 Welcome. I'm calling the order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Monday, March 27, 2023. I'm Leonard Diggins, and this is my last meeting as a chair of Select Board. I will now confirm that all members in person, anticipated on the agenda, are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in affirmative. Dianne Mahon. Affirmative. John Hurd. Yes. Steve DeCorsi. Yes. Eric Helmuth. Yes. Should I keep going, Ashley? Yep. Please respond in affirmative. Sandy Puller. Sandy, can you hear us? You might have to unmute yourself. Sandy, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Great. And... I'm not Sandy. I'm not Sandy. I might be. Great. Great. Great. So folks, we're starting late because we've had some pretty serious technical issues here. If you're in Zoom and you can't hear us, then I want to suggest that you go to ACMI and watch the proceedings there. So, we'll continue on. Tonight's meeting on the Arlington Select Board is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with Chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022, sending a law on July 17, 2022, which further extends certain COVID-19 measures regarding remote participation until March 31, 2023. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom. It is being recorded and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a meeting of the record. Developing a record of the meeting. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Nova Agenda platform. And finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. So first on the agenda tonight is our interview with finalist candidate for town meeting, Mr. Jim Feeney. And so I want to welcome you. It's been a while. It's been a delay in the process. But we have followed the proper procedures to get us to this point. And so I'm happy to welcome you to the interview. And so with that, I mean, I'll just start off with an introductory question and then I'll turn to my colleagues and we'll proceed with the questions for an hour, hour and a half. So we're not going to rush this. I mean, even though we're starting out late, I mean, we're going to take the time that we want and that this process deserves. So Mr. Feeney, you know, why do you want to gig? First, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. I thank also the screening committee for their sort of collective vote of confidence and advancing me to this stage. You know, why I want this job and why I'm interested in the job. I think the short answer is that I'm passionate about this work and passionate about this place. But as you folks know, I've worked here for a long time. I began my career here as a part-time employee back in 2009. I became full-time in 2011 and in the, you know, what I'd say in the ensuing years, I've had the opportunity to try a lot of different jobs and really grow my skill set. You know, I was very fortunate to be selected to head up the health and human services, recreation and facilities departments at various points in my career, as well as to cross-train on a number of other jobs when there were vacancies. One that you may not know, actually, is that I got to serve as the animal inspector a number of times when we didn't have an animal control officer. So that involves like investigating suspected rabies' wildlife cases and following up on dog fights and dog bites. So as a dog lover, that was rewarding. The worst part was probably getting all the pre-rabies vaccinations, but even then to say that, you know, I will do whatever this community asks me to do. And why I share, I guess, sort of what my journey has been is to demonstrate that I've seen the town from multiple angles and on multiple levels. And that perspective has been invaluable to me here at Town Hall, where I work now because this is a large and complex organization and everything is interconnected, and I feel I understand that particularly well. You know, as the assistant town manager before, as your deputy town manager now, and hopefully as your town manager in the future, you know, I'll use my passion for the work we do as a local government to build momentum, to get things done, and do our best to deliver the best possible services for our residents. You know, this career that I've chosen in municipal government is truly unique. There's not a private company that either I or any of us could work for that delivers such a wide range of services that directly impact such a wide range of people. I appreciate the uniqueness of the position. And I think to close, I would say that Arlington has a history of being well managed, and we have a good reputation for that, and I believe I am uniquely positioned to continue that legacy. But, you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that we have such an excellent team of department heads and employees that I'm sure they would help anyone succeed in this position. Thank you. And I'll just add to this, I was part of the screening team. I mean, I'm going to hold back on questions probably as fewer than any of you because I had a chance to ask Mr. Feeney, I mean, a lot of questions during the screening and also heard a lot of questions. So I'll turn to Ms. Mohan if you have any follow-up, or you want to take another set of questions? Before I ask a question of Mr. Feeney, and if you said this, I apologize. The format for tonight is, is it outlined that we ask a question each and then we do another round of it? Or, because I'm going back and forth between two questions. So should we all just ask one question and then... I mean, well, I would say we're going to have these topic areas. I mean, so I would say, I mean, ask the questions that you have in the topic area. I mean, so if you have a couple of questions in that topic area, go ahead and ask and then we'll go to another topic area and go around. So what topic area are we on right now? Well, right now we're doing just kind of general introduction, you know, background. Okay. Because my questions will probably, as we get further on in in terms of, I sort of, I have an employee question and then I... Yeah. Mr. Chicken, if you're open to suggestions. I think, I don't think in, I like Ms. Mahan, I don't have a question in every kind of topic area that we have to go through. So maybe, I mean, if we're going to do talk topic areas, maybe kind of open it up and see if anyone has a question in that area. And then I have general, I have a couple of questions that don't really, they're a square peg in these topic areas. So, I mean... All right. So, so if you don't have one and so you don't have to, what is this going to, so if you don't have one for this point? I'll ask a question on that. One of your strengths certainly has been over the years that I've been on the board. You've been a person of all trades in terms of what you outlined, facilities. I think this board can attest to any other areas of town business, whether it's directly impacting the select board and others. I'm just wondering, I'm sort of going to tap into your experience with that process. If you were faced, which you could be when we talk about employees, affordable housing, retention rates, employee base is actually out there, since your background you've really worn about seven to ten different hats. If you were faced with that, the question would be, if you were faced with that situation as the town manager and or what advice, expertise could you give this board having done that if we're in that situation again, especially with the current employee base being so limited out there. So whichever way you want to come at that question, if you were faced with the same, because I don't think a lot of people in Arlington recognize how many times we in the town manager current and previous have turned to you when we've had a department head and a department that you've gone in and so that I'll stop there. Sure. Thank you for the question. You know, and I think that really part of what you're getting at to pertains to doing what we can to retain talent, is to really understand who those people are in the organization that may be at a certain level, but that have demonstrated a skill set that we're interested in and that we think will lend them to being successful in potentially other roles. I know I was, as you alluded to, a fortunate enough to have department heads that saw certain skills or talents and that they, you know, actively tried to draw on. So, you know, if I were in that position, I would be reaching out to the team of department heads to see, you know, which of their employees, and this is sort of how I think about it, you know, there's some employees that just keep their head down and get their job done. You know, which of the employees that put their head down, get their job done, but then put their head up to understand how their job fits in the context of the larger organization. So I think I would, you know, lean on the department heads to understand and help identify who those individuals are and, you know, have them then get these opportunities to, you know, grow their own skill set or take on new challenges. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Mr. Feeney. I wanted to ask you a question about your past experience with the town and management style, but one of the things you put in your profile is that you've had a demonstrated capacity to solve problems, which we've all seen in your various jobs through interdepartmental collaboration and through the number of different jobs that you've had as Acting Director of Health and Human Services, Acting Recreation Director, Interim Facilities Director. I'm wondering if you can give us an example of the type of interdepartmental collaboration that you find successful and maybe what you would encourage if you were a town manager. Thank you, Mr. DeCorsi. So if I were to give you a concrete example, and this is sort of the first example, or maybe two of the first examples where I experienced this in my career, I think I would go in the way back machine a bit, but when I was still working for the Board of Health, we had this desire to try to bring, it wasn't via the Board of Health, but the town had a desire to bring different types of business to town. And the planning department had recognized that there was this process for becoming what's called like a biotech-ready community. So the planning department identified that that process existed, had reached out to the health department, and we came together and we evaluated the criteria for what that would take. And I was charged then with sort of drafting and going through the process of passing a set of regulations for biotechnology and recombinant DNA, and in doing so we were able to market ourselves as a community of being, we received like a silver level, and this was something we saw after Lexington had introduced that market in their community. So working collaboratively with both the planning department and the health department, we put these regs in place, we achieved a biotech sort of silver status. And the next thing you know, you guys may have recalled a firm called Tetra Genetics on Mystic Street, like the old adages, if you build it, they will come. And lo and behold, two departments came together to achieve this readiness status, and it created interest in a business that has now been in town for a period of time. And you know, it was sort of the lead on licensing that business and you know, familiarizing the fire department on emergency response protocols. Like it was, truly we were learning on the fly because it happened more quickly than I thought it would, but that helped me understand like how much you need to collaborate and you can't stay within your silos. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Along those lines and hopefully I'm not repeating, I feel like sometimes we just kind of change words and repeat each other's questions, but around management style. And I wanted to ask you first, where did you go to high school? Oh, good answer. So anyway, I said, I don't know if you followed the meetings when we were developing the strategy initially, for who we're looking for on when we hire a new town manager, but I had said at that time that what I envisioned for the next town manager is someone who mainly the job is to manage the town employees and work with our public safety officers and our fire department as opposed to stepping, I think in the past we've had a couple of town managers that have stepped a little bit into the policy area and regretted it because that's really this board says policy and interacts with the public as far as the direction of the town. Town manager implements policy coming down from the board. Town manager's main role to me, to most of my colleagues, would be finances and how you deal with employees. It's the CEO of this municipality. So can you just give, just based on your past experiences, just working in the department both on the same level as individuals, under individuals, over individuals, and going forward what you envisioned to be your management strategy in the sense of your relationships with not just department heads because you deal with department heads, but you deal with employees. You deal with union heads in negotiations. You have certainly people that work with you that are hands on the ground in negotiations, but you're going to have a major role in those areas, particularly our police department, our fire department, who in the past couple of years would tell you that they haven't felt that they had adequately had the ear of town staff maybe hadn't been listening to the needs that they put forward. How do you envision your role with employees and what's your management strategy that you want to implement as you move forward if you're selected for the position? Thank you for that question, Mr. Heard. I have to say, I guess building on what I've learned during what I'll call my journey here is that you have to be accessible, collaborative, and communicative. And once you sort of hit those three things, you can build the necessary relationships, you know, internally, as you describe, or externally with boards, committees, or commissions to be effective in local government. And I think that effective leadership at any level, including the level I'm at now, it's sort of all built on the same foundation, and that is trust in mutual respect. So, you know, I believe I have earned both from, you know, our department heads, but also our employees top to bottom because, you know, I listen to them, but I also rely on them. And, you know, I think that moving forward, I wouldn't see myself really drastically changing in any manner. You know, I have a reputation of leading from the front, by example. And that's important to me because you have to think that every employee is always watching. So as a leader, you have to, I guess, model the behavior that you expect in return. And, you know, you guys know me well. I will always maintain a positive attitude and display a willingness to learn because, like, only then can I challenge others to do the same. So, like, I appreciate you asking that question. And I feel like I have, you