 Welcome to the Arlington Board of Selections meeting for Monday, November 24th, 2014. It's a little past 7.15, and I do call this meeting to order. Sorry for the delay. We're experiencing some difficulties getting onto the internet with our iPads. But we're going to do everything we can to run the meeting as best as possible. Just a reminder, we are being filmed by ACMI. So please smile widely when you're talking in the microphone. And to begin, we have a proclamation for Richard Turcott, who is the chair of our Transportation Advisory Committee. Unfortunately, Richard could not be here tonight, but I will read it anyway, and we will make sure he gets it. So to begin, whereas Arlington is blessed with many citizens who willingly volunteer their time, efforts, and expertise to make important contributions to the well-being and betterment of our community. But there are individuals whose dedication, integrity, and selfless contributions to the public good merit more than quiet thanks. And whereas one such individual, Richard G Turcott, deserves a moment in the community spotlight, although he would be among the last to seek it out or expect it. And whereas Richard, as a member of tech, and has been instrumental working with this board in its countless undertakings with state agencies, town boards, and committees. He has assisted both residents and business owners to develop significant transportation improvements and enhance the safety for all users of our roads and walkways. And whereas he has ushered through many noteworthy projects involved with traffic, parking, transportation issues in the town, along with the town-wide Safe Roots to School program. And whereas there are a few words available to properly express our deepest thanks for Richard's selfless dedication to tax mandates and our admiration for his consistent devotion to Arlington and its citizens. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, the Arlington Board of Selectmen, do thank Richard G Turcott for his many exemplary, important, and irreplaceable contributions which have made Arlington a much more vibrant, progressive, and safer community. And be it further resolved that we, the Arlington Board of Selectmen, do hereby name this 24th day of November, 2014, to be Richard G Turcott Day throughout the town and ask all citizens to pay heed thereto. Shall moved. Second. Thank you with a motion to second. I do just want to note that I had the opportunity to work with Richard on several projects, and he really was a great asset to the community. And we're very sorry to see him go. That being said, any further comments? Seeing none with motion in a second, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you, Richard. Moving on. Consent agenda, minutes of meetings October 6th, 2014, November 10th, 2014. Move approval. Second. Motion in a second. Anyone want to discuss those items? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Moving on. Appointment to the tree committee, Emily Snyder. Not seeing Emily. Maybe she's going to be. I guess. Aye. Jen? Yeah, we can either ask her to come in a couple weeks or approve her and ask her to come in a couple weeks. Perhaps we should approve her and ask her to come and introduce ourselves, I think, just so she can continue conducting business as a member. I move approval. Second. We have a motion in a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Licenses and permits, requests, change of hours for all alcohol restaurant, Monotomy Grill and Tavern, William Lyons. Good evening. Good evening. So yeah, we've decided to launch a brunch at Monotomy. And we're very excited, but we would like the opportunity to compete with some of the other restaurants that open at 11. I think one of them opens at 10 as well. So I would just like the opportunity. Move approval. Second. Discussion. I'm in favor, but just for clarity, we're talking about moving the Sunday hour of opening up one for, or excuse me, not opening, but for serving alcohol up one. Yes, from 12 to 11. So back one. Yeah, back one. Yes, Kevin. And I wonder why we don't just make that change to the alcohol policy completely, although let's give Billy his vote today. But I believe Doug am I right in terms of our handbook, the alcohol policy is next. That's right. So anyhow, but I certainly support this. Yeah, I agree. I think the policy handbook is an appropriate place to discuss this, but I think we can take this for tonight and move forward. Further discussion? Any discussion from the crowd? Seeing none. We have a motion to second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? 5-0. Thanks, Billy. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Moving forward. Request change of hours for all alcohol restaurant. Tango. John. I'm here with Alicia Mermetta running the restaurant. She just wants to move the hours till midnight the opposite end from what Billy was trying to do. Currently, their hours terminate at 11 o'clock. And they want to go to midnight each night of the week. Move approval. Thank you. Second? Motion to second. Discussion from the board? No? I'm in favor. And I know that there are a few restaurants in Arlington Center that have had challenges with the neighbors and noise. I don't think that Tango is one of them. Is there? Who's behind you? I don't even know literally what's behind. There's a mechanic shop behind us, which is closed. Those are perfect late night neighbors. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're literally right behind the Arlington Auto Body off Slant Street. Yeah. OK. Thank you. Further discussion from the board? Seeing none. Any discussion from the crowd? Seeing none. With a motion to second all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening. Have a good Thanksgiving. Thank you, John. Thank you. Moving on. Citizens open forum. Except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open meeting law was established. Should be noted that there is a three minute time limit to present a concern or request. Did everyone have an opportunity to sign up for a Citizens Open Forum on the sign up sheet outside? So this is a new policy that we're working with. So moving forward, if you are here for Citizens Open Forum, please sign up before you come in. So we'll start at the top of the list with Claire Bryant from 70 Kensington Park. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here because we're very concerned on Kensington Park that somebody is at 82 Kensington Park putting a house in a sideways so that it goes down at a very, very small lot. It is a legal lot. We know that you oversee all of the departments and we know. But I would like you to come and look at Kensington Park. You are all overseers of all of the boards. And it's a little disturbing to think the town might be going in a direction that we really don't want. I'm a lifelong resident of Arlington and it's very sad to see somebody putting a house and disrupting. And actually I called Fred Ryan today to say that I think there's some safety issues there as well. He said he would look into them and I'm sure he will. It's a bigger picture and you people supervise the town boards. And I think that I would like you to take a look and give an opinion about how this is going to go down the road. The contractor who is doing it doesn't live in Arlington. He lives in a town that wouldn't allow this. And it's pretty sad to see it. And so that's my request that you come and look and let us know just what to do and how you feel about it. My question is can you tell me just what's the nature of it that's I'm happy to go look. But through your eyes what is it that's the challenge there? Is it too big? Is it wrong? Well it is a 60 foot house on a 61 foot piece of property that goes way back. And it's three and a half stories high. And it is crowding out, first of all, a historic wall, a stone wall, not on that property but on the property next door. I am not in a buttock, but it's appalling to see what is happening. They've changed because they're not taking down the house, the original house. They're just squeezing a house in beside it. And in order to do that, they have to take that driveway away and put a driveway on the other side, which goes right up against two houses. I mean, it's just awful looking. And I don't think it's safe. So I would appreciate it if you'd take it into consideration. Thank you. Mr. Really? Well, it has to be at least 70 feet, right? It has to have at least 70 feet front edge. I don't like to say what I don't know. And I really don't know that. But it's just if you I did go down to the department and look at the plans, because I thought before I talked about this, I had to find out if it was all right. It complies. Yeah. It complies. So I guess that's not a concern, because if it complies, it does. I'm concerned about the town. We want the town to look like this. This man who's putting it in, where he lives, he can't do this. Pay attention to it. What is the actual address? 82. 82. Yeah, thank you. It's we're not happy with what we would call McMansions going up, as big a home as possibly could be. But if it meets all legal requirements, but I promise you, I will go look at it. Yes, ma'am. Where are we going? What's going to happen here? Is that unattractive? Maybe it's even unsafe. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Cure. Thank you very much. I was actually contacted by one of the butters to the property and spoke to them. And as far as I understand everything that you said is correct, it complies. I do understand that there is an issue for us to be looking at with the street damage there. And I spoke to the manager on this. And my understanding is that the contractor has been informed that any damage to the street, which is relatively new, will have to be repaired. Is that correct? That is correct. And lastly, I just encourage you to please stay for a few minutes more, because we're going to be talking about the big picture when our master plan, our planning director is here in the master plan committee. And it's all talking about the big picture and what the town will look like. Thank you. Thank you. Further discussion? Moving on. Ben Galini and Gina Cadigan. Hello. Hi. Hello. My name is Gina Cadigan, and I'm a senior at Arlington High School. And I'm Ben Galini. I'm also a senior at Arlington High School. And we're here today to discuss the topic of installing solar panels in Arlington Town buildings and specifically in Arlington High School in light of the new renovation plans for it. We believe the money spent on electricity and energy is a rising issue in our town. And an efficient energy source in the future is necessary. With solar panels, we could reduce our carbon footprint and do our part to help save the environment. Overall, we can help the world with reducing our global warming contributions and help Arlington gain more money to put it towards necessary needs of our education system. Solar panels are the best options for us because the electricity gained from the sun runs through an inverter. And that inverter can be connected to the local electricity system. Some major positives of solar panels, first of all, they're renewable, so there's no fuels required. So none of the fuels will hurt the environment. There's no polluting, so it's carbon free. And we will overall be reducing our carbon footprint. They're simple and low maintenance, and operating costs are near zero. So once you put them on the school, you won't have to put maintenance on them. They're durable. They'll stay there. They're quiet, and there's fewer and no moving parts. So if they're around the school, they wouldn't distract the faculty or the students. And it would be good for the way if we have other ways of making energy for our high school, like hot water, it would just take up space. And it would limit our storage capacity. And we should take full advantage of the storage capacity because we're a school. I'd just like to add that we're here with Mr. Pei's symposium class. We work with a group called Generation Citizen. These are kind of our mentors. They help us every Tuesday and Thursday. It's a social sciences class. And as a class, we kind of highlighted this as an issue that really pertains to the world as a whole right now. And seeing as we're planning to reconstruct the high school and renovate it, we think that allocating funding towards this would greatly benefit the town and put us on the right track to helping this environment that needs some help right now. Thank you very much. Excuse me, that was, I agree that that's very helpful. It seems like a really cool project that you're undertaking with the Citizen X? Generation X. Generation X. Oh, no, that's great. Mr. Greeley? Yeah. I'm sure Adam, I think, wants to comment on this. We agree with you 100%. And if we didn't beforehand, we certainly would after those two presentations. So not easy to come here and to present like that, but you did an excellent job, both of you. So thank you very much for continuing to raise our awareness. But I agree with you 100%. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Nguyen. I'm sure the manager is going to speak to some of my remarks. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Gina. She's one of our cheerleading captains, the Allington High-Vocity Cheerleading team, who also Gina, can we talk about this 0.8? Yeah. Oh, no, no, we're not going to explain. And who will be giving a speech tomorrow night at touchdown. I want to say I'm really impressed with what you're doing and what you're doing with. Is it Generation X? Is it? Sorry. I'm really encouraged by that because we've had previous meetings where people have come in on a different agenda item, talking about different possible opportunities of people working together and especially getting high school college age bound kids together. I had no idea Gina was coming in or Ben. I'm very proud of both of you, as well as your affiliation with the group there, as well as I'm going to turn it over to the town manager, because we did have a previous agenda item where we had, I think it was Amarisco come in. So I'm going to let the town manager speak to that, so I don't misspeak. So the good news is we're actually actively working on a project just like you described. We're looking at the Dallin Elementary, the Stratton, the Pierce, and the Thompson Elementary, as well as the Odyssey Middle School. And we're looking at the high school too for solar panels. The question with the high school is whether or not we'd put them on before a construction project and then maybe take them off while the building is reconstructed, or if we would wait until there was a reconstruction project and then put them on. So we're trying to look at the economics of what makes sense there. One way or the other, though, we are pushing for those elementary schools and the middle school to have solar panels, probably sometime next year. So actually, I could give you my email. And if you emailed me a way to contact you, I could send you some of the plans that we're looking at so that you could see what we're actually working on. Thank you. I mean, it really seems like the high school, obviously, with the renovations plan, it could go both ways. You could put them on. We have plenty of room space, so it seems to be on use. And there's obviously plenty of room around the school, but yeah, I think those are great ideas. I know as a class, we're all interested. When we were doing our research, we couldn't find any of the plans that are building the high school or what it entails. So as a class, we were really interested in how us as students could contribute to the new school and making it better for the generations to come. One of the really interesting parts of the company we're working with is they would provide a full television screen in the school that the town chooses to show the energy as it's being generated, a sort of an educational or curriculum piece, so that you could actually see what the panels were producing. But it's neat. It occurred to us that it would help math classes as well as science classes, so thank you. From? Thank you for your time. I have a quick question. Yeah, please. Come up to the microphone if you could. I just was wondering, for the students at Arlington High School or Mr. Pays class specifically or just people in the town, is there anything that we should be doing? I'm not from this town. Allie and I both go to Tufts University. But we were just wondering if there's anything that the students should be doing or anything that towns people can do as a whole to help the process of getting soil panels from the school or helping make the town more aware about what's going on. May I use? I think you're doing it. I think speaking to the board, speaking to the school committee would be another avenue that you could take. Because the school committee with their impacts and their relationship with the school building is important. So I think you're doing exactly what you should be doing to promote it. OK, we were planning on attending the next school committee meeting. And we have a meeting with the superintendent for tomorrow. So I think you're hitting the strategy. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. The other way that I'd suggest to volunteer that I think is relevant is not just talk, but join a committee. The work and so much of the work of the town happens on volunteer committees. So sustainable Arlington sounds like an appeal to what you're doing as an Arlington recycling group, groups like that. So that's where the rubber meets the road, that the work actually gets done. And that's a place to make the difference. All right, thank you. Mr. Curell. I just wanted to mention briefly that the manager and I were at the school committee last week when the town received an award, a CHAPSA, where it's a coalition of high-performing schools for the Thompson School. And that actually helped some of the costs of the project. But we received points in part for making that school solar ready. So plugging in in any way you can to make sure that that happens at your own school as things go forward. You might want to learn about the designs over at Thompson and exactly what made that. Because there's a lot more. There are a lot more environmental modifications that were made to that school that were really beneficial as well. Yeah, I just wanted to add one more, which is you two both move into Arlington, please. For all four of you, we need future leadership like this. Think about public service, like town meeting, or even eventually selectmen or school committee. It's a great place for Tufts grads. We love it. Thank you very much. That was awesome. And that's a great program. I really love seeing local colleges coming into town, working with the students. And I think everyone benefits from that. So thank you all. Moving on, Citizens Over Forum, Bob Radosha. At Bob Radosha, Columbia Road, it's nice to hear from the youth of the town. Now you're going to hear from an elder, OK? First of all, I expect to see you, Mr. Byrne, and you, Mr. Greeley, on the other side of the field, Thursday morning, 10 o'clock, OK? I'll be looking for you. I'll be away, I'm sorry. All right, OK. OK. Why just us two? I'll be there, but he wants you on the other side. She's on the right side. Anyhow, the other thing, I'm sure Diane's going to mention it, but I want to say to the girls soccer team, you made us proud. Really did. You came within that much of doing it, and there's really something to follow through. So it's part of the good things going on at the high school. Now, the reason I'm here was because I was going to be here anyway, so I thought I might as well give you something. Back during a town day, as I was walking the streets, I noticed there was a Yad sale sign on Mass Ave. All right, I'll let you have this. And a week later, two weeks later, I noticed it's still there. A month later, still there. And I said, I wonder how long it's going to take for that to come down. So on November 11, November 6, I took the picture of the Yad sale. It almost looks like a directional sign to the Yad sale when you're looking at it this way. And this morning when I just went by again, it's still there. How does this happen? I don't know. Is there a way that these things get dealt with? Am I supposed to go just tear it off the post? I don't know. But anyhow, I just thought I wanted to make that. And the other posts get beat up with all this other trashy stuff, too. But I find it amazing that over 1,500 cars an hour in the morning go buy this sign. And it's been there. The Yad sale was on 9.9. And here we are. So I wonder how much longer. Anyhow, you can have this and for what it's worth. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Kevin. Well, I just wanted to point out, Bob, I agree with you. They are supposed to get a permit to hold the Yad sale. And in doing so, they would have been told they are responsible for removing it. However, there are those that don't always go through the full permit process. And we just can't possibly, you know, the town can't be responsible, unless Adam would like to comment on this, to go around. And I mean, like you're showing us on this one poll. That one. Yeah, but the other, that's just an example of what happens on the others constantly. Anyway. Thank you. Thanks, Bob. OK. Thank you, Bob. They're supposed to have removed it is the answer, but. Thank you. Moving on. Murat and please come forward. Sorry if I mispronounce your name. It's OK. My name is Murat Engindanis. I am the resident at 65 Windsor Street. Some of you will remember me from another meeting a couple months ago. I think only the Mr. Chairman wasn't present at that time. Actually, I do have an agenda item under the vote for parking recommendations. But I wasn't sure if I was going to get any time to speak at that time. So is this the right time to use three minutes? No, I think that it will be best if you speak about that when it comes up on the agenda. OK, because I thought that's only part of my issue. So I wasn't sure if I should wait for that. I can totally wait for that section. Yeah, it might be best if you wait for it. So you can come back up when we hit that agenda item. Thank you. Moving on. Nora McKenna, 78 Kensington Park. Hello. I'm actually one of the luckiest butters on 82 Kensington. So and first of all, I have to say thank you to the town employees, the people in the building department, the engineering department, the water department. They've all been wonderful. They've answered all my questions. I've dropped by. They've been welcoming. They've been gracious. They've been helpful. I followed one up and down Kensington Park asking him questions. He was incredibly nice and professional as a person who's dedicated her adult life to public service. I have to commend these public employees. So thank you. Thank you. That said, though, I'm sad. We've invested heavily in Arlington. I seem to be the queen of butters. When we lived on Columbia Road, we abutted a double lot that was split and two huge houses went up. We lost all the trees. That dining room window, and we're still on the house. We look at our dining room window in that house and we're looking at their bedroom windows, because we're all kind of terraced up. So we moved to Jason Street, to Kensington Park. I love my house. I love my community. I've given so much to my community. I think I could provide them in the town. I come home. See, I'm getting all worked up. I'm like, oh. So I come home. They're bulldozing a driveway three feet from my living room window. So it might not mean a lot right now to everyone. And I realize it means more to me, because it's my living room window. It's my daughter's bedroom that it's looking out on. And I can no longer tell where the survey markers are. I'm kind of at a loss. And I kind of know a lot about construction projects, and I'm kind of at a loss on this. So the tree is gone. There was a big tree gone. People in the street, curb cuts in. Can't figure out if the curb permits have been done. We're on this rush to get it done by November 15. The project manager, we bump into. And he says, well, I'm going to have to cut down. Trim some of your bushes now. So I said, well, maybe we can talk about a green screen, a fence, something. Bottom line is I drove in today. It is like laid waste. We have a driveway right next to our living room. No bushes, just the bushes up against our house. Every time somebody drives into that driveway now, when we're not living, when we're in our bedrooms, it's going to be like living in Vegas. We're just going to have this big, huge light coming by with headlights. It's going to be constant traffic. This morning, getting out to get to work was like dodging cars between the big scooper construction and the cars parked. It's craziness. So along with Claire, I'm asking you to come by Kensington Park. Look at the road that we just paved. We spent two summers getting great water mains. The road's got a big, huge plane across it. The sidewalk, the big, huge scooper digger thing was parked across the sidewalk all weekend. I guess my thing to you guys, and I have to say again thanks to Joe because he's listened to me rant, whine, complain, everything about this. But my message to not only select men, to all the departments in town, and to my fellow citizens is that we really have to stop, take a look at these small double lots that we're splitting up. We're doing these land shifts to make them build double lots. And we have to think, how does that weigh against our personal rights to develop our property, our investments in our homes, and the integrity of the town, the character of what we want Arlington to be? Over the last 15 years, I have seen Arlington change drastically, and I'm not against progress. What I'm hoping we can do through all this, it's a foregone conclusion for me. I'm going to have a driveway, literally, three feet from my living room window. But I just think we have to find a way to start, come up with a thoughtful process before we start splitting the last of the double lots, pushing these houses in on postage stamps of land, leaving no buffers, no green space. I mean, take a look at that lot. There's not going to be a green space by the time they get those driveways in. That house is set back. I'm sorry, no, we're approaching three minutes. Sorry, I'm ranting on you. If you could just make a concluding remark, that would be great. That's all I'm asking is that you take that into consideration. Thank you very much. Thank you. Moving on, traffic rules and orders in other business. Request street name change, Irving Street, to Churchill Place. Oh, no, no, you have to stay at the home. No, you don't. Oh, my gosh. Thanks for the nice day. Thank you for all the hard work. Have a good night. Thank you. Hi, folks. This is an old board of survey that went back to 1924. We're here a year ago, and we had the board of survey updated at that point. In the interim, Charlie, if you can see it here, has had his new house constructed. He's in it now with his wife. His son, in fact, is going to purchase the old house, which is right next door behind it. We're asking to change the name of Irving Street to Churchill Place. The reason for that is that Irving Street is a long street. However, that portion where our building has been constructed is only 150 feet long. There's a big ledge separating that portion of Irving Street from the other portion of Irving Street. I've talked with the fire department, the police department, public works. They've given you letters, and they say it would be terrible confusion in case of an emergency if we didn't change the name, because vehicles would perhaps go to the wrong portion of Irving Street. We're asking to have the name changed to Churchill Place from Irving Street. Move approval. Move approval. Mr. Greeley. Yeah. Move approval. Joe, do I get that? OK. Feel free to second. I would most enthusiastically second. But as Mr. and Essie has taught me many things through the years, the only thing I would ask, why did we do this a year ago, because we had to do the paper street on Irving? Because we just do this and make it Churchill Place. That's a good question. Quite frankly, it never. It's a brilliant question. Don't you think about it? Very good question. I think we perhaps wanted to have the house up before we did that. Wanted to have it approved by the building inspector as well before we did that. That's all behind us now. We have an approved house at this point. It's a beautiful home, a beautiful job. I support 100%. I just wonder, why didn't we do it a year ago? That's all, but here we are. Just for clarification, we're changing at 115 Irving Street to Churchill Place. We are not changing all of Irving Street. We are not doing that. I just want to get that on the record. Everything on the other side of the ledge. No, let me just do this part. I just want to just the way the request came in and the way it's presented is to change Irving Street to Churchill Place. What we're voting on is to change 115 Irving Street. 115 Irving Street will now become one Churchill Place or just Churchill Place. A number is going to be assigned by public parts. A number will be assigned in the future. In case anybody out there who's living on the two other parts of Irving Street, I just want to make sure that's clear. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you bringing this to our attention. I actually wanted to ask a question of my more senior board members because this seems to me this is actually an issue that affects other streets and town as well. On the other side of Highland, we've got a number of the split roads up there. We also have a number of them over in Turkey Hill as well. Has this ever, and I don't want to put you all on the spot, but do you recall us ever taking a look at this kind of comprehensively and looking at some of those split roads and considering name changes for some of the other kind of broken up portions? It makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. Although in this case, it's because it's not really accessible from Irving. That's correct. That's the issue with these others are straight line accessible or crooked. I think of like Edmund is broken up by land. Like String Street? All the access. Oh, you live on Alpine Street. And Alpine Street has a large piece of ledge that separates the two pieces of Alpine Street. And I think it would be fine if we change the name. I think what we should do is we should hang a rope over the ledge and we should do a big tug of war. And whoever wins gets to eat the name Alpine Street. And the other side has to choose what the new street name is. I think I answered why it hasn't been done. If I may just. I don't know, what a coincidence. But changing the name. I mean, we're talking about changing the name of a street of a person who's in there three months or more than that. Two months at this point. But changing the name of someone who's lived on Alpine Street for 50 years to, oh, I have a new address. No, not a new house. No, not a new town. But I'm glad to look at anything if it would be helpful to people. Thank you very much. And if I could just on that, this is a unique situation on all those other streets that you've named, especially Spring Street up by Brackett School. The motivating factor here that I see is an issue of public safety access and getting to the appropriate address, i.e. being directed the same way. So all those five different split spring streets, you can get access to them from Spring Street. Whereas this particular place, if they were told to go to Irving, it would be close to it, if not impossible. It's just an identity. I didn't want to drag down the conversation. It was just my own curiosity. That is an interesting question. Thank you. We had a motion, a second before we do a vote. I want to thank Attorney NSC for all his legwork on this and contacting both our chiefs, as well as DPW. So thank you. Thank you. With a motion, a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you, folks. Thank you. Thanks, Bob. Mr. Piggins. Moving on. Vote Parking Subcommittee Recommendations. Ms. Mohan. OK. As we have in our board info, the Parking Subcommittee met on October 17, 2014, my son's 30th birthday. I just would like to, if I could, make a motion to reflect. We have votes on all of the items, except for 6365 Windsor Street. I did the minutes. And for some reason, the voted 4-0 did not appear there. So if I could just amend the minutes, it was just I obviously tabbed too much. All of those were voted 4-0. I guess with the chairman's permission, just to take them one at a time, as well as if the town manager or whomever else the chairman thinks might want to add anything. On 6365 Windsor Street, which I think, Merritt, and I can't remember your last name. I apologize. We did get a report from the town manager regarding the request for DPW director Mike Rademacher to look at the pipes involved. I don't know, maybe Adam might encapsulate it better than I in the minutes. So and I actually followed up with Mr. Rademacher today, who I think that you may have had some conversations with. So they DPW staff manually expected the catch basins watched water flowing during a rain event, but also had an investigation done by an outside party and are awaiting the final report from that investigation as of today. And I think they plan on communicating that to you very shortly. We haven't seen the final report yet, but we expect it in the next few days. But there was no clogs or dirty catch basins or anything presented at that time. And what was discussed at the subcommittee meeting is that the way that this property was designed or redesigned basically created the issue that currently exists, which is not, unfortunately, sometimes unique to this particular property. It happens kind of previous, not similar to Kensington Park, but again, issue of development. So the committee basically discussed that it is a design issue and everything from the townside that we should be doing has checked out OK, so the solution would be a design solution, which would be something between the property owners and whether they contact the previous developer or future one. So it was decided that the flooding season is over now. Anyways, we're going to be getting into snow that what we would do is if and when the two owners of Windsor Street came up, agreed to, and submitted some sort of design proposal that could remediate the flooding issue that they have, we would then re-grant them overnight parking for the duration of that project. But as of now, the overnight parking would be now in void until we got to that point, which we wouldn't anticipate would be to the spring anyways. If that's what the owners choose, and we're not saying they have to do that, that was a general tenor of the conversation. Thank you, Diane. Discussion from the board? I'll move approval of that set of recommendations. Thank you, second. We have a motion and second discussion from the crowd. We'll start with Marat. OK, so I would like to start with Mr. Manager's report that there was a structural evaluation that was communicated to me. It hasn't been. I checked with Mr. Rademahar a couple of times after the meeting that I was here. He was aware that I'm expecting something, and I haven't been contacted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But Adam did just say that it is not completed. And it will be at that time? You should be hearing from him shortly on that evaluation. Oh, I thought you said I was let to know that there was something. No, I think I said that. I think you had spoken to Mr. Rademahar at some point. But it was OK. So that's kind of besides the point, because the main issue I have, there are two issues that I have with the discussion that's presented. The first one being that I am a structural engineer by training with a PhD. And you just said that there was a structural evaluation done by inspecting the catch basins. And looking if the pipeline is clogged or not. That has no bearing on the structural adequacy of the system. And I don't know to this date what is the understanding of the towns, of the town, about what is needed to obtain an idea about the structural adequacy of such systems. Just signing a camera down the line and finding no clogs in it doesn't make it good. You can have a four inch diameter pipe there with no clogs. I will get flooded every single time. That's just one thing. So I would expect more diligent work from the town to evaluate it. And I look forward to seeing that report to basically understand what was done. So I can't say too much without seeing it. Second of all, Ms. Diane's point about the recommendation regarding this being a design issue. I don't want to beat it to death. But the first time I was here, I presented a long, longer document with my main point being that this is an infrastructure owned and supposed to be maintained by the town that is notwithstanding the demand of today. That was designed 100 years ago for a storm event that was thought to be a 25 year return period at the time, which is 100 years ago. That storm event today is a one year return period. In three years, I was flooded three times. So that's one thing. The second of all, this being my responsibility to design something to better the town system and protect my residents, I just can't understand that concept because the solutions that may be required to undertake such a thing is not only beyond the two owners capability, but it's beyond reason to my point. And I would like to also remind you that this is not something that was just put there in one day. The builder, which I also blame, I don't take me wrong, which I also blame, the builder applied for this construction and it was approved. The curb was cut, the driveways was designed this way and approved by the town. So put yourself in my shoes, please, that you rely on the town of Arlington, not some other town. This is a reputable town. It's building department, it's town. Everybody looked at these plants, supposedly, and approved them. And only after that, the builder built it. And regarding your other point that this kind of design created the flooding is also inaccurate, Ms. Mayhem. The reason being that before this kind of construction, there was a regular house there and our neighbors now tell us that that house also used to get flooded, but it had no driveway, so nobody cared much. It's ground level, the whole yard and everything was being flooded regularly. So if the town had looked at the plants more carefully and investigated, is this kind of construction the right place on the street? Maybe they could have asked the neighbors, is there an issue on the street? And to my knowledge, there are all these things that people could have done that wasn't done, including several different parties. And on my part, maybe I should have it inspected by five different inspectors as opposed to one. My inspector didn't catch it. It was a regular building inspector. And this is not like a huge downhill street, if you know Windsor. There's probably only a couple feet from the low point where my house is and the highest point. If you just walk, you wouldn't even tell that there is a low point there. So again, I don't wanna take too much time, but I would like you to reconsider this recommendation that this would be my responsibility to fix the town's system. I wanna just put it out there that my expectation is otherwise the town should help us with this. I plan to raise a family here and live here for 30, 40 years. So hopefully it's gonna be safe for those years. I don't wanna be up all night when there's a chance of rain. And regarding the parking issue, I understand that typically if there is a driveway work, I am allowed to park on the street. My point was that if there is a chance of storm, can I please park on the street more than the eight times that I'm allowed by the town's rules? That's all I was asking. I'm not planning to park on the street every single day. If the weather is dry, I'll park in my garage. So that was my point. So you, not approving that, I'm partially fine. I'll still have to do what I have to do and maybe get tickets. That's what I'll do. But the bigger picture is what I just talked about, the fix. So please try to put it on a yearly budgetary agenda or whatever is needed by the town's department to be done. Please keep an eye on the system. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Discussion on the board. Yes, Stan. I guess my thought, I have listened carefully and I am sympathetic to the difficulty that you're in. And I'm sure, and I'm certain the manager has heard and will look to ways that we can improve that system. But the nature of fixing the problem of making it such that drainage in a relatively flat space drains very quickly even in high volume storms is a difficult one. And it's not one that we can, it's like changing, like rebuilding that whole thing would like rebuilding that whole drainage system has a very large cost to us as a town. And there is a balance between what is the town expected to do in terms of protecting the homeowners and what is the homeowner to do and to protect themselves against what's going on. Like simple things like obvious, which I'm not suggesting that these apply to you but a general thing is like gutters. Like you can't tell someone, I have to, my house is flooding. Well, you don't have a gutter on your house. You have to put that in. I'm not, I know that that's not your case. You have a much more extreme situation. So I'm definitely comfortable with the recommendation about the parking and I'm sympathetic about the drainage problems, but I'm not sure that there is a relief available from the town in the short or medium term. Yes. One simple suggestion. I understand you retain the third party, which means that you don't have all the capability in the town's engineering department. May I suggest retaining a similar party to look into ways of fixing it just to get a feel for what is required. And then we look at what it takes. Is it a million dollar project? Is it a small project? Is it a quick fix, difficult fix? Just that kind of rather than looking at inside of the pipe. I now understand the pipe is clean, but it just doesn't work when it rains heavily. So is it a manageable task for the town to retain a company who can provide recommendations for fixes? So I, you know, I, may I Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. If you think it's appropriate. So I think Mr. Dunn said it even better than I could. The issue I fear is a much larger issue than the acute issue that you're dealing with on your property that even expanding the capacity of the pipes near and around your property wouldn't necessarily fix the issue because there would still be a number of potentially undersized pipes in the entire system that drain into the alewife. So I don't think this conversation back and forth with DPW and engineering is over, but I don't know that we see the clear way that can address this problem that isn't trying to attack a much larger, impossibly expensive problem. Can we please get to that point and learn that it's that difficult of a problem? That is my point. So if we take that extra step, come to a point, understand what is needed, then let's decide whether it's worthwhile to take that repair project on or not. Currently you use the word fear. I am fearing that it's a big project too, but let's see if it's actually that big. Some reputable company may come up with a easier solution that never was thought of before. So that's all I'm suggesting that maybe that could be a reasonable step. Thank you very much. Sorry for taking so much time. No, not at all. Is there any further discussion regarding four long-term overnight parking permits for 63 and 65 Windsor Street? I'm seeing none. Discussion from the board, I'm seeing none. We have a motion and a second to adopt the recommendations of the parking subcommittee. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed, have nothing. Thank you. Okay, the next I believe is Thorndyke Street. We had a request from a resident who has applied for and received permission to park overnight on Thorndyke Street. She is requesting permission to park daytime on Thorndyke Street. She indicates that she does not take her kind of work, take some form of public transportation and would like to be able to leave her street, leave her street, leave her car parked on the street during the daytime. Parking subcommittee discussed this and in concert with parking not only in East Arlington, where they have posted signs because of commuter parking and the like, as well as when the residents of that area came in to request those parking signs that was indicated to them that you also could not park beyond the two hours Monday through Friday on the street and they accepted that. We first basically denied her request in that we do not allow daytime parking for more than two hours Monday through Friday, commuter or residents, unless they get a special extenuating circumstance, somebody's ill in the home and there's going, the board is always sympathetic to extenuating circumstances. We did discuss that because there was questions of where this person could put her car during the day. Besides the fact that she takes the T, she perhaps may want to take her car to Alweif and leave it there. We also discussed parking permits over at Thorndyke Magnolia as a future under the parking management strategy plan that we're now embarking on, which is mostly in the center in terms of meters and business parking and the like, but there was discussion and Adam, you can correct me if I'm wrong about possibly we could maybe provide her some relief over at Magnolia Thorndyke, but the final vote was to stay in concert with the neighborhood, with the signs, with the enforcement and Officer Roteau is also there along with others that we could not approve her request to park there. She could definitely stay there overnight. She has the permit, but not daytime. Did I miss anything? My recollection was also that we looked in an aerial view of the property and it was Corrie Roteau's opinion that there was quite a bit of space for driveway parking spaces to be added to the property, but I believe that the owner has. Is a tenant and not at the property. Right, and that was a, thank you. But anyways, I'll stop there. So I guess I just have one question. I was there. So the discussion about parking at Magnolia or Thorndyke, there was no action taken on that, so that's not something we could, we're recommending that we approve tonight. Not that we're recommending tonight. We're gonna try to see if we could offer that in the future. Okay. Because we don't offer daytime parking permits in Magnolia or Thorndyke right now. General, you know, I don't think that that has happened. We have had some people requesting similar things, but generally it's for on workers around the center, you know, type of thing. So on Stephen Gilligan, he was at the meeting, right? He didn't offer anything in the way of that, so I guess it hasn't been done. There has been some talk, but no. Okay, thank you. Discussion from the board. Yes, Dan. I just want to clarify that I heard one thing, which was there is the room for a driveway on this lot. Yes, but the owner, this is a renter. Yeah, okay. For the discussion from the board. Okay, discussion from the audience. I see a hand up. Please come to the microphone. I'm actually the owner. My husband and I are the owners at 135 Thorndyke Street. And the only reason we're here is because the situation has gotten a little bit tricky. I've owned the house for 16 years and it's an odd shaped lot. It's kind of funnel shaped. So it's narrow in the front and it gets wider in the back. There's no room on the side of the house for a driveway. There never has been. And when I purchased the home, I came right to the board of selectmen and I asked for on street overnight parking. People were parking on the front lawn and I was given on street overnight parking. That worked well for many years. I had tenants that didn't have cars. Over the years, I came back and asked for an additional car. Given that approval to have an additional car on the street. Yes, most people leave during the day. They park elsewhere. They park at a train station, whatever. The current tenant that I have doesn't have a nine to five job where she needs to bring her car and have her car stay there all day. She comes and goes. So sometimes she's home, sometimes she's not. Sometimes her car is there for a couple of hours. Personally, I've never had this situation because I've had a job, a nine to five job where I've driven my car for many years. I was laid off in 2009 and suddenly I was one of those people parking on Thorndike Street all day long. And now I have a young son and I work from my home on Thorndike Street all day long. So yes, I guess I could go out every two hours and move my own car on my own street. That seems as though it's a little bit beyond what I should have to do. And I'm wondering why some kind of a sticker couldn't be attached to my car, my tenant's car that says Daytime Parking Arlington. And the reason, and I understand I'm not the only person that doesn't have a driveway in Arlington, but I may be one of a handful of people that doesn't have a driveway, can't build a driveway in his home during the day. And so I'm just asking the board to consider extenuating circumstances. Thank you very much. Discussion on the board. God, Joe. I just wanted clarification. We originally marked the road as to our parking during the day at the request of residents on that street. I guess I wasn't part of that conversation. And I'm not sure exactly what year that was. I bought my house 16 years ago and I do not believe at the time there was two-hour parking on both sides of the street. I know on Fairmont Street, is it right? There's parking on one side of the street. The other side is two-hour parking. So there is precedent for there to be streets in that area that have two-hour parking on one side only, I guess would be a thought to consider. I honestly, again, I've been a resident here. Actually, I was born here and I moved away and came back. But I don't remember the conversation and discussion about mandatory two-hour parking on the street. I do remember when signs went up. And again, it really hadn't been a problem. I had been parking there. It's only been for about five years that I've been doing this. But just lately, my tenant and I, mostly my tenant, have gotten tagged a lot. And when I asked the police why this was happening, they said, well, someone on your street's calling and complaining that there's cars parked on the street. And I said, in all innocence, if I could just talk to the person who made that call and they knew that it was me and I'm parking right in front of my house because I don't have a driveway, I think they probably would understand that. And so I guess it may sound like, oh, poor me. It's not what I am intending, but it just seems as though there could be a solution here. And I will just answer sort of the timeline thing. And I'm going from my memory and the further back memory is gonna be less reliable. Well, 15 to 18 years ago was the initial East Allington request for one side of the street and certain streets only halfway up, to Herbert Road that there'd be the two hour parking implemented and then about seven years ago, and I know Ms. Rowe was a selectman then and she was on Herbert Road was when, and again, it's basically a issue of commuter and all day parking and especially in the winter, public safety and less so with street sweeping that it was expanded about seven years ago to include basically that nexus down there similar to where you live that did come from the residents. I remember Bob of Flaherty was one of the proponents as well as somebody else who appeared recently that was at the microphone. And what it is is the majority of residents, the rule that we go by is that we like to have, petitions come in where at least two thirds of the residents are requesting an action. And that's the process that was followed like 16, 17 years ago as well as seven years ago. I don't remember being advised of the process or anything showing up at my front door saying, we're gonna be discussing two hour parking at the town hall to have your voice heard, please show up and discuss this issue. And seven years ago, frankly, it probably wasn't on my mindset because I was working full time and my car wasn't in front of my house. Five years ago it started becoming an issue. Thank you, Joe. So I wonder, I'm gonna follow the recommendation of the parking subcommittee on this, I'm afraid. But given that this was so many years ago and given that process, I wonder if we wouldn't entertain it if you are able to get two thirds of your neighbors to petition us to come back and say, we would like to change this to kind of the Fairmont model, so to speak, that maybe we would consider it. I think if we get two thirds come in, I think we could reasonably consider it, but considering, it's always a problem for us to consider one offs. It's just not, it's not good policy when we consider one at a time. So, but there is a lot of precedent for us considering a road or a portion of a road when there's a two thirds piece. So, I mean, I guess to your point when you said if I could just talk to the person, maybe if you can talk to them and see if they would support making a change on the road, I would have to guess that we would at least entertain that, making the change in that way. Okay. Mr. Greely. Yeah, well, I haven't sat here for 26 years. I'm sorry you weren't aware of it, but there's no question we made those rules because your neighbors requested it. As did a lot of streets down through Mass Avenue because commuters were coming in, parking there all day long and one short block to the bus stop. Yep. So, I just want to be clear. Are you asking for both you and the tenant? You're asking for two exemptions? Yes. And you're asking for basically 24 hour exemptions for both day and night. Am I right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Further discussion from the board? Yes. It's kind of, it's something that you suggested there which I have been intrigued by in the past and I dug into which is like, whether or not we could build like a parking permit system that made sense for like a residential permit system having lived in Cambridge in the early 90s and familiar with it. And so I was like, you know, and when I started, came on the board and I started tackling what frankly, these are very like, we as a board hate having people come before us and us not being able to help them. We want to, like, you know, it's like, we all want, we all ran for this office because we like helping the people living down and to when people come forward and then we have to say no, is acutely painful for all of us. And so I was like, okay, let me go figure out, I know this used to work for me in Cambridge. How am I gonna make it work in Arlington? That I haven't figured out the way to make the economics of it work. Cambridge has a higher density. It's got a different street layout. It's got, because to the revenue that you need in order to support a parking department, they can do the enforcement that's necessary and all that stuff. We just don't have it. And so as much, which is why we're stuck with these like one size fits all solutions like no parking during the day. But in all due respect, if you are sending a cop down the street to checked license plates and you're checking, you know. Not checking license plates. I'm sorry, not license plates. You're checking for stickers overnight. The same, I see a cop, I see cops driving down the street all the time down Thorndyke Street. I don't know if they just, that's part of their route or whatever it is. But if there was a sticker on the back of a car that said daytime resident or daytime parking, I just don't understand why a literally 30 second drive down the street back and forth would be a hardship to a police officer who's already doing that during the day anyway. Yeah, it's also the administration aspect of it too, unfortunately. So, but you did actually, the license plate thing is one of those ones where maybe technology is gonna take over and make it because you know you got those drive by things where you can just, where you can mount something in your car that records all the license plates it goes by. That may be the thing that enables the cost to come down such that we can pull off something like that. So there may be a technology solution that gets us there. And if I could just wrap this up, first and foremost, when the police go down it is a neighbor complaint. And the reason the sign and the restrictions are up is because that's what that neighborhood requested the board and the police department to enforce. So I think Mr. Kuro had a good suggestion. Maybe if you can talk to your neighbors and see if there's any, but the police are going down there because your neighbors are complaining. I can't tell you who they are. Yeah. The second thing, similar to what Mr. Dunn said is, we just had a very tertiary, just sort of off the cuff conversation that I put out there about possibly if we could look at Magnolia Thondike in very extenuating circumstances during the day. And I'll be happy to follow up on that with the town treasurer, Mr. Gilligan and the town manager. But it would have to be very specific because. I'm not sure I understood what you're proposing. You know, Magnoa, Mr. Chairman. No, you can explain this. You live near a but Magnolia and Thondike. Yes. There is a public parking place there. Yes, yes. We were trying to think of similar to the overnight model when we say go to the municipal parking lot, go to the Hardy School. I'll be happy to investigate that to see if that could be some sort of relief. But that would be something that the board and the town manager would have to have a really strict policy discussion on that. So it was truly, which is what yours sounds like, hardship cases, because there are so many activities in there during the day. So I didn't want to totally close the door on. Well, I appreciate that. I'm looking at options. So I think this was a pretty good discussion. I, it's not, you know, I don't have the sense that you're probably gonna like the outcome that we reached tonight. And I think it is going to come down for me, at least in my opinion, that I just don't think it's aligned with what your neighbors want, you know, where we're going to start, you know, which in, you know, certain circumstances, we do allow for these type of special, you know, opportunities to park outside your house, particularly at night, which I think we have a pretty good system and we deal with this a lot. But you know, I think during the day that it's just not currently aligned with kind of the direction of the community or what the town wants. So I think that while it might be. But Fiermont Street does have that one side. Yes, one that's a different, you know, a different, I don't want to say, I know that's the policy you're looking for, but it's, you know, for right now, you know, as we discussed earlier, you know, this, we have this policy because your neighbors wanted, you know, wanted it this way. And I don't think it would be right to go against them. Now I think that if we, and pretend maybe that could be a discussion moving forward, but you know, I think that this is probably where this is an appropriate decision for us to make tonight. And I'm sorry that it's not gonna go in your favor. So the end of Thorndag Street that I live on, which is the end beyond Herbert, I would get two thirds of the signatures of those homes on that street. Does that include the private way or not? So this would be a new policy. This hasn't actually happened since I've been on the board, but so it's new for, you know, what I, it's not in my purview, I guess. Right, two thirds of the residents bring in a petition and hold a hearing on that. Okay, so two thirds of the residents on my end of the street were from Herbert down to the dirt road. The dirt road beyond the dirt road is private way. It's not part of Thorndag Street. So it's really only about 10 houses. Okay. Just both sides. Yeah, and is there a, trust me. I don't live there, I don't know what you're, you know, I believe you. Yeah. Two thirds of the residents of the street, you're asking to change the parking regulations on. Yeah. All of the residents, right. Yeah. And is there a, where would I pick up a form to fill out? Do I make up my own form or? You could make up your own. Okay. Okay. Are there any questions for the wording on the form? I think that you just need to get their signatures. And as long as it has a statement about exactly what you're looking for. Changing to one side only. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? We actually have a motion on that one. I thought that we did. I don't know if we did. Yeah, it's in front of us. Recommend no action from the subcommittee. I just don't know that we accidentally moved it. No. Did you move it? Yes. I moved no action. Okay. Do we have a second? We have a motion and a second. Now all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. The Allington Catholic request, we received this request. It has to do with coaches of different sports that are coming to Allington Catholic and then leaving their cars and going elsewhere to games in other cities and towns. They were requesting that for coaches and for coaches and possibly their players that they'd be designated certain spots that they could park their gratis in light of the fact that if they purchase a two hour ticket, you know, if you're at AC and you're games out in Littleton, you're beyond the two hours. The subcommittee did discuss this and we saw a short term and a long term solution. The short term would be to say to Allington Catholic similar to its students who wanna park at the school that for their coaches and if they wanted to extend it to players but I think it was mainly around the coaches that they could apply for the parking permits in the municipal lot, but it also was discussed and maybe Adam can say it a little more oddfully so that when we implement the parking management strategy in the center, did you wanna, that because of the capabilities that? Well, I think through the combination of permitting and or what we are all hoping will be much easier to utilize meters with expanded hours and an ability to pay for the time they'll be there that this problem should go away. Right, so we're saying in the short term, we'll give them the option of you can purchase parking permits similar to what we currently do in the municipal, is it municipal or Russell? Russell parking lot, but that in the long term when we install the meters so that you can go beyond two or four hours that the problem will be there. So that's why the recommended vote of no action with the option to them if they wanna purchase in the short term parking stickers for their coaches. Yes, really, sorry, yet another subcommittee meeting I missed, forgive me, Mrs. Diane, Mr. Chapter Lane, but so this is the issue of a coach after school that's the student permits are up to 330, am I right? So this is the coach has an away game and the coaches and the students get on a bus, they wanna leave their cars in the permitted spaces, right? On their way to practice and they're gonna be. Whatever, right, so but they're later than 330. Correct. Right, is that the issue? So the solution is give them a different permit or just extend this permit. Give them apply for, right now they were asking for like five or six. More permits. They were asking for five or six spots that coaches could park in for free. We just said get five or six permits now in the short term and then once the new parking management strategy comes in where you could purchase extended waiting hours beyond three, four hours that would solve that. But right now, you know, because other people could say, well, I have a business, you know, I live on so-and-so street and I have clients who come, can they park in Russell lot for free? So our thing is just to say you're welcome to purchase a permit now in the short term for your five or six coaches and then hopefully this will be resolved within 12 to 15 months when we embark on that new parking management strategy. Hope I'm saying it correctly. No, I think you are. Discussion. Yes, Mr. Dunn. Move approval, I like the long-term version best. I know. Second. Discussion from the audience. Yeah, yeah, Bob. Bob Radocher again. The business of the permit and meted parking, are we gonna resolve that issue? Because most of the meted parking during the day is taken up by permitted parking. I've got the photos and all that, I think I've been through that before. And my question might be is if somebody bought a sticker, paid a meted thing and they were parked in a permitted section of the, would they get tagged for parking in the permitted section but the people parking in the meted section aren't tagged because they have a permit. And it's inconsistent with what the intent was. I mean there is clearly a sign that it's a meted permit. But you get down there any time, eight o'clock in the morning you'll see two thirds, three quarters of the cars in the meted spots have the blue sticker on the back. The intent originally was to keep those spots available for the merchants and the business people so that people didn't have to go all through the whole lot to get to it. So that's still an outstanding problem down there. And it's not being addressed and I hope in the parking, however you resolve this whole thing that that's factored into it. And you know when you mention the coaches will be parking, there'll be another six cars in there that somebody can't, they'll go anyway but the point is it's not being enforced the way it should be so. Thanks. I'll leave that to the town manager and the traffic enforcement. Yeah, so the policy adopted by the board several weeks ago certainly will address that. The plan going forward is there won't be any designated permit or designated meter spaces. The spaces in the lot will be what they are. Permits can be used when they're purchased and metered spots can be used. There's certainly, there's not a daytime capacity issue with the permits so we are gonna figure out exactly how many permits we wanna issue. But I think we all, we do agree looking through it that having some spots that are permits, some are meters doesn't make sense and we are gonna fix that. Thank you. Further discussion. So I will support this. I'm looking forward to the long-term goal coming. I think I would have preferred to see, you know, maybe a little act of goodwill for these five or six spots until the permanent, you know, until the parking study goes into effect. But I will heed to the parking committee's recommendations. That being said, all those in favor, do we have a motion? Yes. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Five, nothing. Okay, Drake Village was an overnight parking request and it was a little bit unique in the sense that it's for an elderly couple in their 80s. It came from, I believe their daughter. There's backup material in here. And basically what they were asking for was permission for their, her elderly parents are being serviced by a healthcare company that sends out during the week one to three different caregivers that come and give overnight and then stay with her parents who are in their 80s. They were asking, you know, if it was an overnight parking request from one of the two residents, that would be one case. But this is sort of a different case. And we also saw it as a hardship case. So what we voted was to allow overnight parking at the requested location with proper documentation from, and I'm gonna blank on the healthcare company. It's out of Waltham that we receive the names, license plates, and all appropriate information that we can have on the three individuals that will be there just for the duration that this elderly couple in their 80s needs this overnight care. And we also discussed in the future, we could see this possibly coming up in other cases for residents of any of our senior housing. And what we decided we would do was do it on a case by case basis in the sense that we're asking for a lot more information of this healthcare provider versus if somebody came in and said, you know, my mom lives here, I'm gonna be staying for three months or six months or my daughter just had twins. And normally what we just say is we ask them for very minimal information. The reason why we're sort of extending under the law the information that we're asking for is because it is a healthcare company and they do have that information during the usual course of business. So we did vote favorable action for this particular request. Second. We have a motion and a second discussion. Discussion from the audience. Seeing none. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Post five nothing. Thank you. And thank you parking subcommittee for your work on that. Those are never easy. Moving on presentation and discussion. Draft master plan, Carol and Charles. Thank you members of the board. I'm Carol Kowalski, director of planning and community development and. Charlie Kowalski is co-chair of master plan advisory committee. The board knows that we've been in a process of preparing a master plan for the town of Arlington. Where for about the past two years, not two years solid, but we started this October of 2012 with the World Cafe and the draft master plan has been released. And we wanted to give you an update of some of the highlights of what's coming out of the master plan. The year we're getting input until December 2nd on this draft and then the input will be incorporated into a revision for a January 12th public hearing that the redevelopment board will hold. So hold that date January 12th. If the master plan had headlines, they might read something like exciting eclectic shopping districts, Millbrook a hidden gem, our tree lined town. I can afford to live in Arlington, safer walking for all ages and abilities. A great town for seniors, our natural resource jewels. We've planned for smart growth, continuing Arlington's responsible fiscal management and bringing dollars and visitors to our historic and cultural places. These are some of the things that came out of this process from the public. These are some of the things that the master plan is trying to either protect, to reinvigorate or to reinforce. These are aspirations that we heard in many cases over and over again. So we really do encourage you to ask us questions, ask us what you're concerned about, ask us what you want to be sure the master plan addresses. Now is the time to go through it. It's online. It is a long document, but it's kind of easy to jump. If you've followed the working paper presentations, it's kind of easy to jump to the recommendations and the implementation section. And then there's a survey monkey where you can actually comment through the survey monkey. I'm gonna let Charlie talk a little bit about the process. I also really wanna thank Joe and Steve because you've been to, I think all of the presentations between the two of you. So thank you very much for your participation for keeping your colleagues informed. Thank you, Carol. I just wanna thank the master plan advisory committee, which I believe you appointed. It's a group of very talented individuals. Bob Radocha is one of the members of the committee. There are many of them are professional planners who are donating their time on behalf of the town. They want to look to the future. And they represent different neighborhoods and also different generations. The older people like me who've been in town since 1976 may not be around at the end of this master plan when it's fully implemented 20, 30 years from now. What we've heard from the citizens and there have been a whole series of meetings is there really are concerned about several things that are changing in the town, the demographics, the need for more funds for infrastructure improvements, the preservation of open space. We've gotten a lot of very good input from citizens with very creative ideas as well. And a lot of that is in the implementation plan. The advisory committee is advising Carol and her staff and eventually it's the redevelopment board that has to hold the public hearing to adopt the master plan. And I believe that a series of difficult decisions are gonna be, the town's gonna be facing a series of difficult decisions to make. But I think that we have provided a lot of information. The consultant has worked in a number of communities and benchmarked Arlington compared to other communities. And the good news is Arlington is one of the best managed communities I think she's ever worked in in terms of fiscal responsibility doing the most with the least or having the least amount of resources and just doing the most in terms of maintaining town facilities. And that's one of the reasons we have a triple A boundary. So there's more to come. We're in the throes of coming up with an implementation plan. A series of recommendations that will then go before different boards and commissions in town for implementation, different town departments as well. And we're looking forward to your input. I just wanna also say though, before we're very happy to take your questions and comments. Now, what the master plan is not is instant zoning changes. I think there's some people hope that it is going to be that. Some people are anxious that it might be that. It will not be instant zoning changes. Zoning is a component, zoning recommendations might be a component of the implementation plan, but a master plan comes first and then possible consideration of future zoning changes follows. Thank you very much Carol and Charles and the rest of the advisory committee. I know that a lot of work has gone into this and maybe a much bits behind the scenes but I think you're making our community better off. So thank you very much. If it's okay with you, we'll start with some questions from the board and we'll just kind of see how it goes. Great questions, Kevin. Well, I apologize that I missed that. I was in New York or something. That was that last Thursday evening or whatever but I certainly thank our two colleagues who have spent as much time in this as we have. One question, you said January 12th. That's right in the auditorium downstairs. We have a schedule selectments meeting that night. So I wondered whether or not, yeah, that's why I was looking to put in my calendar so I would get there. But I have not completely read it. I've probably been about halfway through it but it's a very impressive piece of work which you've done but it's almost nightmare causing to look at your seven pages of action steps that need to be taken and why I appreciate you saying maybe up to 30 years at least, you know, but it's this kind of thing. It's why we started 2020 all those many, many years ago to take a look at where are we and where would we like to be at that time in 20 years. The only comment I have so far is it's just an edit and I would, you know, it's under the early section. Arlington is well run, fiscally responsible town and all of that I agree with 100%. I would really like it if we would put in specifically it says and through prudent financial management, Arlington has earned a triple A bond rating. What I've learned is that Arlington's five year plan is the envy of so many communities who have not done such a thing, can't get the support to do such a thing. I just would like that mentioned so it's signed posted if you will. Some of that success to the five year plan, five year planning. Yeah, that Arlington has adopted, Arlington has because it's part of a master plan. It's a financial master plan if you will. And you know, I believe it's very unique that we, the school committee, the finance committee, town meeting, you know, the redevelopment board, all of us do come to a, not easily, but all of us do come to agreement on this and have so far lived up to it. And I think that has more to do with our triple A bond rating than anything else. But mainly just an exceptional piece of work and it continues to make me proud of this community. Thank you. Thank you. We'll make that change. I'm just going to make comments in where you think it's appropriate, incorporate, expand or just take in. And I'm also just going to refer to the pages that kind of triggered the thought. And there's not too many, I promise. On page 20, when we get to the discussion around group homes, and you sort of have some language in there anyways, but I know I've heard from many people over the years in terms of group homes and you talk about having policy as well as possibly some conflict with state law in terms of group home, religious sites, et cetera. If possible, on the group home issue, I know that just having a police scanner and listening to it, one of the things I'd like to look at is if under state law and or Arlington town policy, if we could have some sort of a policy where there was, and I'm just thinking of group homes and nothing else beyond that, there was sort of a really extraneous drain on the town budget. If there was something where we could set a policy that basically said, you are a user group of 80 residents and with appropriate department heads in the town manager sitting down that basically says once you hit this number in a certain term, whether it's annually, whether it's quarterly, that you need to discuss with the town that you have extenuating needs for town and public services and to have a discussion around that in terms of mitigation, remediation. I don't know if I'm making my point as clear as I should. Like a threshold for fire, police response. Especially around police and fire. Beyond which there might be some type of. And I don't, you know, I can only think of two of the probably 40 that when I listen to the