 I call to order the second night of Arlington's 2023 October special town meeting. One second. So just some brief remarks before we get started. First, a reminder to power on your handsets if they're not actually on already. There's a power button on the lower right of the keypad. Hold it down until a message appears on the display. And if you do that again, you will presumably turn it off. I've been informed that the hearing assistive devices have not been working since the audio was upgraded in the town hall auditorium recently. We're going to do our best to try to fix the issue in time for Monday's meeting. So apologies for the inconvenience with that. A reminder that we expect to take up Article 12 on Monday. Several amendments for Article 12 have already been posted to the annotated warrant and announced to the town meeting members email list. There are more motions incoming which are being reviewed. And if we finish, all the proponents for the other articles other than Article 12 are prepared to move forward with those articles tonight. So if we finish early tonight with the exception of Article 12, then we can adjourn early and we'll come back Monday with the meeting's permission, of course, for Article 12 on Monday. Lastly, we're missing handset number 45. So please check your handset. And OK, so can you bring that over to the side table and we'll get you the right handset? Thank you. OK, we will now have a performance of the national anthem. Please rise. How much share of the select board? It is moved that if all the business of the meeting is set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting is not disposed of at this session, when the meeting adjourns, it adjourns to Monday, October 23, 2023, at 8 o'clock p.m. Do we have a second? All those in favor say yes of reconvening on Monday at 8 p.m. if we don't finish tonight. Yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. We'll reconvene on Monday if we don't finish tonight and we don't plan to. We'll now take a test vote. OK, so if you believe that we'll finish all business except Article 12 by the end of the night tonight, press 1 for yes. If you think we're still going to have more business to do, including Article 12, press 2 for no. And if you're not sure, you can abstain. Voting is closed and motion passes. So let's just go through the screens, even though it's not a close vote just so we can make sure that your handsets are working. Do we have a raised hand? Is there an issue? Yes. What is quorum? I believe I can pull the town bylaws off the top of my head. I believe it's 65 for issues that require a majority vote and 85 for issues requiring a two-thirds vote. We still have articles to take two-thirds. So quorum would be 85. OK, that's all the precincts. Are there any announcements or resolutions? Announcement here. I'm Kiersey Allison Ampey. I'm representing the Invest in Arlington Campaign and I just want you to know that we're looking for volunteers, especially this next two weekends. Come find me at the break. Thank you. Do we have any other announcements or resolutions? Seeing none. I now call for reports of committees, which I'm pretty sure we're all done with. Ms. Deschler, we'll just check to see if there's any committee reports incoming. Christine Deschler, Chair of the Arlington Finance Committee, I move that Article 1 be laid upon, taken from the table. OK, do we have a second? OK, all those in favor of taking Article 1 from the table to receive reports, say yes. All those opposed, no. It's unanimous, Article 1 is now before us. Are there any reports of committees to be received? We're not expecting any, but if there are any, now would be the time. Seeing none, Ms. Deschler? I move that Article 1 be laid upon the table. We have a second to lay Article 1 upon the table. All those in favor, say yes. All those opposed, say no. It is unanimous. And we resume now with Article 10. So this is from the Redevelopment Board. Mr. Revolak, do you want to set us up? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steve Revolak, member of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. I'd like to request that the submitted slides for Article 10 be shared at this time. And I see they are. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to interrupt and pause. Can we, do we have the speaker queue shown before? Can we open and reset that? Apologies for the interruption. Okay, speaker queue is now open. Okay, Mr. Revolak, let's switch to his slides. And Mr. Revolak, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. So I will be taking you through Warrant Article 10, which is a proposed zoning by law amendment related to public shade trees. Next slide, please. So Section 6-3 of Arlington's zoning by law requires that new development or significant additions in business districts provide a public shade tree every 25 feet along public ways. So Article 10 proposes to extend this requirement to all business and residential districts, whether a special permit is required or not. So the Arlington Redevelopment Board hopes this will contribute to enhancing the town's tree canopy over time as parcels turn over and are redeveloped. Next slide. So projects involving new construction or additions that increase a building footprint by 50% or more would be subject to the requirements proposed by Article 10. That is ensuring that there is a public shade tree every 25 feet along the parts of the parcel that abut a public way. Per existing by law requirements, these shade trees shall be planted in tree wells and planting strips. They shall be species approved by the tree warden and they must be at least 10 feet tall with a two inch caliper. If planting shade trees is infeasible, property owners shall be required to make a financial contribution to the Arlington Tree Fund. Next slide. Okay, as noted earlier, changes under Article 10 would apply to all new construction in residential districts. This includes a construction of new single and two family homes, as well as any housing that might be developed in the multifamily districts were required for compliance with the MBTA Communities Act. Last slide. So this amendment extends the zoning by law standards for public shade trees so that they apply to new construction and substantial expansions in residential districts. The ARB voted four to zero at their October 2nd meeting to recommend favorable action on Article 10. Thank you. Great, thank you, Mr. Repelai. Let's switch over to the speaker queue and we'll start off with Ms. Crowder. Hi, Elaine Crowder, Precinct 19. I just had a question about how this particular article plays with the potential of a zero setback with an overlay. How would that work? Okay, does anyone from the ARB have information about that, Mr. Repelai? So the building shade trees would be proposed, would be planted in the public right of way in planting strips. It's not, so they would be outside of the property line. We have areas in our business districts now where there are shade trees and zero setbacks. And if it turns out to be infeasible to plant a tree because there's not a tree stripper planting tree available, the property owner would be required to make a financial contribution to the Arlington Tree Fund. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take the next speaker from the queue, Ms. Stamps. Hi, thank you. Susan Stamps, Precinct 3, a member of the tree committee and a member of Green Streets Arlington which advocated for trees to be planned for in the MBTA community development. We're very happy that that was done via this particular bylaw and also the town needs as much help as it can get planting all the street trees that it needs to make it a walkable community. I'd like to add that the best place to plant a tree really is off the sidewalk onto the private property. There's more room for the roots to spread and we are working on a program to start doing that in town under state law and stay tuned. Thank you. All right, thank you. I'll take Mr. Radokia next. Yes, Bob, Radokia, Precinct 13. I love trees, but I don't believe we should be parking them, planting them alongside the street. There are many streets in town right now when people are pulling out of their driveways, the way the trees line up and the angle, they can't see a car coming down. And on the other side, cars going down wouldn't necessarily see a kid coming out because of the screen that's taken place there. I noted in Winchester, there are many trees but they're all planted on the private property and you got great visibility when you travel in those streets. You can see anybody coming out of anything whereas you can't on many of these streets, particularly in any style like them. Thank you. All right, thank you. Mr. Jockett, and while Mr. Jockett's coming up, I just want to, I meant to announce this earlier, we're reserving the center balcony for town meeting members. So if you're not a town meeting member and you're sitting in the center balcony, I just would kindly ask you if you could relocate. Sometimes you need to take voice votes, for instance, and so we want to make sure everyone that is in this kind of corridor here is limited to town meeting members. Thank you. Mr. Jockett, go ahead. Daniel Jockett, precinct six, move to terminate debate on the matter. Okay, we have motion to terminate debate and we have a second, and speaking of voice votes, let's take a voice vote on termination of debate. If you're in favor of terminating debate, say yes. Yes. If you're opposed, say no. No. That is a two-thirds vote, in my opinion. So let's bring up the voting slide before we start voting, though, as has been the recent custom. I will describe what we're voting on here. And if we can switch over to the, on the display, the vote language, thank you. So if you can scroll along as I try to cover what we're voting on here, vote yes, if you wish to accept the ARB's recommended vote to make changes in these three sections of the zoning bylaw relating to public shade trees. Number one is section 6.3.2, titled Applicability, yep. To include residential and multifamily housing overlay districts and dropping the language about being subject to review by the ARB. Number two is add to section 6.3.3, titled Administration to include under item A, to text site plan review and as applicable and add zoning board of appeals and department of planning and community development as administering authorities under certain circumstances and removing language about environmental design review from item B. And the third section is section 6.3.4, standards under item E, new discretion granted to the zoning board of appeals and the department of planning and community development in administering these policies about public shade trees. That's what we're voting on. So if you're in favor, yes, Mr. Holman. Aaron Holman, precinct six. I have a question. The current legislation refers to a multifamily housing overlay districts. We currently do not have multifamily housing overlay districts. Can we proceed with this? Mr. Cunningham, do you have a legal opinion on that? Michael Cunningham, Acting Town Council. The answer is yes. That language would essentially be indolody if article 12 does not pass. Okay, thank you. So, okay, so we have the vote language before us. Let's now switch over to the voting screens. We're voting on the, what's that? Oh, I'm sorry, remind folks, this is a two thirds vote. So voting is now open. If you're in favor of those changes to the zoning bylaw that we just covered about public shade trees, vote one for yes. If you're opposed to those changes to the zoning bylaw, you can press two for no, and you can press three to abstain. Okay, voting is now closed. And the motion passes 187 in the affirmative, 10 in the negative. So that brings us to article 11. And this is also from the redevelopment board report, Mr. Revlach, and can we show and reset the speaker queue please? Okay, speaker queue is now open. Mr. Revlach, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steve Revlach, member of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. I'd like to request the submitted slides related to article 11 be shared at this time. Thank you. So I will be taking you through warrant article 11, a proposed zoning bylaw amendment related to residential uses in business districts. Article 11 is one of several articles intended to encourage the redevelopment of underutilized properties in the business districts and to create more needed and desired quality commercial space in the few areas of town zone for business. Next slide, please. So the business districts make up only a small percentage of Arlington's total land area. Single and two-family homes are allowed by right in all business districts. And article 11 proposes to change the zoning bylaw so that single, two-family, and duplex dwellings are no longer allowed uses in the business districts similar to the way that they are no longer allowed in the industrial districts. Next slide, please. So there are a number of single and two-family dwellings in the business districts today. These properties would become non-conforming, but the owners could continue the single, two-family, or duplex use for as long as they'd like. So this is the same situation that we have for single and two-family dwellings in the industrial district. These existing property owners would not be required to do anything or change anything. Now it is rare for businesses to be replaced by single and two-family dwellings, but it has happened in the past. And the Arlington Redevelopment Board is proposing article 11 to emphasize that commercial uses and mixed use are the priorities for our business districts. Next slide. So in conclusion, this amendment removes single, two-family, and duplexed uses from the list of allowed uses in Arlington's business districts. The ARB voted 4-0 at their October 2nd meeting to recommend favorable action on article 11. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Repelak. And we have one amendment that was offered. It's Mr. Loretty's amendment. Can we bring that up? And I believe Ms. Evans, where you're gonna introduce this. I believe Mr. Loretty was unable to be here tonight. Ms. Evans, you wanna introduce Mr. Loretty's amendment, please? And so do we have that? Yes, we have that on the display. Thank you, Winnell Evans, precinct 14. This amendment simply seeks to retain the by-right use of one and two-family homes in the B-1 districts, most of which are a long mass av. The B-1 district was created to allow single and two-family homes, as well as duplexes, along the town's commercial quarters, and also to allow commercial uses in these homes, such as a ground floor dental office with a residence above, or to use the entire home as an office building. The ARB's recommended vote will render all existing uses in B-1 districts non-conforming, if they are used as residences, requiring owners to go through a burdensome permitting process through the Zoning Board of Appeals if they wish to modify them. It will require special permit approval for other changes now allowed by right. Most importantly, it will prohibit these homes from being used in the way that they were built, as one and two-family homes, if they are used for a conforming purpose, for example, leased for an office use, thereby denying the owners the benefits of home ownership. This amendment would maintain the intended nature of the B-1 districts, which is, quote, to encourage preservation of small-scale structures, to provide contrast and set off the higher density, more active areas along the avenue, and discourage uses that would detract from the desired low level of activity, consume large amounts of land, or otherwise interfere with the intent of this bylaw. I ask your support for this amendment to Article 11 and move this amendment to the main motion. Thank you. Great, thank you, Ms. Evans. Was there a point of order? So let's switch over to the speaker. Is there a second? Oh, thank you. Is there a second? Second. We have a second. Now we have the main motion and Mr. Loretty's amendment pending before us. Thank you. So let's go to the speaker queue and let's lead off with Mr. Kepline. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mark Kepline, Precinct 9. I'm going to vote in favor of the amendment. Around the corner for me is a dentist office. The dentists live above the office, which is on the first floor. That's an example of what has been common throughout towns in the United States, where a doctor or dentist would have the first floor for their office, and they would live with their family above the office. And it's also true for many merchants, too, who would live above their shop. This helps preserve a small town character, whereas what we're seeing here is a push towards urbanization. And that will be a natural process anyway, but this is kind of forcing the issue and keeping people from sort of being able to have a grand house on a throughway with the convenience of an office on the first floor and living above without having to be a landlord also. That's as green as you get living above where you work. So another instance is, besides a doctor or dentist, would be a funeral home. The ones in Arlington are all in former houses, and in many cases, a funeral director will live above the business. And it may not be popular to have additional apartments where funerals are conducted. Might be hard to get tenants that way. So that's another example. And if you're building a building just for the use of it as a funeral home, you know, again, renting out additional floors above may be challenging, too. So some of these zoning issues will come up and produce problems. So I'm against the main motion and support the Lorette amendment anyway and hope the push to urbanization does not accelerate in other ways. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kepelin. We'll take Mr. Jamison next. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. I have a couple of questions. In the materials provided to us under section A, the one and two family is stricken, but three is added. Mr. Rablak did not speak to that. Neither does the table below. Could we have some discussion as to, so we're saying we're not doing residential in the business. You take out one and two, but in the materials that I have, you add three family dwellings. Mr. Rablak. Steve Rablak, Arlington Redevelopment Board. Three family dwellings are in allowed use in the B-1 district with a special permit. Okay. So with the proposal, what's proposed under article 11 is to remove by right residential uses, which are single and two family dwellings. Okay, so my next question on that issue is, in the actual full bylaws, is there another line that says three family dwellings and then lists for each one of these where it's permissible? Yes. And out of the B-1 through B-5, which ones are three family with special permit permissible? May I get my laptop to just make sure? You can get your laptop and check the zoning bylaw. While he's looking that up, I'd like to comment about the, why did I wanna do this? Oh, that this type of not having residential in the business zones was part of the request by people for the MBTA overlay that we'll be discussing on Monday night. And you'll notice that all the business zones on Mass Ave and Broadway are not included in the overlay, so they can't by right have a residential building built, which would reduce our commercial space. But back to this question. Yes, let's give it to article 11 please. So looking at the use table for the BE districts, the first row or under the residential section, three family dwelling is allowed by special permit in all six of our business districts. Okay, so that's consistent. I had hoped that we might have a map to show where the B1s are located. Do we have something like that? We have a, so everyone's talking grandiosly about the funeral homes, are funeral homes a B1 or not? Funeral homes are a B1. It's one of the few business uses that's allowed by right in a B1 district. Okay, and so I just wanted to know how broadly distributed are B1 districts. So they broadly distributed or quite rare? So they're like business districts in Arlington in general, they're small, but the B1 is scattered throughout the corridor, you know, their pockets a long mass ab. Okay. I believe we have the zoning map loaded onto the presentation computer. It might be hard to see that level of detail. We might have to zoom in. Can we bring up the zoning map? So, Mr. Revlock, can you help us interpret this map? And where should we be zooming in for B1? So actually, let's start by going all at the westernmost edge of mass ab. What color is B1? Yeah, so if you were to zoom in on the westernmost edge of mass ab, that's Eastern. Yep, yep, so you need, so scroll down. Okay, now keep going. Now move it to the right a little bit. Now you see that light pink? Yeah, that very pale pink. Yeah, that is a B1 district. And, nope, nope, nope. So the one adjoining, on the south side of mass ab, on the Lexington line, there's a darker purple. That is a B4, that is mall's towing. To the east of that, you'll see a section of a bunch of parcels that is a light pink, a very light pink. Those are B1. And if you were to follow the, you know, follow the map along mass ab, you would see little pockets of that here and there. Oh, that's a very light one. Yeah, the very, very light one. Now you see like there's one in the middle of the screen there. Yet there's one that looks a little like a piano. There's a little bit on the other side of the high school. And, yep, a few more, you know, a few more on the other side of Broadway Plaza and a few more on mass ab as you head towards Cambridge. Now, the last part on mass ab, you know, the barbershop that I go to, I've mentioned when we did mixed use in East Arlington. That building stands to be able to be converted into single family or duplex family housing. So all of those buildings on the north side of mass ab there that are in this zone could be then, if this is kept by right, you turn it to residential buildings. So I'm definitely for this article and against the amendment. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Revolac. Let's take Mr. Weinstein next. And the next generation of handsets will have roller balls equipped. So you can. Dangerous microphone. Jordan Weinstein, precinct 21. I'm speaking on behalf of and in favor of the amendment put together by Chris Loretty for article 11. Article 11 is a great thing, except it treats the B1 zones differently than and could actually threaten the homes that were there. We got a great example of the pink zones and all those houses which were looked at and perceived to be great places to develop. What this amendment would do would be to allow those in the B1 that have the by right uses of single family detached dwellings. They can build two family dwellings. There are duplex dwellings there. And these would all be put up onto the market for developers to convert into three story buildings. And the change will continue to allow owners or these changes that the amendment is proposing of these homes to convert them from one family homes to two family homes by right. More importantly, it will prevent their owners from losing the ability to use them as one and two family homes. If they are temporarily converted to a conforming use. So it's like once the new use is applied, it forever loses its ability to go back to what it was and could have been if these types of buildings had been accepted from and taken out of the purview of article 11. So I urge you to support this amendment which would not change anything else. Thank you. Let's take Mr. Benson next. Thank you Eugene Benson, precinct 10. I speak at opposition to Mr. Loretty's amendment and I ask that you vote no on his amendment. This is why the purpose of article 11 as you heard is to prioritize business use and mixed use in our small business districts to disallow conversion of commercial property to one and two family dwellings and to prevent new one and two family dwellings and duplex dwellings which I'll refer to as two family from being constructed in our business districts. Mr. Loretty proposes the opposite in the B1 business districts. His amendment would allow new one family and two family buildings to be constructed in those business districts. His amendment would also allow commercial property in the B1 district to be converted into one and two family residential dwellings. It's important to note that the zoning bylaw allows a change from one non-conforming use to another. For example, from one family to two family and back to one family, if the zoning board of appeals finds the change is not substantially different use and not more detrimental to the neighborhood. That is protection for the rare times when a switch between one family use and two family use may be contemplated in the B1 business district. What I suggest we do not want and what Mr. Loretty's amendment would allow is to convert a single family or two family home into a business use and later return it to a residence or to create new one and two family residences in the B1 business district. This is a business district. The purpose of the warrant article is to recognize that business use is primary and to make sure that new construction is not of one and two family homes and that those structures whose use changes to business should not be able to change back to residence in a business district. It's also important to understand the difference between non-conforming use and non-conforming structure. Yes, this is getting into the zoning weeds a little bit but it's important. Article 11 would create a non-conforming use but not a non-conforming structure. Non-conforming use is under both our bylaw and state law may continue indefinitely as non-conforming uses, meaning one and two family homes may continue to be one and two family residences indefinitely. Further, because article 11 does not convert the residences to non-conforming structures, those that conform to the current rules on setbacks, height, et cetera for one and two family residences continue to have all the benefits for that including expansion providing that it's conforming or meets the standard for a non-conforming expansion. I was very surprised to hear the concern about buildings with businesses, let's say dentists on the first floor and residents on the second floor. Those are currently allowed in the B-1 business district. This would make no change in that. Ms. Lorette's would make an inappropriate change in that. So for all of these reasons, I ask you to vote against Ms. Lorette's amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take Mr. Wagner next. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Carl Wagner, Precinct 15. I'm sorry that Mr. Lorette could not be here tonight. He has COVID and so for your benefit, although he's feeling okay, he's not here to infect you. But I ask you to consider that the main motion of article 11 does make sense. That is a good thing in general to incentivize throughout the business districts. I would remind you that Mr. Lorette is a former member of the ARB and often suggests things to the current ARB members when he notices that things could be done in a different or better way. Particularly with his suggestion, and I hope you'll say yes to this, that the B-1 districts, the traditional small home offices be preserved. It speaks to everything people have said here and something else. That is that nobody in the town was able to comment on this change since the last town meeting. The town offered no public meetings, no forums, no ability for the people who live in those districts to comment. I grew up in the B-1 district. The B-1 district is a mixture of businesses and houses and two-family houses. I'm very happy to hear that Mr. Benson says that conversion between the one and two-family units will still be possible. But I ask you to remember that this is a town of different kinds of business zones and some of them look a little bit like houses, why should we delete that? We can do a huge amount of work to promote business by including Mr. Lorette's amendment and saying yes to that and saying yes to Article 11. And I guess that this is an important thing for us to decide, do we want to completely urbanize or do we want to keep that sense of what Arlington is and has been since the 30s? So I ask you to vote yes on 11, but only if we support the amendment. Thank you. Okay. Let's take Mr. Moore next. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Christopher Moore, Precinct 14. I move to terminate debate on the article and on matters before it. Okay. We have motion to terminate debate. Do we have a second? Okay. All those in favor of terminating debate on all matters under Article 11, say yes. All those opposed, say no. It is two-thirds, I declare. So let us now take a vote on Mr. Lorette's amendment. And before we bring up the vote screen, let's show the amendment on the display. Thank you. And so to summarize here, what we'll be voting on first is the Lorette amendment that you see here, and it has essentially two changes to the ARB's recommended vote language, number one. It removes the ARB's changes to Section 5.5.1, titled Districts and Purposes, so that it continues to refer to one and two family dwellings, I believe. Let me just double-check. Yes. So it's removing the changes that the ARB's recommended vote makes to that section. And the second change under this amendment is that in the table under Section 5.5.3 that you see here, titled Use Regulations for Business Districts, the amendment removes the ARB's changes under Column B1 so that the original text of why or yes remains. Okay. So let's open voting now for the Lorette amendment under Article 11. Voting is now open. This is a majority vote for the amendment. Okay. Voting is now closed. And the motion fails. 55 in the affirmative, 137 in the negative. So now let me describe. Let's bring up the ARB's recommended vote language, which remains unamended. Okay. And so I'll just have a brief description of this vote language. You can vote yes if you wish to accept the ARB's recommended vote to make these two changes to the Zoning By-law. Number one is in Section 5.5.1, titled Districts and Purposes. Item A, replace one and two with three. And the second change in Section 5.5.3, titled Use Regulations for Business Districts, striking the why or yes from the rows in the table for single-family detached dwelling and two-family dwelling duplex dwelling. So all they used to be formally why or yes, and those are all stricken with the recommended vote. So if you're in favor of those changes, you can press one for yes, two for no to leave the Zoning By-law as is, and three to abstain. So let's open voting. Voting is now open. And this is a two-thirds vote. This is the recommended vote language from the ARB that is not amended. It's the same vote language that was in the ARB's report. Okay, voting is now closed. And the main motion passes. 