given, but he is a cancer on the ability for all of us to stand shoulder to shoulder. And even if you had made at least an attempt to remove him but failed in that attempt, that would have got a long way to express unity and your backing of Black Lives Matter and the lives of all kinds of marginalized people. In terms of the back the blue and the accusation that Diane made that it was a spurious connection to white supremacy. I wanna point out that maybe the name and maybe this organization wasn't part of a nationwide white supremacist organization. But one of the organizers of this back the blue rally in front of town hall is an ongoing member and contributor to a white supremacy website called Turtle Boy Sports which posted recently and they also have a Facebook page. So there is a connection to white supremacy and at least this organizer or one of the organizers of this rally. So it's not beyond the pale to make that kind of a charge. And one last thing I can say is that. You are at just over three minutes. So if you can just wrap up this thought. I just wanna leave you with this that Lieutenant Padrini as long as he stays on the force and as long as you do not at least make an attempt to remove him is going to continue to generate this kind of conflict. All right, thank you, Mr. Weinstein. All right, if we can promote Ms. Kelly Williams. Hi, Donna, can you hear us? Hi, good evening, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity to bring my issue forward to all of you. My ask tonight is for we can. Donna, sorry, just for our minutes can you just take your phone and address, sorry. Sure, my name is Donna the ONA Kelly, K-E-L-L-Y Hyphen Williams. I live at 110 Mary Street and over my right shoulder is my husband who also lives at 110 Mary Street. So thank you for this opportunity to address the select board. My request is for a reconsideration of an approval that was made on August 17th regarding the shared Mary Street pilot proposal as it was presented to all of you. I have been a resident of Mary Street and Wilson Ave now. That's where I started out for over 40 years. I have seen what the town has done to make Mary Street a safer street. When 35 years ago we brought before the select board at the time our concerns with the cut through of Mary Street being used as a way to avoid the traffic on Lake Street. The institution of the do not enter signs during those traffic times where we saw the adverse effects of having cars speeding down Mary Street, especially at the time when we were asking our children to walk to school and seeing the children playing in the streets. So fast forward to a proposal that you received regarding a pilot to make Mary Street a shared street actually opening up those avenues to have local access to come down the street also to when I looked at the proposal after it was approved it was a significant change from the way it was presented to the number of people that signed on in support of this proposal going forward. People were asked to sign on to support a shared street concept. And there were a number of people that did sign on to it but what happened after that? There was no circling back to tell people exactly what the proposal looked like and what the impact would be to Mary Street. So that's sort of when I became involved in all of this I read in the advocate that you in fact had approved it going forward and then did a little homework I reached out to Daniel and Stutz to take a look at what was proposed. I also reached out to the town manager and honestly I had never been approached my husband and I are home most of the time and we did not receive any flyers or any information about this. And since the time that I have reached out to all of you over 22 people have come and knocked on my door and said, are you the person that's gonna do something about this shared street? I did not make myself the self the commissioner of the town Mary Street shared street project but I do wanna express my concern with the way that this was done with the lack of inclusiveness and transparency. And my ask of all of you is to rescind your approval moving forward and have an opportunity to look at the recommendations that were made by the Mary Street residents to take advantage of that grant opportunity that could make Mary Street a safer venue for all of our families that live on the street as well as those that would like to use Mary Street to walk their children to school. I'm happy to provide any opportunity that I can to be more specific about what we have seen. We've also reached out to the police. I've made the calls myself several times when I've seen the cars speeding down Mary Street or taking the turn on two wheels with children time to play or ride their bikes in the street. I have great fear that someone is gonna get hurt if we're not very careful about what we do going forward. So my ask is that you reconsider your approval from the August 17th meeting that we reconvene an opportunity for people especially the residents of Mary Street. When I looked at the list that you were asked to review on the approval, there were 12 Mary Street