 Good evening. I'm opening the third night of the 216th annual town meeting of Arlington Tonight we're starting with the town budgets and the capital budgets then we'll take up article 9 which was postponed from last week and Before we begin I just want to apologize for not announcing last Wednesday that we'd be taking up the budgets tonight in the future I'll try to remember to announce upcoming articles, especially when we take them out of sequence like this The town meeting progress check tracker at Arlington MA gov slash town meeting progress Shows dates of future articles when they're expected to be taken up on a particular evening Since it may have come as a surprise that the budgets are being covered tonight I relaxed the 48-hour rule in this case and accepted amendments that were submitted over the weekend in any event Amendments to budgets are very limited in what they can amend So I don't expect these amendments to be particularly burdensome for the meeting to comprehend Let me address momentarily the top. Yes Point of order, okay Thank You mr. Moderator Carl Wagner precinct 15 point of order. I recently learned from earlier Town meeting work including the the moderator that the 48-hour rule is supposed to be 48 actual consecutive hours Not business hours. Thank you That's not how it's specified in my corporate letter to the town meeting packet this year. Thank you Let me now address the topic of the speaker queue Being a town meeting member is not a spectator sports If you want to see greater diversity in speakers and perspectives Then there needs to be greater diversity in the speaker queue for me to recognize on a related note If you've grown tired of a debate on a particular topic and you are and you're wondering why no one's terminated debate yet That's because no one got in the queue early enough to terminate debate plan accordingly and if you decide that debate is more illuminating than you anticipated you can always pass when it's your turn on Wednesday this week will take up the special town meeting warrant articles and after we've dissolved the special town meeting We'll return to the business of the annual town meeting We have a packed agenda tonight. So let's get started These will Because of the packed agenda will we'll skip the swearing in during this portion of the meeting and anyone who needs to be sworn in tonight You can find the town clerk Ms. Brazil in the lobby During the intermission tonight and she can do the swearing in there. Mr. Helmuth I'm sorry before we get to Mr. Helmuth Apologies actually we're gonna have performance of the national anthem tonight by Ms. Rieco Tanaka Helmuth chair of the select board 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 Wednesday, May 3rd 2023 at 8 p.m They have a second all those in favor. So yes all those opposed Motion carries we will we will adjourn we will reconvene Wednesday at 8 p.m Again for the special town meeting and now call for any announcements or resolutions. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, mr. moderator Not all heroes wear capes Sometimes they get a proclamation And a few minutes I'm going to ask town meeting member and the Royer to come accept a power Proclamation, but I'm gonna give her a few minutes to recover because she doesn't know this is happening The select board a few minutes ago voted the following Whereas Arlington is blessed with many residents who willingly volunteer from their efforts their time and their expertise to make important Contributions to the well-being and betterment of our community But there are individuals whose dedication Integrity and selfless contributions to the public good merit more than quiet. Thanks and whereas One such individual and the Royer Deserves a moment in the community spotlight although she would be among the last to seek it out or expect it And whereas and the service to Arlington through town meeting the open space committee Master plan advisory and implementation committees the historic and cultural resources working group. It's a long list Millbrook corridor study group public land management plan working group and Arlington reservoir committee spans more than two decades and Whereas and has served on Arlington's open space committee since 1999 for the vast majority of that time she has served as chair Providing a guiding light for four of Arlington's five open space and recreation plans in addition and has provided guidance on several Projects associated with the Millbrook the Sims redevelopment and the Arlington high school rebuild and whereas There is no open space or major project in Arlington where Anne's influence has not been felt There are a few words available to properly express our deepest Thanks for Anne's selfless dedication to the open space committee's mandate and our admiration for her consistent devotion Devotion to Arlington and its residents now therefore let it be resolved that we the Arlington select board Do thank and the Royer for her many exemplary and irreplaceable contributions which have made Arlington a much more vibrant Verdint and welcoming community and be it further resolved that we the Arlington select board hereby Do name this first day of May 2023 to be and the Royer day throughout the town and to ask all residents to pay heed there, too And you've got about four three hours left on your day I mean miss it on This is really amazing I don't know I really don't know what to say actually but Thank you, but I mean really there's so many People in town that have done so many so much work and for so long much longer than I have been here in town So I just want to thank everybody else who's such a wonderful volunteer for the town and we all love Arlington And I'm glad that I can be a part of it and all of you are part of it and you all deserve this as much as I do Thank you It's a tough act to follow sandy pooler town manager For those of you who have not spent enough time sitting in these seats You can come back tomorrow night because we're holding a forum on artificial turf fields here at 7 p.m It's co-sponsored by the Conservation Commission and the Parks and Rec Commission. They have some experts on various aspects of Issues related to turf fields and so I think it should be a very informative presentation Related to one of the articles that are coming up later in town meeting But just generally I think informative for all of this on the issues around turf fields 7 o'clock here tomorrow night. It will also be broadcast at some point on ACMI But I will not be on zoom. So if you want to see it in Real time come here Thank you. Do we have any other announcements or resolutions? Yes Thank You mr. Moderator Vincent O'Drann precinct one. I live near Broadway in East Arlington My neighbors and I have concerns about safe streets along parts of Broadway and Warren streets and the Riverside streets In our neighborhood. We have children walking to school at Thompson elementary Gibbs and Leslie Ellis schools We have people driving cars walking riding bicycles or wheelchairs taking the bus and patronizing approximately 50 businesses our streets are precious and essential public spaces They should be safe for everyone. However, they get around My neighbors and I have Started to identify some areas of concern and some quick actions the town could take to improve safety We also want to work on a long-term plan to a vision for a safe and prosperous Broadway corridor we plan to work with everywhere Arlington livable streets and the elected officials and town staff who are responsible for implementing our complete streets policy and The connect Arlington sustainable transportation plan we would love your support if you are Interested in learning more feel free to pick up a flyer at the table at the back For the Broadway Neighbors Coalition or look for the Broadway Neighbors Coalition on Facebook. Thank you for your time Great, thank you. You may have one more announcement here. Hi so much job or a precinct too if you allow me just for a moment to Tell you I'm so happy to welcome back our students and chaperones from our sister city of Naga Kakio, Japan To our new friends up on the balcony from Naga Kakio Just just a minute on our relationship with our sister city of Naga Kakio. It began back in the 70s in 1984 we formalized relationship and in 2005 we had our first exchange program So next year in 2024 will mark 20 years of the exchange program in 40 years since our Relationship began and to mark that the mayor from Naga Kakio will be coming here with his delegation And we will be sending a delegation to Japan in November of next year so looking forward to that Outside this hall actually you can find a bench that has emblems of both Arlington and Naga Kakio and it's honors honors a late honors of Sorry the late Dick Smith who is a pioneer in helping this program get off the ground This program was suspended for the last three years because of the pandemic We're thrilled to have it back the students are considered goodwill ambassadors of strength in the friendship between our two communities And they're here for 10 days during their golden week. There's 16 students up there along with three Chaperones, it's a busy schedule during the week. They're visiting schools Sites in and around Arlington and Boston. They even got a taste of classic April baseball weather They saw a socks when an extras this weekend so they get in the full taste of Boston It's been a special experience for host families like mine Kenshin who's been part of our family for last week and It's been special for you know bringing bringing his culture to us for all of all the students and chaperones to share Share their culture with ours. It's been amazing and So to the students. Thank you for sharing yourselves with us to the chaperones Connor Machi hero. Thank you for bringing this wonderful group and to our leader Joanna Routenberg who puts us all together Thank you. It's an amazing experience. I've been asked to pass along this letter and gift from mayor Kingo Naka ho cohe To our town manager. He appreciates the hospital hospitality of our town and looks forward to meeting everyone next April. Thank you Thank you and welcome and thank you for coming all this way Any other announcements or resolutions? Okay? Good evening. My name is Laura Fuller from precinct 11. This is just gonna be quick. I In addition to how meaning I work with the Arlington Education Foundation Our second annual 5k road race will be on May 21st We're gonna have 800 runners and we're gonna sell out this week So if anybody here is interested in running or knows people that are interested in running It's www.aefma.org backslash events. I also have this poster. You can find me during the break. Thank you Great. Thank you. Any other announcements or resolutions? Seeing none, let's take a test vote What do we let's see we have tonight Your answer will not change the agenda for tonight, by the way Okay, let's show the votes and it passes We'll cycle through the screens look look for your votes just to verify that it recorded what you thought it did Okay, that's everyone All right, I now call for reports of boards and committees over here. Oh Yes, sorry miss Deschler first Christine Deschler chair of the Ellington finance committee I move that article 3 be removed from the table We have a second to remove article 3 from the table all those in favor. So yes all those opposed It is unanimous article 3 is now before us Do we have any reports? Mr. Varglou, I'm here to submit the report for the remote participation study committee Staff of our glue precinct 10 as I mentioned I'm here to provide the report of the remote participation study committee Microphone. Oh, sorry. Is it I'm in the right place now We were founded at the 2021 town meeting with the intention of improving remote access to in-person meetings And it was felt that this would be necessary at that time because the emergency legislation All remote meetings was expected to expire first in 2022 and then in 2023 To understand the interpersonal logistical and technical challenges and opportunities around hybrid meetings We surveyed the members and the public attendees of the town of Ellington's boards commissions and committees and found that there was a Continuing interest in studying the feasibility of hybrid meetings to learn what would be needed to run a successful hybrid meeting We proposed and implemented a pilot program for hybrid readings that we ran from late 2022 until early 2023 The hybrid meeting pilot program was supported in several ways by our committee Generated documents outlining key decision points to help participating public bodies develop better practices for their own hybrid meetings These decision points involved items such as contingency plans for technical failures Assigning people to help monitor the remote participants and other items that may be unique to specific public meetings As part of the pilot program the town staff identified equipped and equipped meeting rooms in the town hall community center and public safety building with a variety of video conferencing equipment and We also generated in-room technology how-to guides to allow meeting members to initiate and run hybrid meetings with little or no involvement from town staff At the end of this pilot program the participants in the program were surveyed to understand what worked well and what could be improved During the pilot program 11 public bodies Considered participation and eight boards commissions and committees tested hybrid meetings The participating pilot program public bodies were those that primarily carried out their work between members with lower amounts of External public participation in the meetings and could be described as working group or Deliberative group bodies and these working group type meetings the technology and the materials that we provided Help the in-person and remote participants connect well to each other Additionally the Arlington Redevelopment Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals considered and Overall eventually opted out of the hybrid pilot program as their meetings are more adjudicative in nature and require greater Interactions with the applicants with presentations from architects engineers attorneys and other consultants These bodies felt that the format of their meetings face additional technological and logistical challenges that require either a fully remote or fully in-person approach Overall the participating pilot program public bodies were mostly able to productively conduct Hybrid meetings with the provided hardware and resources with notable challenges covered in the report It is also clear from the committee's work that while successful hybrid meetings are entirely possible They are the most challenging remote access option and as such require careful consideration training of training technology staffing and meeting procedures to ensure that a hybrid option is feasible and Allows equitable participation by those attending on both remote and in person The town now has several rooms equipped to support hybrid meetings and the materials We generated are available on the town website to allow public bodies to make key decisions on the running of their own Hybrid meetings our committee anticipates that state law will eventually Provide for permanent operation of remote and hybrid public meetings and hopes that its work over the past two years Will assist the town in expanding and improving the vital new tools Proving these vital new tools for civic participation in the months and years ahead Our committee will dissolve at the end of this 2023 town meeting And I'd like to thank all the members of the committee for their good-natured hard work and diligence providing these resources of the town We also thank all respondents to our multiple surveys the members of the public bodies who evaluated and participated in the pilot program and The town staff who helped support the setting up of rooms with equipment to allow the pilot program take place I'd also like to thank you for receiving this report. Thank you Thank you Actually, let's take a vote on a quick voice vote all those in favor accepting the report of the remote participation study committee say yes All those opposed it is unanimous report is accepted. Thank you. Mr. Thielman My name is Jeff Thielman. I'm the chair of the Arlington High School Building Committee a member of town meeting and The report is in the packet. Do I need to give you something? I'll give you this So I want to give you a brief overview of the high school