161 in the affirmative, 39 in the negative. It is an affirmative vote. That takes us to Article 12, which we could do right now, but Ms. Deschler? Christine Deschler, Chair of the Finance Committee. I move that Article 12 be laid upon the table. Okay, we have a second to lay Article 12 upon the table and just a brief explanation with the intention, of course, so that we can take that up on Monday so that all sides of this debate and anyone who has questions can prepare. We still have amendments that are in progress. It is ultimately town meetings decision whether to lay this article upon the table. So, all those in favor of laying Article 12, the MBTA community's overlay districts article on the table with the intention of us resuming that on Monday, say yes if you are in favor. All those opposed, say no. It is unanimous. So, our intention is to pick that up back up on Monday. And that now brings us to Article 13. Mr. Revillac? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steve Revillac, member of the Arlington Redevelopment Board at the Redevelopment Board's last meeting on October 16th. The board voted by 3 to 0 to recommend no action on Article 13. All right, thank you. So, we have a recommended vote of no action from the Redevelopment Board. And there's a speaker queue up here, but we'll not be taking any speakers because there has been no substitute motion. And so, the main motion as no action stands and there's no scope for debate under no action. So, let's take this by voice vote. All those in favor of no action under article, this is the main motion for Article 13. All those in favor of no action under Article 13, say yes. All those opposed, say no. Okay. It's not unanimous, but I declare that it is a two-thirds vote. I think we actually only need majority, but yeah. Okay, so that brings us to Article 14. Mr. Helmuth? Actually, before you get started, can we just show the speaker queue and make sure that this is open and cleared? Okay. And Mr. Helmuth, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Eric Helmuth, chair of the Select Board. The Select Board, by a vote of 4 to 0 with one abstention recommends positive action on this article. I'll just briefly say before we turn to Ms. Fox and Mr. Kotoski for an excellent presentation that the leadership of this body three years ago and in other votes and the leadership of our town officials, but the professionals and other elected officials could not be in better display by the support that Arlington has shown for this particular project as an exemplar of the town's willingness to not just talk the talk about sustainability and carbon reduction and climate, but to walk the walk. I'm incredibly proud speaking for myself of how this community consistently wants to be out ahead, to be a leader in the state and even in the nation for initiatives like this and very much look forward to the presentation that we're about to receive tonight. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Ms. Fox, can we bring up Ms. Fox's presentation? I'm not Ms. Fox. Oh, Mr. Kotoski, I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes, go ahead. So, good evening. Oh, pardon me. Name and address or title? I'm Ryan Kotoski. I'm chair of the Clean Energy Future Committee. Summer Street, 534 Summer Street. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening. The warrant article 14 is going to ask town meeting to vote to amend Title VI of the town by-laws to add a new section entitled Fossil Fuel-Free Demonstration, and this will prohibit the use of fossil fuels in new construction and major renovation projects in town. The proposed amendment retains a lot of the content and the intent of the 2020 Clean Heat By-law, and it will, while aligning with newer state guidelines and helping to streamline the implementation. Next slide, please. So, just a quick background. You've heard me say this before. We're on a journey to a net greenhouse gas future. The town has a plan to get there by 2050. It knows the NZAP, Net Zero Action Plan. And this warrant article is that next step on that journey. A key strategy for us to get there is to electrify buildings. As we electrify buildings and as the grid gets cleaner and cleaner over time, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with that electricity declines until it reaches zero. So, that's the plan here is to electrify buildings and then get them to zero as the grid gets cleaner. This is a priority action in our Net Zero Action Plan. And this will help us get to that goal as I mentioned. Next slide, please. So, if it feels like deja vu, yes, you have been here before. It was three and a half years ago that this body voted overwhelmingly to enact a similar by-law. That one required a home rule petition to be approved by the legislature. They did not do that. Instead, they created this fossil fuel-free demonstration program of which Arlington is a priority community for participation. In order for us to participate, we need to enact this by-law today so that we can be part of that demonstration program. So, that's the basic background for this. I'm going to turn it over to Talia Fox, the town's sustainability manager, to walk you through some of the details. Thank you. Talia Fox, sustainability manager. Thank you, Ryan. The municipal fossil fuel-free building demonstration program enables up to 10 municipalities to implement fossil fuel-free ordinances or by-laws if they meet certain requirements by February 11, 2024. Because Arlington's clean-heat by-law was never approved, to participate in the demonstration program, town meeting must re-adopt this by-law. In addition to developing the regulations for the demonstration program, the Department of Energy Resources, or DOER, created a model rule that municipalities are strongly encouraged to adopt. In fact, in its application to the demonstration program, the town was required to explain all differences between the proposed by-law and the model rule. Accordingly, one of the goals of the warrant article is to align the 2020 clean-heat by-law with the DOER model rule. Next slide, please. Next slide. Thanks. Second goal of warrant article 14 is to align the 2020 clean-heat by-law with advances in technology and research that have occurred in the past three years. I'd like to reiterate that the proposed by-law retains the original intent and much of the original content of the 2020 clean-heat by-law. Next slide, please. The next few slides summarize the proposed substantive updates to the 2020 clean-heat by-law. First, the updated by-laws enforcement framework for new construction references the specialized code by eliminating the pathways in the specialized code that allow the use of fossil fuels. Second, the updated by-law redefines major renovation to align square footage thresholds with the specialized code and DOER model rule. These two updates are intended to streamline implementation for the town's inspectional services department and facilitate our acceptance into the demonstration program. They are not expected to significantly change the number of buildings that would be subject to the requirements of the updated by-law compared to the original clean-heat by-law. Update number three is the removal of the exemption of indoor cooking appliances. This proposed update matches the model rule and is a recommendation from the Clean Energy Future Committee. It responds to the growing evidence regarding the negative