residents and right now we have 12 were in approval and now we have over 22 that are opposing and these are the residents that will be most impacted by this pilot program going forward. So I thank you for your time and certainly you know where to find me. You certainly find me with no problem with my tax bills. So please know that I am available at any time and am so devoted to the safety of our children and my grandchildren who spend a great deal of their time in my driveway. So thank you all very much. All right, and thank you, Diane. And that takes us to the end of our open forum. Moving on to traffic rules and order. Item number 10, update economic development recovery task force, Jennie Reed, director of planning and community development. Mr. Chair, this was actually meant to just be a correspondence item for the boards. This rates at attending the ARB meeting right now. All right, do we have a motion for receipt by Mr. Mahan? For receipt, Mr. Chair. Seconded by Mr. Kerl. Second. Any comments or questions, Mr. Corsi? No questions. Any comments or questions, Mr. Diggins? No questions, thank you. All right, that's Jennie's in here. We don't have the answer, so that's good. All right, on a motion by Mr. Mahan, seconded by Mr. Kerl, attorney Hine. This is Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Kerl. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. It's unanimous vote. All right, Mr. Diggins, you can text the moderator. Okay. It looks like we have sort of an error in transcription here, so we're gonna move the discussion in future select meetings down until after we talk, we identify the date for the special time meeting. So we'll go to item number 12, vote for a special time meeting. And Mr. Chapter Lane, do you wanna address this? Sure, so I really myself, Mr. Diggins, Mr. Leone, Eric Helmuth and Chair Herd have been having a lot of conversations about having a special time meeting and making this happen. I, you know, we have a very short timeframe. I think what we're looking tonight is for the board to be able to open up the warrant. Town council can correct me if I'm wrong. I think the board can vote tonight. We would need to then open it a week from tonight on the 21st and then the board can decide how long it wants to keep it open. I'm guessing for about a week's time so that we can get a hearing process shortly thereafter. Looking at the calendar, I know the initial suggestion was that we start after the November election. It would seem like starting on November 9th makes good sense. We would then have to skip the 11th because it's Veterans Day and pick up again on the 16th or, and I don't think this decision needs to be made tonight unless I'm the moderator. Council, tell me that we do. We could think about meeting on a night that's not Monday or Wednesday so that we could meet twice in that first week. So I think the rough sketch of what we're looking at is the board voting to open a warrant a week from today, perhaps closing a week from that, all working towards having a town meeting beginning on November 9th. I will. Ms. Silione, thank you for joining us. Did you have anything to add? No, no, not yet. All right. All right, Mr. Diggins? Sorry about that. I just had a little problem on the meeting. So I had discussion with the moderator today and I also had a discussion with Eric Helmuth and this was after my regular meeting with you, Adam, Mr. Tom Manager. And we are a bit concerned about where we are right now with the technology. And so we're thinking that it would be better to maybe push things back to the 16th and do a couple of rehearsals that week of the 9th. And my discussion with the Tom moderator also resulted in my understanding that you prefer that we stick with having the meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays just to provide a little sense of normalcy in these very abnormal times. I find myself speaking for the moderator now when he's here, so I'm going to ask him to at least confirm at this point so far that I am reflecting what we discussed directly. Mr. Chair. Evening, Mr. Diggins and I did have a conversation today regarding possibly starting dates and what days we would actually hold Tom meeting on. I think that with the training schedule that we're going to have to get into place both the town staff who are going to man the program as well as our 252 Tom meeting members, the 16th would seem like a viable date. By the time we get our hands on the virtual Tom meeting, the BTN platform, get it edited to our liking, train our staff and then train the trainers who are going to train the Tom meeting members. I think November 16th would be a realistic date. And yeah, Len did suggest holding it on more than just Monday and Wednesday. But I think for the consistency of the Tom meeting members, I would like to hold on the Monday and Wednesday dates as those are our traditional days. There's nothing in the bylaws that requires Tom meeting to be held on a Monday and a Wednesday. But I think psychologically it'd be easier for people to schedule their brain to work on Monday and Wednesday for Tom meeting. It's