scanner and it may not be doable. I'm just, and I know I've had conversations with the manager. On page 47, when you talk about different kinds of traffic and you talk about Lake Street bike traffic, I don't know if we can incorporate in there and I don't know if my memory is correct. It's my memory that part of the Mass Ave corridor redesign that there will be some sort of redesign down there on Lake Street to address sort of the traffic jam, traffic log as well as safely identifying to bicyclists, sort of a safer way to have bicycle traffic flow through there. Am I correct on that, that that's part of the Mass Ave? The intersection of Mass and Lake? No, Brooks Ave. Yes. Oh, that's something TAC is working on right now. Okay, I don't know if that's appropriate to put in exactly what that is in there. I just, if you deem it appropriate, because I don't know what that final fix is and I don't know that TAC is determined what it is. But I don't think it's, it's not finalized here. I haven't seen anything. But where it's a working document and you still have the bibliography and everything else ready, you know, perhaps put that in. On page 61, when you talk about the 40B threshold, and I know my good friend John Belskis and I want to thank Ms. Kowalski as well as the town manager. I know you've had several meetings with him. I don't know, that sort of motivated the comment from me. It basically the way I read it. I've been told for many years since the Sims, once Sims comes online, we're there. Once Brigham's altar comes online, we're there. And then the way I read those comments was that we may be there, but one of two things. We can't get the official recognition that we are there unless 40B is filed with the town, which would then trigger the process. And then it outlined a second possibility. And my question is, is the second possibility that was outlined? It's my understanding that if the town gathers everything they have for affordable housing now, Mr. Belskis' opinions that were there, but if we file all of it with, I don't know if it's HUD or DCHD, my question would be, is the second option you outlined short of somebody filing a 40B application that we can take the initiative on our own and file that and get that approval? Is that what that second option was in that? Not exactly. That's where I'm confused. It's frustrating. It's very frustrating. And I think our consultant feels it's very unfair that Department of Housing Community Development will allow the communities who can get to 10% of their housing stock to just say no more 40Bs. Whereas communities that want to demonstrate that they've done their fair share in achieving subsidized housing in their communities who want to do it by land area by getting to 1.5% of their land area can't get a certification that you've reached it. They will, you only go about doing that once you've had a 40B application, a comprehensive permit application, and you deny it on the basis of your belief that the community has 1.5%. The consultant made a recommendation in the master plan that we do something different, that we try to go to our legislators and basically campaign to change that procedure to use Eilington as an example that this is an unfair double standard and that a community should be able to when they believe they've reached that 1.5% demonstrate how they've arrived at it and have the same confidence as a community that's reached it by getting 10% of their housing stock. Okay, and I guess I would just say to the town manager, for some reason, I thought we were so close to that 10%. If we're not, we're not, but if we are, I'll just assume we'll take the steps when appropriate. So not the 10% but the 1.5%, yet we are a few acres away. Okay, for 10%. Okay, I'm gonna stop on that. Then on page 80, just to put it out there because it's master plan, one of the things that I've always focused on along with my colleagues on the board, current and past is really looking at the, what I consider the one major industrial zone that we have up in the heights, what I would like to see for the future and I kind of don't see it in there if you think it is, that's fine, but that in terms of future planning, we really look at that and look at contacting flag companies, a JCPenney, Macy's, Nordstrom Rack, whatever, where we say, will you come in? Will you be the flag company? We can work with you and work with your outside facade and we might be able to get CDBG money under industrial zone. We might be able to get some other money. If we put in 25%, you put in the other 75, I'd really like to see some focus on there in terms of, because I'm looking at where big business opportunities are in Arlington and as you know, they're really very limited, so that just kind of flagged out to me when I got to that page in terms of the industrial zone and include whatever you want or don't, but you're talking about the area where Gold's Gym is? All the way back, there's a whole slew of warehouses. I remember I used to work there for a magazine company that when you filled out the cards and you checked off 456-278, I worked on the second floor and did that midnight to eight, so there's a lot, it's until you work in there, you don't realize how big it is, in my opinion. I didn't know there were that many warehouses down there and they're probably at 40, maybe 50% occupancy. But then on, I'm almost done. On page 109, if there could be some inclusion where the town meeting did take a vote along with the Federal Clean Water Act that the L-Wife is a Class B waterway as well as our desire for, in the future, with the MWRA, the City of Cambridge and City of Somerville to eliminate all CSOs. When we've had discussions with those three entities, they've said, well, this is our 10-year plan, we can't do that, we'll be happy to do it 25, 30 years out. Well, that was like 15, 20 years ago. So I'd kind of like to get the language in there so that when that conversation comes back up, that's another thing that whoever goes to represent Arlington can point to. And then my last one on, and again, it's just a suggestion. This may not be either appropriate or where it's appropriate to go, but when I got to page 144, one of the things that I've heard a lot of and I'm sure you all have is, and I don't know what it is or where it is, but it's kind of similar to earlier tonight, that the town commit in its master plan to sort of identifying some sort of youth services building. I mean, I hate to say youth center, you know, because, but, and I don't know if that's appropriate to go in the master plan, but I know that's one of the things, you know, hearing from middle school and high school students. And we also heard a little sort of deviant of it when we had the hearing on the DAV, different people came up, talked about, you know, work sharing, co-sharing. Then there was a gentleman who worked with a youth group who said, you know, if we could use the DAV and also have some seniors in there, wouldn't that be great to bridge the generation gap that, you know, when you get that together. So if there could be some sort of language in there, and I just picked that page because that's where it triggered the memory to talk about, you know, looking into a possible, not totally dedicated youth services building our area, but that would be my last one. Thank you. Thanks. Just to add to that, I believe the committee has looked at a community center. And the real issue is where you find the land because one of the things is the senior center is probably going to get more active as baby boomers like me age and want to stay here in Arlington. There probably will be a greater demand on the senior center as well. So we have talked about a community center where different generations- I'll throw up Poets Connor. That's where I'll throw up. But anyways. And I will say that with the recede BG funding and working with the housing authority, we have dedicated funding to a community center down there at Thompson. So we're working on that as well. Dan. That was a good list, Diane. Thank you. So my question is more about the process. And so I think we've, I'm really excited. I like the document and I'm also, but I'm more excited about the process that's happened over the last couple of years. I am a little bit worried about the current form and its digestibility. And so if I remember correctly from past meetings, the body that actually has to adopt this is the ARB. And the ARB is a specialized body with a specialized skill set. And we can throw a few hundred pages at them and say, could you please make sure this is the right thing for the town and they can do it. But we need, as you've said, you both have said many, many times very eloquently, need the whole town to buy into the master plan. And in its current form, that's a very difficult thing. Like you're not gonna get 200, let alone 150, you're not gonna 100 town meeting members to stagger through the whole thing. What's the battle plan? We intend to have about four meetings, four town meeting members. In, we're not gonna do 21 precincts, we just can't, but we've identified locations where we think that are strategically advantageous for reaching out to town meeting members. The elementary schools, for example, a few of the elementary schools so that we can have an informal night where we talk about some of the highlights and create an opportunity for town meeting members to get comfortable with it. We won't walk through the whole plan unless the gathered members, town meeting members, want that. But we fully recognize that it's very important for us to try to make this much more accessible for people who aren't breathing and living the master plan process. Do you think that there's an actual artifact? I know on some levels, it's frustrating to say, we went through all this work, we had literally hundreds of conversations and meetings, and we collected literally hundreds and thousands of pieces of data and feedback you've gotten. On the other side, you took this whole thing and you've trimmed it down to this much. Is there a way to trim it down to like an artifact that is more, what if I challenged you to say, pick out the five pages that somebody needs to read? Are we gonna be able to do that? I don't think we'll, well actually maybe we could. I think there are several ways to slice it and dice it. I sometimes tell people, depending on what they're interested in, look at this section or look at just the recommendations. I've told a few people what I did when I first got the draft, I printed out the one page table of contents and I went straight to the recommendations. There are nine elements. One of the elements is vision and goals and one is implementation. So there's seven you really go right to for recommendations. So I have some strategies for how I would help people digest it, but I do think too that we'll be able to compress it, compress some of the highlights down into a shorter piece that I would even hope we would have some pictures and illustrations and charts and tables, which we all have to admit are much more fun and interesting to assimilate when we're trying to take in a long document. Why shouldn't it be fun to engage with this information? Okay, so while I love the document, I think my challenge for you is that I think you need to make it more accessible in some form to a broader audience and I think for all the reasons that you eloquently argued for why we were doing all the collecting all the input, we have to succeed on that other end as well. May I ask, do you feel that the plan itself should be much further condensed or do you feel like we should have that plan and the summary version? I think that you should have that plan in a summary version. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Joe. Thank you. I don't have much in the way of questions because I think the chairman and I have been close to this and I know how much work you've all put into this. It's interesting, Dan raises this. I think it's a great suggestion around the summary version but when I look at this plan, I see a lot of meat in it but for me, the most interesting piece is the bread on both sides, the demographic profiles at the beginning which really give an interesting picture of where the town is now and where we've come from. Even if you look at something as simple as like population, 1970, 53,000 people and the way it's dipped and dipped down below 40 and now you see our trajectory going back up and we can all imagine what kind of pressures that creates on the schools and everywhere else in the town. This quantifies very well the aging housing stocks and the economic forces right now at play in the town. Some of the turnover in the town. I think there was a statistic in here that 60% of the people have moved here within the last 10 years which was mind boggling to read. So that is one slice of bread, if you will. And on the far extreme is the implementation guide and I think that some of these questions came up at the last master plan process. Well, where's the additional public process? There's so much public process as we go forward and there's so much that will be delegated to us, delegated to so many other boards. And I just hear jotting down some of the things I was looking at our agenda and kind of mapping it against some of the recommendations and even some of the things we talked about tonight are taken up in this plan. I mean, we've talked about transportation and parking tonight and there are recommendations for implementation around parking study in East Arlington to take up some of these issues that we discussed with some of the residents tonight. Reference to the Arlington Center parking study. We heard about development pressures from some of the other residents who came before us tonight. And there's a lot in here around land use you know, addressing infill development some creative ways to approach this with transfer of development rights which I don't think is a concept that we've seen in the town before and I really appreciate new concepts like that being introduced. One of the big themes and I think you referenced this in the introduction that's coming through is that there is this recognition that we always revisit, we'll revisit it again next month I know and we have our classification hearings on the tax rate about the need to increase our commercial base and there has been this drumbeat around the need for mixed use development. What that means presumably is that if the redevelopment board and every expectation they will endorses the plan going forward presumably there will be some zoning recommendations that come forward. We know that some similar recommendations have come to town meeting in the past we're not successful and I think that as we get closer to town meeting we are probably gonna wanna discuss that as a board how that aligns with some of the economic development interests that we have and how we can support that process if we see that as beneficial to the town moving forward and kind of help our colleagues on the redevelopment board if we're gonna take another frankly take another crack at this with a reasonable mixed use development proposal. That's just one example but that's one that just screams out. The recommendations also have community preservation a couple of recommendations around that we're gonna hear from the Dallin Museum tonight. I do feel and this is my bias and everybody on the board knows it's my bias I feel that some of the the cultural recommendations could be beefed up a little bit more and I know that's come out in some of the public process but that's I think that the core of what's in here is really really important for us going forward and having that roadmap so if I would have started with anything it would be the demographic profile chapter and the implementation recommendations at the end which incorporate all of the recommendations and more importantly how is it phased and who's responsible. So thank you for that work. Thank you Dan. Just really briefly I think Joe said something there that gelled a little bit about what I was trying to say and he was talking about how to sell things to town meeting and in particular so when I talk about that summary I guess what I'm thinking about maybe even is you're gonna love this more than one summary depending upon who your audience is and I think the town meeting is a really important audience for this and they really need a way to digest this that's very specific I think for them and I don't even know what my second summary would be because we can handle the whole document A or B can handle the whole document. I don't know who like town meeting I think a summary is really appropriate and there's probably some other whoever I'd wanna go back and review who the constituents are that you're seeking support and you know like the other players that you or that we need to act in order to implement this town we should think about what's the right way to present the important part to them. Sorry. Thank you very much. So I just have a couple of comments as well one and I actually was talking to Ted Fields about this at the last meeting that we had at the senior center and I know that when he was here with the theater study I might have given him a little hard of a time and I really like how that was incorporated into this master plan and I told him that as well and I thought that was really nice. One thing I was thinking was I know that it has in particular the adopt the CPA now that that's done is that you know are we gonna go through and kind of comb out what has already been accomplished or? We'll be updating some of if things happen which is a great sign if things happen in process we'll update those recommendations. Thank you. And I guess another I guess so we have Judy who's been working in you know quite a few communities on this she really knows what she's doing. Are there any best practices that we can that she's seen in the implementation that we're gonna be you know kind of utilizing here that you can talk about? She has made some recommendations that some best practices she hasn't done a whole scale best practices for zoning for example she has suggested that in her opinion we require special permits for too many uses too many changes she has suggested that for particular needs here in Arlington town interests we should consider transfer of development rights which I think Joe mentioned performance zoning is also practice that she suggests we look into as an alternative what that means is basically allowing more by right provided that certain performance standards are met. There's a lot more to explain and for frankly for us to learn we don't have performance zoning here but there's a lot of intelligence that we can gather on it from other sources in the American Planning Association and I think that's worth looking into. She hasn't, yes some best practices but I think that you'll see in the implementation table where that's where you'll find those. And I guess I saw so along those same lines so I'm looking at the phases and are we so phase one, two and three and I know that we're talking about years and when we're looking at those but are we gonna look at say phase one just kind of give them out to different entities and say kind of go and try to do this is that kind of how this will come together? There's a very strong likelihood that there will be an implementation committee who would oversee implementation and working with the boards and committees that you see as being the lead and the support committees to make sure that they're rolling with implementation. Awesome, I'm really excited about this and this seems to be going in the right direction and it's amazing that it's been two years now already that this has been being worked on to me. And perhaps we'll talk about the adequate size for residential lots in this moving forward after our discussion today. But either way, no, thank you all. And do we have any questions from the audience, comments? Seeing none, thank you very much. Thank you very much for your input and your comments and your thoroughness, thank you very much. I'm like I read every, I thought it was a great thing but I agree with what Mr. Dunn said in terms of having both everything in a condensed. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. Moving on, presentation, Cyrus Dallin Museum Strategic Plan. Jim. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the Board of Selectment and Town Manager and Town Council and the Secretary. I'm James McGough in case you don't know and a founder of the museum and also a former chairman of the Board of Trustees. And I just want to spend a few minutes to refresh your memories on the history of how the museum came into being, to explain and to introduce why the Board of Trustees are here this evening. In 1982, the Cyrus, the Allenten Cultural Council set up a committee with the Allenten Historical Commission to place a marker in front of the flagpole outside here of this building. In the process of going through the review of the sculpture, it was discovered that there wasn't an adequate listing by the town of the works that they owned of Cyrus Dallin. So the Allenten Cultural Committee Council came in and suggested to the Board of Selectment at that time in 1984 that a committee be set up to search the town buildings. The committee was, the committee's consultant in 1987, being paid for by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as dispersed by the Allenten Cultural Council, came up and found 23 sculptures, an oil painting and a drawing by John Sargent. All broken, dirty, just destroying, it's being destroyed, loaded with graffiti. So the Allenten Cultural Council came to the Board of Selectment and said, would you allow the committee to raise funds to restore the works? The committee agreed, the Board of Selectment agreed, and we raised over $35,000 to grants, contributions, selling t-shirts, calendars, and raise the money to restore the sculptures. Well now what are we gonna do with the sculptures? Are we gonna put them back in the attics and the closets down at the basement of Town Hall where we found some in water? No way, not after all these people in this town just contributed to the restoration. So thanks to the efforts of Stephen Gilligan who was Chairman of the Board of Selectment in 1995 and John Maher who was the Town Council, we came up with a warrant article for the Town Meeting of 1995 to establish a Board of Trustees to establish them and to create the museum and an exhibit area. And so the results of the vote of the Town Meeting was one vote short of unanimous. And the one who voted no has regretted it to this day and I constantly remind him of it. In February of 26, 1996, the Board of Selectment appointed nine members to the Board of Trustees. And their job was to establish the museum and an exhibit area in the Jefferson Cutter House and Arlington Center. The Board with the blessings of the Board of Selectment went and opened up two galleries on October the 16th, 18th, 1998. At 16 years ago, this passed October 18th to great fanfare. With two galleries now we went to four galleries because the collection expanded. We started out with 23 sculptures. We now have over 93. So the result was we needed the four galleries. Well, actually we've outgrown the building. At the Town Meeting of 1995, I promised the Town Meeting members and the Board of Selectment and all Town officials that this Board of Trustees would not ask the taxpayers or the budgets of this Town for a dime. And I can assure you to this day, we never have. It was all done through contributions, matching grants and loans and in kind services. I also promised that I would put the Town of Arlington on the international map. We've accomplished that as well. We have visitors from every country in this planet. And we get about two to 3,000 visitors a year. Now we have come up with events. A children's workshop where we teach them in February how to do sculptures to invite them to get to use the idea. We've come up with two books, we've published two books, actually three. We also have had visitors from various organizations on tours. So where do we go from here? I would, this is a great honor to present to you our Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Sarah Birx and Amy Tabiner and Heather Laval who was one of the Co-Chairmen and she is working on a different matter in the Board. So and they will discuss the strategic plan for the next five to six years of the Cyrus Downing Art Museum and also the assessment of the building. It's in pretty tough condition. So Sarah, you're on. Thank you very much. Thank you James and I wanna thank James for all of the dedication and hard work that he continues to put into the museum. He's not just a founder, but he's there almost every single day making sure that the docent is in place and the building is secure and that the visitors are welcomed with a great story, a wonderful tour. So to James and to the other founders, we're so grateful. I'm Sarah Birx, Co-Chair with Amy Tabiner of the Board of Trustees, which is appointed by the members of the Board of Selectments. So you see us from time to time when we are filling vacancies or re-upping our terms. But we thought that this was a very important moment in the museum's life to come to you and sort of give you an update on how things are going because we are very proud of the things that we've accomplished and we're excited about things that we've identified as goals in our strategic plan. This all kind of got started around the preparations that we had for Cyrus Dallin's sesquit centennial in 2011. It was the 150th anniversary of his birth and so for the year from the fall of 2011 to the fall of 2012, we really geared up and we had big events. They were well attended, lots of publicity. We got terrific articles in the New York Times and the Boston Globe and had terrific speakers such as Jonathan Fairbanks. We filled the auditorium downstairs on at least two occasions that year. So that really gave us a boost in our visibility and in our growth and we knew already that we needed to do a strategic plan but it was right after we concluded the anniversary year that we set out to get that done. We also rebranded our marketing materials for the museum and we met with ATED after they had completed a survey that revealed that we had the highest numbers in visitors of the three Arlington history museums and we have a great number of those are out of town visitors, one and a half times more people from out of town than in town come to the Cyrus Dallen Art Museum and they tend to stay to shop or eat in one of the great restaurants here so we really wanna make sure that you know that the museum as well as the theaters are an economic driver for the town. And we accomplished, the latest publication was Arlington's Cultural Heights. That was a partnership with the Historical Society and we got a grant from the Cultural Council for that and that came out in December 2013. We're going to be returning to you within the next couple of months, sometime early in the new year, we've been making a real effort to draw in some new volunteers, especially people with professional skills like graphic design and marketing that can help us achieve some of these things in our strategic plan. So I'm gonna introduce Amy and she can give you the highlights of the plan. Thank you. Thank you. Hello everyone, thank you again for having us here tonight to update you. It's really a pleasure. I'm Amy Taberner, I've been involved in the Cyrus Dallen Art Museum for I believe 10 years or more and I also serve on Arlington's Commission for Arts and Culture and my joining that board, that commission was in part of our strategic plan really to really expand the network of cultural organizations that we have in town. They really make Arlington such a vibrant and wonderful place to live and visit. So we, as Sarah mentioned and as James mentioned, we undertook a strategic plan over the past year with the help of Laura Roberts, of Roberts Consultants. We involved a lot of community leaders and advisors in this process and we really, it was exceptionally helpful. I imagine it was not as challenging as the master plan but it really set us up very well for the next six years to help us with a phased approach to really articulate what our goals are in building our capacity to be a more vibrant community center and really to create a state of the art museum that educates and engages visitors and assures a long-term stewardship of the collections and we really wanted to do that in kind of three ways and we've identified, excuse me, several goals and objectives under those goals and we really wanted to be much more relevant both to expand on the relevance of the museum to the Arlington community and then the broader artistic and cultural community. We really have a gem here with Cyrus Dowland. It's not every community has a world famous artist that played an incredibly important role within their town. It's not just that we had 23 of his works here but he was exceptionally involved in this town and I feel that we really owe it to his legacy to make sure that people within the community and beyond are very aware of the importance of his work and his contribution to our town. So to do that and to really be relevant, we're really hoping to expand on the support and the capacity that we have through financial support and then also through expanding our own structure and utilizing our two boards. We have a non-profit board that helps us raise funds and then we have the town board that reports to you and that is responsible for the day-to-day operation. So we're really looking at this planning process to rethink how both boards operate, how we work with our community and how we can expand our capacity. And related to expanding our capacity, we have to think about the museum and where it's housed. The Jefferson Cutter House is a really prime location and we've utilized it very well over the years but as Heather will discuss, we had recently had an assessment of the building and we really need to address, as part of our strategic plan, we'd like to address the safety of our collections and then the enjoyment of the museum visitors as well. It's a bit difficult to have rotating exhibits and things along those lines. So really, this six-year plan allows us to think through some strategies to get us to where we wanna be. So I hope that if you have questions about the strategic plan that we've given you, that you can raise those after Heather mentions the cap assessment. Thank you. Thank you very much. As Amy said, I'm Heather LaValle. I have been a trustee for the Dallin Museum for about a dozen years and co-chair for about six of those and recently, since September, have been employed very, very part-time by the museum's nonprofit as the director curator and that's about a 15-month position to really, and it's thanks to the generosity of several of our long-time donors to kind of try to tackle some of the strategic goals and the plan, especially around the building issues that we have, some issues with the collection and raising our financial base of support. So yeah, so in the winter time, we applied through the nonprofit for a conservation assessment of the Jefferson-Cutter House and we received a grant. We engaged a conservator, a collections conservator and an architect to look at the building and the collection and basically survey the existing conditions, identify issues and help us prioritize those issues and look at our internal policies and procedures and advise us on those so that we can improve the long-term care of the collection. So throughout the assessment process, it became more and more clear to us that we are not here enough. We aren't communicating the needs of the building, the needs of the museum to you, the Board of Selectmen who really are instrumental in the operations of the museum. So the conservation assessment report that was a result of this grant is a framework also for us to be able to communicate with you some of the pressing needs of the building and the museum in general and so that we can resolve these together. So just briefly, the main issues that came out of the report were you probably looking at the building, you probably know that it does need a new roof, Goddard's, it's, there's insufficient, the structure, there's not enough support for the hearths and the chimneys. So structurally the building needs to be assessed possibly by an engineer and that situation has to be rectified because I mean, then we have an issue of safety in the building if that continues to be a problem and also water, we are getting a lot of water in the eastern portion east side of the building and the general water flow has to be redirected away from the house. So those are just some of the more pressing big picture issues that are the priorities for us and I think what Carol was gonna talk to you about the budget, the town has approved about $115,000 of the next two fiscal years, FY15 and 16, about 60,000 this fiscal year for the roof and the Goddard's and about 40,000 next fiscal year for the hearth, the structural issues and some of the other work that needs to be done and you should have all received a copy of the conservation assessment and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Questions from the board, comments? Yes, Diane. Thank you for the presentation and thank you, Jim, for your longstanding commitment to this and to Sarah, Amy and Heather. I love the plan that you gave us and the matrix, how you divided things up and basically I think spread it out to 2018 or 2019 in terms of 2020. Okay, you went to 2020. I was really excited by a lot of the things, just comments. Definitely kudos on whatever you can do in terms of, I think you were here earlier this evening, the outreach to colleges and programs, tough seems to do an awful lot of outreach and volunteerism, not only with our students, but sometimes a lot around planning and other things where you were talking about the graphics area of it as well as the art itself. The other thing that I noticed in here was, you spoke about the two-day workshop for Allington Public Schools and possibly expanding that, I think that's fantastic. Perhaps incorporating St. Agnes and Allington Catholic where they're so adjacent to it as well as, there's kids from outside of Allington, but also in Allington, but art history is art history. The other thing which is really reaching and is a huge task that I would just put out there in terms of getting out the history and the education and information right now myself, thinking in terms of students in Allington, whether it's public schools or St. Agnes, Allington Catholic, I know when I was bracket school PTO, I just did it over the summer to basically, because I was taking care of other people's kids anyways, worked with a teacher up there and sort of got a lesson plan for a two-week course because I was watching other people's kids as well as my own around the Jason Russell House. Perhaps exploring, if you haven't already, with the school administration, if it would be applicable in elementary, middle, and or high school in terms of would it fit in their curriculum, if you had the expertise, would they be interested in that if you could say, we can give you an educational appropriate curriculum for elementary, middle school, high school, especially around high school in terms of history. And I'd like to really, a lot of the students at Allington High School, I think you saw here tonight, they're really coming around, getting invested back into the community versus when I was in school, back in 1980. So there's kind of searching for different avenues to get tied into the community. And I know that's a big undertaking, but maybe just explore, first of all, would the administration be interested in, would it be appropriate? Would it fit into a curriculum, if so, for what age? And then I liked where you talked about the researching the online capabilities of the collection as well as other information. And that kind of triggered a thought of another project. So I'm not saying this should be done or me, and if it's in here, I apologize, but I know when Sims developers were talking about the community area up there, one of the things, and I haven't been up there to test it out, but they talked about in the community area, certain structures, you could go up and they would be like a, a, a, a lantern. You could use, what's it called? Bar code, the. The bar code. That seemed really exciting. I know nothing about it, but I do know the students that I, you know, coach at the high school and middle school, they are so savvy to all that stuff and I mean I see them going in, you know, with their iPhones and Samsung's and all that, doing everything with it. So just again, that costs money and it's time, but if and when you think that's appropriate, I would think that's fantastic. As far as structurally, and I totally agree, having been in to the Cyrus Allen Museum, it needs a lot of work and I wanna thank you all for, you know, along with the town manager and Ms. Kowalski for really keeping it together as best as you can. But I'm certainly willing and keeping my mind open for any other things that we can do in the future, whether it's a joint venture with the town, I know fundraising, I'm totally with that. I remember when I first started town day, that's totally self-sufficient, so I know what that's like in terms of and now Marianne and the rest do that. Anything that any of us can do, of course, our door is open, but I'd certainly be willing to, if you have a specific meeting where that's like the main topic, if you could just, you know, highlight it to the board of selectmen, you send all your minutes and your agendas to us anyways, but if you wanna give us a heads up that this is the meeting where we're gonna get to the bones of that, if you could just let the selectmen's office know and they'll be sure to pass it on to all of us. But I really enjoyed what I'm gonna call your matrix for the future, because, you know, it was so easy for me to read. It was only 12 pages, so. But I really liked the way that was set up that way. It was user-friendly, and that's it. Thank you, Diane, comments. Joe. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I know how hard you all work at this, put your heart and soul into it. I saw that one of your items on the matrix, which I also found very easy and accessible, was reaching out to different officials and groups in town to build allies and it included us, and so you can check that off the list. I think you've come and visited us, and I think we're all, I don't wanna speak for everyone, but I think we're all very supportive of the work that you do. I had a couple of questions. I did see that you talked about potentially building some alliances with the Armenian Library. I thought I saw a reference in there. Did you have any thoughts about what types of, projects or cooperation you might seek with them? Cause that's a hidden gem in town as well. It is, and a number of years ago, there was a coalition between the Jason Russell House Historical Society, the Old Schwamm Mill, the Cyrus Dallen Art Museum, and the Armenian Cultural Center Library. And since then, we've haven't had much interaction with that group, and so as a major cultural group in Arlington, we'd like to reestablish that connection. I don't, we haven't identified exactly how we're gonna do that, but members of the nonprofit board have been having sort of one to one meetings with people around town to boost our visibility, so I would think that would be a good way to start. Sure, sure, great, thanks. I have one more question from the matrix. I think that your comments on the issues at the Jefferson Cutter House are obviously well taken. I know that you and I have discussed this a bit as well. So clearly that has to be on the roadmap, and I think that some of it has been in the Capitol plan and hopefully we'll have some more capacity going forward. But I do notice in the matrix that you also include here starting a capital campaign for a new facility, and I heard James's stats on the way the collection has increased, so do you actually project that you're going to outgrow the space at the Jefferson Cutter House, regardless of what shape the building is in, and are going to have to seek a new facility going forward to keep it viable? I think that's certainly one of the things that could happen in the long-term planning. Our collection does continue to grow, but we are committed to keeping this in Arlington. You can't beat the location of the Jefferson Cutter House. So many people who come into the museum say that they were just walking by in the center enjoying all the amenities in Arlington Center or they were riding along the bike path. So we're not eager to leave, nor do we have the capacity right now to raise a million dollars or something in order to do that, but we do have a responsibility to protect the collection, not let it get dripped on by the leaking roof because a lot of our collections or a lot of our pieces are plaster. It's one thing if you're getting water dripping on a bronze, it's not great, but they are made to be outdoor sculptures in bronze like we have here. But it's another thing entirely when you're talking about plaster, and we just, yeah. I'd like to just also mention that it's challenging to be in this museum. It's perfectly located, but to have rotating exhibits, to have any types of educational programs to really be a vibrant cultural center and to share the collection with more than just a handful of people at a time, it's very challenging. So thinking about really what our goals are, we have to be open to thinking beyond the walls of those four galleries, to really meet the needs of, to be able to grow and really serve as a true cultural asset for the town beyond just these stagnant exhibits that we do well, but it's hard to kind of bring people back in, it's hard to have an event, it's challenging to try and schedule a year in advance for our sculpture classes, which are in the Jefferson, in the gallery downstairs. I mean, it works out, but in an ideal world to really meet our vision, we might need to think creatively about some additional space. So is a guiding principle there though, keeping the collection together or is some of the thinking potentially having a satellite location for specific? I don't know about a satellite. We were thinking about some offsite storage and rotating our collections a little bit more with bronze sculptures and even with plaster, that's a lot of logistical challenges and for an all, pretty much an all volunteer organization, it's tricky. But I think we would be really open to thinking about other locations in towns. This is really something that we want to, we want to expand the usefulness of the museum to the community and it's challenging to have educational programs. We do have a great curriculum developed for third graders right now, but getting them into the museum is problematic. So if we had more space or some kind of flexibility, we might have more potential. Yeah, I want to address the point about growing out of the space. We've actually have grown out of this. We are grown out of the space now. We have too much art for the space that we have. We don't have adequate storage now and as Amy said, we are going to have to think of a plan to get some of the sculptures into some secure long-term storage because they simply just can't be, there's just not enough room. And then the other piece about the school programming is that the, our Arlington Public School Day program, which will pilot this spring, we worked on that with the director of social studies, Carrie John, and she was very frank with us and said, look, she said, you are not going to be able to get field trips, traditional field trips into your space. It's just logistically, it's just, it's too challenging not to mention all the other demands that are on the time of the teachers and their schedules. But you know, but that's, we don't have the adequate facilities now to even kind of do the bare minimum of what we wanna do. So yeah, we're hopeful that someday we'll be able to build our capacity to have a more adequate space, someday. Thank you. Kevin. Yeah, thank you so much all of you for what you do, but it's that issue of a, it wasn't too long though, Mr. McGarron, I think yourself were before us about definitely raising the money to move into the carriage house and to turn that into the Cyrus Downey Museum and who knows what work that thing would need, you know, at this point in time in terms of, but it's just, it's a very, very important resource for us. And you know, if the plans are to definitely move to the carriage house or move, we have to balance that with how much work are we gonna do on this building in the meantime? Right. And so did you say there's a hundred, there is a hundred 10 or something over the next two years? Two years, yeah, 115. And that may or may not cover it and that's, we do have the nonprofit that can help break grants and maybe match the funds. So perhaps we can, we've been working together the nonprofit and the municipal board with Carol on the cap assessment and it's been great so far, so. Right. Well, please keep up the good work. Thank you. So yeah, thank you very much for bringing this to us. I, you know, we're talking a lot about planning tonight and I think that it's certainly appropriate to have a plan in place for this asset. I really like the cap report and how the projects were prioritized and I think that's what a lot of this is gonna come down to is, you know, what are the top priorities and what can really, you know, what can everyone afford, you know, to really invest in this and that will come down to tough choices but I'm sure that, you know, working together we can, we'll certainly do our best. Great, thank you. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. You're always welcome at the museum. Thank you. Moving on for approval, the disposition strategy for 1207 Mass Ave, Adam Chaplin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So before the board is a brief recommendation summing up what Mr. Dunn shared with the board under new business at the last meeting of the board, basically recommending a two-step yet parallel approach of authorizing or endorsing Doug and I and other town staff to draft an RFP for what I guess we'd call a short-term lease of the building in an initial six-month term with then an additional lease term. I listed no greater than 12 months. I believe Mr. Dunn might wanna express a different take on that. And then the second part of that process would be making sure we file a warrant article for this year's town meeting to ask for town meetings permission to eventually sell the building at the end of whatever lease we agreed to. So that's before the board tonight. I sort of a path forward with the board's endorsement and approval. We would draft an RFP, then get the board to approve that, issue that and move forward. Thank you, Adam. So moved. So I totally agree with the path and the direction that's there. The only question I asked Adam was whether he was comfortable with, oh shoot, I just went out of my mind, the words no greater than. Because I was hoping to, it didn't have to be so inflexible because it's my expectation and perhaps Adam can tell me that my expectation was incorrect. It's my expectation that we're gonna run out of the end of this lease and we're gonna be at, I don't really know when the lease is gonna start because it depends upon how long the RFP process is. I don't really know when the body, like if someone takes it, whether or not maybe they'll want to extend it or maybe they won't. There's gonna come a point where we actually really want the money because we want it for strattin. And I don't know the exact times. And so rather than saying no greater than, I'd rather do something, indicate a little bit more flexibility. Is that appropriate or not? So we do have to have, Doug and I, the town council and I discussed it today, we do have to have some, fence on what a renewal period would be. So I suppose we could do up to 12 months or maybe up to a period that's greater than 12 months so that there's more time flexibility as opposed to no greater than sort of have a, treat the ceiling differently, I guess. Is it possible to say something like multiple six month terms up to six of them or something like that? Or we wouldn't necessarily fill all six or something like that? I don't think, we can't do that. So I think my concern would be that we want to make sure, Mr. Dunn, I think my concern would be that we want to make sure that we're not creating issues in terms of how the state would expect us to put it out. The state generally doesn't like multiple renewals. That being said, there may be some arrangements that we can work out with respect to having a specific set lease period that we're confident that everybody will be there, a renewal period, and then work in some kind of sunset provision for how a maybe month to month tenancy would be treated until we sell the property. We've got a couple options, but perhaps multiple renewals is maybe not the best route for us to go. Clearly, you all understand my concern. Adam does too. I'm content, I am happy to support the motion that was really made. I agree with you, and I think this is a very good attempt to satisfy, but who possibly is gonna sign up for six month lease? I mean, I just, I know they're talking about this temporary office kind of concept, and I mean, other than somebody who would take a lease in the hopes of then they could purchase, I could, but anyhow, good luck. If we can do it, do it. Yeah, if I may, Mr. Chairman. I think that's a very fair concern, and when we met with the working group, I think we were somewhat inspired by the public feedback we had, and thought about putting together a process that would allow either one of those people or some part of those groups, or maybe some of those groups together putting together some kind of application that frankly could have some income come into the town while we were preparing to sell it, while also meeting some of those needs that were expressed. So you're right, it may not work out, but I think all that's lost is the work that goes into the RFP, because we'll still be following the second path of trying to sell it. I agree with Adam on that, and that it's, we've heard quite a lot of talk about people asking us to take, asking the town to take the initiative to try to create these types of co-working spaces, or places where residents can come together during the day, and I think that shutting the door on this property and saying absolutely no might deflate that a little, and I think that this might provide an opportunity to a lot of residents who might be able to make this work. And I think that as Adam said, we're not losing anything by giving it a shot. So, yes, thank you. Just two quick questions, and I'm not gonna say it right. When we do the RFP, can we have language in there that it's sort of as is? Absolutely. So that, you know, cause people said, oh, you're gonna go in there and then they're gonna demand you have to do this, this, this, and this. So we can do that. I'm calling it as is. Can I, I'm sorry, to respond, can I, Mr. Chairman? Yes. Just to respond to your question Ms. Mahon, we could certainly, in fact, most of our town leases currently are as is. I will say that does not prevent tenants from occasionally making arguments about certain things like implied warranties and things like that, but our leases as they are already structured in that way to try to make sure that folks understand very explicitly when they're taking on a town building, we're not in the business of doing this to make a profit on commercial enterprises. We're in the business of trying to, you know, provide resources for the town. And then to Mr. Dunn's point, in terms of thinking, if everything goes within the normal timeline, we're talking about 12 months out, if for some reason the sale ultimately didn't happen for two or three years, would I be correct that the scenario would probably be if this ran out in a year and we realized we're gonna go out another year or two, you basically would represent us with this cover memo that we have here that's again asked for authorization to once again extend it to year two or year three. And I'm not saying this is a three year thing, but in terms of this is the process that's defined right now, but there's nothing precluding us that, if for some reason it gets extended in the future, then you can just present that to us and we can say, okay, those are the new terms extended out year two, year three. What we might have to do in that situation, depending on how that first RFP and then lease is structured, if we went out to that longer period of time, we might end up having to re-bid it. So town council had mentioned we might wanna put in the lease, something that talks about a month to month tenancy in some interim period. So if something, you know, was falling short with the sale process and was gonna take longer than we thought then we could get in a situation where we had to issue a bid again. But if we do have the flexibility that Doug mentioned, I think we could work. Because I envision once we have this warrant article hearing at town meeting that we're all gonna sort of get the sense of what the body sort of thinks there and that might help us frame our timetable better. So I'll let you all work with the parameters of the language for that. So, okay, thank you. Thank you. Yes, Kevin. I was actually thinking of the space since I was down once they were talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was too. They say you got the leaky roof and the floor's flooded. From the TV, sorry. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Any further discussion? I would just say, I think this synthesizes very nicely what we heard. I'm happy to support it. Thank you. Discussion from the audience? Just one question. Well, I'll bring those again. What's the value of that? Of the property? It's assessed for around, well, 500,000. You know, I'm not 100% sure of the stock. So we had a confidential appraisal performed that we, I wouldn't recommend that we speak about publicly at this point in terms of the town's bargaining position, but I think that assessment's a fair value. Okay, because it seems like short money in terms of having an impact on the school. Half million there, half million there. Every big counts, every big counts. So we have a motion to second all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you. And finally, Mr. Greeley, discussion and adoption of the Selectman's Handbook, chapter six, which is town meeting. And if you're not tired enough already. But just like we've done before, if you'd like to take it from the top, I mean, if anybody, any members of the board, you know, feel that there's wording or something they'd like changed. If I, so we'll open it up for discussion from the board. Joe. I'm actually happy to move approval. Second. I read it, I thought it was great. Well, thank you. I'm always, it is my, I'm moving approval. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Thank you for the second. No, second, Joe. Second, sir. Any amendments that anybody would like to make? No, Joe. No, sir. I'm happy, Mr. Greeley, and I read every word. Oh my God. So we have a motion and a second. Well, I would like to bring up one issue that we had discussed. That's, I forgot about that. Well, it's just, and really I think the way it is, it comes out as what we have to leave it as. But it, it has bothered me over the years and a few times, I would say a handful is probably more than necessary. But if you remember reading through here, as you know, we, we developed the warrant and those bodies necessary, those bodies responsible ourselves, finance committee, zoning hold hearings. Well, I don't like when proponents will not come before us for a hearing and yet it is still debated on town meeting floor just with the substitute motion. And we toyed with and talked for quite a while about is there a way we could put in some, some wording related to, I feel when we are moving no action, it's because in the history of our community, we have reasonable argument. If both sides are not presented, you can't really reach probable truth. You didn't know I was an Aristotelian, did you? You just didn't realize that about me, right? But, but really if the proponents for a warrant article don't come before us and explain it, our only vote is no action. Similar to a vote where proponents do come before us and we move no action for whatever multiple reasons there may be, including it's something we might take care of without meeting a town meeting warrant article anyhow. So you'll see there's not really any wording in there, but one thing we would like to do going forward is in a select one's report somehow indicate that that no action vote is a result of the proponents failing. But I wish town meeting would then not take up the substitute motion, but. So like no action with prejudice or something? Well, with extreme prejudice, but yeah. Sorry. Thank you for listening to me and again, I thank Doug, Steve, Eve, Mary Ann who are all, we're advisors, we're not an official committee. We're a support group. Thank you. That's right. Sometimes it feels like a support group. Mr. Dunn. I just had one thought, which is something that has kind of troubled me over the, but and this doesn't directly address and I wonder if we want to, which is talking about, it is entirely appropriate that we place things on the agenda, excuse me, on the warrant, but it is not entirely clear how the board does. Sometimes we take votes explicitly. We say, you know, this thing should be there. Then there are other things that we all agree just should be there or like, you know, the board administrator knows that we want there and that it appears on the warrant, but we don't actually take a formal vote on that. And I wonder if we want to consider going forward, you know, in a January meeting talking about how that happens. Mr. Greeley's nodding. No, it's something we discussed, but I believe it's in there, Doug. That's correct. I think that we've made that clear. It was a discussion and it does say by vote here, it doesn't go into further detail about what the timeline of that process would be, how that should go, you know, how that motion should be raised. So the intent was that this would actually, that