impacts to human health of gas stoves. And where alternatives to gas cooking appliances are financially infeasible or impractical, a waiver process is available. Fourth, the updated by-law contains a slightly higher square footage threshold to trigger the exemption for multifamily building domestic hot water that aligns with the threshold for multifamily properties in the stretch code. It also sets a deadline for the sunset of the exemption that aligns with expected market conditions and technology availability. Finally, the effective date of the by-law has been adjusted in consultation with the director of inspectional services to acknowledge the new source from which the town derives authority to pass such a by-law as well as the time that has passed already since the initial by-law was voted on. Next slide. Like the clean-heat by-law, the updated by-law does not apply to building additions or changes of use. It retains verbatim processes for waivers and appeals, and it retains common sense exemptions vetted by the community prior to the passage of the clean-heat by-law, including for research and medical facilities, backup generators and portable propane appliances, extension of existing fossil fuel heating systems and other exemptions listed on this slide. So in sum, like the 2020 clean-heat by-law, the updated by-law will prohibit the installation of new fossil fuel piping and appliances in new construction and major renovations and allow Arlington to participate in the fossil fuel free demonstration program. According to our director of inspectional services, the town's 2022 development numbers listed on this slide suggest how many buildings this article might affect on an annual basis. In 2022, the by-law would have applied to 24 new homes, 42 major renovations and two new commercial buildings and two major commercial renovations. So the demonstration program represents an opportunity to avoid locking in new sources of greenhouse gas emissions in town and avoid costly retrofits down the line all in pursuit of the town's net zero goals. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Fox, and thank you, Mr. Katovsky. Do you have a point of order, Mr. Newton? Does it like blank out? Because I see a display here on a separate display and I haven't seen any issues. Okay, well, I seem to have an accurate count here from what I can tell. Okay, and so before we head to the speaker queue, can we bring up the, let's see, article 14 in the annotated warrant, please? There is an administrative correction we'd like to make. There was a Scrivener's error. Nice guy's name's Bartleby. Okay, so at the top here under section D, fossil fuel-free demonstration, we're gonna strike the four, or however many words, the town of Intu, it was obviously just a Scrivener's error. It doesn't change the meaning. We're just making this grammatically correct and semantically correct. So all those in favor of making that change administratively say yes. All those opposed, who like chaos say no. It is unanimous, so we're gonna make that change administratively here. So, okay, so now let's go, let's show the speaker queue again and let's take up, Dr. Meeks is first on the list. Hello, my name is Amos Meeks, precinct three and also a member of the Clean Energy Future Committee. I strongly support this article and I hope that you all will too. This is very much a continuation of work that I was a part of, part of the original Clean Heat By-law in 2020, which was passed by an overwhelming majority and I hope that this will too. I want to add just a little more context to one piece of this, one of the major changes, which is the inclusion of a prohibition on gas cooking appliances. This was not a part of the original by-law that we proposed in 2020. At that time, we were the second town in the state, one of the first in the country to do something like this. It was fairly new, had not been discussed very much. There was a lot of work and outreach, but we sort of chose at the time to leave that out as kind of a contentious thing politically, even though it supported the goals of the by-law and also the health of residents of the houses. Now, three years later, there's been a lot more discussion on this. I think the politics have progressed. This is in line with what was recommended at the state level, and there has been just a huge amount of evidence showing that gas cooking appliances contribute to childhood asthma and bad indoor air pollution. So I wanted to provide that context and I hope that you all will join me in supporting this. Thank you. Great, thank you. I'll take Mr. Tremblay next. I'm sorry, that's my theme music. We're still working on the timing. It's not quite right. Mr. Tremblay? Hello, Mr. Moderator. Ed Tremblay, prec 19. I don't know where to begin on this. So we're going to have an all-electric future. Mr. Moderator, can anybody tell me how many new substations we're going to need? Anyone from the Clean Energy Future Committee potentially able to estimate or predict Mr. Kotowski? Brian Kotowski, chair of the Clean Energy Future Committee. I can't give you a specific number of how many substations we'll need that are new, if any, depending on how the grid is managed and how the loads are managed. Okay, so I have a little bit of information that maybe the town meeting can consider. It is my understanding that the city of Cambridge, we always like to compare ourselves, and I understand that Cambridge is a little bit larger than Arlington, but the city of Cambridge will need five new substations. The first one is going to be built in Kendall Square. And it is my understanding that it will cost $1.4 billion. Now, I really hope that the city of Cambridge ratepayers are going to get that bill, not the town of Arlington. However, somebody has to pay for all of this stuff. And if Cambridge needs five new substations, Arlington will at least need one, and it's not going to be cheap. Now, I know you all hate natural gas, but when I, the, well, let me back up. Well, we like to talk about... We don't know that everyone hates natural gas. We don't want to cast dispersions about projecting opinions on the membership of town meeting. We like to talk about housing, low-income housing, and we like to fret about that. There's a lot of things that make housing expensive, and one of them is energy costs. And I open up my bills, and the electric bills are hundreds of dollars, and the gas bills are tens of dollars. And now we want to go and add a lot more to that to build new substations, which, despite what he says, if we have an all-electric future, we're going to need some new substations because our infrastructure cannot take the load. So that's one thought. Now, another thing is they're going to ban cooking appliances, okay? I know that we can go out and buy inductive stoves. I mean, I have the stove with the coil in it. It's really good at burning stuff. I'm not actually a big fan of that, but I don't have gas in my home, and as far as I know, there's no such thing as a fuel oil-fired stove. Not sure I'd want one of those anyways, but so we're stuck with the coil. So I could go out and spend a couple thousand dollars or more on an inductive stove, and then spend another, I don't know, $1,500 or something on new cooking utensils to go in the inductive stove. But once again, if we're talking about affordable housing, that doesn't help. Let's see now, what else can we think about? Oh yeah, what happens if it gets really cold? Really, really cold. I know we're gonna have global warming and we're never gonna have any cold and snow again, but if it should get really cold, a lot of the air source heat pumps don't really keep up and they have to have