 Good evening. As a preliminary matter, this is Douglas Hine Town Council. Welcome to the April 12, 2021 meeting of the Arlington Select Board. Shortly after tonight's meeting begins, the Select Board will be electing a new chair and vice chair for the business year, following the April 10, 2021 election. But until then, I will procedurally serve as chair pro temp. On behalf of the town, heartfelt thank you to all the candidates who campaigned for elective office. Permit me to confirm that all members and staff anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me for the meeting. It's like four members when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahan. Affirmative. Steve Decorsi. Yes. John Hurd. Yes. Len Diggins. Yes. Eric Helmuth. Yes. Staff when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam chapter lane. Yes. And I'll note that Ashley Maher select board administrator is recording minutes from the select board office. As an additional matter, there was a slight zoom double booking if you will tonight. So apologies to folks who may have been pre registered under an old zoom link. If you have any questions to follow along with or join the meeting can find the new zoom link on the select board agenda is a mix page or the town calendar on the town's website. The town manager is also working to send an updated invitation to folks who pre registered. Finally, you may notice that my name, my screen name is listed as legal department and I believe the town managers of town meeting. And on this zoom are a little bit different so as to be calibrated correctly for town meeting. And that's why it's difficult for us to change our names but hopefully folks can see our faces and recognizes. I'm going to provide a brief introduction to the meeting and set forth some ground rules. This is an open meeting of the Allington select board being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Bader Baker's executive order of March 12 2020. Due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth. Due to the coronavirus pandemic. In order to mitigate the transmission the virus we've been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings publicly accessible physical location. Further all members of public bodies are allowed and encourage to participate remotely. This meeting was posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remote, as long as reasonable public access is afforded. So the public can follow along with the deliberations of a meeting. Ensuring public access does not require ensuring public participation, unless there's a public hearing item on the agenda, or other provision for public comment, such as residents open forum. So this is an opportunity for public comment. An additional advisory is that the select board is convening by zoom is posted on the website identifying how the public may join. While the public may join this meeting either by the zoom app or using their telephone dialing number. It's also being broadcast an ACMI. Please note that the meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference, recording lead, please be aware that anything broadcast it may be captured on the recording. If you would like to speak remotely to the extent that you can, please also take care to adjust your screen and device name if you'd like to speak in order for us to recognize speakers appropriately and develop accurate minutes. It's helpful for participants to see your phone file full first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. Finally, all participants advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons who are not required to identify themselves. All the meetings materials for tonight's meeting are available in the novice agenda dashboard and the board's webpage. We recommend that members of the public follow the agenda as posted on novice, unless otherwise noted. Now we're going to turn to the first item on the agenda which is the organizational meeting to elect a chair and vice chair. But before we do so, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of business and ensuring accurate meeting minutes. The chair, myself for the organizational piece and then whoever selected the chair for the rest of the meeting will introduce each speaker on the agenda. After they conclude the remarks, the chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comment questions for motion. Please hold until your name is called, which is helpful for those persons who are attending the meeting by telephone. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking. And please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response further please wait until the chair yields the floor to you. Finally, each vote in this meeting will be conducted by roll call vote. And with that, we'll begin the organizational part of the meeting. Please take a motion to open motions for select open nominations for select board chair. Second. On motion by Mr. Herd, seconded by Mr. Diggins. Is there any discussion further discussion on opening nominations? This is not. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helen. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Nominations are now open for chair of the select board in the 2021 year. Attorney Heim. Our chairman Heim. Yes, Mrs. Mahan. I'd like to make a motion to nominate Mr. Steve D'Corsi as chair. Second. Seconded by Mr. Herd. At this point, are there any further nominations for chair of the select board for 2021? I'd like to move to close nominations. For chair. On a motion to close nominations by Mrs. Mahan. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Herd. I'll conduct a roll call vote. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Nominations are now closed. I know it seems a little bit silly, but now we'll vote on the nomination of Stephen D'Corsi to serve as chair. That being the only nomination, I will simply conduct a roll call vote. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Thank you, Mr. D'Corsi. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. unanimous vote. Congratulations. Mr. D'Corsi. Thank you very much. Then briefly. Do I have a word? Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Nominations are now open. I would like to make a motion to nominate Mr. Herd. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Nominations are now open. Mr. Herd. Yes. Nominations are now open. I would like to make a motion to nominate Diane Mahon as vice chair. Motion by Mr. Herd to nominate Diane Mahon as vice chair. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Mr. Helman. Mrs. Mahon is now nominated for vice chair. Are there any further nominations? Hearing none. Can I have a motion to close nominations? Second. Motion by Mr. Herd. Second. Can I get a second motion on the motion? Second. Seconded by Mr. Diggins. On a motion to close nominations. Mrs. Mahon. Yes. Thank you. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Mr. Helman, was that a yes, sir? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. D'Corsi. This is unanimous vote. Having only received one nomination. We'll now on the nomination to elect Diane Mahon as the vice chair for the 2021 select board. County year I will now turn to a vote. Mrs. Mahon. Yes. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. and Ms. Vogue, congratulations to Mrs. Mohan. And with that, I will yield the rest of the meeting to Mr. Dacorsi and Mrs. Mohan. Thank you. Thank you very much, Attorney Hyam. And first of all, thank you very much to my colleagues for selecting me as chair this year. It's a great honor. And I look forward to the upcoming year. I wanna congratulate Mrs. Mohan on vice chair, but also congratulate Mr. Hurd on his reelection and Mr. Helmuth on his election to the board and welcome him to the board. And I'm just wondering if either one of you have any brief comments before we get to the next agenda item. Yep, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I wanna thank Mr. Helmuth and welcome him to the board for the campaign and the race. And I also, so I do wanna thank the voters of Arlington for choosing to re-lock me. I, like I said, energized and ready to tackle some of the important issues that we're dealing with right now in town. But I did wanna particularly thank Mr. Helmuth and Jennifer Seuss, who this was a three-way race for two seats with three really qualified candidates, I think, and it was a really positive race. And it was an issue-based, idea-based race. It was never any negativity. And I put this out yesterday that I really think, given that what we've seen in some of the races in Arlington in the past few years, that our race should be an example of how a local election should be run and a local race should be run, where it's three candidates just really giving ideas on how they can improve the town. I really do wanna thank both Jennifer and Eric for that. And again, welcome Eric to the board and thank you for everyone that participated in the election, all the candidates and all the voters, no matter who you supported. Thank you for coming out and participating in the process. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I wanna echo Mr. Hurd's kind remarks and... But first of all, very much thank you to the voters of Arlington for entrusting me with this role. I am beyond thrilled to serve the town that I have grown to love so very much and I'm lucky to call home. So thank you. And yeah, thanks to Jennifer Seuss and for John and to John for running a really great exemplary campaign. I think it represents the best of Arlington and we couldn't be prouder of that. I wanna also thank Jennifer for her service to Arlington. She's done great things for the town. I know that she will continue to do so. Thank you very much to my supporters who worked really hard in this campaign and my team. And I wanna thank my husband, Jordan, for his encouragement and his patience and his support. And without that, I would not be here and could not do this. I look forward to serving the town and working with all of you for the next three years. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. I just jumped in because I did actually get yelled at yesterday because my wife said that I never thank her. And of course, now I'm gonna get yelled at again. Absolutely. So I do wanna thank my wife and my kids who, you know, it's certainly a sacrifice. So I do thank my wife for allowing me to serve the town. So thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Heard. Okay, now on to business. So we will start tonight. Our next item is item three, a COVID-19 update with Christine Bonjono, Director of Health and Human Services. And that will start with Mr. Chaplain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And congratulations to you and the chairmanship and Ms. Mohan and the vice chairmanship. And also congratulations to John for rejoining and Eric for joining. So that's that. Good night all around. I'll give a very brief introduction. It's been just a little while since Christine has been before the sport to provide an update on our continued preparations and activities around the pandemic. I know Christine and her team, along with many town employees, have been working continually very hard in response to the pandemic. There over the past several months now have been a lot of focus on vaccinations. I think Christine will describe that our role in the vaccinations is starting to slow down, but there's still many vaccinations to go before we get to herd immunity. So there's gonna be continued focus on the restrictions that are necessary to keep us all safe until we get to herd immunity. But with that, we have Christine Bonjono, Director of Health and Human Services here to give an update to the board and then answer any questions that you might have. Great, thank you, Adam. Thank you, Board, for the invite for tonight. So I wanna start by just letting you know that since last March, 2020, we've had just over 1,800 cases so far here in Arlington. That includes 86 deaths. We've had a few spikes and a few months where we've had fewer cases, but we're starting to see a slight uptick over the course of the past week. We've definitely seen a little bit of a bump. And we're seeing that across the state and across the country as well. It appears as if there's a slight increase in cases. I wanna just sort of give you an idea of what we're doing in our department. So our department is continuing to do contact tracing, which is essentially where, when we find out that there's a positive case, we contact that case and determine who they've been in contact with in quarantine and isolate cases to prevent the additional spread of the virus. So we continue to do that. We're also continuing to enforce the governor's orders to prevent additional cases and really looking at ways that we here locally can continue to control the spread. We've definitely seen the increase in cases in the younger population. So it's not unlike what we're seeing again across the state and across the country. Our average age for the past, let's say month is about 35, age 35, whereas about six months ago, the average age was significantly higher. So it was probably up in the 50s to 60s. So we've definitely seen the age come down a bit. And that is due to vaccinations. And I think also just sort of some loosening of some restrictions that really may impact the younger population. Our department also has been focusing since January on vaccinations. You all are aware that the state has shifted vaccinations to mass vaccination sites and local health departments have a limited role in vaccinating the population. We've jumped at every opportunity to receive vaccine. And we've done that in partnership with Lexington and Belmont. And I will say that by the end of this week, we will have given out about over 6,000 doses of vaccine here in town and with our partners in the other two communities. We are currently doing homebound vaccinations. So we're going into homes and vaccinating people that are unable to leave their homes. This is an incredibly important group because we definitely saw a lot of cases and some deaths, unfortunately, and people that were homebound because of the people coming into their homes with the virus. So we're really happy to be being able to provide that service. We just finished up last week, our vaccinations in the senior housing building. So working with the Arlington Housing Authority and vaccinating our seniors in those buildings was also incredibly important for our team because we saw a lot of cases that resulted in hospitalizations and we just knowing that we protected that population was great for our department as well. At this point, we will be finishing out our second doses of our Moderna and we'll essentially be closing out our vaccination program. And shifting, we have joined a partnership with a number of other communities just northeast and east of Arlington. So including Summerville and Cambridge to establish a regional collaborative to do a mass vaccination site. Unfortunately, at this time, there's no vaccine available to the collaborative but we are ready to stand up a site in the event that the vaccine does become available. You know, at this point in the pandemic, we just continue to urge our residents to be vigilant. We wanna see our numbers coming down. We wanna see our residents getting vaccinated. And, you know, I think, you know, with those two pieces, I think we can, you know, we can sort of be on the road to being out of this soon, we're hoping. But it is incredibly important for our residents to continue to wear masks, to continue to stay apart from others that are not in their direct homes and just be aware that, you know, every interaction that you have, somebody may feel that they have an allergy or a cold. It is likely, you know, that they have COVID. And I think that's what we're hearing from people that said, you know, that we recently have had conversations with that are positive. You know, they just don't believe that they have COVID and, you know, that they could be spreading it. So it's important that people just remember to be vigilant and continue to stay safe. That's what I have available for questions. Thank you very much, Ms. Bonjono. And thank you for all the work that you and your team have done over the past 13 months since the onset of the pandemic. We now turn to the board for any questions or comments. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations. I've already served under Steve as a chairman in Long Range Planning Committee when he was assigned to that. Mr. DeCorsi was kind enough to call me and as senior member, sort of give me the first right to refusal to chair Long Range Planning Committee, but my background and Steve's background, I'll put my financial knowledge up against anyone, but with Steve's long years on the finance committee and dealing with Minuteman, the better choice. So he's doing double duty chairperson. So thank you. I guess my question or comment, and I'm not sure if it's to our Health and Human Services Director or our town manager, I know the library's opened on sort of a book and appointment only, and they have someone at the entrance of the library to verify that you do have an appointment and you're coming in by yourself or I don't know if you can book somebody else with you. I do know that the select board's office, the treasurer's office and the town clerk's office have been open but closed, but you can again, email Colin and either drop things off or we get the information to you. And I'm not gonna talk about, well, I will talk about public works, police and fire who've been working every day through this COVID regardless of what you may think of them. Originally when we had this discussion, the town manager indicated that I was asking when the rest of town offices, the staff would be back in the same model that the select board, town clerk and treasurer's have done. So it's still not open to the public, but it's open for the public by appointment or something else. And originally I was told is when there's a vaccine available, and then I heard it's, when there's herd immunity, which could be 70 to 80% and that might not happen until late summer, early fall. So are we saying all those offices unlike the ones I've cited are gonna stay closed until possibly the fall and no staff come in? So I thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to go first and then Christine can share her view from the public health point of view. No, we're definitely not waiting until the fall. There's already been a ramp up in staff and other offices. I was in town hall today and the building was quite full, frankly. So as the general population becomes eligible as of Monday, April 19th and a larger portion of the populations become vaccinated, we'll start having more staff come into the building on a week-by-week basis. And I think the timeline we talked about it, maybe not the last meeting, but the meeting before was aiming for a controlled reopening to the public sometime in the summer as we approach herd immunity. But I think we'll have staff, more staff coming back in as people are getting vaccinated in the coming weeks. Okay, because it just seems like a big contradiction. It's been working and nobody in the office is the three. I'm not saying open to the public, even if you don't wanna do by the appointment, we can run something down to the protocol that you need. But I understand the work at home thing and that's great. But just to get staff back in, back to all the technology and hardware and software back in the office. And I'm not being disrespectful, but I'm just hearing from other employees that saying, hey, can I get one of those work-at-home jobs? I'd love to do that. They've all been forced to go back to work. So I'm not saying you have to subject yourself to catching COVID, but I'd like to see Town Hall basically running the same way every office as the three have been doing since Thanksgiving. So that's just my opinion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Herd. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, wanna thank Mrs. Bonajono and for all the work that you and the Health Department does. And I've just having kids in school and being part of the town. I've had a few opportunities to reach out to the Health Department as recently as last Friday with questions. And it's amazing that we can get somebody right away on the phone who can answer our questions. And we had an issue that came up with an exposure that we were getting some conflicting information on and we were able to get the answer right away. And I really think that that is a critical asset for the town that we have a Health Department that is not only working hard to keep us safe but is available to answer questions when issues come up. And so I do thank you for that. My one question, I know you brought up the regional vaccination site that the town manager has spoken with a few meetings back and we're really excited about that with all the struggles that the states have had with the statewide website. So once that's up and running, are we good to go A once we have more vaccines are available? And where will the, is it one set vaccination site or does it shift to the eight communities? Will there be some instances where the vaccination sites are local in Arlington? I'm happy to answer that. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm happy to answer that, Adam. So Tufts University in Medford is one of the main sites and then there'll be satellite sites in some of the other communities as well. I don't believe Arlington will be a site, although I know we all know we could run it really well. I think we really are hoping to get into the communities where COVID was pretty, has some communities pretty hard. So such as Chelsea and Everett. So Tufts will be the main site and then additional sites throughout the region, sub region. Are those vaccination sites available only to the communities that are part of the region? No, the requirement is that they're open to everyone in Massachusetts. Okay. And how does somebody, once that's set up, how does somebody sign up for that vaccination site? So there'll be a link on the state site similar to the other links. It'll be the same process as one would sign up for a vaccination at the Hines or to let or any of the other mass vaccination sites. It would be the same system. Okay. All right. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Ms. Pancharno. Just a few questions. So it's something to maybe support what you're doing and educate me, the viewers. As I've said repeatedly, I really support the conservative approach into what we're doing. I mean, the virus doesn't care if we're impatient. I mean, the virus doesn't care if we are tired, is we need to protect everyone as much as we can. I mean, I guess getting the virus on the B117 strain. Is it more deadly? I know it spreads faster, but if people get it, do they get sick or is there a greater chance of dying all other things being equal? By that, I mean, I understand that we have better treatment now, but what's your take on that or your understanding? I'm gonna assume that the chair has given me the approval to go ahead. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Absolutely, I'm sorry. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Steve. So it's my understanding that the strain is just more, it makes it more contagious. Instead of it being more deadly, it is just more, it's just easier for it to pass from one person to another. Thank you very much, Miso. Are we seeing B117 in our community? We are. There are a lot of cases in Massachusetts and there are cases. So we've had a few tested, it's a different test. So they run the test to see if some of them are negative. They have to then take it a step further and do genomic sequencing of each sample and that's not done on every sample. So there are some positive for various strains in Arlington, but we would assume that the majority of the strain circulating right now are the variants. Actually, thank you very much. And we still don't know if the vaccine means stops people from spreading it, right? That's why we have to wear masks because you may be able to, the vaccine may stop you from getting sick or dying, but you may still get it and then shut it, right? That's still the understanding. That is correct. Okay, thank you. And the last question is, when you came to us last, you said that people weren't necessarily being cooperative with the contact tracing, meaning that they weren't being particularly forthcoming or some people weren't, are you still encountering that? It's rare. I would say the majority of people are compliant. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate all you do. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one brief question before I do, I just want to express my appreciation to Ms. Bojaner and her amazing team and staff who have worked so hard along with the public safety departments and the rest of the town through this pandemic. If you could just remind those who may be watching what some of the ways that they can sign up for tuning in for status updates about the pandemic in the town's latest guidelines. I could go ahead, Ms. Bojaner, I'm sorry. Okay. I don't know if the town manager would like to take this one, but I'm happy to jump in. So on the town website, people could sign up for, anyone could sign up for the alerts that come out weekly. And then the town manager does updates and I also jump in on occasion and do updates through ACMI and those are posted online and aired on TV. I don't know if Adam, you'll have anything else to add? I guess I would only add that all the same information that's on the website is also available via the town's social media channels. So there's multiple different ways you can get in and access the information. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. I just have one or two questions, Ms. Bojaner. And one of the things that has come up now that there are three vaccines out there, Johnson and Johnson has been out there for a while and people, at least when they first came out, people saying, is it one that you should try to get over another? And I wonder if you could just comment on that in terms of the selection and when something becomes available. Thank you for that question. Definitely ask that question on occasion. As Dr. Fauci says, take the vaccine that's offered, whatever is available, take that vaccine. And I can't say that we've seen one that's been more efficient over the other. I think here in Arlington, we have seen people that have had Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J have all had pretty good success. Great, thank you. And just in turn, Mr. Diggins talked about the need to keep wearing masks, but just wanted to ask you about the period after you're vaccinated, there's a period of time too before it may become effective. And I wonder if you could talk about that. There's two weeks between when you get your vaccine, or your last dose of your vaccine, or if it's the J&J, the day that you get your vaccine, there's that two weeks where your body's building immunity and you're not fully protected. So when we vaccinate, we urge people to continue to be very careful. People should be careful no matter what, but it's extremely important because I think some people get the vaccine and they think they're free to go do what they've always done before. So it's just important that people remember that it's extremely important they continue to wear masks. Great. Well, again, thank you very much and for all the work that you've done. And I had mentioned in an earlier meeting, I had brought my mother to one of the vaccinations at the high school and it was just remarkable the work you and the team and so many town employees and employees from neighboring communities did for the older group in town. So thank you so much and keep up the great work. Okay. So moving along, we'll move on to the consent agenda, which we have three items tonight. Item four is appointment of new election workers. Lisa Carlson Hill, 175 Lowell Street, Giovanna DeStefanis, 113 Palmer Street, Richard Stimphill, 67 Oregon Ave. Item five for approval, administrative update to overnight parking waiver and item six for approval, gifts and donations for COVID-19 supplies and testing. For items five and six, we received the memo from Attorney Heim, but I'm wondering since that came in after the initial agenda was set, if you could just give us maybe a brief description of those items before we have the vote. Of course, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate everybody's patience while putting together a whole bunch of different memos for this organizational meeting. The first item is just an administrative update to your recently revised overnight parking program. As a board will recall, you established rules that basically allowed somebody to qualify for an overnight parking permit exemption based on disability. And your way of proving disability under those regulations was evidence of a handicap plate, evidence of SSDI benefits, a letter from a physician on physician's letterhead stating a disability. Those, that policy was based on recommendations by the Massachusetts Office of Disability. Concerned resident became concerned that handicap placards should also qualify, should be treated the same as handicap plates. The Massachusetts Office of Disability, which has always been a terrific resource and partner for everybody, confirmed that they tend to treat these things exactly the same unless there was some operational reason why we should treat them differently. They thought, you know, it's usually advisable to treat placards and plates the same way. Contacted the Arlington Police Department, appreciated Officer Ratau's time and thought. And the long and short of it is, is that with all that information, I'm just recommending that you add the words handicap placard to that list of ways that you can qualify as disabled for the purposes of the exemption permit only. It doesn't address everything else. It's just what you use as proof of showing you have a disability when they make an application to the select board office. So that is that item. The second item, I think we were hoping that we would have a few more items for you on this, but we've been tremendously grateful as a town and community to receive a lot of donations related to COVID relief. One of our biggest donors, the Arlington Health and Human Services charitable corporation has donated $200,000 for COVID relief purposes. They have expected nothing in return. There's no real conditions on the gift other than purposes that are already well-established under Health and Human Services, but the select board is technically required to accept these gifts. And it's also, of course, a wonderful opportunity to just broadcast to a broader audience, though I know Ms. Vangiorno and others have already been thanking these folks for their hard work and generosity, really aggregating a lot of individual donations as well as providing organizational support. So that's what those two items are about. And I again, I appreciate the board's patience in having all that stuff come together for myself and the comptroller and with respect to the overnight parking addition. Thank you. Thank you, Attorney Heim. And on all three items now, I'll turn to the board, Mr. Herd. All approval. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Diggins. All second and no need to apologize, Mr. Heim. I fully understand what it's like to be really busy now and I know you're busier than most of us. Thank you. Mr. Helmeth, any questions or comments? No, other than to thank Mr. Heim for that because as the new kid in the block, it was very useful. Mrs. Mahan, any comments or questions? Yes, just a two-pot question or a global sort of question. I was wondering if either our Health and Human Services director or the town manager could send, I certainly would be interested in sort of the guidelines that the town COVID fund has for what we will expand the funds on. And then my second part is more of a global question with the Recovery Act monies that were slated to receive an amount to be determined, somewhat over 30 million. I know President Biden and his secretaries spoke about the oversight they would have and also working with the state. I'd like to know when it is formed, when we get to that point in the process, what the towns, who's gonna sort of audit on the town side, this oversight of the spending of those COVID-19 funds. I'm not talking about any money that we can demonstrate revenue and maybe able to put into an overall stabilization fund because obviously that's kind of dry. And also how we're gonna get that message out because I wouldn't want a department maybe think they have a task and understanding that something applies and then it doesn't and it turns into something else. So I know I'm probably really premature on that part and I know that the state and the federal government through state agencies will oversee that but I'd like to also see how we're gonna sort of do that on the town side. Thank you. Mr. Chaplain. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. So on the first question, I'd be happy to work with Ms. Bonjournau to get that information to you so we can put that together. On the second question, I think that depending on how exactly we're able to utilize the funds will depict just how we process them. From an auditing perspective, as you mentioned, we'll likely rely on our finance department or our comptroller's office for the accounting and auditing of the funds. If the fund usage points towards a more robust usage for the nonprofit and private sector, we'll have to figure out what the right arm is. So that, you know, what the right arm or form of government is. So, yeah, as we learn more, I think we'll be able to better answer that question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mohan. So on the consent agenda, on a motion by Mr. Herd, seconded by Mr. Diggins, Attorney Heim. Attorney Heim, for the roll call. Sorry about that, Mr. Chair. I was just having a little difficulty there. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Yeah, Mr. So. Thank you very much. Okay. Item seven, appointments to the Equal Opportunity Advisory Committee. Kate Bender, for a term to expire 131-24. Is Ms. Bender with us tonight? Yes, I just promoted. Yes. It's coming up. Okay. Video is not. I'm sorry. Let's see if I can get it. Okay. Good. No, no, we can see you. Okay. Well, good evening. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and see if they have any questions from the board. Sure. I am a 25-year experience in financial services, mostly in human resources. So I have experience in organizational effectiveness, employee engagement, talent management. And mostly in financial services, I recently retired from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where I led a group of HR professionals. So with my retirement a year and a half ago, I'm doing some part-time consulting and also made a commitment to get more involved in my community. I've been in Arlington for about 10 years. Right. Thank you very much. I'll turn to the board now. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am very happy to make the motion to approve the appointment of Ms. Bender. And at some point I'd like to ask a few questions and make a few comments. Is the time or should I wait? Mr. Chair. No, it's as good a time as any. Okay, great. So you had me at Los Alamolos Labs. And then you really got me at Federal Reserve of Boston. But really, what since did, let me see if I can pull this up really fast, is the ability to navigate complex political environments to reach the desired outcomes. I can just tell you now, I'm going to be reaching out to you because- Oh please do. By reaching out to you, I'm not going to be violating open meeting laws because I can only talk to one of my colleagues here, but there's going to be many opportunities where I think you can really give me some advice. So I'm really thrilled to be in the best part of this. I guess is seeing the qualifications of people who really apply to volunteer for various positions in this house. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. I'm Mr. Helmuth. No questions. Just thank you for willing to serve. It's one of the things that makes Arlington such a great town. And we are delighted that you are willing to put in your time to give us a hand. Thank you. Great, thank you. Mrs. Mahan. I'm very thrilled to have you, Ms. Bender. You didn't really retire. You're just still working and you're not getting paid. So- I'm giving back. Yeah. And I see that you do some pro bono work. So, you know, I shout out to you for that also. So you're still working. We can't afford you, but we're very pleased to have volunteers. We're always amazed by the caliber of volunteers that we get for the committee, not only the caliber and the experience in the background, but the applicability to the position that they're applying for. Because, you know, last thing I want to do is put someone in a volunteer position that doesn't really set them up for success or the town for success. So we've got a double win here. Look forward to when everything gets back to normal in 2023, maybe 24, we actually can meet safely in person sometime. I will avail myself of the opportunity to contact you, COVID-19 safe ways that we're doing right now. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Hurd, and I could ask you for a second on Mr. Diggins' motion too. Second. And just thank you for your willingness to serve. We say this many times, we have so many people that apply to be part of our community and our commissions and boards. And we're always floored at the level of talent that we have right here at home. And we get it for free, which is beautiful. We get a lot of great consulting work at a great price. So thank you for your willingness to serve. And my only question is, if UNC Greensboro plays Wake Forest in a D1 sporting event, who do you root for? That's a tough one, but I lean Wake Forest, I'm afraid. It's a good choice. All right, well, thank you for your willingness to serve. Thanks. Mr. Hurd, and Ms. Bender, I want to echo the comments of my colleagues. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve. And we really appreciate you stepping up to serve on this committee. So with a motion by Mr. Diggins, a second by Mr. Hurd, Attorney Hyme. Thank you, I'll try to get the order right this time. Okay, so Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Great, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, next item on the agenda, item eight, a request for parking for Whittemore Park, phase one construction, Ali Cotter and Mr. Chapter Line. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Chapter Line first on this. So Ms. Carter will be joining us shortly. This is in relation to the upcoming construction work for the renovation of the park at Whittemore Park, but Ali is here and I will let her describe this request. Thank you. Ali Carter, Economic Development Coordinator, thank you for your time this evening. Yep, we're requesting seven spaces in the Russell Common Lot for Jam Corp to park their vehicles, portable toilet, things they need to get their construction project done, which we expect to start sometime mid to late May and hopefully be wrapped up sometime in the summer, but we're requested ample amount of time just to have some flexibility. Happy to answer any questions. Great, thank you very much Ms. Carter. Turn it to the board. Mr. Helmuth. Let's move approval. And just could you remind the board to tell us kind of where we're at on the schedule of the overall project? Is this starting about when was planned? Is it affected by pandemic or bidding? We would have loved to have done this last year, frankly, but the construction season and when it would have gone out to bid and there were several delays, but here we are now and we're very happy with the design we've come up with and we're already in the planning phase of phase two, which will be accessibility improvements around the house. So. Excellent. Thank you, no further questions. Okay, thank you Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahan. I'd like to second that and thank you once again. I sort of, all of us do interface with Ms. Carter on various committees and subcommittees and always really impressed, but I'm afraid to say that and tell people about it because usually when that happens, they leave us like his work home. But it's such a phenomenal job that Allie and others in planning have been, especially around the small business issues and outreach and CDBG and you're definitely working from home because I see you a lot. And I refer a lot of people and businesses to you and you get right back to them and they report right back how nice she is. And I said, well, don't tell too many people, we don't want her to get stolen away. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Hurd. Thank you. Definitely excited about this project and obviously COVID delayed it, but I think this is gonna be a great project by the time this gets through. I don't know if we had spoken with this at the economic development level, but do we know if Aeronaut is out again this year, if they're not interested in participating again this summer? They are not able to participate for a number of reasons, but from their perspective, it's just not good business this year and from the town's perspective, it's just not, we're not ready for that kind of activity. So, unfortunately not. No, if we need to start thinking about a new site, but I understood, disappointing. I know everyone likes that, but we'll enjoy it in the brand new renovated Woodmore Park the following year. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. No questions, no comments. Thank you. And yeah, I don't have any questions either. Thank you very much for the memo and looking forward to the work to be done. So in a motion by Mr. Helmuth, second by Mrs. Mahan, attorney Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you. Thank you very much. Item nine for discussion, future select board meetings. And so, on this side, we will talk about some dates and also bear in mind that town meetings starts April 26th. So I think right now we have on our calendar through April 26th, we don't have anything for May or June. So maybe if we could look at our calendars and I imagine we're gonna be going well into June or not June into May for the town meeting. So as we look at this, we will be in session during town meeting, but we probably should pick a couple of dates in May and a couple in June. So I don't know if anybody has any suggestions for that. 10 and 24 in May. Okay. Is that anybody have any, is it that that seems to make sense? Anybody have any questions on that date or any conflicts? I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, what was the data guy couldn't hear? Yeah, May 10 and May 24. To no conflicts. If possible, like to avoid the 24th. If it screws up the schedule, I can make it work, but if it's possible to put it on a separate night, then that would work for my schedule. Okay. The only issue at the 31st, we run up against Memorial Day, right? So I think we, I think the third was still. How about the 10th in Wednesday, the 26th? Yeah, that's what I'm just gonna look at. I think in the 10th, we're still gonna be in town meeting. So we'll only have a one hour slug board meeting. I'm praying to the Lord God up above for many things. So I won't say for this, but by May 26th, there's a fairly good shot. We could be wrapped up with town meeting, maybe not. And then we'd switch back to 715 in a full meeting, but just if people want to pick a different date, but maybe if we could meet that week, maybe not the 26th, Mr. Chairman, what date do you think besides the Monday night? No, I think that's fine with me, because that avoids a conflict. Is the 26th the problem, Mr. Herd, or is that okay? Nope, that's fine. Okay. And Mr. Diggins and Mr. Helmut, is that okay? Yeah, just far out, I don't have a problem. I can certainly block that time out, you know, so. Oh, that's fine with me. So do we do 7pm on how many nights when we meet? That's right. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, all right. And so for June, why don't we take a look at that too and see if anybody, if you want to discuss dates for that. Any dates work for me? 721? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And just a question from Mr. Chapterling, does it matter, I don't know if there's anything as we get closer to the month that the 28th would make a difference for the 21st? I'd like to do 721, but if there's a reason to do it closer to the end of the fiscal year, I just want to ask you about that. I would imagine we can have any potential transfers. The board would need to approved ready by the 21st. So I think that would be okay. Okay, all right, great. How was the 7th and 21st for the other members? Okay, good, good. Okay, Mr. Diggins? I'm sorry, yes, I was not in my head, but I should have said it's verbalized. Yes, it's fine. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, sure. And I don't know if we want to go into July or if do we just want to take care of May and June at this point? If I could, Mr. Chair. Sure. I would say maybe perhaps sometime next month's meeting, if you could work with the town manager as a newly elected chair, usually in July, sometimes in August, where we have the one month meeting, we incorporate goals and missions forum, sure. So I guess the June or August date would kind of drive around that. So if you two could have conversations and then maybe come back to make a recommendation at the next meeting or whatever. Sure, okay, so that's fine. So we'll just take care of May and June for now. So just to repeat, May 10th, May 26th, June 7th and June 21st, good. And this doesn't require a vote, we'll just put it on the calendar. Okay, item 10, for discussion and vote, support for ARB votes on town meeting articles 35, 38 and 43, we have Ms. Wright and Attorney Heim. Turn it over to Attorney Heim first. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the board will recall, you had some, you had a joint meeting with the ARB, one of the things that came out of that was discussion about select board articulating support for a limited number or at least discussing a limited number of ARB votes and recommendations within the town meeting cycle. To be clear, the ARB has already had their hearing. They have, for the purposes of 40A, they've reached a vote of the recommended action that was provided to you and they've set forth the basis of their discussion, which have all been provided to you as you members of the board. I've drafted some sort of generic language if the board is inclined to vote, to articulate some sort of advisory support. Your vote is not necessary. You don't have to take a vote on any of these items. You certainly don't have to, you certainly can voice support, which happens from time to time on a finance article. Sometimes the finance committee will vote about an article that's not strictly within their jurisdiction as an advisory matter. Here the ARB is invited. You are a comment if you'd like to provide it. And so you don't have the controlling motion. It would just be something that I would layer into your select board report as the select board voices support for these articles with this very basic rationale, understanding that the sort of more thorough discussion of the articles is in the ARB's report. So with that, Ms. Raid is available to answer any questions the board may have. Again, this isn't a warrant article hearing the traditional sense of the word because the articles have already been voted on and disposed of by the body that has jurisdiction. And you are free to support them. You are free to make no comment whatsoever. So if I can be held procedurally, I'd be happy to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Attorney Heim. Good evening, Ms. Raid. Thank you for joining us tonight. Did you want to make any comments on the articles? Just take questions or whatever you'd prefer. Good evening, I'm Jenny Raid I'm the director of planning and community development. I think that Doug's draft is a good starting point and hopefully you've also had a chance to at least see the report to town meeting issued by the ARB. And I think that that provides even more sort of additional information about the discussion around each item that we're talking about this evening. I'm just glad to answer any questions that you might have. Okay, thank you very much. So let me go to the board now. Mrs. Mahan. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I was hoping I was sending you ESP calling me first. I just got these, the comments and the board agenda materials at 1.50 a.m. this morning. I understand everybody's busy and has lots of things to do, but I've done this for several years now in a row, especially around warrant article hearings, materials attached to warrant articles, Friday at the very latest, because I truly do look at it over the weekend. I could not even look at these until as everyone knows my family circumstances. I'm caretaker for three disabled adults and I have my job as a court reporter, which I work out of my home all day long. And I maybe scanned over these for 20 minutes. I would recommend to my colleagues that we have any questions or discussions, but we did set up a process like two, two and a half years ago, and we did do it last fall. We're unfortunately our colleagues on the redevelopment board got subjected to an AFR capture of our open forum. And even though we stressed this was a joint meeting where we didn't do that this year, but the reason why we set up the process was that anytime both boards were gonna have a joint approval, we would sort of go through the process together so that we would be there for the warrant article hearings, hear the pros and cons, have the materials far in advance. And the reason we did that is a couple of years ago when we did it and we just endorsed it and really kind of got crucified at town meeting because we didn't have the working knowledge, meaning me as a member of the select board to really explain it as well as even explain it to help the planning board, the ARB support it. And there were a couple of articles in that town meeting that in the end, I think a majority, one or two of them, majority of the board if everyone was not in support of them. So we had this process put in place, we didn't do that this time, that's okay. But since we didn't do that and since I literally have skimmed over these maybe 20 minutes, I wouldn't be comfortable. I don't think the board, we should set ourselves up that way because, and then endeavor for future ARB select board warrant articles, we go back to that process. So we know this stuff inside and out. And if there's something that one of us catches that we don't understand and after explaining, it's wrong and then maybe redevelopment board will agree. I'm just not comfortable voting on these. I'd be happy to vote to receive and any questions that people have. And I'm not trying to be very negative or anything like that. But believe me, I work at 80 hours plus a week and I've been doing six hour depositions every day and then turn around transcribe and get them back the next morning. And the two attorneys will know to get 300 pages out the next day, I'm really not sleeping. So I would once again say to the town manager and town council, please, please, please we need this stuff. I prefer when I'm chair, Wednesday afternoon, Thursday afternoon at the latest and in the case of an emergency, dump everything you have Thursday afternoon and get that last piece on Friday so that we're not getting a big dump last minute. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Mohan. Mr. Herd. I'll blame the prior chair for that. No, I know when we had this joint meeting with myself, town manager, Ms. Reed and Ms. Zembury, we certainly knew there would be a tight timeframe because of the statutory requirements for town meeting when the articles could be submitted. And then we had to, we wanted to make sure that all the articles were heard and final comments were made before the auxiliary board will call it weighed in. I certainly agree on article 35. I think article 35 is a complex issue that we really would have to have more information on in order to be able to come to a decision on. And I'm certainly not prepared to give input on that. I would be prepared if the board is so inclined to make a motion to approve or to support articles 38 and 43 because I think there are similar articles to articles that have been proposed in previous years whereas a set of dwelling units is something that we've been talking about for a few years and almost passed a couple of time meetings ago. And I certainly think that that is a good stepping stone to some of the discussions that we've had about affordable housing and really looking at the zoning bylaws to see if there's any common sense changes we can make to support that goal, as well as article 43, I think is a pretty basic and kind of no brainer article that allows us to simply create more energy efficient homes and it doesn't burden the current footprint of the houses. So I would be prepared to make a motion on those two but I certainly would like to hear what the other board members would say. And I definitely understand Mrs. Mahan's position on that. Mr. Chair, if I could modify my feelings. I literally hadn't gotten to the last two war on articles in this, I was focused on the first but now listening to Mr. Hurd's explanation and skimming through these quickly and we have had extensive hearings last year. I would share in Mr. Hurd's comments regarding the final two war on articles 38 and 43. So I guess my main one would be 35. I would not. I'd better be interested, Mr. Chair, what my other colleagues have to say. Okay, great. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And then thank you, Mr. Hurd, Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you, Ms. Raid. Our second time today, 12 hours later. So it's good to see you. I'm still hanging in there. So and I'll just say, perhaps the internet just works faster for me but I got the ARB articles from Mr. Heim on Saturday morning at 10 40, but I think I'm special. But anyway, so I had a chance to read them and I actually had a chance to read the ARB report and I support them all. But I look, for whatever reason, one colleague isn't ready to move forward and I've been in other meetings, meet other committees where when a key person isn't ready to move forward and then I'm comfortable holding back so if you're not ready to move forward on 35 because there's not enough time to think about it, that's fine if we can move forward with any of the others. I'm fine with that too, but I will say that I understand ARB's position on all of them and I agree wholeheartedly. So that's it for me, thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins and I'm Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I would also support Mr. Hurd's suggestion for that was also supported by Ms. Mohan. And I think I have obvious different reason in that I'm very new to this as in a few hours ago. And I do feel because of my past study, more comfortable with those two articles in the substance of them, I didn't intend to review it. I do wanna say though that my reticence on 35 has nothing to do with its merits. I actually am really intrigued by some of the ideas that are there and some of the forward thinking uses for our industrial areas. Vertical gardening caught my attention, maker spaces, artist laws, and it's something I've been hearing from a couple of residents recently is a concern about the loss of artist's residences. So I'm intrigued by what's in there, but I think zoning and a big change like that is really complex and I just feel like in good faith I don't, I would need a lot more information and I'm willing as a town meeting member to contemplate that when we get there. All right, but I appreciate the creativity that is apparent there. Great, thank you, Mr. Allen. Yeah, so I just have a couple of comments on this. I agree with Mr. Herd. I, because of the number of items proposed in Article 35 and at least with respect to mixed use, namely residential, there are some changes that I think need to be explained that require some additional research and I wouldn't be comfortable at this stage. I'm not against it, but I just, I don't think as a support. So I could certainly support doing Articles 38 and 43 and not taking action on 35 isn't any action on our part on the merits or any feeling it just we're not ready to do that. So I think there's a consensus of the board at least to do those two. So I'd ask for a motion on that. Mr. Corsi? Yes. Second. So I'd be happy to move to receive the town managers, oh, sorry, Town Council's report on Article 35 and move to provide our support as outlined in the Town Council's recommended votes for Articles 38 and 43. I'll second that. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Any further questions or comments, Mr. Diggins? All right, yes, yes, I do. So look, I'm gonna stick with my plan to vote to support these two, but I guess my concern though, is that we do I think put 35 at a bit of a disadvantage if we come across as like positive for this one, those two and then not so much for 35. I mean, I mean, I really support 35. I mean, I have listened to some of the discussion or deliberations on the industrial zoning review with that. I'm sorry, I'm forgetting exactly which committees did what, but I've been impressed. I mean, I like where they're headed with it. And I think it's important that we do it. And I'd hate for us to inadvertently put it at a disadvantage. That said, I'm gonna stick with my plans to support the vote for another two, but I just wanna flag that as a concern about what we're gonna do in the process. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And just one comment on that. I think attorney Heim can put that in as a comment that the lack of action on 35 isn't any determination on the merits of it. But I think you also run the risk if you just simply endure something without having looked into it as a group that the endorsement or support really doesn't mean that much either. So I think if the comment can be clear on that point, won't be a disadvantage, but I appreciate what you're saying there. Mr. Helmuth, any further questions or comments? No, thank you. Okay, great. So on a motion by Mr. Hurd, seconded by Mrs. Mahan for endorsement of articles 38 and 43 and receipt of the report for article 35, Attorney Heim. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And my understanding is that this motion would basically mean that I'll fold these into the select board's report as just advisory pieces. So they won't really stand out that much as you said, since you're not commenting on all ARB articles anyway. Mr. Chair, I seconded the motion and I apologize, I didn't get your attention for any questions that I might have before the vote. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, I should have agreed Mr. Hurd's motion to Mr. Diggins point. The way this process was set up is that if and when there is some uniformity on the redevelopment and select board that we follow the process and then vote on that. And on those that the board redevelopment, the select board invites redevelopment board to vote on and vice versa. If there's not a vote, then there's really no comments. It's just providing the opportunity. So I understand Mr. Diggins point, we've never in the past put, we heard, we voted nothing. What it is, this is our opportunity to say, you're invited to join us one, two, all or none of them. So we only comment on the ones that we're agreeing with with the redevelopment board. So I regarding article 35 from the selectments report, select boards report, I'd like to continue with that tradition. And then the second thing, only cause you kind of put me on the spot, but I went to the select boards office this morning and they also didn't get them until about two o'clock this morning. So I want to find out if Len Diggins, Mr. Diggins has the best super internet ever. And it just asked Attorney Hyme, did these go out Saturday? And we didn't get them until Monday morning. Mr. Chairman. Because I have the email and sort of select boards. So I might- Go ahead Attorney Hyme, I'm sorry. Thank you. My best guess is that we're talking about two different things. I sent out a draft of the ARB articles at about 1040 Saturday morning. And then I sent the draft select board report which is the collections of votes and comments you previously approved early this morning. So I think there are two separate pieces of business. Okay. What it is is I have my packet printed on Friday and I got to get my town iPad into Dave Goode if we still have him or to look at it because it just doesn't work. And I had the select board office print them for me because I just finally started working in January so I can justify buying a new printer soon. So they print my packet on Friday, but since it wasn't ready, so they don't have to make two trips to my house and I went down this morning. So that's why that's where the snafu was. And I didn't want people to think out there that we're Mr. Diggins gets some on Saturday morning. I perhaps did also, I didn't. I'm very fastidious when I do get some. Thank you. Thank you. And I, you know, these were two big reports and I want to thank Attorney Hyme because I see I got one on Saturday and one at 2.38 this morning and actually it was up when it came in and which is ridiculous. But so I want to thank you for sending that Attorney Hyme. So just to recap, we have a motion by Mr. Herd seconded by Mrs. Mohan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes, and thanks for this recommendation about the history of this process, Mr. Mohan. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Okay, thank you, Attorney Hyme. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Chair. Okay, I don't know. I'm sorry. Mr. Herd, I was raising my hand. Oh, sure. I'm sorry. If I might, that's okay. I also want you to move on but I have a quick question, which is, is it possible to come back for one of your next meetings to talk about industrial zoning, the article 35, because I do very much respect your time and your input and I would very much appreciate that as part of this process. Maybe it's not something that will be put into your report but if there is an opportunity to come back to a meeting, I would be glad to do that and try to figure out how we could do that based upon the order of warrant articles. I don't think that this will be the first week of town meeting, so we might have some flexibility in terms of timing. Alternatively, if you do not wish to do that because of just time constraints around town meeting, I would say that I am available to any of you to answer questions once you do start to dig in to any of the zoning articles, whether it's article 35 or any of the others that you have a question about. I'm more than happy to answer your questions and try to understand any concerns and address those if I can as well. But I would love for you to feel informed and prepared for the town meeting as well as anybody who's watching. And so I make myself available either to come back to a meeting or speak one-on-one with you, if appropriate or both. Thank you. Great, thank you Ms. Wright for that. And I think while our next meeting is the first night of town meeting, so let's start with, I think people should take you up on your invitation if there are individual questions and then as we get closer to that date, we can talk about whether we make it an agenda item or we just do it based on the individual discussions. Thank you. Thanks again. Okay, sure. Okay, now item 11 for discussion, draft select board report to town meeting, Attorney Hyam. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And what you have before you is the draft select board report. It reflects all of your votes and comments that you previously approved. A few years ago, we started just compiling the report. You didn't used to necessarily approve the report. We started compiling the report just as a sort of extra layer. We typically note that the, in the sort of introduction that's typically done by the chair that votes represent who was on the board at the time. So an approval of the report doesn't necessarily mean that Mr. Helmuth who was not present for these hearings, for example, necessarily concurs with all of the substance. In this particular year because of the length of the warrant article, the warrant and the timing of a lot of what was going on. We just had our sort of both hearing and final votes and comments on article 25. That's really one of two things that I wanna raise your attention because I think it is helpful to clarify something that I wanna make sure the board would be okay with. If you go to article 25, the vote on the real estate transfer fee, you'll see some highlighted text. The housing plan implementation committee clarified to me what their intent was with respect to article 25. And that was for town meeting to approve ultimately what the rate of the real estate transfer fee is who pays the real estate transfer fee and what the threshold is for the fee to be applied. So that was the only change to anything that was approved by the select board previously. And it's also reflected further in your comment. If the board so inclined to approve the report with that sort of correction of what HPIC was aiming towards, I do think that gets to some of the substantive issues. The board was a little bit concerned about with respect to the real estate transfer fee in terms of how clear it's gonna be that the rate's not gonna change from year to year or who it's gonna apply to is not gonna change from year to year. So that's the only sort of substantive piece than just having the collection of your final votes and comments altogether. The other piece was I didn't put a list together of the appendix items at the very bottom. Again, I appreciate the fact that this is something that you've received with very short notice. And I respect that. It's a lot to take in and Mohan's comments about, it's not easy to be given something on a Monday that you're supposed to approve on a Monday night. So the appendix items are basically, I think all consistent with what we had previously discussed in your final votes and comments, what you've traditionally asked for in the past, such as revolving fund details or the CBBG report. So this would all sort of be part of one packet rather than having your report and then a bunch of supplemental reports. So if there's anything that you guys want to take out in terms of the appendix items, again, that's basically the last page. If there's any comments you have on Article 25, if you want me to go with the original vote and comment, that's fine. If you want me to update it in this manner to make it clear that the sort of intent that HPEC was for town meeting to set the real estate transfer fee rate and to set what would be sort of the triggering threshold, things of that nature. Okay. Thank you, Tony. I'm just a question too, because I think we have voted on everything except for Article 25. So are you looking for a vote on the, just on the language in Article 25 or the full report at this point? So you, thank you, Mr. Chair. You voted on everything. Again, this has been something that we've started doing the last couple of years just to kind of have an additional layer. Is there anything that the board wants to tweak before its final report goes out? It's kind of an opportunity to, you know, revisit anything if issues come up. This is the only issue that's not like an administrative correction that's come up this year. But you don't have to change anything if you want what I would basically do is update that language. But if you wanted to keep the language that you had previously approved on Article 25, I would just keep that. I could just basically reinsert that. Okay. Okay. That's fine. Thank you for the clarification. And just before I go to the board members too, and this is consistent with the practice that we had the past few years where Mr. Helmuth wasn't here for the votes. And as you said, the votes are within the body of the report. And what we've done previously, if there is a particular warrant article where Mr. Helmuth, let's say it was a five to zero vote and Mr. Helmuth would have voted differently. He can tell me at town meeting and I will let the body know how he would have voted. So if that's okay with you, Mr. Helmuth. Yes, that's fine. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So go ahead. It's just a procedure. So would you or the council recommend that I do or do not vote on this given the circumstances? Attorney Helmuth? I think you're just voting on approving the report itself. The votes don't reflect your vote. So you can participate with respect to approving the report, but it would reflect that, these votes reflect the board prior to the change in membership due to the election. Okay. Great. Okay. Mr. Heard. Thank you. Yeah, I'm fine with in certain language saying that the town meeting can vote on the items in 25 pursuant to a recommendation by the Slack board. I think it's certainly an article in an issue that will require some more global input from town meeting than just us five members. I always like to say, I've never won the pin points typos cause people in glass houses, but on in the insert on section two, it does say a threshold price set bye-bye town meeting. So I assume that that can be corrected. And then on the very last page, I'll just note that we appointed Mrs. Mahan as vice chair. Of course, sir. Yep. That's it. Thank you. I'll move approval of the other report as presented by attorney Han with those corrections. Great. Thank you. Mr. Diggins. I'm happy to second that. And I have no comments or questions. Thank you. Okay. And Mr. Helm, if I'm gonna return to you, I'd ask you earlier about that other issues. I don't know if you have any other questions. No, no other questions. Thank you. Okay. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And no, I think it's good to catch up, pick up those that if we pick up any more, we can just email town council because town meeting seems to have a field day with everybody, not just the select board getting up saying, you know, them should be, the advance should be then and, you know, it seems to kind of eat up time. So I would just have one modification under Chronicle 70, which is the vote on the town clerk study, which the main motion I believe is finance committee. That was a four to one vote. I did vote in the minority. I would just ask that the law sentence expressing the minority view stops after taking a directly elected office away from voters period. I understand where the remaining part of that sentence comes, but I'm afraid it might be misconstrued that I didn't feel Dean Common was qualified and didn't really marshal us through a process for success. What I was saying at the time, probably in artfully so was that up until the introduction of Dean Carmen, there were a lot of things that we weren't making. I felt making decisions purely based around discussing the treasurer's office. So I just like the sentence to end away from voters and delete the rest. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. And I don't think we need to change to amend Mr. Hurd's motion for that. I think you can make that administratively, Attorney Heim. So on a motion by Mr. Hurd, seconded by Mr. Diggins, Attorney Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mrs. Vahan. Yes. Mr. DeCourson. Yes. To the unanimous vote, and I appreciate that any other things that folks spot and Ms. Maher and Ms. Costa have also been terrific. So if there's any other things, we'll make sure we go over with a fine-tooth call. Thank you very much. Thank you, Attorney Heim. Okay. A new business, Attorney Heim. No new business. Thank you. Mr. Chapterline. No new business tonight, Mr. DeCourson. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Helmuth. No new business. Okay. Mr. Diggins. Well, everyone's been congratulated here tonight, except for me. And so I want to congratulate myself. I'd be reelected to a town meeting. And, you know, I love being a town meeting member. And I just have a little story from that night that encapsulates why I feel so good about it. You know, I was at the poll at Thompson School to get the data from one, three, and five. And a couple of people came in, 30 seconds before the door closed. And then they voted and it came out. And I was talking to another gentleman. And then he said, he had my mask on. He said, are you, are you Lynn Diggins? I mean, I said, yeah. And he said, we just voted for you for town meeting. And the woman just gave me a hug. And she was so happy in that. And, you know, I mean, I was so happy too. It just makes me want to do a better job at being a town meeting member. So, so, so I'm happy I get to do it again for another three years. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And congratulations, Mr. Heard. I should mention that I also, in addition to being reelected to this board, I'm now one of the newest town meeting members. So people have said for years, you got to sit there, you might as well get to vote. So now I have to, I didn't have to figure out how to vote last time. So now I'll have to go to one of the trainings to try to figure it out. I did speak earlier just to thank the voters and when I realized through the meeting that one group that I didn't specifically thank that I wanted to was the poll workers and in the officers that work at the polls all day on election day, I actually had anticipated with the rule, not with the drop boxes where they have to be picked up by eight o'clock that our results would come in around 10, 11 o'clock. And I was really surprised when we were able to get our results very quickly closer to around 845, nine o'clock. So I do want to thank the poll workers and everyone that helped make the election move forward. I did want to bring up, there was an issue that came up in Arlington today. There were some banners that were raised on Mass Ave. This came to, there was a banner contest that we've been doing for many, many years and there's been a process that's always been followed in regards to these banners. I know I have been a past judge on this contest. Ms. Currell was a judge before me. In this particular year, we were brought an agenda item back at the beginning of January to approve a certain set of banners. The banners that were presented to us were not the banners that were ultimately approved. And at this point it's caused some controversy because one particular banner is really, a number of residents are taken offense to. And I don't want to do, as this is a high school contest, I am not here to cast aspersions on any of the participants or particularly of any of the banners that came up. But I do want to just say that, I think we all could have done better in this process. I think there was a lot of communication gaps between us, the school departments, the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture. And we all have to take our responsibility for people's feelings on both sides of this issue that are being hurt. But in the end, we're trying to perpetuate unity over the past couple of years. We've had some divisiveness that we've seen at this board at many levels all across Arlington. And at any level when we've dealt with these issues, the Arlington Police Department has been an active participant under Chief Flaherty and the ranking officers. And many officers have joined the discussion. And it's really been helpful to the discussion, helping us move forward to know that we have the, what we all consistently talk about is this community policing model in Arlington Police Department. We often say the thousands police department is a shining example of the way that the police departments across the country should operate. And our officers really should be commended for that. And time and time again, it seems like they don't get the respect and the admiration that they, I think, deserve. And this one particular banner seems to depict what is really just not the reality of policing in Arlington. And I know the contest theme was protest. I mean, I would like to see banner contests or contests among our youth with themes such as unity or something along those lines that really help our foster, eliminate the divisiveness that we sometimes feel. But it definitely doesn't reflect the reality here in Arlington. And if you look back in the past year where there was a number of protested sometimes every night and they were amazing. Arlington in the face of this reckoning on racial injustice stood up and said, we're not gonna tolerate this as a community here or anywhere else. And we stood up with our police department and our residents and declare Black Lives Matter. And we continue to do so. But in the midst of all those protests, we never had any instances of issues with the Arlington Police Department. And I think that should be recognized that some of the artwork that was raised doesn't depict the reality of the situation in Arlington. And again, I think people really need to look at our police department and the community policing model that they consistently put forth and really give them some admiration and recognition for that. So that's all I have, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Mr. Heard. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. And first, it's the first night of Ramadan. So for those who observed that, I wish you a happy and blessed Ramadan. And I believe it's a month long. So I'll be sending you prayers of strength and good wishes as you celebrate this holy day. And I agree with my colleague, Mr. Heard's remarks, I'm probably gonna be a little bit more. I did have a conversation, a calm conversation versus one I would have had with the town manager this morning, but I had called, I didn't leave a message. You called me back. I do place, I'll accept my Mr. Heard's comments that we all have to know better, do better. But I really feel some of the adults involved in this process. And maybe now we have to be more stringent. And this is the only time this has ever happened. So maybe we learned from this, but me going forward. The banners that get presented to the select board, those should be the banners that we vote, a subset of those they choose to put up on Mass Ave in Ellington. There were over a hundred submissions. I told the town manager that I was aware that 20 were forwarded on. And the most controversial one, which the artist did a fantastic job. She's definitely has talent in terms of her canvas and artwork there, originally wasn't included. So I've asked the town manager to look into that and to really firm this up and really make it clear from going forward that if you don't present it to a select board, you don't go out and choose it, send it to a lithograph or a printing company and put it up on the app. Because ultimately it's the select board's responsibility. And I know like my colleagues, but I can tell you, I have the tenor of ferocity against not just our police officers, men and women, but especially our police officers. I've been on details. I've been at red lights. I've walked Mass Ave and the increase of people beeping and cussing and yelling vile expletives against our police officers, women and men has increased. And I think this particular banner, I don't know how, I mean, it's right at the intersection where our police station is. It's a slap. It's similar to when the scabs right across from the police station went up. I mean, we seem to be fostering an environment in Allington that really speaking poorly unjustifiably so against our police officers is what you'll do because the town management, and I did say to the town manager, I hold him and the superintendent responsible for this as well as the town manager on previous things. I mean, we have an officer nine weeks ago who made an arrest, drugs were confiscated. We followed the community's lead that, if it's a low crime, we work with the individual versus being more punitive. And he shouldn't have been out for nine minutes and he's out nine weeks. And I'm fearful we're sending a message to our police force. We don't value you. We say up to your face, oh, you're the best, you're state of the art, national in the country, you're proactive, community policing. And then every time we turn around, we are not supporting them. When in my opinion, ulterior motive claims, unfounded claims are made against them. And if it's something that's serious that needs to be looked into, I'm for that. But what we're gonna do is, we're gonna have all those exemplary officers who are counting the days to get out, counting the ways to get out. And guess what? Guess what kind of candidates Allenton's gonna attract when they find out that the town of Allenton does not support their police force. And I hold the town manager that. And I'm very upset about that to the women and men who work at the Allenton Police Department. All I do is apologize to you all the time. I certainly make my failings known. I think if somebody, there was a contest and we were discussing domestic violence and the banner went up where you had a woman holding her newborn or child, you know, hotly in fear as her spouser mate was about to hit her with a hammer or maybe not mace, but you know, go to choke around her neck. People would cry foul because what that does is if I had a child who's 10 or under, they look up at that. They see, oh, there's an Allenton policeman looking aggressively that he's going to inflict harm or spray the face. And some people said, well, then this is an impetus to have a talk with your children, but it shouldn't come out of fear and it shouldn't come out of information because Allenton, Massachusetts Police Department does not operate that way. And I feel like defending them has become a large part of my job as a select board member along with my colleagues, current informer. And I'll continue to do that. But I mean, at some point this has to stop. I mean, I feel like we're reacting and on police issues, taking a very small subset of a steering committee, about half of them who are very dangerous divisive people who infiltrated select board last year, infiltrated housing authority this year. I mean, I love Allenton. I'm embarrassed now. I'm afraid people aren't going to want to move here. They don't want to live here. You don't want to do business here. So I would like the town manager really to get to the bottom of this. And I agree. I don't want to penalize any of the students, but I really felt like somebody or somebody's had some sort of motives, ulterior motives, because I know if I had seen that banner of the police officer maskless with a can of mace spraying it at a young African-American girl with a mask on, what Black Lives Matter T-shirt holding a megaphone. And the police officer has his bayonet raised as to strike. I certainly would have said, well, I mean, we need to have a conversation about this. We're, do we need to do any community outreach first? Do we need to talk to the men and women of the department? Is this, I mean, I really feel like the adults in the room weren't adults. And I'm just disgusted and too, the men and women of all into police department, your select board supports you. I'm disgusted by this. I've been drinking Pepto all day long after the meeting ends, it may be a different to you, but I want this to stop. I want the town manager to stand up for all of town employees, union and M schedule. And I just don't feel, thank you. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And just to follow briefly on Mr. Hurd's comments and Mrs. Mahan's comments. And we all received a number of calls today and have a number of discussions. And I will continue to have discussions tomorrow. The town manager and I will be talking about this with, I believe a member of the commission for arts and culture and to receive more context on this and to our police departments, how we feel locally about our police department is that they're second to none, but this was in our competition and the selection process took place outside of the select board. It was done back in the January, February time period. And we weren't aware of it as a contest that was announced last October by the Allington commission for arts and culture. But when they came before us in January, it was for approval to host a sign. So I think more discussion is needed. I understand that the herd here. And I think, as Mr. Hurd said, we look at this as an opportunity to find unity, not divisiveness, and it's gonna require some difficult discussions. But I think we need to have those. So I will be following up with the manager on this tomorrow. And with that, that's all my new business tonight. So with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. I'll move. So second. Okay. So motion by Mr. Hurd. Second by Mr. Helmuth to adjourn. Tony Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Good night, guys. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Bye.