know, built the relationships necessary, you know, with police, fire, with union leadership, but with really everyone top to bottom. And that's because, you know, I like to be out from behind my desk engaging in folks. And I think that's probably one of my greatest strengths that I've sort of built those relationships with folks from top to bottom. Yeah. And I just, a follow-up comment and a question. The willingness to learn, I think out of everything you just said, is really something that sticks out to me. And I think that, when we've had, we've had 99.9% of the department heads and employees of this town, I think have been spectacular. We've had a problem. It's always been, I think, somebody that just, like, this is how I do it. And, you know, don't come to me and say, I should do it different. This is how I do things. And willingness to learn, openness, listening. I think that is something that is really effective in a department head and employee and a town manager. And I'm glad that you said that because that's how you work well with others. And you gain the respect of the people that work for you. And when they respect you, they do good work. So thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Feeney. Thank you for being here. I think one of the biggest challenges as a manager, especially a high-level manager, where the consequences are, what's at stake is significant, is figuring out how to balance the need to give people autonomy so that they can do their jobs and feel trusted to do their jobs and have the space to do their jobs in their own way, but also ensure accountability and to monitor what they're doing. And that's a really difficult balance. You know, if you don't have enough accountability, then unseen problems can go on, even at the highest level. If you don't, if you have too much sort of micromanaging of that, then people feel like they can't be creative and they can't be free with what they do and they spend so much time telling what they're doing that they can't do their jobs. So how do you approach that dilemma? What's your style and what kind of style would you set as an example to other managers within the organization? Thank you for that question, Mr. Helmuth. It's a good question. I think you strike at the heart of it. You have to achieve balance, you know, and frankly that may differ for different employees, right? So, you know, there's my style, but there's also the employee you're trying to manage. And, you know, certain people like to be given more detailed direction than others, and I think as a leader or manager, you also have to identify who it is you're trying to work with and what style works for them. So I think it's, I recognize and acknowledge that it's a sort of a two-way street, if you will. I think the, what else I might say there with balancing the need to achieve accountability, you know, you need to set goals and expectations and check in with employees often, right? Like empower them, give them the space, but see how it's going, right? If they're not meeting expectations, I don't believe in waiting for some annual review and saying, ah, gotcha, right? It's to be up front, it's to go to someone and say, hey, listen, you know, here are the goals, here are the expectations. You know, we have to work together, succeed. Like understand what was the barrier that kept you from succeeding. And then it's my job to help remove that barrier for them so that then they will have sort of a better chance of success. Thank you. Thanks. And I'll say we're going to move on to diversity, equity and inclusion part of this, and I'll also say that I appreciate the response when we did a little exercise where we asked people to help us, you know, explore how we would deal with new growth or the constraints in this town. And I'll just say that your ability to communicate by word and by print is really superb. And I've seen that in emails, and this is, I find interviews tense. So on both sides, you know, and so I just, as much as I can just want to put you at ease because we know how these things are, you know. So with respect to equity and inclusion, you know, we had this equity audit. There are a lot of things that they recommended that the town do. And personally, I hate the question like, what do you think is the most important one? And so I'm not going to ask that, but of those, I mean, what are some that appeal to you or things that you think mean the town could maybe implement sooner rather than later, especially given the financial constraints? I mean, it may be a while before we can hire all the people that they recommend. So maybe what are the things you think the town can do, and maybe what are some of the things you think on staff side, maybe what are some of the things you think that the non-staff could do, you know, on those lines, you know. Okay. Thank you for the question, Mr. Diggins. You know, first, I guess I would want to, I guess, take the time and recognize, you know, Jill Harvey, Christine Bornjourno, and, you know, the rest of their team for the work, you know, they've done on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues here locally, but, you know, you may or may not know. They sort of serve as a model for municipalities all across the state that are starting to undergo this important work. So sort of want to call them out for their work to date, obviously give some credit to the prior manager, Adam, for sort of normalizing these conversations for us as an organization. But, of course, as noted in the equity audit, we have a lot more work to do. We can't simply pat ourselves in the back. And we have to now begin operationalizing. I believe there were 12 recommendations made by opportunity consulting. You know, I will say that internally we've already begun laying out an implementation plan and identifying stakeholders. But what's clear to me now, I guess, in looking at the totality of the audit is such that, like, this is going to be a long process. It's going to involve a lot of, like, continual reflection and improvement over time. If I had to, I guess, call out three, for example, that resonate with me, right? I'm not sure I could even recite all 12 to you right now. I guess I could because I brought them with me in thinking you might ask about that. Excellent. Let's be prepared. I tried. So I think that the ones that resonate with me the most are those surrounding, I guess, language access, right? In learning that, you know, over 20% of our population speak language other than English. That was, you know, that was eye-opening. You know, obviously some of those folks are going to be bilingual or even trilingual. But it shows that we have not yet made an investment of time, energy or resources in either procuring the necessary tools or services to be able to communicate with some of the folks we're not reaching. We have a lot of information to share, but we don't necessarily have the tools to give them that information in their first language. So that struck me as being something important. And, you know, I've seen this being, you know, an employee here at Town Hall and in other employees where you have sort of counter-service where you're public-facing. And I know that, you know, Ashley sitting to my right has experienced this before. It's not uncommon for us to have an employee find themselves at the counter and, you know, either a business owner or a resident, someone coming up to that counter in us having a language barrier. And, you know, we find ourselves clumsily fumbling around with our phones trying to, you know, use whatever translate app may be available or trying to explain an application or form to someone when really we don't even have a statement on that form that says, you know, in our five most popular language like, this is important, please have this translated. So that struck me as something we need to prioritize. Right, if we can't reach people, we're not going to be able to engage them. You know, along those same lines, I think that the formation of the community engagement team is really one of those underlying recommendations that starts at all. It's to, you know, help, you know, better engage our underrepresented communities to understand what it is they need from us but also to educate them on what we do and how they could get involved. So I think that, you know, sort of staffing and rolling out that and community engagement team is really one of the best first steps to learning how we'd be more effective at implementing some of the other recommendations. And then, you know, I think with, you know, any of the recommendations that point us towards, you know, creating partnerships either with local universities or other community organizations where we can sort of build a pipeline of candidates that would help us build a workforce that's more reflective of the community we serve. I think that those are things that, you know, have probably even further reaching impacts than some of the other recommendations listed, because they help us build those relationships and, you know, get our message and information out there to more people where they are. Thank you, you know, because I actually did that exercise myself and I divided the 12 into bunk batches of four. So I had my three tiers, you mean, and so it's interesting to see how yours line up with mine and I always like it when there are differences because that's where you get a better understanding of the values, I mean, of whatever it is that you're differing on. So, nice. Well, thank you very much. I'll turn my colleagues. Mr. Helman. Thank you. This question is about our workforce in Arlington, but I think the workforce in municipal management professionals is in general. I think one of the things that I struggled with most when I was considering a public role in public office was my own privilege as a white man and recognizing that we have a long way to go to have a pipeline of people who are capable and qualified to serve who are more diverse and gender and in race and in other areas. And I'd be curious to know what your own thoughts are about that, reflecting upon yourself, reflecting upon what Arlington needs to do, your view of our workforce, how you would in this position tangibly seek to diversify our workforce in really important ways and create a pipeline of people who are qualified and diverse and have opportunities to move up and take positions. Thank you for that. Certainly a lot there to unpack. I want to acknowledge something you said. I've been fortunate having worked here and having the town normalizing these conversations and undergoing work related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. I've been subject to a number of trainings or various curriculum that helped even myself grasp and become more aware of my own privilege. I am tall, able-bodied, white male. I was afforded a private high school education. I was able to get two degrees at Boston University. Going through that training helped me not only recognize it, but have myself know that I need to acknowledge it on an ongoing basis, but also as a manager remind others around me who share in that privilege that it exists and remind them that it's there. In terms of concrete ways we can build a more diverse workforce, I don't want to sit here today right now and tell you I have the best possible way to do that because, frankly, municipal hiring has just become incredibly challenging. That's not Arlington specific. That's every 351 cities and towns. There are just not a lot of people entering this workforce. What you'll see happening is we'll hire someone from one municipality. Someone will poach someone from Arlington. It's really the same people just bouncing around from job to job. I really do see that as probably one of the biggest challenges we face. To share a statistic, in December and January alone, we had nine employees retire with over 250 combined years of municipal service. That loss is not going to be easy to replace. Frankly, our current situation now, at last check, we have maybe 37 general fund positions vacant. That's an 11 plus percent unemployment rate. I think we have a major hurdle in just attracting workers, let alone a diverse workforce. That being said, I do think there are emerging strategies that are coming forward. I know there were some recommendations outlined in the equity audit that we can look at, but I think one thing that will help hold management or us as an organization accountable is perhaps adopting the equity dashboard that's outlined. If we don't create a metric or track it, we're not putting ourselves in the best position to succeed and advance that initiative. That's probably one of the things that I would look at first. Ultimately, and I know if our human resources director is watching, these aren't necessarily things that we've yet analyzed or talked through, but there might come a time that we really have to look extremely closely at our job descriptions. We have some very outdated titles like stenographer and things that people may not recognize that they would be a good fit for that position because they don't necessarily know what that position is, but we may have to look at sort of the minimum qualifications or minimum education that we're looking for even on entry-level positions and revisit those topics to try to sort of open ourselves up to a more diverse or more sort of wide-scale applicant pool. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that thoughtful and honest response because it is a really tough problem. You're absolutely right about municipal hiring and that it has to be a long-term process. And I assume the creativity in your last suggestions specifically is, you know, a lot of that's worth looking at. And I also just want to put a plug-in for the equity dashboard that whoever our next town manager is, that's something I'm really interested because if you don't measure it, you don't know what you're doing. And it's not enough to just say, these are our goals and our values, but if we hold ourselves accountable to where we are this year and next year and the year after that, so much better. Thank you. Sure. That's mine. I'm going to try to, this is a very different process with the first three I went through in terms of, so I'm going to try not to speak on every topic. But this was one of my questions coming into this. I will say, as Mr. Feeney pointed out and as we all know, that Allington really is in the forefront in the state of Massachusetts in terms of what we're doing for diversity, equity, and employment. And I've been, besides talking to our DEI director, watching ACMI has the monthly updates with Ms. Harvey. And this was the month she finally got to talk about her staff. She, you know, has Theresa Mozzelli, Civic Engagement, to work on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as the MBTA Communities Act. And I think there's sort of cross coverage with ADA compliance officer. I think it's Mike Ross. Tim Ross. Tim Ross. I apologize. I didn't bring my notes on that. So my question to you is, and I'm saying that, that Allington is leading in the forefront as we know, because, you know, before I go into the next part of my question, I don't want it to be taken as a slight, it's more of an observation. And I'm not going to have this opportunity again. Who knows how long, if ever. I've attended of the six sessions that were downstairs. We're not full-time town employees, so we weren't included in that. Attended, I think session three and session five or six, whatever the last one was, as well as we employed the consultant for the diversity, equity, and inclusion audit. And there were two things that like, you know, what can I do better to help this process along? What I've certainly gotten from the process, from Ms. Harvey and from the consultant is, that the town really needs to take a lead in this. That well-intentioned people, you know, on their own could, you know, should not be the stakeholder in that actual seat in front. And that's what we're doing and that's what we should. My question is moving forward because my fear is, in going on this in any journey, that I think the worst thing to do is to lose or shut your audience off from the very beginning, from the get-go. All your well-intentions can, you know, stand for something, but if you lose it from the get-go. So what I would ask you is moving forward in the diversity, equity, and inclusion process as well as town employees' retention rates in DPW, I think we have, it's seven and nine in highway and vacancies and, you know, and that's just across the board. What would you do as town manager moving forward in the diversity, equity, inclusion process to address these two concerns? To citizens that we're saying we're going through this and we have the knowledge and we can do that so that as we move forward, one of the things that was pointed out to me when I was down in East Arlington was in people who had watched the DEI consultant, which I think they were out of Washington, D.C. and it seems like a little thing, but it means a lot was, you know, how many times city was referenced and we're not a city. How many times West Arlington was referenced and there is no West Arlington. That's where you lose your white privilege audience but you also lose the audience that you're saying, listen we know you kind of failed disenfranchised, we get that and we're moving forward. And I also recognize this really is sort of a brand new field so maybe you have limited amounts but to me that's sort of a in the beginning a town manager job to sit down and say let me give you a sense. So that's, you know, moving forward, how do we not make that mistake again as well as moving forward and this may be happening and if it is I apologize but as we're going through the DEI trainings and workshops and forums and charats with our town employees, is there or do you have any ideas about after you go through that, because I know I've spoken to a lot of town employees and what I've said to them is go into this, just listen, don't take offense, don't even, that's like the best thing and I don't see them really getting that message as well as sort of like an exit interview when the process is over. So just moving forward, bringing in more consultants or whatever we need to work with the DEI department, Ms. Harvey, how do you see them getting more organic to Arlington as well as moving forward, working with the town employees, I'm going to call it an exit interview but to see what was their perspective, is that the consultant's job to do that and what do you think about that, because I'll stop there. Thank you for the question. I agree, one of my pet peeves is certainly when someone says City of Arlington, I recognize and understand that and obviously we need to be detail oriented and we should be catching that before it becomes something that's either widespread or being talked about. It seems like a small thing but it is important in conveying how well someone understands our community. I'll admit I was not involved with the procurement of that consultant but just drawing on prior experiences I've had when engaging an entity who may not be local to the greater Boston region, it would behoove us to have a very clear and well written sort of community position statement and we've done these in other procurements to let people know like, here we've done this planning to date, here are goals, objectives, here's what you need to know about Arlington, here's the data we have available and then we need to interview those folks to make sure we are sort of getting our message across to them as to what it is. We're looking for so that it looks like the final product we get is true to the community. In regards to our employees, I think that while having been a part of a number of the sessions, I generally do think that they went well and I'll admit when we had sort of some all employee sessions here in the auditorium, there were some hard conversations and I think ultimately while it may have been uncomfortable at the time, hearing about some of our employees' sort of backgrounds and their lived experiences here in the town was powerful and I think it created a lasting impact for a number of our employees so generally I appreciate the process we went through but you know, you may know and as you may have heard from others, I generally have an open door policy and I like to engage employees directly to see what it is they thought about something and to get feedback and I think that we learned from that process as we went through from session to session, we were gathering employee feedback and we were literally taking it and then adjusting what the curriculum would be for the next session, right? This is new, it's emerging, it's the first time we've done a lot of this work so we need to be able to adapt and sometimes adapt more quickly than we're used to adapting but you know, that's what it's going to take. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You had a response that thought maybe you were going to want to have a follow-up but you're all set. I don't have anything further on this topic. So moving along, we're headed into the candidate skills and I have to say, I think we've heard a lot of answers to a lot of potential questions there not to stop anyone from asking anything they want but even though that was a fair amount of time that we were going to devote to that section I think we've covered a lot already so I will just turn to anyone to ask if you have any questions in that category. Of course you can ask anything else that you want. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Feeney, throughout your experience in Arlington it started in the health and human services area operations area and I've seen you in recent months attending long-range planning committee meetings learning more about the budgeting process but I'm just wondering, since you've become the deputy town manager and as you've looked to further your career what type of things are you looking perhaps areas that you didn't have as much experience in that you want to learn more and get involved in more as you go forward that are of particular interest to you. Thank you Mr. DeCorsi. I think you've essentially pointed out what I've been sort of undertaking not my entire tenure as deputy town manager but I would say that for whatever it's been it's been sort of the past nine months working more closely and directly with Sandy who was a prior deputy town manager for finance and sort of led our whole finance team. I want to give him tremendous amount of credit for helping me build that skill set and sort of invite me into the long-range planning conversations this year so that's something that I've been looking for more opportunities to sort of grow my knowledge and skill set and Len may remember this I sort of joked during an earlier interview that probably the only person that's read the FY24 manager's budget as many times as I have is my eight month old daughter because I have a hard copy that sits next to her crib I read it to her each night it does a good job putting her to sleep but I guess to build upon that I'm very familiar with our budget process I've lived it for a number of years now obviously I know the document itself having worked in a number of departments I've already worked directly with revolving funds enterprise funds, CPA funds, capital funds CDBG funds, state grant funds even gifts and donations so I would even lean on the fact that when I was stationed over at the schools for a while I was working in Walkstep with Michael Mason on the sort of school facilities budget, the rentals budget the Pierce Field budget so I've had a great deal of exposure and understand well both our operating budget and capital budget but something that I'm eager to learn more about is sort of our forecasting process and how we sort of more formally engage in long range planning and to that end I think the one thing I would say is if I have learned nothing else from Sandy is that we need to continue to conservatively estimate our revenues I joke about that because it's something he has instilled in me many times over and over and I know he's probably on the line so I just wanted to throw that out there. Thank you. What's it hurt? One of the areas that's certainly been important to me as a slide board member particularly in the wake of the pandemic before is business development I own, I operate I shouldn't say I own operate a small business in town and you know in the past couple years it's been tough we've had well before the pandemic with empty storefronts and being able to retain good long term businesses around on our business corridors in our business districts and I think we've we've taken some significant steps towards that and we're seeing results but what in your tenure you know the town has a role in that through the planning department in the town manager's office and this board to implement policies to help our businesses and support our businesses and try to promote our residents patronizing our businesses in your tenure as an employee of the town and going forward what are some of the strategies that you've seen the town implement that you feel worked and are there any ideas that you have to help to continue to support our businesses and make sure it's a place we're an attractive place for businesses to flourish that's sort of a good question obviously there's no easy or exact answer there are a number of different strategies out there I think speaking more globally obviously community development or economic development is especially as it relates to potentially zoning or density you know essentially creating opportunities for new mixed use buildings to be built or to increase density such that you have more people to I guess support those businesses those oftentimes lead us to the most challenging discussions we have as a community again that's not unique to Arlington those topics sort of stir debate in every city in town across the state again sort of from the big picture perspective you know as a manager remains the case that responsible community and economic development is the single most impactful way that we can control the cost of living in our community whereby we have and sort of maintain services because we have limited opportunities for new growth so things we can do to enable from a policy or sort of zoning by law perspective continued redevelopment of our main commercial corridor things I think we should pursue obviously the effects and impacts of that take time but even you know I think it's clear that even the change town meeting made last year to sort of increase the floor area ratio is already spurring sort of some redevelopment of a number of our commercial blocks and as I understand there's more in the pipeline you know I think there's sort of a direct action we can take that you know I think sort of bore out during the pandemic and has sort of what I'll call an indirect impact on businesses right like we own that public realm and all that real estate for which our commercial corridors but if you look at Broadway Plaza for example right which had previously been largely unusable inaccessible you know we partnered with the MWRA we have sort of this nice expansive plaza that's flat level and what we did was create an opportunity to increase our outdoor seating capacity to better serve a number of businesses in that area right like that makes competitive with other communities that may have sort of more square footage in their retail space right because seats equals money so I think we you know need to look at our sidewalks and the other public parcels we have sort of a long mass have here especially you know if I think about you know our plans for the Veterans Memorial Park or what we've already done at Whittemore Park in front of the Cutter House or the Uncle Sam Plaza right like we have built spaces that allowed during the pandemic you know folks to you know bring their business you know onto public lands and sort of be able to continue providing services but in the future you know is that an opportunity to permit some of those spaces to bring these other opportunities forward it's probably the case you know sort of if we do our best to improve and maintain and beautify the public realm I think that's going to make those business centers more attractive to hopefully occupants for some of those empty storefronts. Thank you. Thank you. I often have said that a successful town manager needs to be a really gifted manager and of money and you know I think you spoke in my previous question and certainly spoken through example with your leadership of a wide dizzying range of departments and I learned tonight animals I don't think I better ask you if you're a dog or a cat person because you know that gets into politics but on the money side you know again because you've helmed a couple of departments and now in your current job you have a lot more experience there and I know concerns at all about a good operating budget and tracking that and you know how to manage a fiscal team. I think that the skill that no Arlington hotel manager really has coming in is dealing with Arlington's unique structural deficit that is we have far fewer opportunities for commercial tax-based development than just about any other community in the state and that is what it costs to provide the same services go up more than 2.5% a year even though that is the most we are allowed to raise the tax levy so yes we have a few years we go and ask the tax payers would you be willing to pay more so that we can keep providing the same or even better services but that is always difficult so what this is just like my last question I think looking for honest answers here because there are not easy ones what thinking do you have about the mid and long term challenge of our structural deficit both things that we might need to do here in Arlington things that you would do to aggressively explore creative solutions if they exist what kinds of values would guide you as you make those difficult recommendations to this board and to town meeting and you know where would you try to steer the town in those headwinds understanding that there is limited control of Arlington on