electric grid heating. To supplement the heat pumps. Now heat pumps are all well and good in the spring and the fall, but in the dead of winter, not so much. Maybe, well, once again, depends on how much money you spend. If you wanna spend $20,000, $30,000 on really high efficiency heat pumps, you can get them to run down below zero. But if you don't wanna spend $20,000 or $30,000 on expensive heat pumps, then they're good to 20, maybe 10, and sometimes it gets colder than that. So how's our electric load gonna look when all those heat pumps switch over to grid heating? Let's see what else can I think of? This is seven minutes of speaking time, not thinking time. Yes, I know. It just, there's so many parts of this that strike me as a really bad idea and we're gonna go sign ourselves up for something. It's expensive, we don't have the infrastructure for, we don't quite have the technology for it yet. Now maybe it'll come, but to pass legislation requiring something that doesn't really, kind of doesn't kind of really exist yet strikes me as a really bad idea. And to inflict this on the town just so we can wave a flag and say hurrah rah, we're gonna join Cambridge and be part of the first 10. Again, Mr. Tremblay, I wanna warn against kind of casting aspersions about opinions that you're projecting onto the body. Explain, say that again, please. Oh, I wanna warn against casting aspersions on opinions that you're projecting onto the body about how it thinks about certain things or how it might be performative about certain positions. Okay, I'm sorry, I apologize. I mean, it's probably true, but let's just be careful. All right, well, anyways, I'll shut up now. Thank you, man. Thank you, Mr. Tremblay. We'll take Mr. Leone next. And another thing that happens when it's really cold we have to salt the roads but we're not gonna get into that right now. Really precinct, I just have a couple of questions for whoever can answer it. I have an oil burner. I wanna put in a high efficiency gas furnace. Can I? Ms. Fox, Mr. Kotowski. You get to stand there. Talia Fox, sustainability manager. This bylaw would apply only for a major renovation. So if you're renovating more than 50% of the home so if you're just going to replace your heating system this bylaw wouldn't apply and you'd be allowed to do that. Okay, one more question then. I don't have gas in my house. Can I still connect it to the grid and then put in the furnace? And if I want the stove? If you are, again, this would only apply under the circumstances of a major renovation. I'm trying to figure out what that is. Yeah. So I can. I believe so. Perhaps Mr. Champa could confirm if that's correct. Is that my law to do that? Yes, okay. So I can hook my house up. It's not hooked up. Get rid of my oil burner and put a gas burner in a stove in. Provided you're not doing a major renovation. That's all I'm doing. Thank you. Any other home improvement requests? Well, we'll take them after we adjourn. Mr. Prokosh. Arthur Prokosh, precinct four, I move to terminate debate. Okay, we have most to terminate debate. And do we have a second? We have a second. So we'll do this by voice. All those in favor of terminating debate say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. No. That's a two thirds vote I declare. And let's say we have no amendments. We already took the administrative correction. So let's just bring the recommended vote language up on the display. And so what we're voting on here, and this is a majority vote. So you would vote yes, if you wish to accept the select boards, the select boards recommended vote to amend title six of the town bylaws to add a new article 10, titled prohibition on new fossil fuel infrastructure in new construction and major construction. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but we can quickly at least scroll through it. And so if you're in favor of this addition to the town bylaws, you'd vote yes. If you want to leave the town bylaws as is unamended, then you'd vote no. And you can always abstain as well. So let's open voting now. Under the main motion of article 14, the select boards recommended vote. So if you're in favor of the recommended vote of the select board, press one for yes. If you're opposed, press two for no, or press three to abstain. Okay, let's close voting. And the motion passes 178 in the affirmative, 23 in the negative. That brings us to article 15. Please hold your applause until we dissolve town meeting. Could we bring up article 15? Actually, this is Ms. Dashler, did you want to introduce this? This is from the finance committee report. And actually, could we open up the speaker queue? Unless the town manager would rather present us either way. Christine Dashler, chair of the Arlington Finance Committee. The finance committee voted unanimously to recommend ratification of the patrol officers collective bargaining agreement, and I will turn it over to the town manager for more details regarding the contract. Thank you. Mr. McGee. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Alex McGee, deputy town manager, finance director. What we have before us here is a collective bargaining ratification for the Arlington Police Patrol Officers Association. This is for the contract period of fiscal years 22 through 24. You'll note that we're four years in FY24 already. So this is mostly a retroactive agreement. We're looking to transfer a sum of $477,003 from the existing salary reserve to cover retroactive compensation and the sum of $126,909 as a budget adjustment to account for the increase in wages for this union. So a little bit about this deal. This is a results-oriented negotiation to move the APPOA into a similar space of our other public safety unions within our town manager 12 market. We settled the day that we were going to what's called the JLMC, which is sort of a mediation committee. We settled ahead of having to go through that process. This deal was back-loaded to avoid huge retroactive compensation. So meaning that sort of the greatest wage increases were done in FY24. And the total wage increase is roughly 14% over three years with a 2% increase upon a final agreement on a body-worn camera policy. That sums the contract in a nutshell. Great, thank you. Let's switch over to the speaker queue and we'll start with Ms. Phalen. Pass, okay. We'll take Mr. Newton next. Good evening, it's moderator, Senator Newton, precinct 10. I see that section six of this vote is a 2% wage increase upon agreement of a body-worn camera policy. I would like to know what sort of things will be decided or governed by the body-worn camera policy? Mr. McGee or Chief Flaherty, would you be able to field that question? Good evening, Julie Flaherty, Chief of Police. Could you repeat the question please? Yes, what sort of things will be decided or governed by the body-worn policy? So I'm not able to discuss the particulars of the policy as it would jeopardize ongoing negotiations. I can say that the policy will be in line with best practices from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission, from recommendations from the Governor's Council on body-worn camera, the body-worn camera study committee, and from the Middlesex District Attorney's Office. Sure, I'm not asking the particulars of what it will say. What sort of items would it cover? So for example, does it cover when and where officers have to turn on or off their cameras? Things of that nature. Yes, it would cover. What other sort of items might it cover? It would cover anything from when the officer would wear the camera, how they would wear the camera, where on their uniform it would be positioned. There's a whole host of items that it would cover. I think the