going to be difficult enough getting them to zoom in and figure this all out. It's not an easy process. It does take a lot of training and time. So I think we should leave that little bit of it alone. Okay. Any further distinctions? Yes. And so through you I had a question for Tom console and Tom manager. And that is about the timing of the closing of the warrant. So my impression was that if we were going to aim for the nights, I mean, then we would want to open and close the warrant on the 21st, if we push it back to 16th, I don't know if it's still prudent me to try to extend the amount of time by which, for which the warrant is open. Because I understand that there are some legal requirements regarding the meeting schedule for ARB that we have to be reconsidered up. So if the town council could just clarify when the warrant, he thinks the warrant should be, how he would advise us to close the warrant, whether we start Tom meeting on the 19th or 16th, I'd appreciate it. Johnny. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. The couple of considerations at work are, once this board votes, you set a town meeting and a date for the opening of the warrant, you have to allow five days from your vote to open the warrant and actually opening the warrant itself. The warrant can open and close the same day, or it can be open a week. Once the warrant closes, you have to allow basically 14 days before a town meeting can be, a special town meeting can be held. And also importantly, we have to make sure that we advertise the special town meeting that the warrant is distributed and that we have enough time to take care of all those measures, such as posting it in theory, distributing it to all households. With respect to the ARB, the major consideration for them is that they have to run a legal ad for two successive weeks for any hearing that they're gonna hold on any warrant article in front of them. And if they're going to hold all of the article, hearing on all the articles that were posted for them last time, they really need to get going so that they have enough time to have two successive weeks of advertisements for whatever hearings they're gonna hold. And I guess it's possible they could have long sessions and they might only have one or two dates for hearings before the special town meeting. They also in theory have a certain period of time to report, but I wouldn't worry about that for now. The redevelopment board in theory also has the ability to report the same nightest town meeting if the schedule was that crunched on what their recommendations are. There's no requirement that they necessarily provide something in advance, but as the moderator knows, town meeting members like to receive their reports such as a report from the ARB on their recommended votes with a little bit of lead time to read them. So those are the things that I would consider. I think if you set it for November 16th and you work backwards from there, I do think you'll have legally enough time the real question is just, it's gonna be tight for the ARB. So that's just something that we have to recognize. One other quick thing, to have a remote town meeting and just remind us that the moderator has to consult with the board and basically advise them that a remote meeting should be held within a certain timeframe. So, John, you and I can talk about that at a later date, but we just wanna make sure that we build in time to notify the board and to have it, I believe it's one week in advance of any town meeting that we need to make sure it's clear that the meeting will be conducted remotely. Okay, we can figure that out. I think it's pretty obvious that it's gonna be a virtual town meeting at this point, considering the state of the coronavirus. Yep, there's just a, I believe it's a- Yeah, we have to fulfill the boxes, check the boxes. Yeah, chapter 92 of the acts of 2020, section eight. The list of things that sort of need to be checked off and the timing of you making that check off before the remote town meeting can be conducted. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Carl. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you, I have a question for town council, and a question for the moderator. I guess I'll start with the moderator because this is the easy one. If we go with November 16th, I'm gonna do Mondays and Wednesdays, assuming we go past three sessions, would it be your anticipation that you would set an expectation that the meeting will be meeting the night before Thanksgiving? Might have an insurrection. I think we couldn't, I don't think we could, just as with Veterans Day, I didn't want to obviously meet that for normal reasons. I do not think that the day before Thanksgiving would work because people are still gonna be traveling, they're gonna be home making ties. They're not gonna want to talk about town business. Right, just a considerations. Thank you. And through you, Mr. Chair, to town council, just one more consideration around the closing of the warrant is that we had made a commitment to those who had submitted citizen warrant articles that we would resubmit them on their behalf, but in some of our last discussions at the last couple of meetings, we talked about contacting all of those proponents to see if they, number one, if they still want to submit them at all, or if they, barring that, if they want to submit them through us, you know, in a slightly changed form, although generally, you know, within the same spirit of the original article. So in that case, don't we have to make sure that the warrant doesn't close before our next meeting, which is our next regular meeting is currently scheduled for October 6th. Mr. Chairman. Yes. So, frankly, I think it depends a little bit. If you were talking about folks submitting the exact same warrant article, I think that the select board is already committed to doing that and doesn't necessarily need to take a vote to put the same warrant article on the special town meeting warrant. If folks are modifying their warrant article, there are potentially other means by which something can be requested to be placed in a special town meeting warrant without it being a 100 signature resident petition. So, you know, the board has in the past accepted warrant articles at the request of the town manager. If you wanted to invest the discretion in the town manager, I might take a vote to invest discretion in the town manager to place updated warrant articles on the warrant as articles of the town. That makes sense. So, in other words, I think that the main purpose to me of keeping that warrant open for a longer period of time is to make sure that any residents who basically want to file new warrant articles, that the board was not already committed to bringing back, they can do that and gather their 100 signatures. But if there are basically tweaks to articles, for example, the one that comes to mind is the fossil fuel article. If there are tweaks to an article like that to update the legal understanding of the posture of the Brookline by-law, which was not approved by the Attorney General's office, I think that that could be done with the authorization of the board to the manager. I don't want to put the manager in a tough spot or the board in a tough spot, but I think under this circumstance it could be done. Oh, we'd have to take that vote tonight. Yeah, I think it would be okay. You're trying to set a special town meeting date and you're trying to basically just be authorized in the town manager to execute a plan that you've sort of had in motion for quite some time to make sure that both warrant articles that the board wanted, the board promised to bring back and updated versions thereof get on my mind. I mean, alternatively, I think you could call me, you could set the schedule so that the board has a clear picture of what articles will have the board's name on it, but just because an article is on the warrant also doesn't mean that the board is agreeing that it supports that article. Sometimes this board has sponsored articles that it later votes against because it thought the discussion was merited, but didn't necessarily ultimately agree with the end outcome. All right, thank you. Ms. Nahan? Unless the chair or moderator or anyone else tells me different, could I make a motion to call for a special town meeting commencing on Monday, November 16th, usual time in that the warrant for this special town meeting will open on September 22nd at 8 a.m. And it will close a week later on September 29th at 4 p.m. Is that appropriate? Okay, so that's would be my motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right, Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second that motion. Based on what attorney Heim said, I don't know if this will consider to this as an amendment or as a separate motion, but I do think it makes sense for the board given that this timing, the 22nd to the 29th to authorize the town manager to accept additional warrant articles that had previously been proposed at the spring town meeting to add those to the warrant. Is that, and I just question for attorney Heim. I think that's the language. I don't know if there's anything else that we should be adding to that, but that's to avoid people having to obtain a hundred signatures because this will be a special town meeting. Mr. Chairman. Yes. Yes, I think that the idea would be to authorize the town manager to reassemble the warrant with all articles that were submitted to the annual town meeting unless the petitioner withdraw, does not intend to move forward with their article or would like to update their article. I don't think it would be fair to put the manager or the board in the position of putting new articles on the table without getting signatures and stuff like that. If I understand that correctly, that's your intention as well, Mr. Chairperson. That's right. This isn't for the article that was not proposed previously. If it's a brand new article, then the proponent of a brand new article would have to obtain the 100 signatures and submit the article within the week time period. All right, and so Mrs. Mohan, do you accept you add that to your motion? Yes, and I just want to double check with you, Mr. Chairman. Do we need two separate votes to a call the date of the special town meeting and then be opening up the warrant and as Mr. D'Corsi I think inquired or can we do it in all one vote? The further town council I believe we do need two separate votes. I think two separate votes is probably a little bit better in this instance. So I would set the date and then submit. Okay, so I would change for a vote for special town meeting and move a motion that special town meeting be called for Monday, November 16th, 2020. All right. And Mr. Carl or Mr. Diggins, I'm going to show you in a second. Any comments on the card motion on the table? All right, so attorney Hamish, we'll take a vote on this motion that's on the table, by Ms. Mohan, seconded by Mr. Carl. This is Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Akiro. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Sheanna Slope. All right, and then Mr. Corsi, do you want to make the second motion? Sure. So I move to authorize the town manager to submit Warren articles that had previously been submitted at the regular town meeting back in the spring upon confirmation from the proponents that they wish to go forward with the articles or make slight revisions there too. And Ms. Mohan. I will second that and I would just ask my colleague, Mr. D'Corsi, if also contained in your motion that we move to open the warrant for the special November 16th special town meeting, open it on September 22nd at 8 a.m. and close at the following week, September 29th, 4 p.m. Yes. Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm sorry, I was focused on the authorization, not the dates, absolutely, the 22nd at 8 closing on the 29th at 4 p.m. All right, second that. Thank you. Mr. Diggins? So yes, I have a couple of questions to be won for Ms. Mohan through you. Why Tuesday to Tuesday instead of Monday to Monday? I just wrote down the dates that I thought the town manager gave us. Is that Tuesday to Tuesday? I thought it was going to be. I think he said Monday to Monday. That's what I thought. Is Monday not September 22nd? No, I was 21st. I'm 21st. Okay, so then I'm sorry. First day of school. Oh, well, maybe. So it'll be September 21st, 2020 to September 28th, 2020 and thank you, Mr. Diggins. No problem, no problem. The second question is to the town council. I'm a little confused because from explanation, I had the feeling that having the warrant open for a week was just going to make things really tight. And so, I mean, maybe you're not in a position to give us advice on this and we just have to figure it out on our own. But I guess I was thinking that we just need to really have this thing open for a day so as to really make the schedule work. But if you think it's doable with a week, I mean, in my discussion with you, I was initially in favor of having it open a week me to give people more time. But my understanding was that by giving notice for five days, it would give people time to prepare for it and we could open and close it in a day so that we could really have the time to process of the articles, both for us and the ARB, but I'm sorry. Mr. Chairman. Yes. Mr. Diggins, that's correct. I apologize if I've caused any confusion, but you have to have notice from tonight's meeting to the opening of the warrant as has to be a minimum of five days. In terms of how long the warrant is open, once it's opened, it can open and close the same day, it can be open a week, whatever you guys think is appropriate. The legal timeline can be satisfied, but the more time that you give to leave the warrant open, the less time there will be to notice hearings. So if you wanna compact the schedule that will only be helpful for the ARB, but I could also understand if you wanted to leave it open for a longer period of time, given what we're all trying to accomplish. I wasn't trying to assert a premium on it one way or the other. You have to have five days notice between tonight's vote and the opening of the warrant. Once you open the warrant, you can decide how long you want it to be open for. At a minimum, it's one day. The maximum is up to you. Mr. Chairman, did you have something to add? I would just add, so basically in practicality, voting this way tonight would give me two weeks to work with all those article proponents and sort out if they want to go forward. If they do wanna go forward, is it gonna be exactly the same or is there modifications to be made? What will those modifications look like? So yeah, I mean, I think you basically, you're functionally giving me time to work with the proponents. Jared? Yep. I just wanted to make one comment. Just recall there were only 13 citizen proponent articles on the spring town meeting. So that's worried about 10 and half, nearly half of them were from one person. Yeah, sure. Just wanted to point that out. Yeah, I mean, this is just time, that's right. Given that, I mean, if we wanna tighten it up and open it next week and close it next week, I mean, I would be okay with that as well. I mean, does Monday to Friday significantly make a difference? I'm sure the weekend doesn't do too much as far as legal timing. No, I mean, that would be fine by me. Well, I guess the question is, does it make a difference helping us if we're giving somebody, you know, somebody that might be busy during the week, a couple extra days to get the article in? Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I can see that too. Yeah. Okay. Unless the chair tells me different, my motion stands of the dates of 921 to 928. Is that correct, Mr. Chair? Yes. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Chaplin. I sincerely apologize for not seeing this earlier, but the 28th is Yom Kippur and we're not meeting on that date. We, if we're gonna extend it, we should do it to the 29th to not have the war and close the day of the Jewish holiday. Okay, I'm gonna try it again, getting back to one of the original dates. So open the warrant on September 21st, 2020, close it on September 29th, 2020, opening on the 21st at 8 a.m. closing on the 29th at 4 p.m. Sorry, this has been a long confusing discussion. So that was Mr. D'Corsi's motion, right? Mr. D'Corsi? I'll second it. No, I'll accept that as an amendment. I'll accept that. Without repeating it 21st through the 29th. Here, I think we have nailed down our dates. So on a motion by Mr. D'Corsi. Until we get it right. Seconded by Ms. Mohan, attorney Han. I just want to say that I really enjoy spending 9.30 at night talking about the finer points of warrant timelines. Mrs. Mohan. Kevin would say I'm tangling with anticipation, yes. Mr. D'Corsi? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Kiro? Yes, please. Yes. It's unanimous vote. All right. And thank you, Mr. Marguerite. Thank you, welcome. Thank y'all. Thank you. So we have the last item on our agenda is future select board meetings. Right now we have up through October. We are meeting on October 5th and we are meeting on October 19th. So I anticipate that we'll move into November to schedule meetings to coincide with our special time meeting. I would anticipate that if, you know, we would have to look to see what comes in for warrant articles and hearings. If we were going to need another meeting in October, we'd do it at a future select board meeting. So right now we would just look for, so we will need a meeting on November 16th to convene prior to our special time meeting. So let me look here. So where we're on the 9th, do we want a meeting on November 2nd for regular business meeting? That's not important. So we'll have November 2nd and November 16th. Wait, did we want to do it on the 2nd the day before the presidential election? Doesn't Mrs. Kropalko usually ask we don't? Oh, okay. So maybe the 9th at 7... But the 9th worked better? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just want to say, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. Yeah. Well, I think we were maybe planning on doing a rehearsal then, but I guess we could move the rehearsal to the 10th, you know. So I'm just thinking long term to schedule for around virtual time meeting. So I just put that out there, but I can work that through. So sorry for the interruption, I'll take it through. We'll do the support meeting. We'll have precedence and we'll work out rehearsal being based on our schedule. Don't tell anyone I said that. All right. So we have 11-9, 11-16. Do we think we'll require one on the 30th? I would say yes. Yeah. The office, unless somebody, the 30th doesn't work for them and then we'd have to go to the 23rd and hope it wasn't a special tail meeting. So the 30th, okay. Mr. Chair. Yep. That worked for everyone. I know I don't have a head. Yep. All right. Into December, that's for 30th. So it looks like to get into December, I assume our second meeting in December, we're gonna have our abbreviated meeting depending on availability. Yeah. So could I ask Mr. Chair if December 7th? Yep. 7.15 for regular meeting and December 14th, 21st. Is that too close, 21? All right, 21. I have a preference on 21. Yeah. And no one says anything else than 7.15 on the 7th. 6 p.m. on the 21st, which is our abbreviated business that has to be done by then. All right, so I will look for a motion to set. All right, we don't need a motion for it's like what means. All right. So we will have a second meeting on November 9th, November 16th, November 30th on December 7th and December 21st. With that, we turn to new business. Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly, I just wanted to touch on a few things regarding the Mugar property and the neighborhood there with the homeless encampment. I wanna recognize Officer Joe Keneff. I wanna recognize the Health and Human Services Department and the Assumable Homeless Coalition for their work at the property. Just in the past couple of weeks, the neighbors have been notified that Officer Keneff will be acting as a liaison and they have been sent an email from him encouraging to reach out with any questions that they may have, any concerns that they may have. And there's been a number of issues there over the summer and he has worked hard with them. I think this is good partnership between the Police Department Health and Human Services and a