its own but how would you deal with that so I think what I would say first is to acknowledge Arlington's challenge is that we are limited in space we are very small we are only 5.5 square miles and we are essentially built out our opportunities now to take down something that exists currently and introduce a new use which frankly is typically not viable or to go up or Len and I discussed at one point potentially going down we have to think in 3 dimensions that's the only opportunity we have to introduce more growth and growth just means revenue in this context we are again not unique like other neighboring bedroom communities once you're built out and you are a predominantly residential tax base you're likely to need to go to the voters so is there a magic bullet to our structural deficit probably not I've been very fortunate Steve and Linda sit in on the full long range planning committee process this year you know what a process it is it brings all appropriate leaders into the same space to have these hard conversations about what Arlington needs to continue operating and provide at least level services if not improved or enhanced services so what I will say is I think that we're doing well by sort of creating that process and puts the right people in the right room together at the same time so I think that that is a great step I've also learned there's a lot of smart dedicated and passionate people in that room that we're there to be an easy solution we probably would have found it a long time ago so you know bringing it back to myself what I would say is you know me pretty well we worked on the community preservation act committee together I am fiscally conservative by nature you know I always want to be a good steward of tax dollars you know often in pushing departments to procure goods or services differently if I think it's going to lead to better value even though it's probably going to be a whole lot more time and work on their part and they're just trying to get stuff done you know I've even changed the timing of when we bid projects so that we can be more competitive in a certain season and even had to scrap certain capital projects and go back out to bid at a future date at a more strategic date and find we can save hundreds of thousands of dollars and there are some examples where we've done that with playgrounds so that's sort of a specific example a little bit more about how I think about things and you know I think it's worth acknowledging that if I had the opportunity to serve in this role that I be fortunate to work more closely with our finance team and I acknowledge that really nothing it's probably appropriate to say it's of paramount importance that the town maintains its strong financial position and I would observe and abide by all the fiscal policies that secure our AAA bond rating you know the things we do with our financial reserves to protect us against fiscal shocks I think that is how we sort of best serve our community in moving forward you know we've lived through a pandemic but you never know what's going to happen next so I think that you know if you know the board had some collective priority or via the administration if we want to you know taking the equity audit for example right like we need to acknowledge and realize that if we have any of these sort of strategic plan priorities that we want to implement that it's going to need to be done so incrementally and over a much more extended period of time than we would like and you know having been a part of our budget process now for a number of years you know I started in the manager's office in 2016 we mostly say you know to our department had requests and it's hard but right inviting those requests helps you understand what their priorities and needs are and we often can meet very few of them but you know I can say I'm comfortable doing that but this is a challenging position we're in and you know in speaking I guess to the community at large what I would want to focus on in the face of you know upcoming override or future overrides is doing our best to communicate more not just the things we do well but everything that goes into some of the services that may be taken for granted like everyone just expects to turn on their faucet and have clean safe water that is incredibly challenging to do and it's expensive right it's a system that's expensive to maintain what you know our current level of investment in sort of water main replacement right like that that used to get us at least a mile of pipe underground now that gets us less than three quarters of a mile of pipe but we have 130 miles of pipe under the ground so right like tell that to someone that expresses like okay if we don't make continued investments we could find ourselves in a situation that's frankly somewhat catastrophic and again that's not of any of our doing it's to your point about you know regular inflation rises faster than two and a half percent but construction related inflation especially recently right you know you're talking about a little bit of inflation in the years with nearly double-digit percentages so that means we're getting less sidewalks less roads less pipes so I think that we need to do what we can to better convey that message to the residents so they understand that it's you know we are managing things well it's just a matter of sort of the the construct that we live in thank you I think this is one of the things that we're getting of and we're getting a lot of power Mark I would say let's maybe do another 15-20 minutes or so but folks are sad and we can also just allow Mr. Fenty to answer some questions but I don't want to rush things I didn't have something, but I just spoke, so. All right. No? All right, and I'll just do my, do my, do my, do my. Hello again. Can you speak to how you see the town manager's relationship to the select board? And I want to come back to something my colleague, Mr. Herd referenced. I think that different town managers we've had, have had, had different styles and different beliefs about how much the town manager is a policy or even a political figure in town. Arlington's town manager act is pretty unmistakable. The town manager is vested with extraordinary discretion and authority. And, you know, and I think that every town manager has to figure out, you know, how much of that are you going to take and how much of that are you going to kick to the board as the elected policy board and the elected representatives of the people? And, you know, this is kind of an open-ended question, but I think it would be helpful to understand how you in this role would approach that tension, approach that, that differing lengths of runway depending on your style and your philosophy about that. Thank you for the question. A good one. One I've given some thought to and if, you know, given the opportunity to ask you folks a question tonight, it probably would have been something along those lines about, you know, how you see, you know, you as individuals in your own words see that relationship, you know, from, I guess from my perspective and, you know, certainly to start, and I know I've said this to Len previously in prior interviews, you know, when I have the opportunity to serve in the acting role, right, something goes on, right, like almost as every, you know, situation arises, part of my calculus is does the board need to know this, right? And I know you've all received emails from me at various times of day or night saying like, hey, this is happening. I think that I view it, right, as we're allies. We should all be moving in the same direction to implement the same goals and strategies. For me personally, I prefer to communicate early and often and I would continue to do that. I think I would be looking from feedback from individual members as well and, right, the composition of the board, you know, changes over time and different people want information at different times or in different ways. So, you know, I would take the opportunity with each individual member to understand what their needs are, but generally speaking, I think that we're sort of allies trying to achieve the same mission and move the town forward and I think to do so. We don't necessarily always have to agree, but we need to understand where each other are coming from and do our best to, I guess, ensure there are no surprises, right? This is about making sure that no one in either of our positions or roles gets blindsided by something. So, I think that those are some of the thoughts that immediately come to mind, but of course would love to hear, you know, how you as individuals view the relationship between the manager and the board. Thank you. That's a good segue, you know, so he just asked us that question, you know, so anyone? Yes, Ms. Mahon. I mean, the unique perhaps fortunate opportunity of having served with three previous town managers, a fourth was there a real short time, but I don't count that, so I sort of had an evolution and what I wanted to ask you is more compared to the most recent town manager that we had. In terms of, when I first got on the board, myself personally, I really felt like I had a unique perspective sort of on the outside. Now, thankfully, as the board has evolved and new members have come and some have stayed, I think this board, which is a good benefit for the town managers, much more collaborative, collegiate. We all have different personalities and different strengths and complement each other, but I think we're a really good functioning unit. When I've seen that that hasn't worked is when my number one thing, yeah, it's only I guess a part time job being a select board member, I told people I didn't do it for the money, didn't know you get a big 3,000, but really my lifeline and our lifeline is the communication that we have with the town manager. And I did not see this with Mr. Marquis or Mr. Sullivan, but we're 98% constituent driven. That's really what we're here for. And where that really falls down is for us is when a manager, like what are you going to do to prevent burnout? What are you going to do so that usually the first year or two, if you want to call it the honeymoon period, trying to be all things to all people, but if you set that tone, you have to sustain that, which you can't. So one of the things I want to ask as a member of this board is where a lot of my effectiveness, whether it's communication, providing an answer, are actually civic engagement and getting a project started. How will you manage your time in terms of, I think in terms of any board member, current or future, you unfortunately are pretty much at the beck and call and you need to answer all that. But then moving forward from that, how do you have the different layers? So my question is recognizing we're five unique individuals. What can we expect from you throughout the tenure of your, if you are our next town manager in terms of communication? And what are you going to do? I think where a town manager gets in trouble is the relationship he or she has with the select board. You really can't replicate that with other constituency groups, including employees, department heads, neighborhood groups, things like that. So what's the relationship with the board and how are you going to prevent burnout so that you don't have that happen? I think taking the latter question first, you know, I'm obviously a very high energy individual and I'm very passionate about this work. I take on everything I can, I offer to help. Everyone when they ask for help, frankly, that will be very difficult for me to change, but in my position now, right, I am for lack of a better word, I'm a doer. I get signed something and I go out and I get it done. So what will be something that I will need to, I guess, do more of, will be in a position to do more of, will be to delegate. And I would, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but if ultimately I was the next town manager, I'd be looking for to sort of identify someone to succeed me that I could trust, respect and rely on and start them off. Well, if again, if chosen, right, we would have basically two brand new deputy positions that would allow me as a new manager to sort of set clear expectations and figure out what is it that's going to be on who's play and that should, you know, it's an opportunity that helps me because everyone will sort of be new in their role and starting at the same time. So I do think that there are sort of favorable conditions or circumstances in that respect for my having the opportunity to sort of set things up the way I might like to see them set up. And in one of the conversations if I miss Mr. Chair that I know we've had at least two, if not three times now is really delegation to employees but also taking advantage of technology and having a structure. I think we're a town manager where he or she really is going to set themselves up for failure if they're all things to all people. And I also think that check and balance system also protects the position of town manager because it sort of slows you down and puts you to go through a process so that you take the time to think to say how will this issue be addressed and handled? You know, who is it coming from? What group is it coming from? But also one of the things that I'd like to see a future town manager do is it's something that really created a lot of divisiveness. Not just with the previous town manager but since I first got on the board are when a town manager gets into an issue that is a policy issue that this board and or the town hasn't deliberated as a whole. But as well as when a town manager has an issue that comes before him or her. And sometimes I feel it's lacking that the manager doesn't keep in mind five members of the select board. What is their role? Is this something that involves them as policy makers of the town or not? And when those lines get blurred you could be setting your board up for a really rough road sort of thing. So that's why and we've had this conversation and it's really for the respect we have for the town manager that I would really stress the delegation not only just to employees but also the advantage of technology that exists and having clear parameters whether you remember the board or whether you live on Wheaton Road and you're just individual and feels you should be the contact person. So I'd like to just leave that with you that that's something I think is really important for a town manager. Thank you. I appreciate that insight, thank you. I heard. Yeah, and just following up on that and sort of expanding again exactly what Mrs. Mohan was talking about and with Mr. Chapter Lane we've had conversations in this meeting about his time in a couple of instances where we almost lost him and we were able to retain him and we had discussions with Mr. Chapter Lane but what are the challenges that you face? What is driving you to end? I don't think you're mine. I was talking about this because it helps you become a better manager. And like Mrs. Mohan said, time management and specifically it's if you step out too much in your, not that you would