final, the draft policy we have right now is 26 pages. Would it cover when and how they get to review camera footage before submitting or after submitting a report? Yes, it would. A town council is getting my attention. Mr. Cunningham, do you have anything to add on that? You're up. But Michael Cunningham, acting town council, I'd just like to say that these negotiations are ongoing and that any discussion of those negotiations and what the policy might entail could have an adverse impact on both parties. Great. So I think that answers that question. I'm also, so my second question is, I'm wondering what rationale, what the rationale is for providing a specific wage increase for a policy that has not yet been decided. Mr. McGee? Alex McGee, deputy town manager. The rationale is that this is a change in working conditions and so it becomes a bargainable item. Yes, but we've decided how much we're paying before we've decided what we're paying for. Is one way that I'm looking at it, am I looking at that wrong? I guess how you look at it is open to interpretation but because it was on the table or the bargaining table that it was, this is how it was bargained. Okay, my last question is, could you tell me how that policy will be created for the town? So we are in the process of creating the policy. We're working with the union and the town and... Has there been any sort of public input into how the town... No, there hasn't, but I'm looking forward to working with the newly created police advisory commission to review the policy as soon as it's completed. Thank you. So I would submit that making policy at the bargaining table and especially through a mediator is not the way to develop a policy that will have community support and not the way to develop policy that is in the best interest of Wellington. Thank you. Let's hold our applause. We register our opinions through debate and voting. Let's take Mixed Pretzer from the satellite room next. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rotterator. David Pretzer, precinct 17. I would like to follow what Mr. Newton just said. I think it's a very bad look for the police department to take sort of a basic standard measure of accountability, one that often is used to clear officers accused of wrongdoing. And act like this is some imposition that the police are resistant to, such that we effectively have to bribe them with additional compensation in order to have that accountability. Let's be careful with our language here about the optics or the look of a department and so on and keep this to the context of the scope of the article, please. I think it's a bad look that this is something that we need to provide additional compensation for. I think that for people who have been hassled by the police department or have trouble trusting the police department, this does not give confidence in the willingness of the police department to increase accountability. And I think for people that are frustrated with the level of public input into the budget and our ability to meaningfully, either at town meeting or in other ways, provide input into how much money different department should get. This is not confidence inspiring, especially in the light of the upcoming override. So I just, I think that Arlington can do better to inspire confidence among the public. Thank you. All right, thank you. I just want to remind folks of what we're voting on here, the recommended vote of the finance committee. Was this finance committee report? Let me just double check that. Yes, the finance committee report. This is about town meeting appropriating transfers of money to support these contracts. That town meeting is not authorized. It's my understanding to negotiate these contracts. And so let's try to keep this squarely within the context of the scope of town meetings authority on this, which is the appropriation of the money to pay for this. Ms. LaCorte. Annie LaCorte, precinct 13. I have a few questions probably for Mr. McGee or for our new town manager. I hope that you will consider these within scope. So first I want to note that there's something important that Mr. McGee said at the beginning of his talk about how we negotiated this contract, which was that he talked about goal-based or interest-based bargaining. We had interests on the table. That is the townside had interests on the table, at least one of which was to target our employee salaries for the police department, the patrolman's association in this case, into a particular range in order to be able to be competitive in our hiring. Did I get that right, Alex? Okay. Similarly, I would like to say that regardless of how you feel about anything the police department does, it is not unusual to bargain working conditions. We bargain conditions like who will be trained to use a defibrillator, so on and so forth, and we pay stipends for those things. So it's not an unusual thing to do. However, this contract, as the finance committee considered when we voted on it, is going to considerably increase the cost of providing police patrols to the town. Well-earned for employees who need these raises, particularly given the rate of inflation, so on and so forth. But if I am correct, this increase in our costs bears no relationship to an increase in our population. Mr. McGee? Alex McGee, deputy town manager, that's correct. Okay. And we are not adding any patrol officers, the ratio of patrol officers to number of residents in town remains whatever it was, and we don't normally hire and fire based on such a relationship, number of citizens to number of patrol officers. Right, this does not call for any new positions or anything like that. Okay, and this particular contract will increase our costs in order to remain at a level of service that we currently enjoy. That is correct. Thank you. Great, thank you. Let's take Dr. Yontar next, or Ms. Yontar. Mr. moderator, team work, hi, Yontar, precinct seven, I move to terminate debate on article 15, and all matters before us. Okay, we have a motion to terminate debate on article 15. Do we have a second? Second. All those in favor of terminating debate, say yes. Yes. All those opposed, say no. No. I declare that two thirds. Okay, so what we're voting on here, can we bring up the recommended vote language? This vote will do three things. Number one, it'll approve the transfer of $477,000 and $3 from the existing salary reserve to the FY24 APD budget for settlement of the Arlington Police Patrol Officers Association, also known as APPOA contract. Number two, it'll approve the transfer of $126,909 from the existing salary reserve to the FY24 APD budget for settlement of the APPOA contract. And three, it'll ratify, could scroll down. There's a list coming up to ratify the financial items relating to the APPOA, including these seven enumerated items here, which I'm not gonna read in their entirety. We could scroll down. That's five, that's six, and seven. So let us now open voting on the main motion under article 15, and this is a majority vote. Voting is now open. Okay, voting is now closed. And the motion passes, 175 in the affirmative, 18 in the negative. Okay, so we have one article left, which is article 12, which is laid upon the table. We have no other business. We have a motion to adjourn. So before we take that, let's see, do we have any notices of reconsideration? 15? Yep, okay. Notice of reconsideration for article 15 is noted. Seeing no other notices of reconsideration. And also remember to turn in your handsets on the way out. Okay, and we'll see everyone back here on, so all those in favor of adjourning say yes. Yes. All those opposed, no? Okay, we are adjourned. See everyone back here, 8 p.m. Monday.