private partnership through the Assumable Homeless Coalition, but also just to send a message to the neighbors because there has been a lot of concerns and there is a mechanism here to provide some information but also I wanna let the board know that I intend to work with the neighbors and perhaps report back because while there has been a positive outreach with the neighbors and there still needs to be some more and there's been this partnership, I do think there is something missing in terms what the dialogue has been with the property owner there. And so I'd like at a future meeting to report back on that, but in the meantime to recognize these efforts that have taken place. All right, thank you. And I apologize to town meetings in town council, I keep skipping them since I'm not in the chamber, I don't have the lineal fashion. So attorney Jaime, new business? No, no business, sir. Thank you. Ms. Chapter Lane, any new business? Yeah, a couple of pieces, but I'll be brief. One, I wanna let the board know that we were holding two dates next week for a joint meeting with the ARB. The ARB is available to do that joint meeting on the 21st. So a week from today, a joint meeting with the ARB and I can talk with you, Mr. Chair, in the new chair of the ARB and Jenny rate about an agenda for that meeting next week. I do wanna reiterate, I know Ms. Mahan read the message that I sent to the police department on Friday morning of last week, but I do wanna reiterate a thanks to the police department for how well and professionally they handled what was a very tense day on Thursday. So again, thank you to the men and women of the Arlington Police Department. I wanna point out to the board that the Bluebike Station, that was approved down near Magnolia Park. After a further look by the DPW director and Dan Amstutz, they're proposing moving it from that sort of oval space to a space adjacent to the bike path near Magnolia field. If the absent issue raised right now by the board, I'd like to give them the go ahead to do that so they can get the station input. Parks and Rec is okay with it, DPW is okay with it. I'm okay with it. So I just wanna make the board aware of that. And then finally, I wanna mention, as was mentioned several times earlier tonight, the community conversation with Lieutenant Padrini is currently scheduled for September 22nd. Last night, actually starting at 6 p.m., we conducted the final of three community stakeholder planning sessions to get feedback from various members of the community representing different groups in the community about how the session should be formatted. And we'll be finalizing that agenda and announcing more details in the next week. But a week from tomorrow, we will be holding that session with Lieutenant Padrini. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Mr. Crow. No new business. Thank you. Mr. Mahan. How brave of you to call on me. I'll try to, I think I've covered it. So I'll try to do the rest and snippets as much as I can. Mr. Chairman, as you know, we had our goals meetings. Unfortunately, we had the two years previous. I know a lot of us went by our notes and our memories of what was discussed last year to put in. But perhaps if the town manager, when he puts together the current draft goals that we came up with, if there was something that we discussed last year and for some reason, none of us had it in our notes and we didn't remember it. If that could somehow still be included, be indicated that way. And then I would leave it to the chair if we need to have a quick agenda item for five, 10 minutes, if there's something that needs to be discussed again as a goal or if it's a universal one. The second thing, just through you, whenever the town manager thinks it's appropriate, unlike a, not necessarily a date, but sort of a framework of when town hall does open for business. I know people can call and people are running things down, but similar to the city of Worcester, that not all offices, but perhaps certain offices, you can call and make appointments so that we're monitoring or some other reopening plan that the manager along with the Board of Health and whoever is appropriate needs to do that. The other thing is, I know we voted like over a month ago to put up recognition for our first responders, to Mr. Heard, our first responders, healthcare and essential workers. Hoping that happens soon. I guess we didn't put a time, certainly not. And then I wanna make sure I might have misheard. I thought I heard it was going to be a cross mass out in front of Jefferson Cutter. Now I'm hearing in front of you. My thing is, I don't want it to be somewhere that you literally have to be in there, especially with all those construction vehicles. So I hope it's all prominent. And then just very briefly on the other controversy with the police on the Memoriam decal for Officer Garrett Cody. I just wanted to clear something up that then police chief, Fred Ryan, ordered that one cruiser to have that decal. It was right after Captain Paul Dooley, after a vote from the then board of selectmen, decided to, it felt was overlooked at the