never, I would never ask you to sit there and say you don't want to be accessible to the public but that's part of your job as a town manager but Mr. Chapter Lane would tell us and I use him as an example because he's who I served with the most that a whole part of his day would be replying to emails from citizens or his emails were out there on the town website and he'd have a whole, almost all of his time if he wasn't in the meeting was replying to individual emails. And what we had at multiple occasions talked about that we never really implemented was some sort of an email buffer system where it is an email address that's town manager at Arlington, I still can't say that. Arlington to mass.gov.us, whatever it is. But where there's the email filtering system and where I envision where the question is to us, the role is we're again the policy making board of this town and we're really when citizens have issues with the way the town is operating, those inquiries should be coming to us and then we review those and we either respond and we forward what needs to be forwarded to the town manager for action items as opposed to a situation where I think the burnout that Mrs. Mahan's talking about is if you are taking all of these requests immediately and then you're taking requests from employees and department heads and us, you have plenty of correspondence from us, then it's how do you prioritize and how do you do, in addition to the actual duties that you need to perform, you have to respond to eight million emails and you can only do it if you go home, put your kids to bed and respond to emails at 11 at night. And that is just a process that doesn't work and I think some people might say, well, we want to be accessible to the town manager and that's just not the role of the town manager specifically. It's that the people reach out to us and we reach out to the town manager and I think that is a system that we should look to implement whether Mr. Feeney is hired or it's another town manager and that helps to keep the wheels running on time and that's the most efficient way. In addition to delegation, you don't wanna, if you have qualified staff that can handle a task, you don't do it yourself but just time management in that sense where we're hiring either you or whoever it is as town manager because they have a unique skill set in managing a town of this size and managing finances of this size. And so we don't need our town manager kind of responding to every little inquiry that can be handled by town staff and it even takes time to read, process, respond to an email like that. So I think that is something that we have talked about for years as a board and haven't been able to implement. Not to say that you can't go out and meet people and get to know the community. At some point we need safety measures in place to make sure that you are not getting inundated and if it is, if that's happening we need to know on a more regular basis not every year at your review or when your contract comes up. So I think that is something that again we've talked about for years and would be important. At least I, my colleagues may differ but that's how I envision the role of the manager to be as far as communications. I always used to tell Mr. Chaplain you're gonna take your vacation days, vacations that they ought to take. So you have vacation days, take time off. No one expects you to come at the end of the year and say, hey, I only took two of my 20 vacation days. Not that we're gonna be 20, I'm just saying just for example. But I mean that is part of what the benefits that you get in municipal employment. And I think that is something that's important to have a good work-life balance to again, if you can't get your work done and by five o'clock you go, I mean I go home to the kids and I know what that's like and on days that I have to put the kids down and say, oh God, I got two hours of work to do. It's almost like crushes you. So I mean to be able to set your parameters and say this is when I'm gonna get all my duties done is really important for a sustainable, we wanna manage it, it's gonna be here for a while. We don't want to have to go through this process every couple of years because the job in Arlington is so difficult that it's hard to retain good talent. So again, that's how I envision the role into some insight as to the relationship with us. And then as far as the relationship with the board, this is the old saying, it's five members, you know how to count to three. And that's where it comes to the implements, at times, and we've seen this with Ms. Chaplin and Mr. Poole, where the town manager might have to go in a direction that they might not necessarily have started down because the board steps in and says, this is really what we want you to do here. And that's part of the working relationship with the board that helps the town do well because again, we are checked every three years and we have to tell the town residents who are all of our bosses, you can look at any hierarchy of town government, the residents are the ultimate bosses of this town and they tell us every three years if they want us to sit on this board. And so that is important I think for me and other members to know that we have your ear in that sense where if you start down a direction and three board members say, hey, that's not really what we like. You're not obligated to follow that and you can tell us now, this is why I'm going in this direction, but it does help in that with the relationship that we have with you, with the public to have that mentality. And I mean, that's certainly how it has worked in the past since I've been on this board and has worked well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And just take it in the form of a question to just giving some responses and I think the word delegate is just absolutely critical and in one ear ear that we also saw with Mr. Chapter Lane that it was a struggle for him is there's so many committees in town and groups that want the town manager to go to their meetings and you just can't do it and that's where whether it's, I'm not even going to name different committees, but you've, and that goes to the trust that you have in your department heads too, that if there's an area that department head and we don't want department heads out every night either, but it's just, that's critical because you could fill up every single night with a meeting because they'll ask you to go to one and so it becomes very difficult and then as far as the five members here and it really struck me a couple of years ago where each one of us has a different way of communicating. You said how important communication is. You almost have to figure out, okay, what's the best way to communicate with each member too because some members and I give them credit, have a set time every week where they have the phone call. All the members send a text at two o'clock saying, can you talk in half an hour? And it's hard. So that's the part where, but you want to keep people informed and I think the most important thing for at meetings is you don't want to be surprised, but we don't want to be surprised either and so if something's asked of you at a meeting, hopefully you know it's coming, same thing with us, if something's coming up, we know perhaps what to expect and that's just a balance that needs to be worked out as you go forward, but I think in terms of that communication, it's always a work in progress too. It's about speaking truth to power. I mean, we both have different kinds of power. We just need to develop a relationship where we can speak truthfully to each other, I mean, feel comfortable, I mean, hearing and accepting those truths. And so, this is of course hinted, I'm one of the regulars, I mean, I usually limited to a half hour, I mean, I have my list, but I always like me unless it's something compelling, I have limited to a half hour because we both have other things to do, but we get to know each other and understand how to speak, I mean, truthfully to each other, about anything work related. So yeah, that's what it comes down to for me and I think I'll just kind of wrap it up there and say thank you very much, I mean, and we're gonna have a little conversation and Ms. Meyer, someone will escort you out of it and then we'll talk and have you back, yeah. Can I take a quick four minute break? Oh, please, please. Do we want to take a recess or do we want to? Well, I think I'm gonna take like a five, seven, eight. All right, I would just ask that you please mute your mics. Sure. Mute. Mute, yeah. Thank you. All righty, so I'm gonna go down the line in order to seniority. Ms. Mott. I think that I know the interview, Mr. Feeney really solidified it for me in terms of eventually it's one of us making a motion to authorize the chair to take the next step. I don't want to get ahead of myself because I'm my board, my colleagues, because I'm just one person and I do want to thank the chair, Mr. Diggins and our colleague, Mr. DeCorsi, also known as AKA Mr. Diggins plus one in this process with the town manager search in the sense that ultimately it's a board decision and we could have just started the process off from the bad and just said if three or more of us agree that who our next town manager is gonna be but that's not the process that has evolved over my time here on the board. And I know all the hours and it seems to increase every time we go through a town manager search in terms of who our representatives are to starting the process, to establishing a screening committee, to organizing a screening committee and then taking all those steps. I know they had, I believe, three different Zoom meetings to get us the four finalists and so I'm comfortable. Tonight really solidified it for me and I'd like to hear from my colleagues their thoughts on that before myself or anyone else possibly makes a motion. And then I have a process question after that which would be real quick. You heard? Sorry, what was the question? Do we have general comments? Yeah, all right, all right. So I, again, I mean we talked about this in past meetings or it's about the process and I think we're all comfortable again that all the individuals that we chose from the consultant to the screening committee to the members of the board that have been involved in the process have thoroughly tried to get as many applicants and as well-qualified field as we could and we got a number of applicants. We had a well-qualified screening committee and they sent us four qualified applicants and I am very comfortable with the process that we've gone through. It's certainly without, it's out of our hands that three applicants withdrew but I understand that there's gonna be some people that aren't happy with the process the way it went and that's unfortunate but again, I am comfortable that about how the processes work to get us to tonight and I, again, wanna thank everyone that has been involved in the process. That being said, Mr. Feeney is certainly someone that is known to the members of this board and the members of the public and for me, he has a wealth of municipal experience in general but also just in this town, how the town operates. You always hear the phrase, you can hit the ground running while it's certainly, Mr. Feeney is a candidate that can do that on day one and I was impressed with his interview and what I'm mainly impressed with is, I don't want somebody to come in and tell me that they have all the answers and I don't want someone to come in and tell me that they are the greatest applicant that has ever been an applicant in municipal government because then someone's just lying to you and I like, and when someone comes in and tells me that they don't know everything and they're continually learning and they're open to learning and they open to working, hearing new ideas and working collaboratively with staff and the board. That's something that's really important to me and I think that's something that we heard today and at the end of the day, it's who is going to work hardest for the town of Arlington and who's going to work to improve on all of the efforts that we have been undertaking for years. The improvements in town government and in town general are an ongoing process that's been happening over 10, 20, 30 years and we want to make sure that somebody that fits in fits in to carry on what we've worked to improve so much and I think certainly his role being in town for so long helps him do that but again, I wouldn't see a hard worker and I actually had envisioned that he'd be here to talk about this and maybe I could have said before but I mean, one of the things went, we didn't know who the candidate was until the last meeting. That's just not, we're not privy to that information and when I heard it was Mr. Feeney, you just say, all right, how is he as an employee? How does he work with other employees in town? And I certainly know he is well-liked by anyone that works with him. He's easy to work with which means he is again a collaborative worker. He listens and he doesn't come down on people. He doesn't talk down to people because you can't have that relationship if with other employees, whether above you, under you, lateral to you, if you do and then again just general ideas of hard work and we have a mutual friend, Mike Libby, who runs the Son of a Homeless Coalition and I've told this story before. I don't think in this meeting, but just an example, when I think of Jim Feeney, that, and I'll say this as briefly as possible, over the few years back, there were a lot of efforts put in place to clean up the Mugar property and there was inhabitants there and the town was working with the inhabitants to keep them safe and keep the neighborhood safe and at some point the inhabitants were no longer living at that property and when they left, there was a large amount of debris and we as a board and the town got many complaints. I know Mr. Corsi was there a number of times and Mike as part of the Son of a Homeless Coalition was also very involved with the property and of the debris, there was a lot of hazardous materials and paraphernalia so they were having difficulty trying to get a contractor to go in and clear the property and Mike said he went down there one day and all of a sudden there were these big bags of trash on the side of the road and you could hear somebody running in and out of the property and he's like, who is this? They finally found a contractor to come in and clean up this property and it was Jim Feeney by himself clearing up this Mugar property, lugging huge pieces of trash and getting into a receptacle that the town had provided and that alone just shows a level of work ethic that you just can't get from all individuals that you put in front of you to go in there and go way beyond his job description. I don't know what it was at the time, he's worn so many hats but it certainly wasn't that and a guy that rolls up his sleeves and does the work is someone that you know is going to work hard for the town and my second example is much briefer. We had town day for the first time in a few years last year and I am part of the town day duties that no one wanted to do was chalk the spaces. That was like, people would do anything in the world but they didn't want to show up in town at 4.30 in the morning to chalk out the individual spaces for booths. So I said, I'll do it and Jim volunteered and remember the DPW volunteer and I showed up at five in the morning with coffee, I'm like, I'm gonna be the first one here and I'm gonna get everyone going, I'm gonna show everybody how hard I work and then all of a sudden, Jim comes down with his green OSHA approved outfit on and he's like, we got it all done. I think he probably got there at four in the morning and I think Jim is the type of guy that puts the extra effort beyond what is asked of him. Anytime as a board member, I've reached out to Jim and asked for something, I've got a response right away and I've got a solution right away and for me that beyond all things is what I look for an applicant is someone who puts in the work and is open to new ideas and I certainly have seen that in his role in town and I saw that in his interview tonight. So I was impressed again with Mr. Feeney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I'll start with the process and then talk about the interview tonight and go Mr. Hurd's comments. I was very comfortable with the process and what came out of that process and the fact that there were four names that came out of that initial screening. It's not the one candidate who's left's fault that three people pulled out and I wasn't at the meeting last week but I did see Attorney Hyde's comments where one of the reasons why, it might not have been the only reason, but Attorney Hyde mentioned one of the reasons was there was an internal candidate and the board learned that night through the internal candidate was well. After what we saw tonight would have been completely unfair to go back, in my view, and start over again because people didn't go forward because it was an internal candidate, not fair to Mr. Feeney and perhaps not fair to people in future searches but he put himself out, he got through the process and I think that would have sent the wrong message to him if we had started over. Coming to tonight, I was very impressed with the interview and we have the advantage of seeing Jim's work over the years in different contexts and I was going to mention the mute guy, clean up as well Mr. Heard but there were two other, another issue that a few years ago there was a flooding issue on Thorndike Street that some homeowners were having some issues with and Jim was contacted and within 24, 36 hours there was an engineering solution that he had started coordinating with DPW and to the satisfaction of the neighbors and I think when we talk about Jim and I always refer to him Jim Feeney gets things done and that's what I've seen and one other example, just one of the nights Mr. Poole wasn't able to attend is January 23rd we had a select board meeting and there's four or five issues that came up that night and they weren't direct questions of Mr. Feeney I asked a question about the number of cab stand spaces up at the heights and there was a question about Chestnut Street and a few things and at five o'clock the next day we got a memo from Mr. Feeney saying just want to follow up with the board on things that happened I was very impressed with that in terms of that follow up and in terms of the questions yeah there are areas because of his experience in town that he hasn't had direct involvement with but it was refreshing to hear I don't know that I want to learn but what he did talk about I was very impressed so I thought the interview went really well Thank you Yeah by Virgil being on this screening committee I mean I saw a lot more from Jim and heard a lot more and so it was easy for me to advance him along with the other three to the finalists and my story from town day was different in that we were struggling with what groups need to accept because we had a policy meaning of not allowing political groups meaning to participate and there were those of us who felt that we needed to change that and there's a little bit of a struggle because we understood the reason for why it hadn't been the case and those who had done it for a while were really advising us not to do that it's hard to go against that kind of advice and like I said we understood the rationale but we pushed forward and I didn't want to use the I word because I didn't feel I didn't want to feel as if I was really like pushing too hard for it the I word is inclusion and Jim said you know we just need to be more inclusive and I felt that he really understood I mean that because it certainly has this risk you know and the risk really weren't so much for last year as much as it is for this year and maybe and we but it's like you take it on and you're like okay we're gonna have to deal with this as community perhaps you know but let's not be afraid to do that and move forward so that impressed me and so I didn't really dwell on this I mean tonight at all but in the screening process we became apparent I mean that one of his weaknesses I mean is his municipal experience his regional experience I mean he doesn't really have a whole lot of connections I mean outside of Arlington and that's by virtue of the fact I mean that when Adam would go and do those things Jim would take care of the shop I mean and so that's something he realizes he's going to need to work on but given his personality you know I have no doubts I mean that he will have it'll be easy for him to make those connections and when we took input from residents about what should go into a town manager I mean there was a suggestion that we look at unconventional candidates and I think to a certain extent even though Jim grew up in the system because he did grow up in the system and he wasn't coming in as a top level person from any other community I mean he was a bit of an unconventional candidate and one thing he made it really clear was that and this is something I really appreciate was that if we didn't advance him he was going to stay with the community he just made it really clear that this wasn't a case where I mean I'm deputy and if I don't get moved up I mean he just it was I wouldn't say it was a promise because well I mean people do what they can but it was pretty solid you know that he really meant that and that meant a lot to me and I feel that it's easy to work with Jim he did me some hands-on stuff at town day you know I just know he's going to continue doing that he can say he's not going to do that all he wants we know he is you know and I also know that he's going to we want him to pull back you know he'll try you know but people ask me how I get a lot done and what I do is I try to get me one whatever action I do to serve more than one purpose I mean and so I'm not a multi-tasker I mean I can't do more than one thing at a time but I certainly try to make an action serve more than one person and I think we're going to see that in Jim so with that I mean I'm going to I thought you said no okay I'm sorry I thought we I mean do you remember that so yeah no oh yeah yeah yeah and I was I was I was deferring to you in that so yeah okay sure fine okay go ahead please thank you no I've uh one of the many benefits of being the junior member on the board is how much I get to learn from my colleagues and I I mean that I've learned a great deal over the last two years and tonight going into the town manager search process I think that we were all daunted by the realities of the municipal hiring market we knew it was really tight really competitive and top jobs here in Massachusetts we're going with this with a sort of an alarmingly low number of applicants and I think it's to Arlington's credit that we had a large number of applicants or a healthy number of ones who went through a rigorous screening process we emerged with four highly qualified candidates and through the circumstances that that my colleagues have outlined here we are and what I say to that is how extraordinarily fortunate Arlington is that when the curtain was pulled back and we found that the the candidate that was remaining in the process was one that we happened to know really well as somebody who is an extraordinary problem solver person of integrity person of an over almost an overwhelming array of skills and adaptability loves the town enough and wants to serve in its most demanding job to lead this community and tonight just solidified that for me as well you want to know how our town manager would react under difficult circumstances try starting the meeting a half hour late while you sit there and sweat for technical problems to go on you don't even know if you're going to have your interview tonight because of that and you wouldn't have known it from the breadth of knowledge that he showed his thoughtfulness his honesty his creativity I think we all have a Jim Feeney town day story mine is that there was a problem with a generator that was generating exhaust and blowing on some other booths and someone came to I was I was staffing the the info booth someone said what to do about it so I texted Jim and I don't know half hour later 45 minutes later you know sorted out what did you do well I went over to shatties and I bought I bought some ducting and then we set up a fan and we moved the the fumes the other way and it's all it's all set and I thought to myself you know the town manager doesn't normally do that but I want to even back then before we knew anything was going on here I thought you know that's the kind of creativity that frankly we need for our really big problems somebody who will think outside the box and will just take charge and and do it economically I can testify that we're having worked with Mr. Feeney for several years on the CPA committee that he's right about being fiscally conservative and I guess I would use the term fiscally cautious that we we when we look at our estimated revenues we look at the worst case scenario and we plan for that and we look for our expenditures we look for the least amount we can spend and trim back the scope to only what we really really need so I think all of that for me makes a really appealing package and I am comfortable that we couldn't do better thank you so much so I'd like to make a motion to authorize the chair to enter into contract negotiations with Mr. James Feeney for the position of Arlington's next town manager and then if there's a second or another motion then I have a process question after that oh second all right question Mr. Chief is that is that a motion to appoint Mr. Feeney it's a subject to the contract negotiations correct thank you um and then my process question is what we've done in the past and if it still applies under state law so I would ask the chair and or attorney Heim that um an executive session I don't see it being more than 20 30 minutes just in terms of giving the chair some direction um on the salient and or all of the items in the contract that need to be negotiated I mean some of them are pretty perfunctory I think if you're talking about vacation or personal or stuff like that but then there's some other things so if I could Mr. Chair if I could ask the attorney Heim am I correct is that something that the board needs to do in executive session? Thank you for that Mr. Chair. Who's that? Can you talk to him? If you mute over here that'll help. Yeah that's fine. There we go. All right thank you Ashley. You're welcome. Go ahead Mr. Heim I think we can hear you now. Thank you Mr. Heim. Yes uh the vice chair is correct traditionally what this board has done is entered an executive session to purposes of contract engagement negotiations with non-union personnel it's depending on how long uh you need to to engage in that you've engaged in the sort of developing the board's position um you've sort of voted to approve a contract and then you come out of executive session and essentially finalize that contract in that appointment so uh sort of a two-step process that first is going into executive session to um sort of come to terms with respect to any negotiation or any position that you have um you can even do that with um you can even do that with uh Mr. Feeney waiting essentially to you know approve that contract that he's so amenable and then you come out of executive session and make your sort of approve the contract and make your sort of final appointment. Is that what you were contemplating Mrs. It is except for we can't do that tonight because it's not on our agenda. Um I just want to unmute when they talk. Sorry. Sorry um yes I do except for we cannot do that tonight because we do not have an executive session scheduled um so uh the chair will have to um I don't know if you want to first take the vote to authorize the chair into that and then take that next step so I'll stop there. Yeah so me my thinking was that me that would be on the agenda for the following meeting on the 3rd and to go into executive session and uh so I'm sorry Mr. Chair I couldn't get right about what you said. I'm sorry so my my plan was to put that on the agenda for Monday's meeting for the executive session. Is that important? Executive session to talk about the parameters of the contract and then that means it would be the following week or another scheduled meeting where we actually have the public session to hire Mr. Phoenix. I can't see us you know what I mean? Yeah yeah if I could I'm sorry yeah well I I think the board has to have that first meeting then make contact with Mr. Feeney and if things move rapidly then it's the week after if it takes a little longer then it's it's a it's a subsequent meeting but I I think as a board we need to have that initial initial discussion and I think it makes sense to have it next Monday. So if I could ask the outgoing chair and the chairman pro temp for the August 3rd of April 3rd I'll add. There's definitely an executive session on it. Yeah I'll add to enter. Okay that's negotiations. Sure sure and yeah and the reason that it wasn't put on me for okay is that you just didn't want to sue me. No no no yeah no I told you. And so and so my thought was that I mean we probably had enough of a framework from previous most reason that that we could get the process started but I certainly am fine with with with waiting to even start until next next week because it's not like I don't have other things to do. All right so okay that's all right so that's where we are you know so we have the motion mean to see I can read this back. To authorize the chair you know to begin negotiations after meeting with the select board in executive session on April 3rd and to enter into negotiations with Mr. Feeney regarding the position. So yes. And to clarify that is that is included inclusive that is an emotion to appoint Mr. Feeney as our next town manager. Correct. Yes thank you. The guy has some legal significance. All right thank you. All right I appreciate that. So then so we have the motion by Ms. Mohan and second by Mr. Hurd. Yes. So Mr. Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Hold on a second please Mr. Heim. I'm sorry just a second hold on a second. I'm fine with that. Mr. Heim second Mr. Hurd. Who goes first? Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Helmeth. Yes. Mrs. Heim. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Dickens. Yes. All right. It's a five zero vote. All right. Well done Mrs. Mohan. Thank you. We're juggling a lot here. You're demoted Steve. Sorry. So I am going to ask to table the presentation next week partly for the technical issues. Move to table till April. Third. Second. All right. So we need to take a vote on that or not. Oh yep sorry. Motion by Mrs. Mohan seconded by Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Helmeth. Yes. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. And Mr. Dickens. Yes. Jumbling me up. Yeah. The five zero vote. Yeah. So normally it goes by in order of seniority and then the vice chair and then the chair you know so so so then. I'm demoting. Sorry Mr. DeCorsi. That's why that's why he said that. So okay moving on to the consent agenda we have the minutes of the meeting for March 13th 2023 and the number five Heights Spring Spring Fling Festival on Saturday June 5th 2023 Janet O'Riden Arlington Heights Community Association. Number six request contractor drain layer license. Manola Santiago Chavez Urez the iron heartscape in Masonry and number seven appointment of election workers. Move approval. Motion by Mr. Hurd. Second. Second by Mr. Helmeth. Any comments questions. Okay so. Mr. Hurd. So on a motion to approve this consent. Second by Mr. Helmeth. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Helmeth. Yes. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. And Mr. Dickens. Yes. Thank you. So now we have appointments for the registers and I do not have that element up on my screen here so I'm not quite sure who it is that we're pointing now. So there are three people for that have submitted letters of interest to be on the border for registrars. Mr. Kepline. Mr. Hegel. Hegel. I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong. And Ms. Donner-Rose Russian. All right. If you would like. Mr. Yes. Please. Mr. Chair. Yes. Just a question. Just to clarify there's one position available on the border registers. Yes. That's correct. All right. So still yours. Yes. Can Mr. Kepline. Yes. Thanks. I'm Mark Kepline. I'm the acting chair of the Republican town committee. We're sort of in the process of completely turning over the old guard to their new replacements sort of picking up after the pandemic and all so. We submitted four names just to give you guys a choice. John Hybel is one and let's see. Donner-Rose Russian is another myself and Sterling Smith. I don't know how many if John should have been online. He's been promoted. Yes. Okay. And Sterling. We did not receive a letter of interest. Right. Is she online though. No she didn't. They did not submit. That's too bad. Okay. So yeah it was a little bit of a challenge rounding up some recruits and volunteers and John's a solid man and I don't know if you want to hear from him. He can make his pitch. Sure. Oh John. And maybe the other way but I'll do my best. Can you all hear me. Yes. Good. So I'm a small business owner in the town of Arlington and my although my business is conducted out of town in a sort of remote location several towns away but I have an interest in in voter integrity issues that affect a lot of the towns in the Commonwealth and in particular because this is the town I live in I lived here for 27 years there is a good number of voters that are on the registration rolls that are not entitled to vote so to speak because they've moved out of town and lived out of town for more than six months and that's essentially we have a database that's a little clouded and I feel and many people feel would need to be cleaned up by ascertaining what the or matching the numbers and the names of people that are registered in the town to vote with a national database which there are several that can do this where the voters or the persons have moved out of town and so and we don't know how many of them have actually been have voted but there are a significant number of names on the list that are that that don't match up with the the actual data in the town for the persons who who who can vote if I'm describing that correctly and it is something that I can help the clerk because it's a big job you know going through the list and matching the list with people who are have who have moved out of town whose names are still on the list so it's something I can help with using the ncoa ncoa database which is a national database and it's fairly easy to do and help the clerk sort of clean up the voter rolls it's a sort of simple process but it's something that needs to be done and with the with the amount of work that that town has to do and the registrar's office has to do I feel that it's something I can help with along with working at the polls and chatting with people and making sure that everybody's happy and have had their coffee and are voting and things are going along well so I submit my name for that position as a registered um or as a member of the registrar's board of elections and I can ask you the questions or answer any questions that people may have thank you and can you briefly tell me how you pronounce your last name okay thank you so um any questions I there's Mr. Kaplan and is um Ms. Donna um Russian no she's not present at the meeting but she did submit a letter of interest that's in the board's packet yeah I see that you know so so I turn to my colleagues well Mr. Kaplan do you want to say anything yeah I wanted to explain that so there was this United States Postal Service change of address database and it was found that over 1400 names on that database of people who've left Arlington and are still in the voters roles and that's this is a complaint that John raised with the board of registrars and um I think they're the uh Julie is sending out letters to those people and getting responses from them to find out if they indeed have moved away or if they're still here and um or just temporarily moved so that's what he was talking about and it's it's a lot of work to to clean up some of these names and myself I've been working on another issue which is mgl chapter 51 section one which disqualifies voters who are incarcerated with a felony or have an appointed administrator so if they're in a coma or um say impaired somehow um have Alzheimer's or something they don't get kicked off the roles except by timing out and aging out of them they're still eligible to vote and the concern is that people could vote for them using the mail-in ballot system which has grown quite a bit and it's becoming a central part of the voting process so those are the issues that are kind of up in the air but you know it's it's a slow process of mailing out letters and Julie's doing a good job on that um so um my own candidacy I would like to see John take the role because I'm I'm busy with other hats and and the activity is chair of the the town committee so but it's it's important to have a balanced board of registrars with two democrats and two republicans and so that's what we're trying to achieve thank you thank you every process is different traditionally um when I've been on the board we received a name from the republican town committee and I guess the the beauty of tonight is we have a bounty of names um and uh I'm sort of keeping in mind of the letters that have been submitted that we've all read and and we've heard from um two of the five candidates um as well as myself the majority of them uh I'm familiar with and or have interacted or worked with in the past so um just thinking of the board of registrars and um the opportunity we have I would myself personally would like to nominate Donna Rose what should I second that much any um comments questions any other nominations any other nominations right and so so um we have a motion to nominate um Donna Rose Russian by Mr. Mohan and a second by Mr. Herd helmet was Mr. Herd was Mr. I'm sorry Mr. last time I really no actually I'm sorry that's my job as vice-chair so I have something to do no no no I appreciate no actually actually it wasn't even a matter of like me not thinking the right yeah I actually heard is Mr. um so thank you um um so um um Mr. Herd yes Mr. DeCorsi yes Mr. Helmet yes Mrs. Mohan yes Mr. Dick Ensign yes we'll move on to um traffic rule and orders future select board meetings you know so April 3rd for sure um April 10th uh-huh we don't want to do April 10th also no no that will be like the 25th in a row the reason the reason the reason I say that though is because we uh we we have to yeah unfortunately yeah yeah we have to all right all right because we'll have a hearing then yeah we'll have to vote the final draft of the select board report to town meeting to get printed and sent out to town members yeah the 17th is also a holiday so I will note that we will not be meeting that Monday the school vacation week on a plus um yeah and then the following Monday is town town meeting and sometimes we meet before then I just wanted to get on the record for 10 because the last meeting is that we had scheduled was April 3rd so we had to vote at least one more can I yes process question sorry um a starting town meeting the 24th every Monday and Wednesday will start at 7 p.m. unless there is I guess I would ask my colleagues and or the chairman of the long range uh learning committee do you anticipate the only reason we've met even earlier during town meeting at seven o'clock is because it's usually for a budget financial debt exclusion override sort of around that conversation and not that it has to be answered tonight but um I would ask either a if the chairman of long range planning has any comment about when he anticipates I know we said April um and if for some reason it gets into April 24th or after um whether it's a earlier town meeting night um board meeting or it's a not a Monday Wednesday so yeah and and we talked about this at long range planning um last week I I think and and else mr. pool or two if he wants to anything but I I see a presentation not a requested vote but a presentation on April 3rd with perhaps something on the agenda for the 10th um or a special meeting that would have to be the first half of the month just because of timing issues so I think it would be the 3rd and the 10th but um if if I could mr. chairman mr. pooler wants to elaborate on that at all I think what mr. of course he said is exactly right presentation on the 10th tip on the 3rd vote on the 10th okay thank you all right so date set you know not the reason for the 10th meeting mr. hard sorry so um anyone know any divorce lawyers sorry um yes i'm just looking at my list of things that are likely to be on for the 3rd and i'm starting to wonder about the wisdom of the youth art banner um for that night so and we table to a date certain so we're supposed to do it and i guess when we get there we could table again in this informally you know communicate but there's a lot going on that night so i'm just i'm just raising that for for those powers that be that are uh planning the agenda for monday to think about sure sure yeah so um could I on that mr. chair could i change my motion to a motion to postpone on the agenda item three so a motion to postpone on on the presentation of the arson youth banner and um by mr. behind the second by mr. helmets um mr. hard yes mr. recourse yes mr. helmeth yes mr. mahan yes yes thank you thank you and i'll just add me that there is the presentation in in the packet you know and and statements with the students you know which is the most important part about it sorry so i was just adding that the the um the presentations in the packet any along with the student statements mean uh and and so it had just been um they wanted to do a little presentation it was in the consent agenda in and uh and so it was an appropriate time to deal with it then you know just wanted to give it a little more time tonight you know but but um for obvious reasons we're moving forward and we have postponed it you know and but the information is there so you can check it out all right you know so onto a warrant article hearing articles for review um first up article 24 in endorsement of cdbg application hi good evening good evening thank you for your time tonight i'm mary musinski the community development block grant administrator i'll be presenting the cdbg subcommittee's recommendation for program 40 not year 49 fiscal year 2023 this year we received 20 applications from 14 organizations and town departments the request totaled 1,394,918 dollars um these applications were reviewed by the cdbg subcommittee members individually using a rubric for evaluating projects and then reviewed collectively during two subcommittee meetings the subcommittee identified the projects that meet the greatest need for low to moderate income individuals in the community and recommended those projects for funding the subcommittee established a budget totaling 1,058,933 dollars which is our anticipated allocation from HUD for program year 49 the approved applications are split into the following categories affordable housing public services public facilities and improvements and planning and administration i'd like to thank the members of the select board who are members of the cdbg subcommittee as well as our resident subcommittee members and of course mr pooler at this time i'd like to request the select board and town manager approve the cdbg budget for program year 49 and move the cdbg report to town meeting for endorsement thank you i'll just note that the town manager has a vote on this tonight right so we'll be six yeah great so before we do the hearing part any comments or questions yeah i just said i want to again thank everybody for their work um and just say i think for the first this year more than any other year we had to make some tough decisions we cut a lot because we have statutory limit and we have a lot we had a lot of new applications we had a few positions that requested and to anyone looking you know we from the outside looking in the committee spent a lot of time looking at the individual requests and they are tough decisions and you know certainly to those that weren't funded it wasn't for lack of a great idea or a great opportunity we just want i always say i like the cdbg committee because we get to give out money it's people like us we're giving them money but it's generally not the case that we're telling people no and we had to do that kind of in spades this year and it's our hands are tied there's nothing we could do about it but um certainly invite people that didn't get funded to reapply next year and it could be a certain different situation but i do want to again thank everyone involved for it is a long process that we go through to to get to these recommendations and we're in our second or third year with citizen involvement on on the board so and that's really worked out well to have different perspectives than just the board members deciding how to allocate