building project Which was made possible by your vote in 2019 and on behalf of our students and our staff who are using the building now We thank you for your support We're building a school designed for 1,755 students at a cost of 290.4 million dollars with 84.7 million coming from the Massachusetts School Building Authority and I'm pleased to report that thanks to the leadership of our committee and our project team The project is on budget There are four phases to the project Phase one the science technology engineering arts and math or steam wing open in February of 2022 students staff and members of the public taking Arlington community education classes are enjoying the new facility Work on phase two is underway Last fall the building committee voted to delay the demolition of Fusco house in the blue gym Which were scheduled for demolition this summer This will allow for full days of academic classes in the fall of 2023 while the construction of the humanities wing is completed The next slide is phase two. We will complete the humanities wing Central spine forum stairs library cafeteria and courtyard in October of 2023 this October Offices for district leadership a welcome center community education office space and the mananabee preschool will be ready in December of 2023 Next slide is an aerial view of the project and the next slide is an exterior view of the humanities wing from Pierce field this wing will have 44 classrooms for world language English language arts history and social studies Three family and consumer science classrooms a counseling center and 1158 new lockers The next slide is a shot of the cafeteria Which can seat around 600 people and the forum stairs which provide access to the cafeteria and have space where students and staff can gather The next slide is the library which will have collaborative workspaces quiet work areas resources for independent and leisure reading and group study rooms The next slide is a learning courtyard. This is a 10,400 square foot outdoor space for classes gatherings breakout space and an enviroment garden The next slide is mananabee preschool the town's inclusion based preschool will have a separate and secure entry Interior and exterior play spaces Akely preschool class classrooms and one high school early childhood education program classroom The next slide is about phase three This will begin after the demolition of Fusca house and after phase two is completed This phase will include the gymnasium black box theater and outdoor amphitheater It is scheduled for completion in December of 2024 The next slide is a view of the gymnasium The next slide is a view of the outdoor amphitheater when all of the above is done We begin phase four which includes site work Parking landscaping athletic fields lighting and the connection to the Minuteman bikeway This work is scheduled to be completed by September of 2025 Next slide is about public engagement We held tours in April and September of 2022 and we expect to have tours Sometime after the completion of phase two later this fall The next five slide is a list of all of the members of the building committee We have been working together since 2016 and we're grateful for the opportunity to serve you and the rest of the town I want to recognize a few members of the committee or here tonight including three town meeting members Amy Spears back there. Amy does all of our communications, which is award-winning across the state Judson Pierce usually sits in the back Judson Pierce there's Judson and Kersi Allison amp you remember Tom meeting hard-working chair of our school committee outstanding job I Also want to recognize our superintendent dr. Elizabeth Holman was dove into this project I'm giving us great ideas great leadership Sandy pool or a town manager Jim Feeney Rob Barron's and Michael Mason our chief financial officer who keeps us honest And I want to remember a guy who passed away a few years ago Brian Rearig. We think about him every day He's an inspiration for this project. I miss him terribly. He would have made this speech so much better Thank you so much for all you do. Thanks for your support. Thanks for your support of our students You can say the rest of your applause when the high school is complete. Yes, let's take a vote to accept the high school Building report all those in paper say yes All those opposed it is accepted unanimously Let's say the dr. Allison ampy. Hi Kersi Allison ampy Chair our link to school committee and member precinct county member precinct 13 I move acceptance of the Arlington public schools report to town meeting and budget summary Second we have a second all those in favor. So yes All those opposed it's unanimous Okay, the school committee will speak when the budget comes up later tonight See are there any other reports that are ready to be received seeing none miss. Dashler Christine Dashler chair of the Arlington finance committee and mr. Moderator I move that the recommended votes contained in the respective reports be before the meeting without further motion Do we have a sec? I interrupted that vote last week. I was in error. Apologies miss. Dashler. Do we have a second? Okay, all those in favor of the recommended votes contained in the respective reports being before the meeting without further notice All those in favor say yes All those opposed It's unanimous Mr.. Moderator I move that article 3 be laid upon the table We have a second for laying article 3 upon the table all those in favor say yes all those opposed it is unanimous Article 3 is now laid upon the table. We are now going to take up article 37 first miss. Dashler Mr.. Moderator I move that articles 9 12 and 24 through 36 be laid upon the table We have a second all those in favor of moving those articles To be laid upon the table so that we are next coming up to article 37 say yes All those opposed It is unanimous articles 37 is now before us Mr.. Moderator if I may miss Dashler yes Before we dive right into the departmental budgets. I'd like one moment to clarify one thing in the Ed Burns Enterprise Ed Burns Arena Enterprise fund and then I would like To permit Julie Wayman our budget director to give a very brief Presentation as to how our how we budget salaries. Okay The one clarification that I would like to make is to the as I said the Ed Burns Arena Enterprise Fund that budget is on Finance committee report page B 18 and I'm not increasing or decreasing any of the Amounts there all I am doing is clarifying one source of revenue if you're on page B 18 if you look under revenues you will see reference to a 50,000 transfer from other funds I just want to clarify that the funds that are being used for FY 24 are from retained earnings That's the only clarification. I would like to make to that budget And with that I think I'd like to turn it over to Julie Wayman Ms. Wayman Good evening Julie Wayman budget director So I'm just going to be very brief But I wanted to after a number of questions from town meeting members We wanted to highlight for all of you the reason for some of this salary increases that you're seeing in your Fincom report next slide Please so there are going to be a number of reasons for staff salary increases timing of contract settlements staff reclassifications Changes in staff such as hiring someone at a higher step than the prior person filling that position And possibly along with increasing hours for an existing staff person Next slide, please I'm going to highlight for you and just to give a quick illustration The example of this timing of contract settlements because this is the one you're going to see across departments And you're going to see at this fiscal year and in following fiscal years I'm going to give two examples from your appendix in the Fincom report B4 and B7 next slide, please These are from the board of assessors and the engineering division of DPW So these two staff people are both in AFSCME This union settled in May of 22 so one year ago So if you look up on the screen, you'll see that these staff people appear to have the same salary in fiscal 21 22 and 23 The reason for that is because we only once that contract was settled in 22 It was the 22 to 24 contract So that meant it was covering staff salary increases for fiscal 22 23 and 24 But because it didn't settle until after We had already indicated the salaries for 22 and 23 You weren't going to see that change until we put together the 24 budget So in fact that $8,000 Staff salary increase or about 11 percent increase is as if you're comparing the 24 to 21 budgets or salaries Next slide, please This isn't actually walking through what their salary would have been for each of those fiscal years Had you seen the increase each fiscal year? So you can see that those staff if we follow the red box That staff person started off in 21 at 75 6 39 Would you have then seen in fiscal 22 that agreed upon one and a half percent increase? Their salary would have gone up to 76 774 In fiscal 23 had you then seen their agreed upon increase of 2 plus a 455 dollar Market rate increase their salary would have gone up to 78 7 64 This same staff person then for 24 There was a 2 increase agreed upon as well as a 546 dollar market increase So you would have seen each of those progressive increases as opposed to this one large jump between 24 21 and 24 I also want to highlight though the final increase is that these staff because they were with us for over 10 years They were actually granted moved to step nine. This was a new agreement for ask me when they settled the contract a year ago Next slide, please So one actually additional thing I want to highlight is that in article 36 You will see that we do budget for these Retroactive payments that we will be making to staff who didn't receive each of those Salary increases for the years that you saw up on the screen So you can see you can check out article 36, which will highlight for you the sciu Changes because sciu just settled. So you'll see you'll next fiscal year You will notice that sciu is going to have a large jump because some of those staff look to have a zero dollar increase in this year's income report Thank you Very thank you miss women So Let's bring up the the slide for that just lists the budgets And the way this is going to work for anyone who's not familiar yet is that I will run to it'll be similar to the consent agenda But it's better Well, I'll run through I'll I'll name off each of the budgets In turn and anyone who's interested in holding a budget meaning that you wish to have debate about that budget Um, please rise so so I can actually like confirm that it's someone from within the enclosure Uh, just rise and say hold Um, and I'll take a note of that and and then after we're done with the holds We'll circle back and have a separate debate on each of the health budgets Uh, there are a couple amendment amendments that will take up as well when those budgets come up And then at the at the end we will vote we'll have one vote for the entire budget And so for each of the separate debates on the separate budgets There'll be separate termination of debate for instance just for that budget and then we'll move on to the next debate Next budget that was held Okay, so if we bring up that slide And I apologize in advance. It's a very boring slide with just names of budgets all in the same font size next year I'll consider making it a word cloud. So it'll be a big like education with a bunch of small words around it So do we have that slide ready? Yeah, it's in the There we go It's very anti-climatic is not a very exciting slide Okay, so I'm going to run through here and again if if there's a budget you want to hold and some I I received emails in advance of folks who are interested in certain budgets Uh, so I'll I'll mention that there was a request when I get to those Okay, everyone can see this Good Uh, finance committee Select board Budget number three town manager There was a request in advance to hold budget number four human resources Budget number five information technology Budget number six comptroller Number seven treasurer collector Number eight postage Number nine board of assessors number 10 legal Hold Number 11 town clerk number 12 board of registrars Number 13 parking Number 14 planning and community development Number 15 redevelopment board Number 16 zoning board of appeals Number 17 public works was pre-held Number 18 facilities was pre-held Number 19 police services was pre-held Number 20 fire services pre-held Number 21 inspections Is implicitly held by an amendment 22 education is pre-held 23 libraries 24 health and human services is pre-held 25 retirement Old Can someone stand so I can see Oh Number 26 insurance Number 27 reserve fund was pre-held Fund a water and sewer enterprise fund B recreation enterprise fund C ed burns arena enterprise fund D council on aging transportation enterprise fund And finally e arlington youth counseling center enterprise fund Okay, so the first The first budget that we have held is number three the town manager budget Mr. Poole, do you want to introduce this at all before and can we bring up the can we show the speaker queue? So we're going to try something new tonight where When we introduce a debate, we'll bring up the empty speaker queue. So that first you know Trunch of requests that you should see those come in is that showing now Okay, so is it open now? Okay speaker queue is now open. Mr. Mr. Mr. Poole This is just for this so we'll have a separate debate and we'll have separate termination of debate unless we run out of speakers For each budget separately. Yep, okay Mr. Poole, go ahead Thank you sandy pooler town manager. I'm really excited to talk about budgets. I love talking about budgets There are 71 of you out there. I just don't understand voted no Um But I do love budgets So this is the town manager's budget. I'm not sure what the questions are so I'll be happy to answer any But it does represent the staff in the town manager's office There is a little extra money in this budget because It covers the period from July 1st to July 28th at noon when I retire Um, so you do have to pay me for in FY 24 But you're also going to be paying Jim Cheney during that period of time too Other than that it is pretty much a level services budget our expenses haven't changed And so in that regard if there are any other particular questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them Uh, so the the pre-hold was by miss freeman. Uh miss freeman. Did you want to speak to this? Uh, can you come to the microphone so everyone can hear? Thank you Bethann Friedman freezing 15 And my question really was answered about the new position being hired. That's a one-year position that's funded by the Harper And so that position even though it's a new position will be disappearing When the funds go away and then if we want to retain that position we need to revoke To re-institute it. So thank you and your office for clarifying that for me Okay, uh, are there any other requests to speak on the town manager budget? Seeing none, let's move on to thank you, mr. Cooler. Let's move on to the next budget I was held Uh, and that was number 10 legal. Uh, I believe uh, mr. Kepline. I believe you held that Did you want to speak to this? And is the speaker queue open now? Okay speaker queues open Thank you, mr. Moderator mark Kepline precinct nine I had a couple of questions. Um, I don't know if this is the right place to ask But I wanted to know what sort of liabilities the town is looking at from legal actions if um, how many Workers comp claims are in Flight how many uh for what what sort of period of time these workers are out and another question is um, are you looking at any Lawsuits from Bad inspections that were done on homes that homeowners later encountered problems with Mr. Hyme, did you want do you want to take that question? Doug Hyme town council. Thank you for your question, mr. Kepline Let me start with the second one because I'll try to see if my uh Deputy town council workers compensation benefit agent can help me with the first one the second one I haven't received any notice of any sorry I haven't received any notice of any claims with respect to any potential liability with respect to bad inspections Um, generally speaking the law is pretty generous to municipalities with respect to discretionary function of that nature But um the answer the straightforward answer is no. I haven't received any notice to claim on that. Thank you And um, I'll have uh, deputy town council mike cunningham Who's also our workers compensation benefit agent answer your question with respect to workers compensation. Thank you, sir Thank you, mr. Moderator michael cunningham deputy town council workers compensation agent I'll try and respond the best I can Just for the the room's notification the workers compensation budget is including the insurance budget, which is budget number 26 It's a five hundred and eighty thousand dollar line item in that budget It's not in the legal budget But uh, yes, we have pending workers compensation claims Obviously, we pay with the town is self-insured for workers compensation claims We pay a property of 60 percent pursuant to state statute of any Worker who's out of work for a period of time Our weekly indemnity payments Typically are running about this time about 6,600 dollars per week That answer your question. Yes, it is. Thank you very much Great. Thank you Any other speakers on the legal budget Seeing none. Let's move on to Number 14 planning and community development. Mr. Loretty Want to start us out and is the speaker queue open for this debate? Okay So anyone else who wishes to speak on the planning and community development budget? Feel free to request to speak mr. Loretty. Go ahead. Thank you, mr. Moderator chris already precinct seven I was looking at the total personnel services for this budget for next year and it's just shy of 800 thousand dollars Which seemed a bit rich to me. So I went back and looked at my old town meeting reports In 2011 it was just over 237 thousand dollars Now I realize there's been some inflation over that period But when you do the adjustment you find that the increase in 2023 dollars is more than 2.5 times what it was About 13 years ago. So my question on this to moderator is how does the town? Justify and rationalize that sort of increase in constant dollars Is miss ricker here or mr. Pooler. Do you want to field that question? sandy pooler town manager, I think we justify the department of planning and community development budget because It provides essential services that the residents of the town asked for This is one of the best and I think strongest departments we have In the town They do an enormous amount of work on looking at zoning and planning They have specialists looking at economic development Transportation We have other staff that are directly related to our conservation commission We have another staff person who you heard earlier in town meeting who works on energy issues Overall, uh There are just an enormous amount number of issues this department deals with a service a large number of other committees And so I would say over the years Town managers recommended budgets to provide the services that has been clear to me and previous town managers The town wants I would note that this year the increase in the salary side of the budget is I think less than two and a half percent less than our overall Two and a half percent limit and so I would say This is a budget that Is important and not out of proportion to our needs Thank you I would simply add to that I would think the needs and the demands really weren't any different 13 years ago Yet the town certainly managed to get by on that much smaller budget Um I realize that some people may have demands for these increased services But I really have to wonder how wide spread it is and I'm afraid that this type of spending increase simply is not sustainable And it is the reason this town is always having Having to do property tax overrides And I would finally note If you compare the if I did when I did that exact same comparison for the Um Board of Assessors and the department of assessing this year's budget is 20% less than it was in 2011 So i'll be voting against the budgets overall for not taking separate votes Really to send a message that this type of spending increase Can not be sustained sustained and we're willing to have more Discipline in our spending growth in the town. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Reddy Ms. LeCourt Annie LeCourt precinct 13 So I have a couple of questions about this budget which I believe either the chair of the finance committee or the town manager could Respond to The first one is that I believe that There's at least one position and possibly several positions that are appearing in this budget now That have been covered for many years by cdbg funding That we did not use to show in this budget and we are now showing those positions plus their offsets So the real number for salaries you should be looking at is the taxation total 635,032 I understand that's still a big jump from the numbers that chris is quoting But then if you look down at The nature of some of these positions This is really how you have to make your judgment here And perhaps the town manager could explain I believe that The sustainability manager and the environmental planner were not positions. We would have had 13 years ago And the need for them seems obvious to me Um and that I believe actually at least one of those positions are part of a position as our needs have grown has moved from dpw to the planning budget And I believe that um We may not have had an economic development coordinator in the past another need that I would think would be clear Miss Yeah, mr. Puller. Can you explain or confirm or deny ms. Lecourt's assertion Sandy puller town manager. Thank you for that excellent question Yes First we do show positions in here that are funded By cdbg. That's a practice. We started the last couple of years to be more transparent. And so it inflates the size of the budget, but Those are Dollars that were always coming from the federal government in the past. We just didn't show them in this budget document And yes, the I remember when we started the sustainability position It was a new position that We shared with the school department. It has helped us get green community grants since the town became a green community And has helped us with things like the advanced energy stretch code and many other things that the town has done And I think you then also asked about The environmental planner and the economic development coordinator Um, I was not here in 2011. So I don't know if those positions were here However, I would say those are essential positions for us. And if we added them over time, it's because Um, we have a tremendous amount of environmental review with Building permits that come forward the conservation commission needs help in in doing those and our economic development Coordinator has done a lot of work to help us With economic development in town with developing things like arlington's Cutting edge within the state by law that finds landlords for having vacant storefronts in town So there's just been a lot of things that this department has produced from those positions Thank you If the director of planning is present could we get her thoughts on her budget? Uh, miss ricker right here Can you tell us your thoughts on the budget? Is it a good budget? Is it a bad budget? Thank you, and thanks for your questions. I'm clare ricker. I'm the director of planning. Um, and community development Development. This is my first year in arlington. I haven't been here a year yet I can tell you that in the amount of time that I have been here My staff has brought in more than this amount in grants and other funding mechanisms To value of the town cost is not necessarily equal to value. I would argue that each of these positions Does the work and brings in Value and funds to the town that allows us to do the projects that we need to do Uh, mr. Royer, mr. Court is right. Um, several of these salaries are offset Through the cdbg funding The work that we do almost every position in my department Does work that is related to cdbg projects And that is eligible for cdbg funds. Um, so some of these salaries are offset By our federal grant At least half of the sustainability coordinators Sal rate is funded by the schools Her work is shared between town buildings and school buildings as well With just general regard to the staffing in this office. This is a community that is involved And very very knowledgeable about the work of planning And the work that my office does It's important to me that we have the best staff available to you For these just incredible community values that you hold the plans that you have And the projects that need to be done to get you there The staff is very talented very dedicated And certainly in my opinion provides far more value than the overall cost Thank you Thank you, mr. Moderator We'll take mr. Oster next Thank you, mr. Moderator adam oster 20 Um We're just to overlap a little bit. I'm wondering if there's someone here who can Characterize what how much we get in grants from the department in particular in the last few years Is there a a typical range? Ms. Ricker, do you have that information? How much does the planning department pull in in grants? I believe that's the question Claire ricker director of planning and community development. Well, I don't have those exact figures here tonight I'm happy to report back with those should anybody need that information I can tell you that since I've been here. We've received Over 300 thousand dollars in transportation design funding We've recently been awarded a million dollar earmark through representative collarx office to evaluate Pathways between the mystic and the minnowman bikeway We've also received several rounds of grant funding related to electrify arlington And the work that tallia fox is doing there Those are some that I can list off the top of my heads, but I'm happy to provide a full accounting to this body or to you, sir Thank you, mr. Moderator. I just want to say that I've known for a while that this department is a grants powerhouse and I One of the things that is pending is funding to redo the the intersection at applesome and mass av That's come through that department and that's millions of dollars. I really think it would be a false economy To uh To to pick away at this staff, which is so productive. Thank you, mr. Moderator Mr. Puller, did you have an answer on the the grants from the planning department? If you look at page 102 of the manager's financial plan, which is the Pretty bug it but budget that we sorry sandy puller town manager On 100 page 102 of the financial plan that is on the town's website. There is a list of the grants that uh, the Planning department got Green communities 100 000 more ev trucks 165 000 mass-saved education grant 10 000 peak response 50 000 mass-save community first partnership 20 000 dcr for hydraulic improvements at millbrook 200 000 Shared streets 138 000 mass works 307 mass dot technical assistance 38 000 Redo, which is an economic development thing that I don't know what it is But it they gave us 150 000 dollars And mph technical assistance mbta communities 20 000 those are I think just some of The grants that they're listed in the financial plan on the town website Thank you. Mr. Puller take mr. Schlickman next Paul Schlickman, please ignite. I want to second the Thoughts that this is a high value department and every cent that we're spending here Is very worthwhile the one thing I do want to ask though Is that we've been working very hard to get safety improvements along chestnut street over three years ago We had a fatality of one of my neighbors who's crossing the street and right now if you're going down chestnut You'll see the construction to go and make this a safer place for pedestrian cyclists and motorists Is taking place and the senior transportation planner has been a very vital person In making this happen Unfortunately that position is now vacant and I'd like to ask What what are the plans do we have somebody on tap and what is this position going to be filled? Mr. Riker Claire rickard director of planning and community development. Thank you mr. Schlickman for your question The position has been filled by mr. John Olesi formally of the city of maldon He started about a week ago We are going to announce his hiring Through the through the appropriate channels as soon as we can We wanted to give him a couple weeks to get his feet under him before we Sort of announced him to the public and he started to pick up the phone and need to answer those questions So thank you for your question All right. Thank you Mr. Wagner Thank you. Mr. Moderator Carl Wagner precinct 15 I have to say that there is a way that departments, especially this department can do more and save more money In the time that I have been a town meeting member the department of planning and community development has increasingly relied upon Expensive studies some aren't so expensive But all of those cash outlays are 25 50 75 thousand dollars Sometimes there for things that the ten or so staff members should really be able to do for us and in the past That's how the department worked in the 90s and 80s I heartily ask you to support this budget But to ask the director and the department to refrain from studies and produce work in house. Thank you Thank you sake uh, miss mandel next uh, mona mandel precinct nine um First thank you so much to um this This uh This department, uh, my question is twofold Um, one of them was I think paul bought it up about the chestnut Um Manor area and so thank you for letting us know that there'll be a new person in that position um, my other question was on, um Inviting new businesses into the town and what this department is doing in a very concrete manner To address this especially with an override coming up. So if you could speak to that that would be fantastic. Thank you Miss ricker. Do you want to answer that? I'm claire ricker. I'm the director of planning and community development and thank you so much for your question um, we made a hire for the economic development coordinator position earlier this year's unfortunately DJ Beauregard, um left us to um seek Other other public service. Um, I believe he is uh intends to run for office But while he was here, he was um quite Adept at talking to new businesses bringing new You know about arlington bringing new businesses to arlington. Um, he had a few successes He did talk to folks about the tango space in arlington center And some other vacant storefronts. I think that are pretty, um, you know prevalent in the ones that that folks see the most It is the um, it is it's it is my intent and the intent of this department to work, uh quite um diligently On economic development moving forward and understanding That commercial development retention of commercial space Is the upmost priority in a town that doesn't have a split? Tax code and that is certainly not a fact that has been lost on me While we don't have an economic development coordinator In that position at this time. I think the work that dj did initially at the beginning of the year Really set the tone and set the stage for bringing more businesses to arlington talking to Businesses that are looking to locate to relocate. We have heard from beth lock Who is the executive director of the chamber of commerce? That there are businesses looking to come to arlington that it is simply a matter of hooking them up with the right Property the right property owner at the right time This is another crucial hire that I intend to make in the next, you know, 30 to 60 days The the listing for the position closed on the 29th, which was yesterday and i'm really looking forward to Reviewing the candidates and having someone as good or better than dj in place very very soon I did if you could stay there. Uh, I did have a question about if you're also Um focused what kind of business you're trying to bring into arlington. Is it Small business is it business with from? Minority own business women own business so if you could speak A little bit to that is that something that's part of the job description How do you plan to go about it as the director if you could speak to that that would be great. Thank you Oh That's great. Thank you so much for this question. I think that there is With regard to arlington, I think everything is on the table There are several key development sites that we should be looking at I think we could do a a good job Master planning some of our business centers east arlington arlington center and the heights We are looking at doing some rezoning to facilitate more business in these areas in the fall In terms of the strategy for, um, you know bringing in business retaining business. Absolutely. I think we could put some Some processes in place To support more minority women owned businesses. I know that was a big Um, you know a big strategy for our our arpa funds and our transformative growth grants Moving forward, um, we've worked with the boss of women's market about coming to arlington And doing a pop-up here. We'd like to have them find, um, you know, perhaps a a a more permanent physical space We've lost a few. I think women owned businesses Reparations being one of them that that's closing soon. Correct. Correct. I think that the there's a there's a great Opportunity here for for small business to come in our commercial spaces are such that they could really, um They're small enough that the rent won't be so high. So somebody just starting out Could make a go of it in arlington right off the bat It's not necessarily have to be an established business coming in paying a bunch of rent We do have some really great little storefronts. I think that could definitely be populated by smaller businesses And certainly certainly to support women owned and minority owned businesses Um, absolutely. This is something i'll be talking about with the economic development coordinator As well as as well as the community Um, the the last note. I'm glad you will be involving the community as well because that's A very important part of building consensus within the community as well as attracting Um, you know a diverse Set of people. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Let's take uh, mr. Jalcat next Daniel Jalcat precinct six. I moved to terminate debate on this budget Okay, we have a second to terminate debate on this budget Uh, let's try a voice vote and if that's not clear we'll go to electronic All those in favor of terminating debate on the planning and community development budget say yes All those opposed Okay, the yeses have it debate is terminated Okay, let's move on to budget 17 public works. Uh, mrs. Friedman You had pre-held this and you might want to pull up a seat at the front because you have a number of them in a Bethanne Friedman precinct 15 And I put a hold on this budget 18 19 and 20 because of the large percent increases in salaries For 20 24 over previous years and that was explained very clearly that these increases reflect Flat salaries for three years and then A negotiated increase that really should that really covers four years altogether So, um, if you could unless somebody else has a hold on, um Yes I'll manage that you can you can just pass it and uh, and we'll get you very much. Thank you. Thank you, mrs. Friedman Uh, mr. Warden Thank you, mr. Moderator. Uh, john warden precinct eight Two questions about, um Things under the jurisdiction of the public works department One is uh, and I don't know to what extent this affects only my neighborhood or the rest of the town, but the, uh, leaf collection Last fall was kind of We had leaves sitting in and the streets in my neighborhood for three weeks before they were finally gathered up And of course they were meanwhile blowing around and I wonder if something is being done to to, um I don't encourage the company that we hired to do this work to do it in a prompt manner now The last week's leaves were collected four days late And uh, and you know, there's any kind of a windstorm or anything it uh, it, um You know those leaves get scattered around have been raked up again Hopefully the leaves are mostly gone, but next we'll have the cuttings of your hedges and whatever whatever So is doing anything to to get a more responsive Uh, uh program from the people who are supposed to collect the Uh, Mr. Rademacher are you I believe you're in the corner that I cannot see Are we Leaving any opportunities on the table for dressing leaves? Thank you Thank you. I'll be here all week. Mr. Rademacher Ouch Michael Rademacher director of public works. Thank you for the question So last fall was the first fall for a new vendor in town and um There were some learning Experiences there But in seriousness the the contract provides for a certain number of trucks both in the spring and the fall and It's very hard to predict exactly the the amount of waste yard waste that is going to be placed on the curb and the trucks Frequently get inundated with a significant amount of yard waste. So While we would like to be able to pick it up exactly on the day where it's put out or expected to be collected The contract doesn't necessarily provide for that, but the contractor does Strive or does intend to work with us to make it better We put the priority on trash and recycling and then Catch up with the leaves, but we will be working with the vendor to try to make it a little bit more seamless moving forward Thank thank you. The second question again I don't know how all the sidewalks of our own can are but I'm just Knowing my own street where I walk my dog every night and along That's Jason street between uh mass avenue and urban street, which is only basically a block. There are 10 places where a person Could trip fall fall into a hole or something There's a place where the town took down a tree and they left a huge gap in the sidewalk And there's another another place where there's a bunch of tree. I don't know why they are There's a bunch of actual holes in the sidewalk some of some of which are quite deep And if you happen to be walking around last night when we had the rainstorm there were several Modest sized lakes and I wonder what what what can be done to And I'll talk about replacing sidewalks. We're just getting some of these things Delt dealt with so that somebody some quickly an elderly person Like me Doesn't you know doesn't fall in the hole Mr. Rademacher, can you speak to What the public works department is doing about holes and sidewalks? Tripping hazards. Thank you. Mike Rademacher director of public works Um, thanks for the question. It is quite a challenge the um the and the number of Sidewalks that we have to maintain the mileage of them and the the actual funding that we have Um We make do with the best we but the best we can with the funding available It's unfortunately quite short And we we try to prioritize based on um population or The the the location of these sidewalks to busier neighborhoods But the reality is is that we it's going to take a long time at the current funding that we provided to make a significant dent Um any idea when you might get to jason street? I I do not Thank you Thank you. Um, thank you mr. Warden miss stamps Hi, everybody susan stamps precinct three Um, I live in east arlington and the The bribeway plaza redo last year is just beautiful Mike it was really a great job the only There's only one issue which is that it's a heat island A very very hot in the summertime I know lots of young parents in east arlington who told me they don't take their children there for an outing in the summertime because It's too hot There are some tables around with a few umbrellas. Um, but um other cities around the country have shade structures which are manufactured Big huge onings that are on pearls and such And I think that I suggested this during the planning process And I have sent a letter to the planning department And the town manager and the economic development director Who doesn't work for us anymore about this issue? I really hate For us to go into a second summer And have it be way too hot again And it's especially unfair to the small business owners there. I think we're now Fully, I'm sorry. If I could just interject. Is this a question about like? Oh, so the question is on our planet or implementation Mr. Rademacher is By any chance Are there any plans to put shade structures of some kind on the plaza for this summer? Or some other time. Thank you. Mr. Rademacher does the public works department have a plan to address the heat island Michael Rademacher director of public works. We do not currently have funding for such a structure Well, there may be grants or something that the town could get and Maybe some of us can look into that Thank you. Thank you. I hear the planning department's great at collecting grants Mr. Newton sunday newton precinct 10 I move to terminate debate Okay, we have a second to terminate debate. Let's try a voice vote again All those in favor of terminated debate on the public works budget say yes All those opposed It is debate is terminated We're moving on now to facilities Which was held by Ms. Friedman other Mr. Wagner do you care to Okay Ms. Thornton do you have a comment or a point of order or Okay, you can speak to Okay, we'll do this old school. I'm looking at raised hands. Okay. Come on up No worries Good evening. My name is Barbara Thornton precinct 16. I'm here to speak to the facilities budget And I'd like to give just I think it's about a minute and three seconds of preliminary Before I ask two questions So you you get a little bit of the background because facilities budget is the the facilities department is the newest department in Arlington It was created in response to the serious maintenance concerns that were periodically erupting into the emergency capital expenditures of the town In 2012 the select board authorized a maintenance committee To prepare a plan of action and I was one of the people in the room Here tonight that was on that committee. I chaired it. I think In co-chaired it in 2015 the select board approved the new facilities department and an architect was hired to run it There's a a more detailed information on the back table if you're interested in more This department started from nothing Just with the the pain that had been experienced with the over expenditures and the surprise blow-ups of boilers, etc The records of the purchase value and lifetime dates of all major town and school properties needed to be recorded In a database that could predict predict preventative maintenance The goal was to preserve our capital assets to last their full expected lifetime and to be financially prepared to replace them when predicted Boilers and roofs may last 20 to 30 years building envelopes much longer, but only with investment in control Data needed to be gathered for all town and school capital properties policies were created for long term For seasonal and for short term schedules for pairs and maintenance including custodial work In 2014 the total value of our towns assets including the building we're in tonight the schools and and other municipal and town and school loan buildings Had a value of 300 million dollars, but it valued the high school at 78 million dollars So the value today is going to be substantially higher of our assets I submitted a report to the select board in town meeting on this new department on may 17 in may of 2017 sorry The expectation was that the town manager's office was going to provide progress reports Including to the select board and and hopefully to town meeting on how this brand new department which We didn't know much how it was going to run was actually going to run and what it was going to Deliver what it was going to find was it meeting the goals of the original reason for why it was set up during that time That since it was set up there have been I think believe five department heads But there has been no further report that I know of on the status of the department's accomplishments in regard to this So I have Two questions the the primary question is will town will the town manager's office be able to Provide an annual comprehensive Report to this body for at least five years so we can all get acquainted with what it does what it should do And provides some feedback. These are our asset our primary assets and the And I say for five years because I don't see this as an ongoing Responsibility the second question is a as I look at the budget I see it's primarily focused on custodial and custodial is very important, but it is not as That is in the long-term Medium seasonal term and short-term goals that the original department was set up to follow Most of the budget it looks like focuses on short-term custodial and is still missing the pieces Or I fear is missing the pieces for the longer term Preservation of our of our department of our buildings So two questions. Yep, mr. Puller. Do you have an answer to those questions? Is there a plan to have like the next five years? I believe have a facilities report a comprehensive report Sandy puller town manager First I'd like to Echo what Barbara Thornton said about her role in having set up this department She is a key person to recognize the need for a facilities department it was a True lack in the town at the time and So I think we should all give her credit for the work she did to do that In terms of reports We do report on what the facilities has done. It's there are reports in the Annual report that just was published. There is also a report within the The financial plan that I mentioned before talking about planning where we talk about goals objectives and accomplishments Furthermore, it has been the case for the last few years that the facilities director has met regularly with the capital planning committee To talk about what the facilities department is doing on capital and inform that committee about it And finally, I would just say from a budget point of view Most of the additions to this department have really been in the preventive maintenance area If you look at the department's budget over the last five years There's been a substantial amount of growth Both in terms of preventive maintenance and for hiring engineers or other Outside people to come in and help the facilities department director look at Planning for and maintaining buildings and I would ask rob barron if he's here if he could just speak a little bit to that and About what your department is doing I'll have to be very little bit. We only have about 40 seconds rob barron director facilities As far as reporting goes, we have Initiated a couple of facility condition assessments, which I think maybe is where you're trying to get to These facility condition assessments can you know, predict where we are With deficits and maintenance We've done that for a couple of schools now and the expectation would be that we would We would roll that out to other buildings is the database complete for all the assets The database is complete for all the assets. We have rolled out originally Originally rolled out school dude And we've upgraded that to asset essentials and that database is being Being utilized Time is up. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Dorton So we have no one else in the speaker queue. So debate for the facilities budget is finished it is 9 29 let's take a 10 minute break and this time I mean it 10 minutes Okay, everyone Okay, we're gonna start up now with the police budgets so everyone can find their seats, please Okay, and can we confirm over here that the speaker this is a new speaker queue that we started It's not. Okay. So, well, let's let's reset the speaker queue Okay, so let's start back up. Ms. Friedman. Did you want to Make a comment on the police. We're doing the police services budget now Pass, okay Let's see next Okay, the speaker queue is bouncing around miz manfield man's field is Ms. Mansfield's here. Oh, is there a there should be a wireless microphone up there? Yeah, yeah, please try not to trip on the stairs Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Um, my question was about the social work. Oh, I'm sorry name and precinct, please Oh, I'm sorry. Jennifer Mansfield precinct nine Um, I'm wondering about the social work Um budget just an explanation. It looks really low and I don't know if there's another one of those explanations That makes a lot of sense or if it's just very Terrible pay. Thank you so much Uh, let's see Chief flowerty. Are you here? Hi, Julie flowerty chief of police. Thank you for that question Um, so we have a social work a position the position is specifically a homeless outreach worker And the police department shares this position with health and human services So the police department pays 75 percent of the salary and the 25 Remaining percent of the salary is out of health and human services budget. Is there anything else? Okay. Thank you. That's it Great. Thank you. I'll take mr. Jamison next Thank you. Mr. Moderator Gordon Jamison precinct 12 I have two questions. Um, I wanted to follow up on my questions last year about police details And the fulfillment rate Is your question. What is the fulfillment rate? What is the fulfillment rate? So if you know 100 details are requested. What percentage of details are we filling chief flowerty? What's the fulfillment rate of the police details? Do you have details on that? Julie flowerty chief of police and uh, I think my response is that depends it depends on the time of year The weather whether or not the asphalt plants are open whether or not There's extensive road work being done on average. We would fill 80 to 100 percent of our details during the winter we fill pretty close to 100 percent of our details So much so that our offices go to other communities to assist With with their road projects and in details in the summertime Not so much. We do have four additional special police offices that we brought on last year who are helping to fill that gap But I would say between 80 to 100 percent Excellent, I do have one more so but um The reason this is important from my perspective Is the fact that if we want new growth, which we talked about earlier in the meeting And people to be able to build things and find arlington be a um good place to do projects On residential and commercial properties. We want to make sure that they can um Get stuff done when they need a detail that a detail is available um just a Something I heard as a as a um anecdotal story was the citizen. Oh that's sorry. That's not your problem. Um So my other question is I was I was happy to see in the the financial plan the manager's big financial plan and um This year that and maybe you've listed it in previously that you list the number of fid Firearms ids and licensed to carries as a total number in the town And is that a number? Is that the total number for each year? Or is that the number that were reviewed each year in the report? So the total number of new and renewed firearms licenses for 2022 was 229 In townwide we have approximately 1300 residents who have licensed to carry. Yeah, so I've always wanted to know what you know We have um excellent um Gun regulations in this state. We have the lowest um gun fatality rate in the country And we of course have our wonderful police department that takes good care of us And I always wanted to know what the what the quote risk quotient was Um, and this is good. This is good news in my mind in that only 1300 permits Exist of both types and would you um guess that most of those are the lower fid category? I would guess that most of them are class a license to carry Oh, okay. Okay. Thank you, but it's I just always wanted to know, you know It's we don't have a big golden culture. I don't think in Arlington, but I just wanted to know what the risk was And I thank you for putting that in the report. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take uh, miss carleton geeson next Hi, betsy carleton geeson precinct nine Uh, I wanted to follow up on the question about the social worker And so that is currently focused on homeless outreach Is there any plan to include social work services to also cover mental health and substance abuse calls? Chief larity. Is there any plan for the social worker to cover those areas? Julie flowery chief of police. So we actually have two social workers. We have our um Arlington police department clinician who was embedded within the police department And then we have the second physician that I mentioned that we shared with health and human services our clinician Is embedded in the police department and co responses corresponds to calls with police offices and works with people who are in behavioral health crises and And Suffering from substance abuse issues We also have a recovery coach that works part time Who works with people who are in the recovery journey and that person is also assigned to the police department Excellent. Do you find that the uh that capacity within the department is sufficient or Do you ever find that having one clinician is is stretched a little bit across the size of the department? So I think that person is definitely stretched. We've been working with dmh to try to get funds for a second clinician and um, You know our clinician right now works days Monday through Friday And it would be great to have somebody off on off hours and weekends to to fill in the gaps Excellent. Thank you. Um, and I have one other question. Um in uh 2021 fiscal year 22 We had voted for a body worn cameras And I wondered if there was a policy yet in place or if they were actually deployed and being used So we do not have a policy in place yet and we have not deployed them yet The town is in negotiations with the unions and we um hope to pursue that plan to implement them soon Okay, is there an estimated timeline because it's been Three three years. I I don't have an estimated timeline. Okay But could you speak a little to the process of how that's being developed and why it's taking so long? Um, I can defer to the town manager on that Mr Mr. Puller Sandy puller town manager We're currently in arbitration with the patrol union and we haven't Started negotiations with the senior officers union the ranking officers union. They're sort of waiting to see what patrol does So this has been an issue that we've had Going on in conversations with the patrol union but until we get through that arbitration Everything about our relations with that union is now in limbo until We get a decision. So we would love to move forward on this We're just a little stuck. Got it. All right. Thank you. Thank you We'll take mr. Miller next She's Is mr. Miller here Matt Miller. Yes No worries. Uh, mr. Wagner Thank you. Mr. Moderator Carl Wagner precinct 50 and I moved to terminate debate on the article Okay, we have a second to uh to motion to terminate debate. Let's try this by voice All those in favor of terminating debate on the police budget say yes All those opposed say no The uh Budget debate is terminated. We're moving on to budget number 20 fire services Let's uh, let's reset the speaker queue. We're good with the speaker queue. Okay. Is anyone wish to speak to The fire services budget Mr. Batec Pass, okay Last chance Seeing no one else. We're moving on now to uh inspections uh budget number 21 and uh One second before we take speakers from the queue and the queue is reset here, right? Um, so before we take speakers from the queue, uh Mr. Kepline has an amendment that affects both the inspections budget number 21 and health and human services number 24 And they need to be spoken They need to be discussed together Because the amendment links them and the reason is that we cannot increase by law the inspections budget budget which would uh, which would run afoul of The legal requirement of having a budget balanced budget for the town um And unless we consider both the increase to the inspections budget and the decrease The corresponding decrease in the health and human services budget together So we're actually going to discuss both inspections and health and human services together and leading off that uh discussion That debate. Uh, mr. Kepline, would you please introduce your your amendment? And can we bring that up on the Yeah, feel free to Uh request to speak at this point that queue is open and we'll bring up the and this should be the amendment text Mr. Kepline go ahead Thank you. Mr. Moderator mark Kepline precinct nine I submitted this budget amendment um and the motivation was primarily to Make an initial start on trying to cut back spending In order to hopefully delay In a budget an override a property tax override Which hurts the diversity in our town Is that people can't afford to remain in arlington? They move away And we'd lose you know from elders who leave we we lose a lot of institutional knowledge And legacy information And then lower income people who can't afford the resulting rent increases. They have to leave also So I wanted to Um suggest to delete the diversity and inclusion and equity position within the human services uh department and then transfer some of the savings over to The inspections department, which is recovering from a difficult period under the previous director Can we I'm sorry can we zoom in on the display? The What's that? Cannot, okay. Okay. Everyone squint then sorry. Mr. Kepline go ahead. All right. Hopefully you can pick up printed versions or read your email so It's kind of a identity issue in cultural situation here in arlington. I mean we're a town and The added spending is more in line with that of a city We're limited by Town property tax income and have no split commercial no split tax rate So we're we're quite bounded and we should act more like a town On the spending side and so getting rid of a dei position is part of that so that We're much more homogeneous in makeup than a lot of urban cities Um, where the population doesn't is not well reflected in the towns Employees or the other or the uh police employees or the school employees So I think those places cities They could use the dei Department but here in arlington. I think it's a less urgent need And so in order to stave off a property tax increase that we should Start looking at ways to save money So the language allowed for Such a motion to cut a budget and transfer monies is is quite strict so I can only State a reduction for the whole department and it's up to the department head In the town manager to decide how They would make those cuts And same thing if transferring to the inspections department Inspection department is needed for Future growth of businesses and redevelopment to do inspections And make sure that these new spaces are safe And uh, I'm not going to prevent Collapse or fire harons or etc. Um, so uh the reduction of both the dei director and the So inclusion coordinator, which is an ARPA funded position. So I I recommended transferring that Position money to inspections along with some expense cash Right and just to be clear Mr. Kepline and I discussed this ahead of time when he submitted his amendment Just so it's clear to everyone else the the granularity at which the amendment can be made for a For a town budget in this case under this article Is the granularity of one of the top level budgets listed in appendix b of the finance committee report And so although mr. Kepline's desire may be to remove one particular Position and move that move that what would have been the salary for that position to another department Town meeting doesn't have the authority to make Such a fine grain change. We can only change the total budgets and then it's up to the directors Of those department those department heads to determine what to do if town meeting passes an amendment that cuts a budget for instance Or increases a budget it's up to the department head to decide what to do with that lesser or greater amount of money for their budget And so mr. Kepline if you want to We can scroll up to the the vote language on the motion if you want to kind of Uh Speak to that and make that motion We can then look for a second. Um, yeah, one other thing as far as the department heads They're aware of contracts employment contracts. So and we have no Visibility into that so Can't arbitrarily cut a position that you know is contracted out still for years So the i'll read it. I make the following amendment to the town of i like to mass health and human services and inspections budgets Reduced section health and human services appropriation by 184,624 Dollars amending the taxation total from 1.634 million to 1.568 million um So this is the taxation total So the appropriation total would also include grants. So this does not and we're supposed to specify that taxation total And increased funding by 95,962 Um to the inspections department Um And just so there is like a leftover here, which would remain unallocated So therefore the the total town budget Uh that we'd be voting on at the end of all of all the budget debates Would be lesser by I believe that 88,662 dollars. Is that right mr. Kepline? That's right So there would free up money for for uh other uses. Okay, so we have a motion for us. Do we have a second? Okay, we have a second This motion is now pending on top of the the main motion which is Essentially the the vote language from appendix b from the finance committee report Um, so after the debate on this Let me you can finish your time. Oh no any more speakers. Okay Um, i'm essentially done. Thank you. Okay for your time. All right. Thank you mr. Kepline So just how I'll take mr. Pooler next to speak to this but before we take mr. Pooler Just want to explain that so we'll have debate on these two budgets the Health and human services budget number 24 and the inspections budget number 21 And And then we will vote on mr. Kepline's amendment after debate on these two budgets mr. Pooler go ahead Thank you, mr. Moderator sandy pooler town manager As you might expect, I would urge you to vote against this amendment I think Reading mr. Kepline's comment speaks for itself, but I would like to just point out a couple of A couple of phrases that I thought were Indicative of the motivation of this amendment He says dei is just one of those city services Massachusetts has survived 400 years of immigration without diversity equity and inclusion departments and will surely survive them Survive without them now Would also like to point out where he says The town and school employees look more like its residents than elsewhere with the exception of gender inequality in primary schools Too few male teachers depriving boys of male teachers as role models We have one of the strongest dei Departments in the state We want one of the first communities to hire a dei director even before uh, the george floyd murders Jill harvey came on she has helped other cities and towns across massachusetts set up their dei departments I won't go through the full list of all the wonderful things that that department has done I will just say that is my honor and pleasure to work with her She is one of the most fair-minded balanced intelligent and hard-working departments. We had departments we have Um Inspections does not need this money Um, particularly if it's pulling the rug out from dei I strongly I don't think I need to strongly urge you because I'm sure you're going to vote against this amendment And I hope you do. Thank you very much Okay, well, let's let's hold our applause Um, let's uh, let's take Ms. Deschler. Do you want to speak to this? Christine Deschler chair of the finance committee. Um, just a few points Uh, first of all, uh, it is true that the finance committee does not micro manage budgets Nor can tell meeting you can approve the budget or not, but you cannot order um One department to get rid of personnel or to force another department like inspections to do what mr. Kaplan wants him inspection Inspecial services to do The other thing I like to point out Is um The vote And In his comments To this amended Motion, um, mr. Kaplan says that um The dei budget received the most no vote votes in the finance committee of any department Um, it is true that four people voted against it Four people also voted against field maintenance expenses But I like to point out that this budget was overwhelmingly Overwhelmingly approved by a vote of 12 to 4 by the finance committee. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take, uh, Mr. Prokosh out of order since I don't think we've heard much from him Mr. Prokosh pass Uh, miss mr. Newton Sunday newton precinct 10. I move to terminate debate Okay, we have a second to terminate debate. Let's try this by voice vote all those in favor of terminating to terminating debate on The inspections budget and health and human services budget say yes All those opposed Let's go to a regular vote now electronic vote Okay, if you're in favor of terminating debate on the health and human services budget and the Inspections budget vote yes If you want to continue to debate on those budgets vote no Okay, let's close voting And it passes and this is doing a two-thirds calculation. Correct. That is a two-thirds vote debate is terminated on those budgets Okay, so that brings us to the education budget number 22 Um Dr. Allison ampe Mr. Fosca you have a point of order Oh, I'm sorry. You're right about terminating debate, but we didn't vote on the amendment. Thank you. Thank you for that Let's bring up a vote now on on mr. Kepline's amendment We'll do a regular vote. Oh, I'm sorry this The we're voting on I'm sorry whether to adopt mr. Kepline's amendment to Transfer, I'm sorry. Did not have that ready To reduce the health and human services Funding by 180 fourth roughly hundred a four thousand dollars And increase the inspections budget funding by roughly 96 thousand dollars and having roughly 87 thousand dollars Lesser in the overall town budgets if you're in favor of that amendment vote. Yes If you want to leave the main motion unamended As shown in appendix b of the fincom report vote two for now Okay, let's close voting Okay, the amendment fails Eight in the affirmative 199 in the negative and four abstentions So the main motion is not amended We're now moving on to the education button to dr. Allison ampe And can we clear the speaker queue, please? Thank you. Thank you Kirsten Allison chair of the school committee and a town meeting member from precinct 13 I'd like to I'd like to request that we have 10 minutes to speak Okay, we have requests from uh Do we have a second? Okay, we have a request for 10 minutes to speak all those in favor Extending the speaking time to 10 minutes say yes All those opposed The yeses have it Okay. Hi again, so I'm the current chair of the Arlington school committee Sorry Okay, this is different in their mics in the school committee room um I'm the current chair of the school committee and i'm very proud to present town meeting with the Arlington public schools report to town Meeting which includes the Arlington school committee's approved budget for fiscal 24 In this report, I've written a letter to you town meeting members about our strategic plan with some examples of how we hope things will change for Our students in the years to come I'm not sure if current town moderator greg christiana is this adamant that we not read material already handed out As was former town moderator john leone, but just to be careful. I will not read my letter But you can you can find it on page eight And I hope you'll take a look at it and um read it and have it if you have any questions for us And now I'd like to introduce our superintendent dr. Elizabeth helman He'll be giving our budget presentation Also joining us tonight is our assistant superintendent for finance and operations mr. Michael mason Thank you. Do we have slides? Can we bring up dr. Holman slides? Oh, yeah, and dr. Holman by the way, you can uh, you can see the same Presentation over there on the side if that's fantastic. Thank you All right Thank you, mr. Moderator and good evening town meeting members It is a pleasure to be here tonight to present the school committees proposed fy 24 budget to town meeting My name is dr. Elizabeth homen and i'm the very proud superintendent of the arlington public schools next slide, please Though there are many to thank for the work that went into our budget planning this year I want to begin by thanking the amazing students of the arlington public schools Whose artwork adorns the cover of this year's budget book and you can see that if you have a copy Our students teach us every day about what they need to learn and to thrive in our schools And I would also like to thank the school committee for their daily support of our schools and the finance committee for their support of this budget I'm going to begin tonight by sharing the work We've been doing this year to develop a community led student focused strategic plan for the arlington public schools The strategic plan was developed throughout this past year and unanimously adopted by the school committee on march 30th of 2023 The plan includes a vision and mission statement for strategic priorities and three initiatives to support each of those four Priorities and some of you in this room were members of the committees that helped to develop this work Keep going. I forgot to tell you next slide right there. Perfect. Thank you Our new vision and mission were developed by over 60 stakeholders last spring and are the foundation of this plan The vision statement in particular prioritizes the creation of environments that support belonging equity and empowerment Because we know we can hold students to high standards growth And that they will challenge themselves in each other and experience connection joy When they are learning in supportive spaces with adequate resources and supports next slide, please The plan includes four priority areas which are listed here Beneath each priority are three initiatives designed to accelerate our work in these four key areas teaching and learning professional development Collaborations in finance and collaborations with the full arlington community next slide, please I share our work on the strategic plan because this year's budget was designed to support year one of this plan Which starts next school year The budget priorities shown here were developed as the initiatives for the plan were taking shape And I will discuss specific priorities and additions to the schools this evening Key considerations for this year include increasing enrollments at the secondary level Equitable access to necessary support staff for students with disabilities and our english learners And supporting the capacity of the new high school building and the overall operations of the district next slide, please As you know one of the many factors we have to consider when we develop a budget is the number of students we have in our schools Enrollment is one of the main pillars to the long-range plan formula that ultimately funds the town appropriation for the arlington public school budget And this slide presents arlington public school's current sixth year of actual in-district enrollment from fy 18 to 23 As well as several enrollment projection models for fy 23 through fy 28 It includes the macabre projection, um, which we've been tracking right along with that's the orange line that you see there That we established back in fy 18 and then we've been tracking along with and expect to through fy 28 We estimate enrollment using multiple projections precisely because of the multiple factors that impact those projections Including birth rates real estate trends and sales vacancy rates and alternative education options So the takeaway from this slide and this graph is that despite pandemic fluctuations in enrollment Our enrollment trends have followed the projection from macabre several years ago And our internal projection continues to provide a strong estimate for future enrollment next slide, please This graph presents the school budget by funding source the main funding source for arlington public schools is of course the town's appropriation Which includes the town contribution the compounded annual growth rate of the town's contribution to aps is 5.16 percent from fy 20 to fy 24 Chapter 70 state aid is factored into the formula that calculates the school's appropriation You'll notice that the chapter 70 trend in this graph that line has a steeper slope because the student opportunity acts implementation The compounded annual growth rate of chapter 70 funding to the town of arlington is 7.55 percent from fy 20 to fy 24 Next slide, please This chart shares the funding sources that make up the budget on the left Notably the town appropriation is the biggest portion of that And on the right, there's a chart of budgeted expenditures by budget transfer category elementary education secondary education and special education taking up the greater part of that administration curriculum instruction grants and other taking up the rest Next slide, please This table shows the overall changes in funding that are coming from all of our sources including grants special revenue and revolving circuit breaker and coveted related grants from fy 23 last year's budget to this year's budget fy 24 With an overall increase of 4.9 million to the school's budgets or 5.37 percent when you consider all of those funding sources for fy 24 Next slide, please What you'll see here is a breakdown of the core financial commitments This is how we go about our budget planning and think about what it is We want to add in terms of services to the schools so SR three pandemic funds are added to the total amount from the town appropriation And our fy 23 commitments are then reduced assuming that those were to stay in place The fy 24 budget increase with us are included is about 5.4 million Then we account for the operational commitments that are essential to the functioning of the system Specifically the major commitments that we know come right off the top They don't allow us to add any services We just have to have them in order to continue our commitments So for example our contractual obligations and cola increases for staff Are out of district tuition for those students who require out of district placements That's projected to increase at 14 percent rate in fy 24 across all of the different schools that we might send students to Increases to utilities as a result of inflation and shifting energy usage And adjustments to the budgets of departments that are also impacted by inflation and the rising costs of instructional materials Finally, we add back budget efficiencies Which i'll discuss in a moment and we're left with approximately 2.8 million to fund this year's strategic additions to the school budget Next slide, please Okay, I want to explain a bit more about what I mean when I say efficiencies in this year's proposed budget as well as in Last year's fy 23 budget. We've taken great efforts to interrogate the services we have in place And where possible identify efficiencies or cuts that will allow us to move forward on those strategic initiatives In an effort to transform the system in accordance with the goals of the strategic plan We're trying not to simply add on but to adjust our practice and stop doing things We know either aren't working for students or are no longer needed This year's efficiencies are listed on this slide We're working to have more professionally licensed staff like math interventionists in our schools to work with our students And so we have added licensed math interventionists for example and eliminated paraprofessionals in order to offset that cost We're repurposing roles to allow for new roles to enter the system and repurposing positions that are vacant Not for lack of need for the services that those would have filled but due to challenges in the labor market So you'll see here over 14 of those in order to allow for staff that will provide stronger services to our students In areas that we are able to staff And in areas where it's most needed next slide, please Finally, I'd like to provide a summary of our additions at the high school and middle schools will be supporting classroom teachers to address Increasing secondary enrollments our big enrollment bubbles moved through the middle the elementary schools and are now headed towards And into the middle schools We have our largest class at the Gibbs school that we've had since it's opened and we are anticipating an even bigger class in a couple of years At the high school will be providing additional staff to support the facilities in the new building The new building has beautiful new facilities such as the new auditorium That require maintenance and require people with technical expertise in order to Staff those spaces particularly in off hours so that we can do things like rent those spaces to the community and have them be widely used At the elementary level, we're supporting additional librarians, which we've been working on for years Music teachers to support increased enrollment in fine arts and support for English learners and students with disabilities And finally, I only have 20 more seconds at the district level We're expanding our business payroll facilities offices Opening up a family welcome center and increasing district wide communication support And i'm deeply grateful to all of you for your service to our community and our children and the time and attention you've given to this presentation Thank you Thank you. Thank you, dr. Holman I had flashbacks to the property transfer See we'll take uh miss waxman first Uh miss farrell Um, uh, miss, um miss freedman What was our pass out in here? That then freedman precinct 15 And um Let me get this open again. I think a couple of numbers were transposed on on the budget um in that on section C and d It looks like on year 2023. There's a over 1.1 million dollar decrease In funding and then it goes up The oh page b 11 Which uh, which so, um, this is Budget 22 education section c and d. I think a couple of the numbers were transposed could um Someone please address that Yes, thank you for your question. Um, michael may said your name and Yeah, go ahead Yeah, I'm gonna answer Oh, just introduce yourself. That's all. Yeah. Yeah, um Michael mason assistant superintendent, uh for finance and operations for the schools. Yes, that is indeed true Um after um being made aware that the fy 23 figure has been transposed the fy 24 figures are actually Indeed correct. Okay. Let's take mr. Maher next from the uh satellite room. Yeah, so Miss moderate john maher prec 14 Over the past few years, it's become evident and I've asked the same question of A few times and that it how do we Stand comparable communities as far as our average teacher Salaries go because obviously to maintain the high quality For charlington is known for a judge educational system. We have to maintain Keep our Our teachers on board It's by memory that we have lagged behind fairly substantially with Regarding the comparable communities on what we pay our teachers And we've been told in the past there were plans to catch them up I wonder what the status of that is now. Thank you, uh, dr. Holman can Can you speak to the competitiveness of salaries of teachers relative to comparable communities? Certainly, this is something we have been working on and we use the town manager 12 averages to help us with this right now Where we are is that we have made significant progress as one of the promises to the community as part of the last override We said we were going to work on teacher compensation and making it more competitive. We've been doing that So we've increased salaries at a significant rate over the past several years But we still are lagging behind our goal as part of the strategic plan is to get us Into a competitive range. So we're using the averages to say we'd like to be around the 60th percentile and We would like to take a sort of a measured approach to that over multiple years of negotiations And make sure that as part of this strategic plan we get there so that we are competitive with our town manager 12 peers And that will help with retention that will help with recruitment And it will also help us to make sure that our staff reflect the diversity of our student body. Thank you Great. Thank you. I don't think we've heard from mr. Tosti in a while. So let's take you out of order If you want to speak next How about mr. Slotnik? I don't know if he's spoken yet Mr. Hickman Mr. Hickman, do you want to speak? Uh, let's say we'll take, uh, mr. Moore Christopher Moore precinct 14 motions to terminate debate on the school budget Motion to terminate debate we have a second Um All those in favor of terminating debate on the education budget say yes All those opposed I'd say that's uh, terminated The two-thirds vote Let's move on to the retirement budget number 25 So let's let's clear this speaking queue and start that over. Okay. Are we taking requests now? Okay Mr. Jamison, you're up. Thank you. Mr. moderator Gordon Jamison precinct 12 um It always bothers me that we don't get a report on 15 million dollars of spending And so I've contacted I talked to the town manager about how to how to do this and In in your fund big financial plan the big book used to be the big book That's online that the manager puts out. There's a very nice page on the on the financial situation of the op-ed fund And how it's managed and what I've proposed is with some embellishments that the manager's office work with the um Arlington retirement board to Compose something similar to that that can be put into the financial plan every year It gives us an update on where we are in the long track towards trying to get our pension plan fully funded Um, I think the manager is amenable to that any nod The manager nods. Thank you very much for your time All right. Thank you anyone else wish to speak to the retirement budgets Seeing none. Let's move on to the Reserve the reserve fund, uh, but number 27 Does anyone wish to speak to that? Is the queue open? Okay, seeing none moving on to Uh item a water and sewer enterprise fund Mr. Jamison Thank you. Mr. Moderator Gordon Jamison precinct 12 so, um for big of history Most of you probably know but maybe some of those at home don't That a large a large section of your water bill used to be in your taxes And over the last three years that part of the tax bill has been removed And that part of the the debt service that helps pay the um our water bill costs Has been moved into the water rates. That's why your rates for the most part have increased So previously our water was artificially cheap And now our water is full price And my question I believe to mr. Rotemacher would be have we seen that impact? Conservation in the town Mr. Rotemacher, do you have an answer to that question? Mike Rotemacher director of public works. Uh, thanks for the question I think it's a little too soon yet to Determine how that will impact Consumption There are so many factors wet summer or dry summer or whatnot impact Consumption of people's use so it'll be a few years before we determine But but if it were to how would that impact our overall water costs? I'm sorry though. Well, so so if I understand it correctly if we were to conserve At a rate higher than other towns and municipality Our water supply costs. We go down our sewer Costs would probably go down and our portion of the debt service would also go down So even though the cost might be going up the rate of increase might might might drop some So it's a It gets challenging When folks conserve and we sell less water we receive less revenue And but we still have almost the same bills to pay because a lot of that is The mwre costs and the debt incurred there so It's counterintuitive, but sometimes rates need to go up when consumption Goes down. Okay. So it's it's a crapshoot. Correct. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's take miss elliott next Pass Mr. Kepline Mark Kepline precinct nine. I wanted to answer mr. Jamison's question Uh, the reward for conservation is higher water bills higher rates for your water So the the dominant factor in Water and sewer delivery is the infrastructure costs. So if you conserve water You know, they have to increase the uh, the rate In order to achieve the same level of income and revenue so That's your reward for saving water. Thank you Thank you Seeing no more speakers We are now through debates on the budgets So let's bring up a vote on the main motion And so while we're waiting for that screen to come up This is a majority vote vote. Yes, if you voting isn't open yet, but when the green light comes on Um You can vote yes to approve the town budgets detailed in appendix b of the finance committee's report These budgets total 167 million 755 thousand five hundred eleven dollars voting is open. Okay voting is closed And it passes 200 in the affirmative eight and negative four abstentions Okay, so that brings us to article 38 Mr. Yontar Dr. Yontar, I'm sorry And did you need additional time or no, thank you. Thank you, mr. Moderator Hi, everyone. I hope you and yours or will Please pull up the capital planning presentation All right. I'm teamwork. Hi Yontar 58 Bates road capital planning committee chair Speaking on article 38 the capital budget I just just one quick interruption. The speaker queue is open. I can see it here Next slide, please. Okay, this evening. I'm going to cover the five points shown here Next slide, please First thank you the capital plan is a group effort many thanks to our partners throughout the town Mostly, this is months of hard work by the capital planning committee. I've listed our members for you here We're a combination of citizen appointees and town and school officials If you're interested in our work, we invite you to attend our meetings with your public We also post notices from time to time asking for applicants when there are vacancies I especially want to call out the work of three people Much gratitude to our new deputy town manager and finance director Alex McGee To vice chair Christopher Moore and town budget director Julie Wayman For their invaluable contributions of data organization Writing editing editing and production For the report town meeting This I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you. Next slide, please Okay, second the content of the report. It has an orange cover as you just saw Easy if you're getting lost in the woods you can find your people can find you I hope you've had a chance to read it We lead off with an explanation of what you're voting on and then that vote itself This is the capital budget for fiscal year 2024 It starts on july 1st and runs through june 30th 2024 shown on pages one through six of the report It lists what capital items we'll buy in that year. What we'll pay in debt service More detail on that in a moment The report also Talks about the full five-year plan with detail by department. It covers both fiscal 24 Which is the only part that you're voting on tonight And the projections for the out years In the appendix of the report, we have several tables covering all the capital plan items Next slide, please Okay, third our fiscal 24 acquisitions, which total 13.3 million dollars They're paid for by a combination of cash from general tax Other funds and bonds they're listed in sections two four and five of article 38 We discussed this in the report but here are the highlights Sixty-one percent of the capital budget is going to public works Mainly water and sewer maintenance rehabilitation also roadways and sidewalk repairs and improvements and vehicle replacements 28 more goes for schools including information technology for education. So that covers facility repairs academic it and vehicle replacements Another 10 percent goes for town buildings Then eight percent goes to community safety. That's fire and police That sum is about half vehicles In fact about a third of the total for that is going for a replacement ambulance The remainder of the budget about one million dollars goes to capital needs for libraries Other town it recreation and all other departments In the portion that we financed through bonds In section five come to 3.7 million dollars in total I highlight these because they obligate future town meetings to pay their debt service Next slide, please This is a good segue to item number four debt service for fiscal 24. It's 19.2 million dollars This is an article 38 section three. It's mostly paid by cash from general tax It covers principal and interest on all of the bonds that the town has issued in the past With a few exceptions our debt is called non-exempt that is it fits in the capital plan that's approved by town meeting Exempt debt is outside the capital plan Authorized by townwide debt exclusion referenda. These are usually big ticket items. The clearest example currently is arlington high school We have to pay interest on both non-exempt and exempt debt and here's where we do it Next slide, please Okay, apart from debt exclusions though the town keeps within the capital plan and that's my fifth point Its size in fiscal 24 is 9.5 million dollars You see it in this table shown here, which is also in your reports on page 14 The five percent rule limits the capital budget to no more than five percent of the town budget We target that level in both fiscal 24 and for the full five-year plan The green boxes show that we have hit both of our targets in this plan This rule constrains the town to live within its means In order to make room for some new high priority item Something else has to give Next slide, please And to conclude I hope you've had the chance to read the full report The committee and I are available to take questions Please vote yes on 38 and please stay safe Thank you all very much for your time and attention That concludes the capital planning committee presentation to town meeting Great, thank you Before I Take speakers from the queue. I do want to invite up miss garber who has an amendment to introduce that And can we can we switch the display over to that? Judith garber precinct four This amendment adds a $15,000 cut to the budget at the direction of the town manager Town meeting cannot require the town manager to spend or not spend on a specific item in a budget article Which is why the amendment is worded the way that it is But the intention of the amendment is that the town manager apply this cut for removing the $15,000 expenditure For bowl a wrap for the police department from section two of the capital planning budget I've corresponded with the chair of the capital planning committee and with chief larity on this issue I don't believe that their decision to purchase these bowl wrap devices were made lightly or hastily But I also don't believe that the town has received enough community input Or has had enough discussion on this decision from residents in town Who will be the most impacted The bowl wrap is a handheld lasso device that discharges a kevlar tether with a four-pronged metal hooks Perpelled by gunpowder the tether ejects at 513 feet per second and entangles a target at a range of 10 to 25 feet The device is marketed as a nonviolent way to de-escalate situations But it is not entirely safe. The hooks can puncture skin People can be injured if they fall when tied and if misfired the cord could become wrapped around someone's neck The wrap is meant for police to use on people who are to use the manufacturer's wording non-compliant emotionally disturbed or mentally ill Unfortunately a recent town survey found that people with mental health challenges in town have low levels of trust In the arlington police department when they're having an emergency I worry that adding a potentially painful device will further erode this trust Our officers work tirelessly to keep us safe and I have great respect for what they do I believe the best way to make their job safer and easier is to build trust with us the community And the best way to do so is through a transparent and accountable process Please join me in voting for this amendment so we can have that process in discussion on the need for bowl wraps I also want to make a clarification to the comment in my amendment It was not the arlington human rights commission as a body that had concerns It was individual members of the human rights commission Um, I also wanted to mention that in my correspondence with the chief I asked about the necessity for these bowl wraps and uh, she mentioned some of the recent incidents that have happened within the town's neighboring us 120 year old young man who was in a mental health crisis was tragically shot by cambridge police and he died um This is obviously a terrible tragedy, but I don't I've attended several events with members of the community morning this death No one has asked for these bowl wraps. Nobody that has not what they want. They want More mental health clinicians, and I'm very happy to hear from the chief. This is exactly what they're planning on Uh adding and I would love to add this $15,000 to that instead of this device. Thank you Thank you. And uh, again before we go to the speaker cue I do want to give uh, Mr. Pooler or chief flowery an opportunity to explain because of the nature of the amendment There's clearly the the intention of the amendment which is focused on the bowler wraps But because the limitations of amendments to the capital budget, uh It's still at the direction of the of the town manager Who can choose to delegate the decision to chief flowery? So I'll defer to either of you to discuss how if this amendment passes. What would that mean for the department? Thank you. Sandy pooler town manager Uh Yes, the budget is a bottom-line budget. Uh, I forget what the total is sorry teamer um So we could go ahead and still buy bowler wraps if uh, we wanted to um I would defer to the police chief to talk about her decision about wanting to get this so If the chief is available to speak to this, I would ask her to come up or or or Mr Or teamer if you wanted to speak Teamwork hi yontar capital playing chair, uh just to say briefly that when we saw this as an option Uh proposed by the chief uh in her request Uh the capital playing committee was uh quite in favor of it. In fact, we suggested that She accelerate the timing of the purchase from one of the out years to f y 24. We saw it as being a a helpful um step in between somebody trying to speak to a uh an offender of whatever nature um and get them to Stand down or something at the at the far end of the spectrum Having to discharge a firearm in at the person there are there's a continuum that you want to be able to Um deescalate within and we thought that saw this as being an intermediate step that Could immobilize an offender without having to escalate beyond that so we were heavily in favor of this uh, I'd like to give it over to the chief, if uh through the moderator I'd like to ask that the chief larity um speak more to the um use of this uh device They've been piloting it over at apd already Uh yeah is chief clarity here? Yep, actually and before we take cheap Florida. I we didn't actually move the the amendment So just to make sure we get this in scope. Ms. Garber. Sorry. I should have asked before you sat down Can you just make the motion and then we'll make that official? We have motion to amend the capital budget according to the what we were seeing on the screen right here Do we have any seconds? Okay, we have a second Cheap Florida Yes, Ms. Tamps. I think Chief Florida think you do that. Yeah, but that's not a point of order, but I think she fired it will get to this Julie flowery chief of police. Thank you. So a Bolo wrap is a de-escalation tool for people who are non-compliant and It is basically used for non-life-threatening situations where people don't have firearms And it involves people who are in behavioral health crisis Or are under the influence of a substance what it is is It's a device the size of a remote control and discovered described it it ejects a cord That is pointed at someone's feet or somebody's arms To resolve situations where people are non-compliant where people are in crisis We don't carry tasers in Arlington. That is a pain-compliant tool. This is a non-paying compliant tool Bolo wrap is safer than tasers then it's safer than beanbag rounds and it's safer than Batons, so over the past year my team and I have done extensive research. We have attended demonstrations I have been wrapped myself. There's no pain to it many members of my team have been wrapped and In my correspondence with Miss Gabba I did talk about several incidents that have occurred over the past year and January of 2022 the Burlington police were involved in a situation where they shot a person who was in a crisis their Deescalation their verbal deescalation tools did not work the same type of incident happened in Lexington in February of 2022 and then again in Cambridge in 2023 now I'm no expert on these cases whatsoever, but I do believe if those officers had The proper deescalation tools that would have been a different outcome in all of those situations, so You know, I'm happy to take any any questions, but that's basically what what it is and why we're asking For funds for this this tool. Thank you. Thank you I'll take now go to the speaker queue and we'll take Ms. Ford weems Miss Ford weems was there a pass I couldn't hear pass. Okay, Miss Culverhouse I'm sorry, Miss Hankins. I miss Hankin. I didn't see that miss Hankin It's dr. Hankin now actually precinct six I've spent the last couple days looking into these bowler apps and they are pretty intense things they have barbed hooks at the end I found a video from a San Jose news broadcast where the news anchor Had a bull wrap tested on him by a demonstrator from their police department It penetrated his jeans and his thigh was gouged by the hooks So this is something that can get through your clothes. It can gouge your skin. It can result in stitches But even more than that if it's not shot properly It can and this is it from the manufacturer if it's going above your elbows It can wrap around your throat. It can strangle you. It could knock out an eye If someone is deemed to be non-compliant because they are acting strangely because of something like a stroke or a Bad reaction to a medication. This could be used on them. They could fall. They could be hurt This I Understand deeply the need to find something anything that feels like it can help bridge that gap in de-escalation And I know from reading that this company very aggressively targets police departments that desperately want to be doing better But I don't think this is the right option for Arlington Someone with a disability that results in cervical instability if I were hit with one of these I could possibly become a paraplegic And I don't want to see that happen to anyone here no one in our community should have to feel like If something just goes a little bit wrong, they might be hugged. I'd like cattle We're human beings. This is deeply dehumanizing Advocacy groups For the death especially are opposed to these below rats the Helping educate to advance the rights of death communities or herd has strongly advised against using these they're often Talked about being used against those who are deaf or hard of hearing because they cannot comply with instructions from police I Really appreciate that chief flirty wants to find ways to de-escalate But the answer is not going to be some new tech toy It's going to be in the bonds that we build between the community and the police in Arlington. Thank you Thank you. Let's take Ms. Culverhouse next and just a reminder that the entirety of Article 38 is in scope for debate. We can continue to discuss the bull wraps I'm just reminding folks that we're not just discussing the amendment. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you, mr. Monterey to Lynette call the house precinct 11 as someone who spent many years in her career working with children with mental health disabilities and Developmental delays and also a large part of my life working with adults with addiction issues and Alcohol problems. I have to say that this is the last thing that will provide them the emotional safe space That they need in order to de-escalate This is not something that will help people in crisis in mental health crisis de-escalate it will only further escalate the trauma that they've Whatever trauma they're going through and the fear that they have The way to de-escalate is to create a safe emotional space with someone qualified to speak to them and engage with them and connect with them and help them to come down as A person myself who has been through her own mental health crises I can guarantee you that I had a lasso flung at me by a person in a uniform Particularly a male person in a uniform. I would freak out and I'm sure many of you would also this is Something that should be used on cattle or animals But not on human beings and I urge you to support this amendment and vote it out of the budget. Thank you Thank you. Let's take Ms. McKinnon next. We haven't heard from her tonight. Thank you Sarah McKinnon precinct 20 I'm also coming to speak about the Bola wraps If sorry if there is any question in anyone's mind as to what this device looks like It does look like quite a small harmless device. It's about this big. It's a brightly colored plastic inside our two long tethering ropes strings When it's shot They spring out of this device from quite a distance. These two springs have hooks on the end if you imagine a fishing hook with four hooks on each of these wires they come out they're supposed to Attach to the fabric of clothing on the person and wrap around them very quickly and Hold them still They're supposed to be used below the elbow for safety They're very loud the way that I read and Saw the videos on their promotional website. It's described as as loud as a gunshot This is not sounding like de-escalation That I would like to see in Arlington. I Think if that if we are concerned About supporting police officers when they respond to People in the community who are in distress who are confused This isn't maybe not how we want to meet them and support them I Think there is a lot of enthusiasm for more social workers in this room and in the community I think this is money that could go towards supporting Perhaps training for police officers and perhaps other ways that we can all think together to help keep our community safe and Individual members in our community safe I'm very concerned if this is ever used on a person who isn't in long pants and long shirt I'm very concerned for people who don't have eye protection I'm very concerned for people who are moving when you look at the Videos on the promotional website all of the individuals that are the demonstrations not all most are not moving and the reporting that's come back so far is that it's Incredibly difficult to use these devices on anyone who was moving. I don't feel confident in this technology I don't feel confident from what I've seen from other police departments The LAPD did a six-month pilot study to determine if this was a good idea They decided to use them They use them nine times of the nine times eight times. It was ineffectively deployed They used other massive methods of de-escalation to Sit to I don't know what the term is but to incapacitate and bring someone in I Think we can do better Certainly for $15,000 Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Jameson. Thank you. Mr. moderator Gordon Jameson precinct 12 If I read the report correctly is the full cost of the high school now on the tax rate Do we have someone who could answer Mr. Puller Cindy puller town manager. We still have more borrowing to do on the high school So at this point no, there's still about I'm off the top of my head About 12 million dollars. I think we still need to borrow so most of it's on yes. Okay. Thank you. That's what I thought I read Which is which is a good thing? I have a couple questions on community safety So we have a mechanical system replacement at Park Circle, which we built Relatively recently and we have a cooling tower on the police services building which we renovated Did we not take well? Why are we doing that so soon? Someone speak to that Dr. Yontar do you want to speak to that? Sure teamwork high yontar chair capital planning committee? So they're separate the You're referring to page 24. Yeah, I mean I or you're referring in the Vote it's the mechanical system replacement at Park Circle the first item under item under section 4 So, yeah, that was rebuilt Approximately 2005 or something. Yeah approximately not quite 20 years ago and it is due for replacement and the Facilities department has made a 10-year lifespan. It has exceeded that and it would Probably go for another 10 15 years afterward as for the cooling tower that was not replaced as part of the 2017 renovation of the police station. Okay, and it has and it has insufficient Ability to cool the building currently. Okay. Next question is there's three entries for the central school and community center Which I believe are the same thing There's envelope repairs an air handler and an elevator. I thought we just fixed the community center So the envelope was not fixed It was not part of the scope of the of the rebuild and so that's a study to look into the cost of doing the envelope work The elevator was also not done during their renovation and it's past its 20-year life And the third item was air handler That is being replaced with our funds Okay, and next in the discussion of the new DPW building Somewhere I read that because the the trucks will now be stored indoors and there's a wash station That we can anticipate that the longevity of our trucks will increase I just hope that the capital planning committee looks at every truck that is requested going forward and tries to determine whether we are getting that return on investment of the Enhanced longevity of those quit that's equipment which could be quite expensive some of them It's a significant portion of the DPW budget. So yes, we're looking forward to that savings over time And my last question is the Bishop school roof The the school was done. I think in 2002 And it's a 1.8 million dollar roof. Yeah So we began our plan of rebuilding our elementary schools a little over 20 years ago And so the first few schools that were done are our other teenage years and Even with maintenance roofs do wear out So 20 years is life is lifespan and we are now replacing roofs and they're expensive And is that a slate roof or a Shingle, I'm afraid I don't remember that. Okay, mr. Barrett. Do you remember? Wow Okay Thank you very much flat roof said mr. Barrett Mr.. Barrett's it's a flat roof We'll take mix pretzer next from the satellite room They would prep sir precinct 17. I rise to encourage you to vote in favor of the amendment I appreciate that the capital planning committee and the police department would like to Build trust between them the police department the community But this is not the right way to do it when I talk to people in my precinct and around town many people are Distrustful the police department reluctant to call the police department in an incident due to fears that the police Department will escalate the situation If they are called And we've seen time and time again that these so-called less lethal weapons Do not help de-escalate mental health crises and or incidents they tend to escalate it And you know just you need to be realistic these are weapons They are you know less lethal, but they can still be quite painful as someone who's you know Managed to hook themself with a fish hook You know this could be painful and the manufacturer says that if used Improperly if used against the moving target If used above the elbows this can be quite dangerous We do not want To introduce new weapons that might you know strangle someone or exacerbate a crisis to build trust between The the police and citizens we need to be using unarmed responders for mental health crises not adding additional weapons that have new failure modes that will cause New reasons to be first for residents of Arlington to be reluctant to call the police during a crisis So I encourage everyone to vote in favor of the amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take mr. Newton next Sanjay Newton precinct 10 mr. Moderator of a question the items in section 2 are a suggestion for the town manager In section 2 of the vote It was mentioned right we can't cut a specific line item are the list of items that the capital planning Committee has listed there are a suggestion. Is that what I should take away from that? Mr. Poole Sandy Poole or town manager. They're good ideas And I would direct spending on those ideas There would be flexibility sometimes a project comes in a little under budget some Meaning and something else comes in a little over budget. We can move money among those different categories But what we do when we spend on capital from this vote is we spend on The items listed there in other words. We don't spend on other things. So They are they define The categories of things on which we can spend By reducing it by $15,000 We would then have to really deal with what are we going to do about below reps or what are we going to do With the tools that we give the police department if I could just finish that thought Right now the police department has several tools. They have batons. They have guns. They have other things they also tried very much to deescalate and So if I Have to make a decision about spending I'm going to have to make a decision about what tools to give that police department and I Still may have to decide to go ahead and spend money on this that that's my my overall question Perhaps maybe for mr. Heim is we don't get to decide These actual things that are here We being town meeting we beating town meeting Dugheim town council correct. So you have a series of eyes. Okay. Yep. That's all correct. That's all yep Okay, I have one follow-up question for perhaps chief foot flurry. How much time will officers spend training on the bull wraps? She Florida Julie flowerty chief of police the training recommended training is a four-hour training and we would train annually Thank you So I think that this time Police Department of time and our money could be better spent. I will be voting for the amendment. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Fosca Do you have a point of order? Thank you Ms. Lecourt in section. Oh Annie Lecourt precinct 13 In section four of the vote that various capital projects and equipment purchased is shown below She'll be undertaken and financed by grants or other funds as shown below I am not able to trace what all grants are supporting this five million six hundred and eighty thousand dollars Is it possible to get a rough idea? I can tell what's ARPA and what CDBG but I am unclear about how the others are funded I Mean I obviously I know where the rehabilitation for sewers and water come from Dr. Yontar All right, so we're on page five of the report under item number four team work on the entire capital playing chair Items one two three and four ARPA five a cemetery fund six is chapter 90. That's the state grant seven to CDBG as you can see eight nine ten eleven twelve our water and sewer funds 13 14 15 16 our ARPA 17 is a grant 18 is the parking benefits district ARPA by the way is the federal American Rescue Plan Act that is giving Arlington on the order of thirty five million dollars a portion of which goes to capital and the big belly solar is a That was again the parking benefits district is paying their item in the rating. Okay Thank you that was impressive You're welcome. Thank you. We'll take mr. Wagner. I stay up till 2 a.m. So I plenty of thank you mr. Moderator Carl Wagner precinct 15 I move that we terminate debate on the article and all associated matters Thank you. We have a motion to terminate debate on all matters before the article and a second So let's do a quick voice vote all those in favor of terminated bait on article 38 Say yes All those opposed say no The bait is terminated. Let us bring up a vote on the garber amendment okay, and The voting is open We won't shut it right away because I still need to explain or describe what this is The garber amendment is looking to to add a line item to cut $15,000 of item to in a section 2 of the capital budget And that's all I said and that is at the direction of the town manager to determine how to apply that cut Let's wait a bit a little bit longer the votes are still coming in since I was still describing what we're voting on This is the garber amendment to add a $15,000 cut to section 2 of the capital budget You're in favor of that $15,000 cut Which is at the direction of the town manager vote yes if you're against that cut vote no Okay, let's close voting. This is a this is a majority vote for the amendment and the amendment passes Let's hold our applause 107 in the affirmative 85 in the negative 19 abstentions. Okay, so the main motion is now amended and So let's bring up the Vote on the main motion before we open that though. Let me there's a lot of detail on this and I'll try to cover it As best as I can summarize this is a two-thirds vote The main motion as amended vote. Yes, if you approve of nine items that are enumerated in the Capital planning Vote language the first five of which I'll summarize here the remainder are some additional terms and conditions related to grant applications and unused funds Which you can find in the official vote language number one Transfer of 208,000 sorry 203,815 dollars 91 cents from amounts previously appropriated and borrowed number two Appropriate roughly three point nine million dollars for various capital projects and equipment expended under the direction of the town manager number three appropriate Roughly 19 million dollars for death service expanded under the expended under the direction of the town manager number four Authorized that various capital projects and equipment purchases be undertaken and financed by grants or other funds to be expended Under the direction of the town manager and number five appropriate roughly three point seven million dollars for Extraordinary repairs to public facilities land acquisition and the purchase and installation of equipment and incidental costs Again, this is a two-thirds vote. Let's open voting Voting is now open Please check your handsets to make sure that the vote was received in case you were just clicking into the speaker queue We're voting on the capital planning committee's recommended vote amended by the Garber amendment Okay, let's close voting and the budget passes 204 in the affirmative seven in the negative And And Do we have any do we have any motions? Oh, I'm sorry. Do we have any notices of reconsideration? 37 and 38 Okay, any other notices of reconsideration? I think that's all we had right so Just do you have motion to adjourn? Okay, we have the second okay all those and all those in favor All those opposed okay, we are we are adjourned On Wednesday, we will take up the special town meeting warrant articles aside from reports of committees There are only two other other articles in that warrant And once those articles are disposed of and the special town meeting is dissolved will return to the business of the annual town Meeting and Article 9 which was postponed until tonight will be resumed after the special town meeting is dissolved on Wednesday As always, please return your handsets to the plastic bins return your seats to the upright position Raise your tray tables and good night