one police officer we lost in the line of duty, Officer Garrett Cody, married father of five, trying to stop a crime, scuffle, altercation by the L.I. Brooke. The person shot him once, which was not life-threatening, but then with his own service weapon, shot him three more times. He was rushed to mass general and he succumbed about four hours later. He was 36 years old and he was on the force, I believe nine years. So what happened was we embarked on memorializing that. That's why we have, I mentioned it to the town manager on Tuesday. He said he wasn't aware of that, but there's also a plaque in another Memoriam outside of the police department. So that that, when that five, very small four by six inch decal was ordered by police chief Ryan to be on that cruiser. It was part of the continuing Memoriam to Officer Cody. And I'm personally insulted that it was removed and I'd like to see it return. And then my last thing, which I did speak and my colleagues can weigh on that, obviously not tonight, because it's on agenda item, but I just speak to town council of town council. Hey, actually, your attorney, Mr. Heard that starting the process for the town manager evaluations and the reason I say that and I've had a discussion with Mr. Chapter Lane, there is one point I'd like to renegotiate in the town manager contract, but unless I misunderstood the conversation, you can't just jump to renegotiations. We have to have the evaluation process and that has to happen by December 31st. So, so I'm gonna leave that to you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. All right, Mr. Diggins. Yeah, just a couple of, sorry, just a couple items. You know, first, you know, it, I know it's been a little while, but the shooting of Jacob Lake in Wisconsin, I mean, that was really gut wrenching. And then the violence that broke out was really horrible too, but his mother actually gave a really good speech in about how to respond to things like that. It's very touching. It was very constructive. And I'm sure you can find it on YouTube and I would suggest people go and take a look at it. And also gut wrenching was the shooting over the weekend of the year. The weekend of the two police officers in California. I mean, one was a mom who has like a six year old daughter and the other guy was, the guy was 24 years old. I don't even know the race of them, but it doesn't really matter. It's just that he, those are just, all of them just really horrible. And I hate to bring this up, but I think we just need to think about the overall context, you know? And on a brighter note, I'd like to put on the agenda for next meeting two possible leads on positions for me to the HPIC, the Housing Plan, Housing Plan Implantation Committee, and also the Envision Arlington, the Standing Committee. And so let's have a discussion about that next time. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And then a couple of things. Just again, to follow up on what a few people have said, I just want to again thank the men and women of the APD. We had a, what could have been a really tense and disastrous day on Thursday. And I think both from the top management, Chief Flaherty and all the men and women that stood up between the two groups, they did an excellent job of keeping calm in the face of adversity. So thank you to all the police officers that were out that day. I do want to compliment the new Director of Recreation, Joe Conley. I've been at the rank a number of times in the past week as Hockey has started full force. And they, in the, in the week, they've done a really great job of both with the condition of the rank and the cleanliness, but also the safety procedures that they put in place really help allow the kids to skate, but also keep everyone safe that's there. And, you know, they're really doing a great job of over at the rank doing that. And then just the last thing. So I did talk to the town manager today about the banner. So the banner is currently in production with DPW. And then it'll be placed in a spot, in, in, in, sorry, at the card house. Yeah, I thought it was going to be a park. Yeah. So, you know, I do think, you know, when we originally voted on it, it was a prominent location in Woodmore Park. I had envisioned, and, you know, I'll talk Diane off about, you know, what it can look like. And, you know, I can deal with the town manager on this, but just a location really up, really at the forefront of Woodmore Park, right at the light where, you know, everyone could see it when they're at the light or passing on bikes or walking. And so something very visible, not tucked away in the park, but that's something that we'll work on, but it is in progress. It hasn't been forgotten. And hopefully we'll see that maybe by the next time we meet. With that, I will take a motion to adjourn. All right? So moved. All right, Mr. Carroll, seconded by? Second. Mr. DeCorsi. All right, attorney Hyde. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Carroll. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Nanna's vote. Thank you all. So long, guys. Take care. Take care. Thank you. Thank you.