the funds so that has been really an excellent move in making these these funds more community-based um so just want to add that so this is a hearing and so is anywhere anyone in zoomland want to say anything i'm not seeing any hands you know so yeah so i'll come back to my colleagues i'd like to move favorable action on article 24 second comments so um so uh yes i like what i see here mean and we certainly saw a lot mean of uh the the proponents came to me to a meeting a couple months ago i mean and so we got um along with their statements mean their verbal statements we got uh very good descriptions of all of the projects in and i can certainly understand the difficulty of your decisions mean um and so so um i appreciate the work my colleagues have done on this mean i'm sure a lot of times it going to it so i'm happy to um full positive action on this too so uh a motion positive action by miss mahan and a second by mr herd mr herd yes mr decors yes mr helmet yes mrs mahan yes mr diggins yes and mr pooler yes thank you all right thank you thank you thank you thank you for staying i know bless you it's over and above the call of duty bye bye okay so on article 25 revolving funds if you want to just mute your mic i think it's going to be either mr pooler or mr hon yeah mr pools mr pooler or mr hon is wondering sorry i was just um mr chair if i may uh what you have in front of you is a list of the uh revolving funds um and a history of their um spending and recommendations for their um amounts to be authorized for the coming year um and the there's no change in the number of revolving funds i'd be happy to go through the details of anything any of the funds on the list but just to remind the public that these are funds where uh i'm being authorized as expenditures up to a certain dollar amount we take in fees uh into these funds and you can the departments can spend up to the authorized amount but not over it um and we use these for several special kind of interest uh categories um and we've been doing this in the town for many years so i would again be happy to answer any questions uh but would certainly urge the board to vote yes thank you so my colleagues for any questions or comments all right this is a hearing you know anyone on zoom wants to say anything see any answers okay back for a motion move favorable action second okay question comments yes mr dacorsi yes mr homa yes mrs mahan yes mr diggins yes thank you so on now to article 33 endorsement of parking district expenditures um so mr pooler yes thank you um there is a budget in your packet this is uh for parking benefits district uh expenditures of um 350 425 dollars uh of which um 280 425 goes toward um maintenance operations and um actually what i see here says 70 000 for parking benefits district but i don't believe that that figure is right um ashley if you could help me with that i think what we voted mr herd was there too i think we voted uh some close to 130 000 so i'm a little confused just what's in the packet i'm sorry mr pooler yeah i'm holding out on the needs i'm sorry mr pooler which line are you talking about 70 000 under the parking benefits district subtotal uh improvements uh that go beyond what's on this budget and i will apologize because i think um i may have supplied this budget to the board but the parking benefits district did vote uh to approve a larger budget than this um if you will give me one second well i guess this is a question for mr herd since we don't have the proper numbers here we might i might ask for you to um for table this uh until the proper numbers are on the agenda uh and for the public to see before the board takes a vote yeah i'll send a motion to table because it's not in it's not just i think the the numbers is the breakdown of what it goes to um i think is incorrect so we'll have to take a look at that again um so i'll spend a motion to postpone this and i'll second that and i'll just say um i would have and now we'll have a question um regarding chestnut street when we do have this back on the agenda so i just had a question about that but when we discuss it thank you thank you thank you thank you sorry for having confusion there that's okay that's okay that's okay let's go ahead and have a mean and so i wasn't quite sure how to read this me so it wasn't apparent to me that anything was missing me uh uh so okay great and so on a motion to postpone you know by mr herd and second by mr madness is mahan you know i'll take it mr from another sister right yes mr de coursey yes mr helmet yes mr mahan yes mr diggins yes five zero vote great all righty you know so um so my understanding is that we do not have um comments for final votes i mean that will come you know next week you know so on to um correspondence received you know we have opposition to potential overnight parking pilot by darcy definitely move receipt second all right any questions comments so a motion received by mrs mahan and a second by mr helmet mr herd yes mr de coursey yes mr helmet yes mrs mahan yes mr diggins yes five zero vote all right new business um miss mire um no no new business thank you sir um mr heim cooler to announce this but i would like anybody listening at home to know that we've appointed a new treasurer for the town and a torel who is our deputy treasurer uh she's come worked for the town for a couple of years now and come to us from town of weyland before that uh and we're very excited now to have that position filled we'll continue to offer her some support and guidance from our at interim treasurer going forward but in the meantime it is important that a key financial position in town is filled going forward thank you thank you of course of course thank you mr chairman um yeah i have a couple pieces of new business the first thing i'd like to start with i think um it's going to show up on the screen in in a moment but uh for those of you who have been following march madness uh the men's division one college basketball tournament uh you see a picture there benzley joseph benzley's from arlington plays for the university of miami uh he went to the tomson school he went to arlington high for a couple of years and he is the sixth man on on miami's team they have made the final four and will play uconn this saturday and uh he um played travel basketball in arlington when he started and and uh it just a great young man and a real leader on on the university of miami team and i know there's a number of us here in town i couldn't be happier for him and and for what he's done individually and what the team has done so um this weekend i'm rooting for miami and the in the final four and uh hopefully they want it all but he had a um great game against indiana two sessions ago in the albany regional hit a big three-pointer down the stretch and um has had it has been at miami two years they made the elite eight last year this year they're going to the final four so congratulations to benzley and best of luck for him in miami the next thing i'd like to thank you mr chairman uh for your leadership this year as as our chair um it it is always challenging in in this hybrid type and in environment and everything that we're doing i thought you did a great job and i really appreciate your leadership and really um i thought you did a great job at keeping us informed in terms of where things were we're going so i want to thank you for for that and i also want to thank mrs mahan uh for her work as vice chair this year and i thought the two of you worked really well together um made it easy for the other members at at meeting so thank you both sir um i want to thank uh acknowledge yesterday the irlington might triple a team for their valley league championship they uh they beat three teams to get there that they had lost two more times than they won um during the season and they they beat dead him yesterday and they'd never beaten dead him before so it was it was a great win for them um if you can't tell one of my two boys was on the team dylan the younger one was the gold tender he's taken on that role for the that team and he was able to achieve something that his brother brother was unable to do the year before so he has that to hang over his head um and on a serious note i too would just like to thank you for your leadership this year i think certainly more than when i was there was a lot of stuff that the chair had to take on and there was a lot of responsibilities beyond just running the meeting regarding the time manager surge process working with with me and the town staff on the for town day um and the whole host of additional duties and he did so very well and you weren't afraid to put the tough items on the agenda and you really get us through a clear items off our plate that were lingering for a while and just specifically with meetings i think you listen to the board and even at times went beyond your own comfort zone to acquiesce to what the board had wished to do for the way these meetings have been running so certainly thank you for that and mrs mahan who gives us great institution institutional knowledge about the board and it's always helpful to get inside as to how the board has operated if you look at you know the pictures in the back there's a lot been a lot of turnover in the past few years so it's certainly helpful to have that knowledge from times past to help us get through our items so thank you both for your service this year comment thank you other than co-signing everything that my colleagues had just said i have no new business thank you so much so i'm not sure repeat what my colleagues have said but i do want to thank the chair for allowing me to be vice chair with you you certainly put your imprint on chair of the select board and really slipped into it seamlessly gave me a new acknowledgement and an understanding of resolutions and we'll continue to discuss that in the future and thank you to my colleagues for the kind remarks and anyone who's hung in here with us to the end um please go out and vote in your local elections please go to a cmi um my linton community media incorporated incorporated to hear about all the different candidates uh early voting is still continuing tuesday and wednesday if not make sure if you're one of the i think approximately six thousand that have asked to vote um by mail and drop off in the ballot boxes located in town and if not get out on saturday april first eight a.m to eight p.m because really your local government affects you the most and affects you the quickest um so hope to see you there and that's it mr chairman so so so a couple of pieces me first is um i think at last we're going to have a meeting um with the chair of the mbt advisory board he was supposed to come out in last year but there was an illness me so he's trying to come out on on the fourth made on his mayor coke of um of quincy made and and i've also been trying to um find out if we can somehow work out in a way for um us to get access to the bike path from downy square me um the current issue is that me um there is a demarcation that's just going to cost a lot of money in and so so i mean no promises on that at all but at least we are i think going to get that issue heard maybe as early as tomorrow by um frank tremitazi who is the mayor's deputy me so so um we're hopefully going to make some movement in and so uh and right now i mean i'm hoping that both um matter of fact chair myself um will meet with mayor coke mean but that will be up to you mr um how am i assuming the planned course of the events mean um and then of course you know hey i want to say thank you to you all you know for for this last year especially you matter of fact chair i mean it's as mr heard said me the institutional knowledge mean it's just phenomenal mean and i relied on that immensely uh you helped out so much doing these meetings you know and then a lot in phone calls meet um um usually on my days meet um um before meetings mean and so um just really invaluable by five fifty a.m buddy i know yes yes me i get up early too so so so i'm texting and i'm just gonna say don't call me a five no no no no i texture at five thirty and then they all usually do you get some time between like six and eight or something meaning sometimes i forget to turn my ringer on you know but you know all of you have just been so helpful meet um and and and you you can tell when people like rooting for you to be successful me and i always got the sense me that that you're rooting for me you know you're helping out but that you're just really rooting for me and that's always such a comforting feeling you know and so not only do i love you all but i like you mean and so when when i think about you all i mean i smile you know and so um it's really been a wonderful experience me and let's say just mean there was a lot to deal with me but i always felt that i could talk with any of you about anything but only one of you because because me like i i i do i do you stick with me i i stay within the the confines me as you know i like haiku you know and so you're limited to 17 syllables me and so for me me yes i like freedom and liberty but you tell me that there's a constraint it's like okay that's a challenge me and now i can have function with that constraint i understand me not on the rationale behind oml and so i do my best to stay in in in those bounds me and and so i've usually had a plus one on a variety of topics and so i've gotten to know you all i mean by dealing with different topics me and and so thank you thank you so much me you know i this is not a role i really imagine myself in you know but but i really like it and immensely it's been a wonderful learning experience me and and not only do i learn stuff i get to do stuff with the knowledge of that i've learned and working um on behalf of residents mean um to me figure out things mean it's really a pleasure so so um so i mean hopefully i'll be back you know but in any case me i wish this board well because me and this is me and everyone here does a great service to the town and me and and that includes me town council and and and town manager and and our board and then so so ironically i'm gonna end with the land acknowledgement which is the result of resolution but we voted for it you know and and and how meeting approved it and i know that initially it was supposed to like be at the beginning of the meetings but as i said a couple of times when i've read it at the end i think mixing it up me kind of makes it me more than just a habit me hopefully we'll just think about it a little more um so because it's at a different point in the meeting me so we acknowledge me that the town of arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the massachusetts tribe the tribe indigenous people from whom the colony province and commonwealth have taken their names we pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic massachusetts territories today and with that i'll take a motion to adjourn to adjourn second so on a motion to adjourn by miss mahalin and second by mr herd heard yes mr decorsi yes mr helmet yes this is mahalin yes and mr degens yes so move that's a ramp