we would, this would help us change our actual practice is what you're aiming at. Yeah, I think, okay. More uniform. Mr. Greeley, literally in the past, one member of the board could ask for a warrant article and it could be placed on there. What we're now saying is no, that one member of the board or there's a member of the board that didn't get that. Or there's one member of the board would have to get 10 registered votes. That it's the board of select when that produced the warrant by majority vote thereof. Can I just, it wouldn't be that, Ms. Mahoney, it wouldn't be that you'd have to get 10 registered voters. It's, I'm sorry, unless you're saying- Oh no, I don't want to go in past history. That's okay, everything in here is great. Okay, so it's a majority vote of the board. Majority vote of the board. Right, but that was your only other option. Mr. Greeley, you just made me even happier with this. All right, we're all happy. Shut up before I make someone- Yeah, see now you're just opening Pandora's blinds. Opening them up. But it was exactly that situation. That was, we had a good time. Yeah, actually, there is another issue that I actually, something I've thought about in the past is actually the ordering of the articles in the warrant. I think properly fall underneath the- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's a fair point, John. I know, but it's- And I don't know if we ever actually take a vote on- Do we take a vote on the final warrant before- If I may, I think there's some reasonable attitude that the board has to be afforded through its office, that its board administrator has assigned the tasks to the board and that practically speaking, the order of the warrant is arranged by the board of select men's designees and agents. It's not as if it comes from, it's not as if someone else puts it together. There are obviously the town manager is instrumental in helping to provide very strong recommendations for what that order should be, but it is this board's office that is the one responsible for that. I know, and the only reason I raise it is that there has been discussion, at some times in the past, about whether or not it's beneficial. Now, we haven't moved to change it, but whether or not it's beneficial, for example, for new town meeting members to be confronted with complicated zoning articles is the very first thing when they walk into the town meeting and whether there isn't another way that could be considered in the future. Now, we haven't moved on that, but I know, yeah, Dan's shaking, is that like- Sorry, I'm- But it does seem like it's potentially a, you know, it does have a policy implication. I hear you, but I've personally, I have no interest in trying to change that. And I also think that there is no JV team in town meeting. There is no like, well, here's your warm-up town meeting. Like, you show up at town meeting. It is town meeting. There is no way around that. I agree, and I do think that I don't, this is, it's funny, because this is the, everything that we're talking about right now, we have talked about- You're talking about even getting stuck. I'm glad you get to do it twice. You should have just gabbled this vote thirsty. No, I'm regretting that. 20 minutes. Well, we're talking about the importance of, you know, saying that us in our office has the authority, but also being able to, you know, take, you know, other matters into consideration when setting it. So as opposed to having, you know, boom, boom, boom, it can, you know, we have some leeway there. Okay, so- Well, and again, I hope I'm not losing votes, but we actually had it in there and have taken it out. But there is a big issue related to it, which is what our staff goes through. We do not have final say. The board, our staff does not have final say on- I understand, but they're still pushed, because they're the ones who put it together. And, you know, someone wants an article brought up way late in the meeting, because they know people have stopped coming at that point in time. Zoning isn't crazy about being first up at town meeting, but I think for us to try to describe it any better, and I wanna give Marianne, I don't know that you'd like to say anything at this point, Marianne, but should the manager have the right to decide where he wants, you know, many of the articles that are related to him? Yes, he should, but I think we need to keep it. It's channeled through the chairman, you know, that final decisions on the warrant, like on an agenda, no? You don't like that? I'm not saying anything. Well, do you like the idea of it has to be channeled through the chairman? I like that, but I just, you know, I'm Marianne. I don't wanna- Yes, Marianne. With Don, sorry. At ease of the office, it would be nice for everybody to be at one round table at one point in time and figure it instead of moving, you know, over the course of, you know, one to two weeks. I would, for what it's worth, this paragraph at the bottom on the left column and the bottom page two, I feel extremely strongly that the latitude and flexibility that that language affords the board is very important to be what the board endorses. I think that is, it provides latitude. There's some guidance in there. I don't think it handcuffs the board, but I don't think it dictates too much in one direction or the other, but makes clear that it is the board's ultimate authority. And if there's a time where the board needs to exercise that authority stronger than one year, then another, it's there. But if there's another time that the board doesn't need to do that, it also doesn't need to exercise that authority. May I also add a point? I'm sorry. Yes, please. Also, I think it's important to be aware of things like open meeting law. We wanna make sure that if there come times where this board needs to affirmatively say we're gonna meet and decide what the warrant article order will be, that they can do that. But if interest and efficiency, it's vested in the chairman, it's sort of been the practice of this board that with the Office of Board of Selectment Staff provides the flexibility that Mr. Chaplain I think is talking about. Yes, Tim. So I mean, I continue to like this document. I continue to think that it says the right thing. I do have, I did get, I do understand that the office staff has some, they get pulled and pushed in some ways. And I think it's right for us to try to fix that. I'm not sure that this document is the right thing. So maybe one way to do it is to take a separate vote at a different time that says that where we indicate, where we specifically confer upon the chair, the authority on this particular warrant to please reorder things. And then when Mary Ann and Mary and Fran get pushed and pulled, they've got a little bit of a, well, I will pass your comments onto the chairman. And then, you know, that gives them the backstop that they need to get the work done that they do. And it makes Steve's life harder. That sounds great. Second making Mr. Chairman's life harder. And can I, I wanna agree with that. If the chairman with the selectments office can set up some sort of vehicle that similar to when people don't show up for warrant article hearings that it's basically three heads sort of making that are involved in this process that when the chairman and the board of selectments office says this is the time, you come in and you have all your 20 and you don't say, well, here's 10. I'll get back to you on the other 10. And then you're calling four days later on the other five. There should be some sort of cutoff day pending any extraneous circumstances that that's it. You can't, because there's awful. How about the hearing or the order? The order, mostly the order. In terms of for them getting the warrant prepared and ready to go that when you have that one meeting similar to when we have a warrant article, you know, those three titular heads that I'm thinking of sort of involved with that that now the chairman will oversee, you're ready to go on everything and let's get it in there because everybody and no more picking up the phone, calling four days later and then three days later. And you know, recognizing that something else may come up. I'm not saying it's hard and firm, but that practice really should stop because it just drives, I mean, I've been in the office years ago and know what it put me through before how extraneous it is now. I think I confess that I feel like we're talking about different things because I'm not familiar with it. Okay, we'll talk about it in a future meeting. I'm not familiar with it. So, well, I mean, I don't mind talking about it now if you want, but the thing that I'm talking about is one interested party says, let's make this article number 78. And another interested party says, oh, that article should be 16. And another interested party says, oh, this one should be 38. And they're all town leaders, they're all, but that's the back and forth that I was trying to refer to. And what I'm saying is when that process happens, it happens and that's it, there's a cutoff. Okay. Unless there's extenuating circumstances. But I'll let the chairman hand that. I think that's, yeah, let's do that. I've worked in there in that song. I can't relay it because I'll probably take off at least five, six different town leaders. So, I think it's probably a whole time we take a vote. So we have a motion to second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Seeing none. We have correspondents received. Receipt? Parking issues on Chestnut Street. We had a move to seat. So we, is there an update on this? I thought. Yeah. It was on the desk. Oh, it was on the desk. There, I thought so. So, Corey is not recommending any changes and we'll discuss this at a future board meeting. But thank you. So. Move or seat? Move or seat. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Seeing none. So, it will be on another agenda so we can inform. Yes. Dr. Ashenbow and. That's correct. New business. I do have one thing. January 12th. Do you want to consider moving your meeting earlier? I'm not sure when the master planning committee meeting is but it sounded like you may be interested in being. Is that something you want to do? Maybe. Perhaps. When's our next meeting? The eighth? No, the eighth. Yes. Perhaps that's, be more apt to discuss it on the eighth. Maybe. I just, I don't think I'm ready to move that around right now. Thank you. Anything else? No. Doug? I hope the member of this board have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I also note that as December is right around the corner if there are any warrant articles than any individual selectmen are considering or contemplating, please get in touch with me is at your earliest convenience. Thank you very much. That's it for me. One piece of new business. I know I have let the board members know this but I wanted to officially announce that we have hired a new library director, Peter Trezaro. He's currently the library director in Winthrop. He definitely is going to bring a lot of innovation and creativity and just excitement to the library. A lot of things about him remind me of the person he's replacing and I think he also has a skill set that'll bring a whole new take to the library. So we're very excited. I know the library staff is very excited. He wanted to be here tonight to meet the board. I said, well, let me get you on the agenda. So sometime in December we'll have him here before the board to introduce him. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Excellent. Kevin? Just two quick things. One is so far we have one gig for the select tones for you all to get on your calendars. December 20th at 2 p.m. We're actually going to do a concert at Brightview up at Sims. And we're waiting to hear the other date for it will probably be Drake Village a night earlier that week. But I'll, I'm just waiting, working with John Griffin and we'll have a date for you. Can you make us a tour? It's a Saturday at 2 o'clock. You could have a solo. Asked Mr. Curell. I could pull it off, but go ahead. No, and the other is just a personal piece of business. Just, this is your last chance this week to see my wife's artwork which hangs in the hallway here in the second floor of Town Hall. The show ends this weekend after Thanksgiving. So there is some talent in the Greeley family, but it's in my wife. It's out in the hall. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Curell, thank you. Crossing off things. You had that down? No, no, I had things that I don't even want to ask about tonight. They can wait. First off, I do want to, as was referenced earlier, the Allington High Girls Varsity Soccer Team went to states. Literally was the best teams, North versus South. My varsity cheerleading team all went voluntarily in full practice uniform to support their fellow players on the soccer team, as did some other Allington High students and athletes. And up to the last, like, 11 seconds, it was tied 2-2. But it really was a great game, and I'm really proud of all the players on the girls' soccer team. And this Sunday, up in Lowell, my cheerleading team went to states and in kind on their own, the girls' soccer team and their coach were there to cheer us on. And in the Lodge Co-Ed division, we came in fourth in the state, which I'm very proud. We were very close to nationals, but there's always next year. But I'm really so proud of this team. This is the first fall team. Fall is very competitive for cheerleading. Winter, it's a little bit more easy to get to states. I've gotten to states three times in the winter. This is the first time we've taken a fall team, because that's when all your top athletes, they do that, and then half of them go to hockey and other. So to get to states in the fall, in Co-Ed, which is also another hurdle, I'm really proud of them all, and the parents, who put in a lot of time and effort. To that end, Gina, who was here tonight, will be joining me and other seniors at the touchdown club tomorrow night, which is just a close event between Allington High, Allington Catholic, students, athletes, coaches, and others, as well as touchdown officials. She'll be giving the remarks on behalf of the cheerleaders, but it's a really nice event to get Allington High and Allington Catholic together. When we competed at regionals, Allington Catholic was in the afternoon session. They came in early to cheer on Allington High, because we've always done the converse. So I think it's a nice marriage to have that. And then to that end, something everybody is walking to is the Thanksgiving Day game down at the Warranty Pierce Field, 10 o'clock on Thursday. You really can do both. I cook for 16, but I'm down there, and it's a great event. It's gonna be cold, but I'm hoping I don't see anything in terms of rain. I can take snow. But it's really fun. It's fun to go down, especially fun to see all the guys who lined that end of the fence closer to the concession stand, and then you see all the women up in this stand. So you could pick which group you want to check in on. So everybody's welcome to come down. It's really fun. And if you down this, come over and say hi to the cheerleaders. That's it, thank you. Thank you, Diane. Ben. Just one thing, I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna bring it up under correspondent received or future agenda. I've got a request from, as I mentioned before, we lost Robert McMurray, AKA Bobby Mack earlier this year. And some of his friends are working on doing a memorial in April next year, which would be his birthday. And one of the things that they would like to do is dedicate a rock on the bike path with like a plaque. And they sought my support to get that in front of the public memorials committee. And so I'm gonna make a formal request to you all to endorse that and pass it along. I won't be at next meeting, but I'll send a, I'll write something up so that you can, you know, do it under correspondence if you see fit. So that's my only piece of business. Especially you say you can't be at the next meeting. Why not? Why can't we just do it right now? Because I'm a big fan of the agenda. Making sure it's, yeah, that's my only, yeah. Pat Peeley. Thank you, Joe. Thank you. Three quick things. Firstly, I think Jen Tripp addressed this, but I just want to remind everyone that Arlington's first lights celebration will be the weekend of December 5th, 6th and 7th. There'll be a tree lighting down at the Veterans Memorial Park at 6.30 with singing and music on December 5th, doing that the night before. December 6th, there'll be trolleys, free trolleys going up and down Mass Ave throughout the afternoon. And this is the major shop local event of the year that really brings together the three major business districts. And so we just encourage folks to come out for that. And where's the tree, Joe? They're lighting where? Just the large tree down near the fire station. It's like last year. By the War Memorial, yeah. By the War Memorial. And actually. I didn't know if they were putting up. One of the choirs, I think we all endorsed a proclamation for a visiting choir from South Africa, which is a multi-racial choir from South Africa, which is going to be visiting the town that weekend actually performing at First Parish. And they'll be performing a couple of songs at the tree lighting as well. So we're really glad to have them visiting with us. Second item, the council mentioned warrant articles from our board. I did want to mention that with the voter adoption of the Community Preservation Act, we are under the law, we will have to put forward a warrant article around the creation of the Community Preservation Committee. So that is something that we will have to take up as a board and we'll discuss that obviously at the appropriate time. And lastly, Thanksgiving is obviously coming on Thursday and I hope everyone has a great holiday. The town manager and I were at an event last week that really drove home at the meaning of Thanksgiving in the town. We were at the ribbon cutting for the new food pantry location at the old Broadway diner. And it's really an amazing story the way that it's a public-private partnership. It brought together some of our large nonprofits. The Housing Corporation of Arlington got involved with this. They've actually purchased the site and the faith communities. Many of the faith communities in this town came together and supported financially the establishment of this site, the food pantry, which served over 600 families last year. I happened to go down a couple days later because my daughter's Girl Scout troop was helping. Our Board of Youth Services was putting together over 100 bags for families in need in the town for Thanksgiving. So it just, for me, it was just a real reminder than Thanksgiving, we're all gonna sit down. We're gonna count our own blessings, but there are so many people in our town who also remember to share the blessings that they have. And I think that's something for us all to be thankful for and just encourage you all to go down and see the new location. It's really marvelous. Thank you. Thank you very much. I guess I've won a short piece of new business and that's to follow up on Ms. Mahan's comments. I couldn't go to the soccer game or the cheerleading event, but I was following AHS athletics on Twitter and I got up to the, you know, up to the second update. So I recommend everyone doing that at GoPonders. It's their Twitter handle. So that's about it though. Mocha, Jerm. Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye.