 Joining us this evening on the piano. Hello. Hello. Joining us this evening on the piano is Jane Howard. Please rise. Thank you very much Ms. Howard. I just had to turn your lights up. The tennis club is having a big sale. I just want to say a few words about the debate last Wednesday. During those zoning articles it turned a little ugly. We had folks questioning people's motives. We had people saying uncivil things about other members of the meeting and about our board of select men and volunteer ARB committee. That's not the kind of thing we like to do. I had to use my gavel and I had to get mad and I don't like to do that either. So let's try and not question people's motives. Let's keep our discussion civil and just keep to the topic. When we do that we do very well and we keep on track and we can move forward. We don't get waylaid into needless discussion that doesn't advance any of our articles at all. That being said, any town meeting members who have yet to be sworn in? None. Okay. Chairman of the board of select men, Ms. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. moderator. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting as 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 11, 2016, at 8 p.m. All in favor please say yes. Opposed? No. Okay. Any announcements or resolutions? Mr. Marr. Thank you, Mr. moderator, John Marr, precinct 14. This week is National Salvation Army Week. I have the privilege of serving as the chair of the Greater Cambridge Salvation Army. And one might think what's Marr doing up there talking about this Cambridge Salvation Army. As a matter of fact, the Greater Cambridge Salvation Army includes Somerville and Arlington. One might also wonder why Arlington is covered by what services are provided in Arlington. Actually, there are quite a few. They're a little bit below the radar. One of the principal ones is Shea House right off of Pleasant Street, which is a transition house for men with prior substance abuse problems. In the 20 years that it's been there, we've had one minor incident and it has been a very big success. As a matter of fact, I'm looking at Andrew Fisher about 18 years ago. So this matter became, the location of that house came before this town meeting and was a lot of NIMBY sentiment against it. And Andrew Fisher, to his eternal credit, turned the discussion on its, on a dime and was passed by this town meeting and it has been an unmitigated success. Some of the programs that we run at the Cambridge Salvation Army are bridging the gap, which is a program for at-risk kids who are in the court system. And we attempt to get them out through tutoring and other support services. There is a shelter for homeless men. There is a mojo program, which is for substance abuse counseling. And my favorite, which is Our Place, which is a daycare for homeless kids. There are vacancies currently on the board. We've had a number of people town meeting in years past that have served on that board. We would welcome anybody who would be interested in doing that. The time commitment is very minimal. Actually just about an hour at a minimum per month. There are certainly opportunities to serve greater than that. We meet on the third Wednesday of each month. We start at noon time. We have it in the lunch hour. So there I would welcome anybody who wanted to meet me at the break or any other time who would like to participate. The motto of the Salvation Army is doing the most good. We would welcome anybody who would like to assist in that. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Is it Tosti? Tosti? Oh, no, Al. I've pronounced his name wrong. Tosi. You think I would know. The other Bob Tosi, Jr., freezing 20. I know we have two nights of very important debate ahead of us. But just quickly this Saturday is a U.S. Postal Service food drive. And I rise over you to remind all town meeting members and everyone watching at home to contribute and participate. You leave non-perishable items out your front door. And the mail carrier will pick it up and bring it to our local food pantry to help hungry people and needy people among us in Allington. And there certainly are those people and they are growing. But that need goes on all year, not just this Saturday. So if you can do it Saturday, great. If not, remember to put some food aside, some cereal boxes, peanut butter and so forth, and donate your local churches and businesses that will bring it to the food pantry. Thank you all. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Sir. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mark Spengler, Precinct 10, and Treasurer of the Schwarm Mill Preservation Trust. This weekend, the old Schwarm Mill is again participating in Freedom's Way Hidden Treasures, which is a week-long celebration of some of the great historic sites that are throughout the region. And the mill is giving tours from 11 to 2. And at 2 o'clock, we have a special lecture on the beginnings of the Schwarm Brothers. The Schwarm Brothers, where their true industrialists have a big impact on the town of Arlington back in the 1900s. The suggested donation is $5. There's Treasurer. I think it should be $10. And I would like to say thank you to all of you that do support the Schwarm Mill. And if you haven't been there, you should visit. Thank you, sir. Ma'am. Thank you. Sarah Burks, Precinct 17. I just wanted to bring your attention to a supplement to the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum's Board of Trustees report, which is in the printed annual report. We have a supplement that's on the back table tonight, providing you with a brief update about the exterior renovations that are going on at the Jefferson Cutter House across the street in the center. This has been a terrific partnership between the nonprofit arm of the museum and the town. We want to thank the planning department, starting with Carol Kowalski last year, who worked with Heather Lavelle, our part-time director curator, in putting together the grant application to the Mass Preservation Projects Fund. That was successful in getting $65,000 from the state for the rehab that's been matched by the town. 60,000 of that came out of the CDBG funds, and the work is well underway. You'll notice the new roofing shingles that have gone on in the last week. Before that, they were rather green and living a living roof, a green roof, but not the good kind. And that was a real problem last year. We had a lot of squirrels that got into the building and tore up our storage rooms and in the attic, and so we are thankful to the town in helping us remediate that situation humanely. No squirrels were injured in the process. We also want to thank Ted Fields, who's been coordinating the project with Heather Lavelle. Patrick Guthrie, who was an advisor to the museum in this process. Wendy Frontiero was the architect. Allson Company is the contractor, and we're working out the details of the historic paint colors. There was an analysis done by William Finch, who's a preservation consultant, and we're working with him and the Massachusetts Historical Commission on the colors. It's going to be more of an ochre, a yellow ochre color, so there'll be changes to celebrate. On the backside of this handout are a list of some upcoming events. We are also participating in Hidden Treasures this year on the 21st. We have a picnic in the park with a concert by the Creek River String Band in late July. Our fundraiser, the Summer Soiree, which I hope you will consider coming to and supporting the museum and the annual Art on the Green during Arlington's Town Day. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else on announcements? Okay, seeing none, let's do our test question. You clickers out. Mr. Lathwood, whenever you're ready. So the question today, is Lake Superior the world's largest lake by surface area? One, yes, two, no. Is Lake Superior the world's largest lake by surface area? I know the answer, so I'm going to abstain. 172. The answer is yes. It is. 109 have to go back to school for geography. Any committee reports? Mr. Carmen first. All right. Mr. Oh, you can go. You're standing up. Clarissa Roe precinct four chair of the Community Preservation Committee. And I move that the report of the Community Preservation Committee be received and the recommended votes contained in the report be before the meeting. All in favor, please say yes. Okay. So received. Thank you. Excuse me. Please read our report before we take up article 57. CPA is new. There's a lot of information to cover. We have extra reports at the back of the hall and we also have the five projects on boards in the lobby. So if you want to look at them during the break, that would be great. I have a great committee. Would they please stand? Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go to my chair. Vice chair Eric Elmouth. Andrew Bengston. Did I do that right? Almost. Joanne Robinson. David leave. He will be here. Leslie. Is Leslie mayor isn't here. But usually is and probably will be here. Chuck Taroni is the representative from the conservation commission. And Richard Murray who's the representative from Arlington housing is sick. So thank you very much. Please come see us at the break Thank you, miss Rowe. Can I get one of those reports? Mr. Carmen? Thank you, mr. Mudder Dean Carmen precinct 20 a member of the finance committee I moved that the finance committee's report and recommended vote on article 3 of the special town meeting be received All in favor Post it's so received so I'll keep it brief in the ungodly stack of paper. We received tonight is the finance committee's Report on article 3, which we will take up on once in 19 with school capacity The one thing I'll point out is in the middle of the report and I think it was also emailed out So there's a PDF link is a link to the school enrollment task force website for anybody will spend the next couple days Reading up on the issue try and understand it if you click on that link It it has a heck of a lot of information in there. So I would encourage you to take a look. Thanks Thank you very much Sir John Cole chair of the permanent town building committee. I moved that the report of the committee be received All in favor post so received. Mr. Cole. Do you have anything to say? Do you have a clicker for me? Okay, oh on the middle middle podium John Okay, the report was at the back of the hall along with the associated budgets, I will not Indulge you to go through it I would like to review some of the highlights of the past year and also show you some pictures of what we have Accomplished with the monies that this body has entrusted to us Phase two of the fire station was completed in March You can see now the interior is very bright have a new floor in there New lighting new doors, and it's really a lovely space Nice day room for the fire firemen new circulation Project was completed under budget was six and a half million the report you have shows that we were about $2,000 under But the fire chief assures me that through Is diligent buyout of some of the furniture and equipment it's actually going to be 28,000 We also achieved lead gold and for this particular project, which is above What the town meeting has asked us to do and I would like to complement our architect Donovan and Sweeney for their efforts in that in that regard and lastly I would like to pay tribute to the chief He saved the town a ton of money not only on this project, but before it on the Highland station through Very diligent buying out of things under his control and also by using town employees and local contractors to fill out some of the gaps in the project that we were able to Take out of the general contract and get done at a better price And lastly The chief has Gathered and restored hundreds of artifacts to do with the history of the department and they're now all on display And I encourage you to go look at it is a veritable museum. Oh And yes, he's now a permanent member of our committee and we look forward to his Being our personal shopper We are moving ahead with the community safety building We did finish off the exterior portion last summer There's been no change to the budget numbers on that since our last report We're now working on the interior portion of the project You can see in this photo that we changed out an old tile floor in the public lobby That was really quite deteriorated and have replaced it with terrazzo We've also opened up that space and we will have a display there of police department history in the near future We are under our seven point six five million dollar budget. We released 500,000 to the capital planning commission in January and I would expect in the next month or so When the last piece of demolition is completed that we will be in position to release additional dollars And we expect to have it all done this fall the Stratton school renovation is underway The three million three point one million that this body approved at the special town meeting in January Has been used to procure Temporary modulars on site to house the students during the year of the renovation They're currently in fabrication. The first one should be on site momentarily We're significantly under budget to call you wrapping up soon. You got a few more minutes We're significantly under budget on the general contract for the renovation to the tune of about two million dollars We're gonna keep that in the owner's contingency for the moment when we get through the demolition phase Which is where we have our biggest risk. We anticipate releasing some of that money back to the town. Thank you Thank you, sir Thank You mr. Moderator Jennifer Seuss Precinct three and also chair the school committee. I'd like to beg your indulgence and ask through the moderator if We could get slightly more time than the four minutes What we've decided to do is give our presentation during the report section rather than the budget section So how much time in total seven minutes all in favor of seven minutes for the school committee to present the report Please say yes post You have seven minutes great. Thank you And I have great. Thanks. Okay. Okay. I can I can control that right? Mr. Cole has it There are two stories. I'd like to tell tonight and they are related The first is a story about our success Arlington public schools are great places for our children to learn and to grow and we continue to be high achieving district High-teaching district Recently the US News and World Report came out with its rankings. I'm pleased to report that Arlington High School was ranked number 16 in the state ahead of all but two of our comfortable communities We were also worried the gold medal which is a demarcation of the top 500 high schools in the country roughly the top 2% in the nation Achieving gold is an indicator of two things one that our school does a good job at preparing students for college readiness and Two that we are serving all of our students These are welcome kudos indeed and these achievements come despite what I would politely call Challenging facilities at the Arlington High School Thanks to the town meeting vote in January. We're moving a forward with the Stratton renovation Stratton is on track to open with a newly renovated school at the start of 2017 which means that by September 2017 all seven of our elementary schools will have been renovated or rebuilt Thanks also to town meeting vote in January the modular classrooms at the Thompson School will be in place For the start of the 2016 school year Okay The Arlington public schools have succeeded despite spending less than our comparable communities And these are the comparison of Arlington to the town manager 12 communities Which are the communities that are most similar to us in sort of size and fiscal situation in This chart you will see that we are in the lower end of the middle in terms of spending and lower than the state average which is all the way to the right and Here is how we performed on the state assessments against those same communities and the state average Here you can see that we are on the higher end of the middle and of the middle in terms of performance Well, more money is in fact needed What these slides show is that taxpayers have gotten a good deal a good return on their investment in the Arlington public schools To learn more about the exciting things going on in the Arlington public schools I encourage you to read and subscribe to the superintendent's newsletter, which is available on our website The second story I'd like to tell you about the financial stressors on our district First is a stress placed on us by the state and federal mandates In the past five years Beacon Hill has passed 25 initiatives Laws that have had financial impact on our schools Many of these initiatives are terrific such as the common core state standards But nevertheless, they are unfunded. We do not get any extra state money But the biggest financial stress on the Arlington public schools is a strain of our burgeoning enrollment As many of you know in the last four years, we've added 534 students in four years. This is bigger than any of our elementary schools We were projected to add about that amount in the next five years and after that a couple hundred more For a cumulative increase of over 30 percent from the 2005 levels. So the ones in the shaded are projected and the other ones are actuals Arlington school population is increasing because our town is a wonderful place to live with nine really fabulous schools So this is a good problem to have but it is nevertheless a challenge Only four years ago. We had some breathing room Back then only three of our nine schools were at or beyond capacity and there was some hope that with Registricting we could even those numbers out and in fact, we did redistrict and they did help a lot but 534 students later four years later Six of our nine schools are now at or above capacity Even if we did massive redistricting tomorrow where we dislocated a whole bunch of families all at once We would still not solve our problem At best it would buy us two years The fact is that we need to expand our capacity Recently the board of segment voted unanimously to place dead exclusion questions before the voters on June 14th 2016, let me just actually talk about that slide quickly. So the lines across or where we're at now so you can see Relative to where we're at now whether it's going to increase in future years or go down So we do have a slight decline in a couple schools and then we as you can probably see massive increases in the East Okay, on June 14th 2016 Arlington is being asked to vote for four things First to expand our capacity at the middle school level by placing some of the students at Gibbs Second to pay for a small addition to Thompson to begin to address the huge enrollment growth in East Arlington Third to pay for the first step of the MSBAs the Massachusetts School of Building Authorities process to renovate or rebuild the Arlington High School and Fourth to hopefully pay for a new minimum vocational school, and I know that's up in the air In the next month the school committee will decide whether Gibbs will be a townwide sixth grade or second middle school I want to actually formally invite you now on Tuesday, May 24th Seven o'clock this room. We will have a public forum to talk about superintendent's recommendations thoughts from the audition teachers and to hear your Communities thoughts and concerns. We invite you all to come While I'm on the subject of Gibbs I want to acknowledge the sadness that many of us feel over the fact that in reclaiming Gibbs for school use We are also displacing organizations that have tremendous value to our community. I Know that the town manager is working very hard to find a solution for the Arlington Center for the arts We support him in those efforts Tonight the school committee voted to direct the superintendent to do what she can to find space over the summer in the summer in the school buildings for the ACA's camp Over the last several months it has been clear to us that Arlington values and I suspect will support Both its schools and the arts. This shouldn't be an either or proposition. I Want to close by noting that Arlington has been very generous to its schools and to say that we're extremely well-served But Arlington's commitment to a long-range financial plan and by its ability to judiciously adjust the plan when new conditions emerge The enrollment growth we're experiencing is a challenge to be sure But it is a challenge that we will meet as a community I have confidence that we will begin to we will continue to build Arlington's future Thank you. Thank you, ma'am Any other reports of committees? ma'am Thank You mr. Moderator. I'm Ann LaRoyer from precinct 17 and the chair of the open space committee And I'd like to move that the open space committee report be received All in favor Your port is so received. Thank you The committee's report is printed in the town's annual report So I don't have extra copies here, but you can see the report in the in that book I do have copies for the moderator However, I wanted to speak tonight because I wanted to let you know that the town's open space and recreation plan For 2015 through 2022 Was approved by the state's Department of Conservation Services last September that's part of the process that all town open space plans have to go through It was also previously adopted by the Arlington redevelopment board, which is the town's planning agency and it has been Widely supported by many other town bodies including the select men and the town manager We had a small number of copies printed because it's quite expensive This is a copy of our the main report There's also a separate appendices, which is all part of the required Sorry product of required protocol for the the state Planning process, but all of this material is on the town's website on the open space committee's page on the town website and There were hard copies at the libraries and in most of the Town departments and offices here in town hall so the other thing I wanted to mention is that also on the town website on our page Was an effort that we took Working with the GIS staff in the planning department to try to make some of this information more accessible to residents when they're Walking around town to enjoy the open spaces And so we they helped us create an open space app It's called experiencing Arlington's open spaces and this interactive program is Available so you can download it on to your smartphones or tablets or whatever you have and it has some pleasure There's maps and showing the trails within each of the 19 of the selected sites Around town includes selected parks some of the water bodies of recreation areas So now that we finally have some nice weather out there I hope you'll all get out and check out the application on the website and start to enjoy our Wonderful open spaces. Thank you very much Thank you very much. Any other reports of committees? Seeing none. Mr. Tosti All in favor laying out three upon the table, please say yes Opposed article 3 is upon the table That brings us to article 35 appropriation town budgets. Mr. Tosti Mr. Moderator For the last two weeks I've been saying I've been telling you that this would be the day or the night that we spend on the Minuteman budget and the Minuteman project, which is very important to us therefore in that line I move that article 35 through 42 be laid upon the table Okay, we have a motion to lay articles 35 through 42 upon the table all in favor, please say yes Opposed those articles are upon the table that brings us to article 43 minute man Appropriations, I'd like to introduce mr. Steve D'Corsi a member of the finance committee who will be making the presentation on the Minuteman budget Mr. D'Corsi Thank You mr. Moderator Steve D'Corsi precinct 2 and a member of the finance committee I'll be first starting going to talk for a couple minutes and then introduce dr. Boquilin who's the superintendent of the Minuteman districts. I'd like to ask for 15 minutes total There's a request of the Mr. D'Corsi for 15 minutes total for the Minuteman presentation all in favor, please say yes Opposed you have your 15 minutes, sir Thank you a while to figure it out go ahead you can start thank you mr. Moderator as contained in the Finance committee report we are recommending favorable action and appropriation of three million six forty nine three forty nine for the Minuteman school district and for you New town meeting members voting this appropriation is the same as voting approval of the Minuteman budget I'm going to give you a couple of Highlights of the budget and then turn it over to dr. Boquilin The way Minuteman works is all of the expenses of the budget I developed all of the revenue sources other than member assessments I then reduced from that total and what is left is the in-district assessment So this year dr. Boquilin will tell you that the budget has gone up point five two percent It will be a total of nineteen point seven million after the revenue Estimates are subtracted the in-district assessments are ten million nine forty three seven thirty nine That's actually an increase of point five percent Arlington voted last year earlier this year to Go along with the amendment to the regional agreement and as revised now the annual assessment is based on a rolling average of assessments Applying that rolling average gets us to the assessment of three million six forty nine three forty nine The number of students has actually gone down this year But when you average it with the other three years that the drop isn't as dramatic as it would have been under the old Arrangement last year's assessment was four million oh ten nine fifty and this year will be three million six forty nine three forty nine When eleven communities in the district vote to approve the the budget it's approved for everybody Tonight need them may have already voted to be the eleventh community. We may be the twelfth But I want to turn it over to dr. Boquilin now for a fuller presentation on the on the budget dr. Boquilin Mr.. Good, I think you have the wrong slide show Who are in the regular? Article 3043 you can start dr. Boquilin unless you're gonna use that right away Okay, so do we have the presentation? Here you go Sent to everyone earlier today let me just to Not to waste anybody's time, but just a brief correction our overall budget is down by point five percent from last year although member town assessments are up by Point five percent As mr. Decorsi mentioned the overall regional agreement revisions have impacted this budget year and also how our assessments were calculated As I mentioned overall the budget is down point five percent Some of the key guidelines that were followed this year was that we were to have no increase in staffing at Minuteman We level dollar funded supplies and services and we're also using our federal Perkins money all for equipment rather than for personnel That's been a five-year transition plan one of the biggest changes in our Revenue plan this year was a reduction in the amount of tuition that we collect from non-resident communities We had a reduction of about $900,000 part of that is in in is due to the fact that the school committee voted in June of 2014 to move towards a smaller sized school in Response to the concerns of the 16-member towns regarding the size of the school that's being proposed and will be discussed later on We've made up much of that $972,000 decrease in member district tuition by increasing the contribution from our excess and deficiency account That's similar to free cash for a town, but we've contributing 825,000 in this proposed budget for FY 17 Overall the budget impacts we continue to fund our contractual obligations. We're anticipating about a 5% increase in our health insurance General insurance about 3% We do have some capital operating capital needs that are described in this FY 17 budget That are really for Repairs related to ADA compliance and health and safety issues Our school bus contract which were in the first year of a new three-year contract was up 8% over last year Transportation is one of the cost drivers for Minuteman in a district that Spans 35 miles across and 32 miles north and south our transportation costs per pupil are significant We're going to be looking at alternatives to contracting in the way that we do We're going to be analyzing for next year including owning our own buses Bidding our routes differently right now our buses reside in Lexington and have to drive all the way to Lancaster and back Twice a day, so there might be some ways to reduce that as we go forward overall this budget reflects a reduction of Staffing by 11.5 full-time equivalents one administrative position is not being restored Eight teaching positions and two and a half support positions What we've done over the last couple of years as we're transitioning to a smaller school is when someone retires or moves to a different district We don't replace that position. We've been very fortunate that we have been able to Manage it in what I call a humane way So there's been no active layoffs as we continue to right-size the building to that design enrollment Approved by the school committee almost two years ago Arlington's enrollment as mr. Decorsi mentioned for this fiscal year is 120 down from 152 in 2014 which is Down from 165 from 13 the four-year rolling average is really meant to Take some of the valleys and peaks out of these assessments Overall our budget again is 19.7 million Our estimated revenue plan 10.9 million from our member district communities chapter 78 We're getting about 2.1 million we expect the transportation reimbursement of about 900,000 Tuition total tuition revenue is 4.4 million We're gonna be collecting some tuition next year as well and again 825,000 from our excess and deficiency account Which brings the Arlington assessment for Fy 17 to 3.6 million down about 361,000 from Fy 16 Thank you It's back. You could have told me But you're doing a good job so all right So if you want to go through your chart go for it you have seven minutes This shows the enrollment over the last couple of years that shows our freshman enrollment What it doesn't show is our applications for next year, which is up about 15% from our member towns This is the enrollment what I was just referring to This is the Arlington Comparance of the assessment from last year to this year and you all have this on your chair as well But you can see the The overall enrollment Number that's being used is based upon that four-year rolling average of 135 And the assessment at 3.6 million This is a look at our overall budget using the state fund codes You'll see a reduction of 373,000. That's really in the area of personnel And you'll see the asset and acquisition lied item is down 433,000 and Our debt service is up 596,000 what we've done is planned for 500,000 to be paid on the bond for the new building should the new building be fully approved If it's not fully approved We would be moving that to some of the projects that I I described so we have We've had to plan for two scenarios going forward and this is the revenue plan I reviewed And that concludes my presentation. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, sir Mr. Jameson, thank you, Mr. Moderator Gordon Jameson for seeing 12. I thank the superintendent for his vigilant Working on all the matters related to the minute man. I had one question that You mentioned it again, and you mentioned it in the Saturday the Sunday session applications to the school which you anticipate also the new building will increase What happens do children not get allowed to attend Or you have more applicants than spots. How does that work? well, we haven't enjoyed that situation for a while, but in a situation where there is over enrollment our Admissions policy speaks to how that is to handle but basically all member town applications Are considered and those applicants are accepted prior to any out of district students being accepted So then some of the students that are accepted decide not to attend correct, okay, okay, and the other question I had What is the status of your? Employee retirement fund is that fully vested or not and also the other post-employment benefit of the healthcare portion of that Which is the the next big right? Yeah, this budget continues to fund our OPEB Liabilities with about fifty thousand dollars. I think it's the same that we did last year So we have begun to fund that liability As far as the Minuteman retirement, we're funded at about 95 percent In that it's one of the highest funded retirement systems in the state at this point. I commend you on that. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Deist for your presentation I Would like to know a little bit if I could please About how you're handling special education and the size of the special agent Special agent how much of your budget is involved with special education if I may ask Yeah, thank you for the question Minuteman enjoys one of the highest percentage of students on special ed plans of any school in the Commonwealth 47% of our students are receiving some services through an IEP in order for them to access the curriculum again, when we look at our budget as a percentage of the total about 14 percent of our budget is Dedicated to providing those services so the students can access the curriculum more fully the academic curriculum as well as the vocational technical curriculum and I'm proud to report that this year our we had a hundred percent MCAS passing rate on the first try for English language arts and 97 percent on the first try for math 100% pass first try chemistry and biology as well So our students do very well at Minuteman who are receiving additional services to access the curriculum and it's one of our cost drivers as well as transportation Thank you. Mr. Schlickman Paul Schlickman precinct nine. I see in the presentation that The fiscal 17 transportation amount for Arlington is two hundred twenty eight thousand eight hundred fifty nine dollars. Is that right? Yes, sir What wasn't a condition of regionalization by the state that if we regionalize they would provide a hundred percent of transportation for a regional school district You know I heard that myself And I don't think they've ever done it They did it once upon a time But this is a magical set of words called subject to Appropriation and the legislature Habitually under funds this account now most of the towns that are in academic regions particularly further west Squawk about the lack of full funding for regional school transportation on a regular basis It's something that doesn't hit our radar here in Arlington very often because most of our kids walk to school But this is a large amount of money that we should not be paying because the state made a commitment When we regionalized to fully fund regional school Transportation so that if you hear any words being directed to the legislature about their failure to fully fund regional school Transportation yes, it impacts us too. We should be vigilant on this issue. Thank you very much. Thank you Miss Weber Thank you. Mr. Moderator Janus. We were precinct 21. I just like to ask the superintendent if they have a robotics Department in Minutemen robotics. Yes, we do robotics and automation is a chapter 74 approved program great Because that's one of the most upcoming things that we need to have in our schools. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Anyone else wish to Discuss the Minutemen budget Seeing none We'll take up the vote we have before us a recommended vote of the finance committee for the Minutemen Appropriation for their annual budget three million six hundred forty nine thousand three hundred forty nine dollars soon as you're ready Mr. Lathwood, please wait for the green light to go on before you vote When it comes on vote one for yes to for no, that's not the running tab Switching issue. Oh, I see the boss isn't here Okay, want us to well. We don't even have a clock Okay, here's our clock. Do you want us to vote again one for yes to for no? But one yes for the Minutemen appropriation to for no It is approved one hundred ninety five in the positive two in the negative three abstentions It's a vote and I so declare it that ends article forty three. Mr. Tosti Well town meeting members I move to adjourn the annual town meeting until article six of the special town meeting is complete All the favor of joining the regular town meeting to go into the special town meeting article six, please say yes opposed Okay, we are now Town meeting in real town meeting is now adjourned. We are now in the special town meeting We have article six before us minimum regional vocational bond authorization Okay, the handout was made last week. Hopefully everybody's had a chance to do it on the article Proposed motion in the this handout the original is the motion of the finance committee There was another hand out this on your seats today Please ignore that and go with the original motion if you only have the new handout cross out everything after Proposition two and a half Six so so we got one last week Dated No date two page two pages with a whole bunch of other pages. That's what we're doing the one we receive today It's so much recycling Or you can use the back for scrap Ignore the amendment. Okay I'd like to introduce Steve D'Corsi who'll give the presentation for the finance committee. It's to D'Corsi Thank You mr. Moderator mr. Moderator for this presentation I am going to speak for a few minutes once again, and then I will introduce Dr. Bocquo and who will be making a more extensive presentation Just out of an abundance of caution like to request 25 minutes Okay, we have a request for 25 minutes for the minute me in bonding issue all in favor, please say yes Opposed we're gonna do an electronic vote to cheers and doubt all in favor of giving them 25 minutes Please vote yes as soon as mr. Laughwood's ready, and if you don't want to give them additional time Vote no Okay, go ahead one for yes additional time to no you do not want them to have additional time It's a hundred forty three in the positive hundred thirty four in the positive fifty nine of the negative you have your additional time, sir Okay, thank you mr. Moderator Tell meeting members in the vote that mr. Tosti just referred to the recommended vote of the finance committee is for approval of The borrowing authorized by the minute man vocational district. It's a contingent vote At the end of the vote It's contingent upon the approval conditioned upon the successful vote of the town in the debt exclusion Which would take place on June 14th? I have some slides that I want to run through and then I will turn it over to dr. Bocquo and I've been on the finance committee since 1994 and I'd say for the first five years We had nothing but unanimous votes since then it's been a little bit more contested That isn't a typo in page five of the finance committee report It was a tend to aid vote in favor of the authorization and it just really bespeaks how Difficult this issue has been for for those of us who have studied it and on both sides of the issue frankly The vote here tonight Just want to clarify The chapter 71 section 16d provides a mechanism where if a regional school Committee votes for debt authorization it then goes to all of the member communities Within that district if one member of the of the district votes disapproval of the request then the request basically Can cannot be brought forward? Last Wednesday Belmont voted to disapprove the request by minute man. So we're here before you tonight Really on an informational for an informational vote on on this issue There are 16 communities in the district six are going to leave the district right now 16 communities will be voting on this Authorization, but with Belmont's vote it effectively ends the the request of the minute man school committee And there'll be other options that dr. Bocquo and we'll speak about but we did want to bring it before town meeting and Get town meetings Voice heard on this issue. So I I have a Brief overview and I'll turn it over The total cost of the project as dr. Bocquo and will Present for new schools a hundred and forty five million dollars The reimbursement from the state is forty four point seven five percent of eligible costs The thirty point four six percent is projected for Total cost that there's some part some costs within that a hundred and forty five million dollars that aren't eligible for reimbursement What that leaves is a hundred point nine million dollars that the district has to absorb both through member communities and out of district communities Minutemen as part of their due diligence Studied both a renovation and new construction The new construction as I just said is roughly a hundred and forty five million their estimate of the renovation is a hundred and five million I just want to let you know I put an asterisk next to that because there's been a number of questions as to what's included in that number of A hundred and five million dollars One thing I will say is their estimate is that amount that is only to redo the building You'll hear from dr. Bocquo and that the building as constructed in the mid 70s No longer fits the educational needs of a 21st century vocational education And so even if this amount or something close to it was spent There are millions of dollars that they estimate on top of that that would be needed to both right-size the facility and also make it More compatible with with the educational needs of today's vocational students Now I want to get to just some of the the difficulties that we had and as a as a group with the finance committee We determined that that the risk of not going forward outweighed the risks of doing nothing at this point and a couple of the Comparisons that I want to make is that if the project were approved and it went the MSBA route The project would be entitled to the state reimbursement that I talked about the forty four point seven five percent If on the other hand the property was renovated. There's no reimbursement Okay, so that's that's a forty to forty five million dollar issue the second point and again this dr. Bocquo and we'll go through this in more detail We have right now over 200 out of district students in the Minuteman district It's projected that with a new school six hundred and twenty eight students. There'll be approximately 170 out of stick out of district students right now the out of district students don't pay any capital cost so their communities don't pay any capital costs With a new building however Minuteman would be entitled to charge a capital fee to those out of district students and again as I said in the budget presentation Any other revenue source reduces the in-district assessment. It also would reduce the capital costs to the in-district communities This is where we are now this table shows the number of students in Minuteman both in-district and out of district 396 in district 277 out of district again the projected enrollment and what the building has been approved for Is it enrollment of six hundred and twenty eight students Minuteman has projected that? If the building were to be built the in-district population would be about 458 Arlington would be about one fifty five of that again its projections And out of district would be 170 and I just illustrate this because you're gonna hear a lot about Minuteman's population decreasing From other speakers and there's no question that the numbers have come down But even from where we are we're Minuteman is today What's being projected for years is is a lower enrollment? So the fact that it's going down is it necessarily inconsistent with the request for a new building but the enrollment figures really are the heart are at the heart of the risk question to because It's all about seats with with Minuteman because again Your operating assessments are based on enrollment the capital assessments are based on enrollment and so to the extent that Arlington which is right now about a third of the in-district population that number goes down our Assessment goes down and and so the risk that we have is that the out of district number of 170 if that goes down to zero We're responsible for a third of all the capital costs, okay, and there's no reimbursement no capital fee So it's a big risk and and so that's that's the difficulty but again you have to weigh that with That the fact that there's no reimbursement if you don't go forward there's no capital fee and I have to think and others who voted along with me here that it that a new building Will attract students to to the facility so whether we go forward or not We're gonna be a member of this district and we're gonna be responsible for costs So I just wanted to point that out on the enrollment basis This again gets to the heart of the risk issue The estimated first year debt service again This Minuteman has come up with a projection of what the total debt service would be if the project goes forward It's five point three million dollars The in-district portion of that would be three point eight eighty four fifty nine per student The out of district would be eighty four seventy two and for those town meeting members who remembered years ago the problems that we had with Minuteman with choice students who Communities would send their students to Minuteman and they'd pay five thousand dollars and Communities would pay the difference between five thousand dollars and fifteen thousand dollars or fourteen thousand dollars to subsidize the out of stick District students there is an equity here. That's being proposed through the capital fee and and again There's a risk maybe Minuteman doesn't get a hundred and seventy students out of district Maybe they don't get to four hundred and fifty eight, but It's a type of thing. We can't predict What's what's gonna happen? We do know that we have a building that was built in 1974 open in 1974 That I think everybody who's looked at it agrees is in is in need of an upgrade serious upgrade and so the question then becomes do you take the risk and Accept the reimbursement from the state and and work to move forward And and work with the other communities or do you go back to the drawing board and and look for other alternatives? all the while paying a third of all the operating costs paying a third of any Capital projects frankly that that need to be undertaken Because again will be responsible for that. We're not getting out of the district. We're gonna be a Within the district for the foreseeable future. So when you look at this, I ask you to look at it Not as an outsider, but but realize that we're in the agreement no matter what happens here And we're responsible for costs and which way may be the better way to move forward So with that I'm gonna turn it over to dr. McQuillan Again who has a more extensive presentation Thank You mr. DeCorsi You have the Minuteman presentation and along with all the other seat padding you have there was a Minuteman presentation there on this as well Thank you So just an overview quickly we were established in 1970 as many of you know we provide academic coursework as well as career and Technical education we believe this gives our students a competitive advantage in the new global economy This project at a high altitude view is designed around 628 257,000 square feet the construction budget is about a hundred and nineteen million the overall costs are about a 145 As again as Steve said the reimbursement rate is As you see there This is a rendering of the project, but let me just talk a little bit about the project for a few minutes The need is pretty obvious anyone who's been there who has taken the time to look at our engineering reports That have been online We'll see the need for something needs to be done at Minuteman over the last Years we've spent quite a bit of money just repairing and and keeping things going We did invest in a new boiler for energy efficiency a few years back the New England Association of schools and colleges put Minuteman on warning status solely because of the facility Use so there is I don't think the need is questioned I think what's been questioned is why the new building and why not some other Alternative and I can talk to that The MSBA process which you're involved in now with a number of different school projects that are all very important And I appreciate the school committee's Comment that we have all of our schools to be concerned with and I want you to have a new High school. I want you to have the best schools you can for the students that are there And I want to have the best Minuteman we can for the Arlington students that attend We submitted our statement of interest in November of 2008 2008 we were offered entry into the process a year later We are the longest-running feasibility study in the history of the MSBA MSBA has only been in existence ten years and we've been there about eight with them which they remind me every time I see them I think we send each other holiday cards now So basically what MSBA required us to do was to investigate a number of options thoroughly with the design team Which includes architects engineers of a variety of sorts? We looked at not only a repair only option, but a renovation renovation renovation addition and new construction options for two sized schools when we began one size school was 435 and the other size school was 800 MSBA Evaluated the preferred solution that was a new school at a lower enrollment and approved it unanimously They felt that building the a school of about 628 was about the smallest school they would approve We will be able to offer the kind of programming we've been offering and we would be able to address the Educational programming for years to come by really being reflective of what is a flexible design look like These are some of the options that were presented to the MSBA about a year ago and you can see from this and I apologize it's I can't even read this handout here, but These options over on the Left-hand side. I'll just forgive my back for a moment But I want to make sure I'm and this is online and it was sent to you electronically as well option a was for a renovation of 435 option b was new 435 and you can go on down to option H Which was what was submitted to the MSBA of a new school for 628 and the estimated total cost for these projects You can see option B, which is a new school for 435 was estimated at a hundred and forty three million dollars So the the economies of scale of going smaller aren't really reflected in what you spend on a building and Obviously renovation to a large school like Minuteman right now that was designed for well over a thousand Renovation of that vintage you're going to get into problems and it drives the costs up Because of the materials that you find and the remediation that may need to be happening. So the goals of our project For the MSBA project was to implement a research-based data-driven Academy model. We want to protect our accreditation It's very important to parents and families that we maintain our accreditation We want to provide a facility that continues to motivate students and help them find their passion We want to intensify some of our programming and offering new programs Innovative programs and we want to create a campus feel that's compelling and attractive to all This is an high-level Obviously overview of the new facility. You can see that it's on the left-hand side. That's all in the town of Lincoln The far you there's a yellow How does this work? There we go. This little line here is the border between Lexington and Lincoln This is where the school currently is we do have one athletic field down in here That's restored but all this area becomes available We hope for athletic fields and possibly some other potential development that could benefit the project This is a look at our Academy model. The Academy model is really very simply defined It's a small group of teachers from diverse areas of the school Caring for the student in a much more intensive way than we're able to in a larger Academy model it's sort of a school within a school and you can see that we have the engineering trades Academy as well as the life sciences and services Academy. We're offering 16 vocational technical programs providing the opportunity for students to For 19 career majors two new programs that are offered in this configuration as advanced Manufacturing which we've combined with metal fabrication and multimedia engineering Some of the considerations of an Academy model is that the school is a small school with flexible spacing Similar curricula is near one another in the building. We have collaborative learning spaces and project-based learning spaces We're supporting workforce education priorities in the selection of programming And we're trying to enhance our ability to support all students in this design Because of the large number of special ed students. There are some unique spaces in here Which are designed around continuing to deliver those Services we're looking at modern technical labs Meeting industry standards. This is an important consideration when you build a vocational technical school You're building a high school, but you're also building very unique spaces that must maintain industry Credentially our students achieve industry credentials our teachers are licensed in the fields that they're trained in And they our spaces must reflect those real world training facilities So think about a biotech space at Minuteman that must have a clean lab Area think about the advanced manufacturing and all the power and equipments the ventilation requirements all very unique spaces We continue to offer services to the public In cosmetology in early childhood services automotive and a culinary arts and hospitality area Getting natural light into the building was a concern of students As well as staff We have some project-based learning spaces that are unique where within each academy Students and teachers from the different programs within each academy including the academic teachers Work on projects those projects need a place to reside and be sustained We continue to operate public meeting spaces One of the things our business partners told us was that we there are not enough areas for them to meet To provide training to their employees And we're looking at providing that in this space as well And then providing students their own space. I've got to mention that my students I involved the students in the design and planning of this about two years ago. I've had Representatives from each class the sophomores juniors and seniors Who spent hours with myself with the design team? They were able to solve problems that the designers could not They were able to see things from the lens of a student. They'd say dr. B We know where all these kids hang out We know every part of this building and this is what we want in a new building now these kids committed their time their energy Their intellect Even though they were going to never step foot in it themselves That's how committed they were to seeing a new minute man that's going to serve Kids following them. I'm just so impressed with their ability to give And to make sure that their ideas were heard. It was one of the most satisfying things about this entire eight years Other than arlington approving it tonight, of course So some of the things about vocational technical schools that I mentioned they're larger than a traditional high school Those complex spaces must be provided the square footage requirements and formulas that the msba puts out are really designed around classroom based schools You know they they give you about a two hundred and twenty five Square feet per child in a regular academic high school But for a vocational school you have to add on top of that The minimum requirements for shop spaces that have been defined by the department of ed And if you took all our shop spaces that adds another hundred and fifty Square foot per pupil and that does not include tool storage Materials and supplies in related rooms. So this building which is about four hundred and nine Square feet per student is more than a traditional high school, but there's a very good reason for it So when we look at our overall expenses, this might be more appropriate in my budget presentation, but I remind folks that Staffing a vocational technical high school. We have two full staffs Full academic staff as well as a Vocational technical staff a large number of special ed staff Our transportation costs and special ed costs are higher This new school as we begin to shrink it our operating budget will continue to go down We're down a half a percent now. We're anticipating That or more next year as some of the programs that will no longer be operating Begin to close we're required to run those programs to the last senior graduates And so we're carrying a lot more staff than we will in a new building. We believe enrollment will increase Why because we've had we've seen it already We're at the end of our first year of a new marketing recruitment and retention program Our applications at this point in time are up 15 percent over all of last year We've seen increasing elementary enrollment in member towns including arlington as you heard from the school committee We're seeing that in belmont lexington and conquered as well We're seeing increased interest in career and technical education as confirmed by our middle school guidance staff throughout the district We had a survey done back august which showed Tremendous support for this new project 68 and a half percent of district voters approved the project Approved of it only eight and a half percent Were against it We believe that parents are beginning to see the return on investment in career and technical education In a high school experience is very valuable for helping their students find purpose When they move into college and choose a major they have an understanding of what they can do what they're good at This is just some of the data from the survey that we did with our middle school guidance counselors across all 16 towns Um 71 to 81 percent felt that the need for vocational education was being Recognized that the applications would increase over the next five years that parents were beginning to see a need for vocational education We also wanted to get a sense of their attitudes towards minute man And this was a sea change from 10 years ago Where it was really difficult to understand what our middle school guidance counselors were aware of when it came to vocational technical education But 100 of those responding and the response was about 55 percent of the guidance counselors 100 felt that vocational technical education Was a good foundation for college 10 years ago The the mindset was if you go to a vocational school, you're not going to college that has changed dramatically The new costs for the building are in line with other costs There's only been three other vocational schools built in the last 10 years in massachusetts And the msba has really Admitted I guess or asked us for help in how they go about this But in this cost per square foot minute man is in the range of the others put them vocational school In springfield massachusetts estix agi which was a combination of the agricultural high school peabody vocational school In north shore and I got to say are those three schools that have completed above minute man there Within a year of opening they all had waiting lists from their member towns of hundreds of kids And we've seen this across the commonwealth when new schools are built There is a cost to doing nothing we'll lose about 44 million in state funds capital fees Our accreditation could be lost Uncertainty about our project is going to hinder our enrollment And we'll still need to spend perhaps up to 100 million, but even if we're off that number by 20 million We're going to have to spend a lot of money on a building that's not going to be matched to the educational program Needs that we see now and if we start to renovate the building there are triggers that come into play If you spend over 30 of your budget on a renovation you have to bring the whole building up to code This slide I believe mr. Decorsi went over Some of the things about renovating that are unknowns we'd have to get back into the process with msba That could take years We need to begin all over our feasibility study The new school costs and tax impacts. We cannot exceed that amount. We have to bring it in on budget For arlington. We're estimating about 75 dollars for the median homeowner I know if we use the average homeowner, it's about 85 dollars And but that's the cost Next steps once we get approval and once I talk to the msba about belmont's vote. We'll move on and Work with you Going forward Thank you Thank you Mr. Foskett I prepare to hand out Foskett All for you Al I call charlie Oh, i'm sorry. I thought Gordy Tossi Tosti. I mean they all sound the same Thank you, mr. Moderator charles foskett precinct eight I'm standing before you as a town meeting member from precinct eight and not as a representative of either the finance committee or the capital planning committee and I Would like to ask the meeting if I could have 10 minutes as opposed to the normal seven because of the complexity of this subject Okay, mr. Foskett's requesting 10 minutes total time all in favor. Please say yes opposed I believe you have 10 minutes, sir. Thank you very much So Better way point this thing to So I stand before you to ask your support In opposing this project And I want to emphasize at the outset that this is not representative of any specific animosity towards Minnaman high school or to its students or to the staff But it's towards the project itself I think we have to vote no On article six for two reasons first of all on the issues and secondly on the form of the article On the key issues I think the cost is too high the risk is too high And the project itself is unfair If you look at this slide behind me You see on the right hand the the cap in the graph you see the the red bar is the capital cost per student for the Minnaman project the blue bars are the Arlington middle school project The thompson elementary school addition in Arlington high schools project The you can see the dramatic difference in the capital cost per student and we have This year as dr. McQuillan pointed out only 120 students from Arlington And we're talking about assuming a cost of 33 million dollars or around 229,000 dollars per student when you look at the four-year average the four-year average is 144 students Minnaman at over 25,000 dollars a year is Either the most expensive or one of the most expensive vocational ed schools in the state on an operating basis At a minimum this project of what will add 1.2 million dollars in capital costs and for 120 students That's 10,000 dollars a year more for the student per student cost Compared to the prices and costs we have for our students in the Arlington public school system This is not a fair situation and it's not fair to the Arlington taxpayers Here is a depiction of What the annual debt services per student in Arlington versus in the Minnaman district The Minnaman district is 500 higher per student Now it's on the right hand side. I'm showing a capital cost of 2063 dollars per student Today the capital cost per student in Arlington is about 600 dollars This 2000 dollars is the estimate of the cost in 2020 After we've completed the middle school expansion after we've added on to the thompson and after we've completed a new Arlington high school After all of those projects are over we still have a five-to-one ratio in a capital cost per student Of Minnaman compared to that of Arlington. So my argument to you is that this is just too expensive I also would argue that despite the presentation given by Dr. McClellan and Mr. Corsi Previously if you look into and read the material on the Minnaman website, you'll find out that the um diligence applied to looking at alternatives Was uh at the at the very least light You didn't you don't see the sort of uh comparison that the Arlington public school system recently did between the Gibbs and the oddison with the hmfh architects And I show you an example here Where these back in the envelope calculations were escalated at six percent a year When the department of revenue cost escalation parameters are between two and three percent a year If you and I were getting six percent a year in our bank accounts, we'd be happy campers That difference between three percent and six percent just on this this one example, which I've taken from the Minnaman documentation has a increases the cost Of one version of the project by nine million dollars or six six sixteen percent, which is pretty substantial The big risk as Mr. The Corsi pointed out is enrollment You see on the chart on the right 16 10 and nine town enrollment history The first thing I want to point out is that six towns are leaving the district So the we're starting off uh Not with 398 students, but with 357 students because the departing towns are taking away that balance If you so that you you'd go from the the red line to the blue line with the 10 years With the 10 towns in the in these system If you go then take take Arlington out, you see that the remaining population is around 200 250 students now The 10 the the 10 year decline In the 10 towns has been 19 a year But Arlington's decline on using these four year rolling averages is only 13 That means the other nine towns that we're relying upon to help absorb this huge cost Are declining at a faster rate than we are almost twice as fast as we are So I think what I want to highlight here is that Minnaman is predicting 458 enrollment from member towns Right now we're sitting at 357 So that's a 28 increase that they would have to get from member towns in addition the department of elementary and Secondary education has set new barriers for the recruiting of ninth graders And the application of an 8500 or 9500 a year capital cost to out of district students Is not going to attract students My experience is when you raise the price on something Generally speaking people buy less of it And I think that's going to happen here and the history points to the fact that the enrollment has been declining for 10 years so You have in your seats this this sheet that says Why we must veto Minnaman's special time meeting article six. I've just given you Problems with the issues the high cost the risk the lack of fairness But there's also a fundamental flaw in the article The board of selectmen did not call for a debt exclusion vote within 60 days of Minnaman asking for a bond authorization So that that means that if if we vote the contingent article that was presented by the finance committee And We go forward And don't vote for a debt exclusion A town that has supported it could challenge us The Minnaman district could challenge us Because our negative vote Occurred after the 60 day time period So I think that the the fundamental fundamental article is flawed flawed because we missed this 60 day window There's no mention in the article about Contingent approval or the opinion of town council or the opinion of bond council The law says that the bond request is not vetoed within 60 days that bond may not go forward So I think the town of Arlington If if it turns out that we don't support a debt exclusion We're at the risk for absorbing 1.2 million to 1 maybe 1.8 or even 2 million dollars in cost for the next 30 years Coming out of our non-exempt budget So I strongly urge you for two reasons first for the Three issues that I mentioned before the exorbitant cost The lack of fairness The declining the risk from declining student enrollment And because the article itself is flawed, I strongly urge you to support the substitute motion and veto The request For for the project and the minimum at school. Thank you. Okay. That's second on your motion Less than Less than 10 minutes Okay, let's take our seven minute break What's your point of order, sir team or yonfer precinct seven Regarding the article six substitute motion that was moved and seconded Dated may 9th. Does it comply with the 48 hour rule? I'm I'm looking at that motion. Um, I've In my opinion, it it's small enough in that all it really is changing is the first line from approves Besides all the other verbiage after the two of them they're going from Approves the borrowing and he's saying Disapproves or rejects So in my opinion it it's close enough to the original That it can be plus of the Compressed time frame that we've had on this issue with the belmont just declining last week He didn't have a chance to get it to us within 48 hours So as opposed to postponing the whole issue until wednesday and the Small enough change in it. I'm going to allow it in Based on those two factors. Thank you, sir. Thank you Mr. Dunn Thank you, mr. Moderator First off on a report that earlier tonight needom unanimously approved this building project, which added another town to the yes column And in addition to superintendent ed booquillan with us tonight. We have kevin mahoney who's the assistant superintendent Ford spaulding as the chairman of the minute man school building committee Arlington's recently appointed member to that committee is now of cabba and sue sheffler who are people who are available for Here with questions I wanted to point out that the There's a minute man task force that the board of selectman approved Appointed to study this question because we knew it was going to be a difficult question The minute man that consisted of two select men two school committee members superintendent of schools The town manager member of the permanent town building committee And oh the member of the art of the A couple on a member from minute man I'm sure forgetting somebody that group approved this or recommended approval in this project eight to one Before I give my presentation, which I assure you I'm not asking for extra time I just wanted to touch on one of the arguments that uh, mr. Foskett made just before the break Which is related to the bond council and one of the argument or related to the whether or not We can So we're taking a vote tonight that's inside the 60 days that's mandated by the state law The override on june 14th is out of the 60 days in the case I believe that if I understood mr. Foskett correctly the case that he's making is that because it's outside of the june 14th date That if that is disapproved like if we our voters disapprove that on june 14th that That we could still be forced to pay for it and the bonds would still go forward one of the things Uh, the the reason that that argument isn't Isn't correct or why is that in why we can take the vote tonight and depend on the june 14th vote Is because those bonds can only be issued with approval of bond council Bond council's guy by miss the name by mr. Manley mr. Manley does everybody's bonds He does minute man's bonds. He does lexington's bonds. He does arlington's bonds and mr. Manley says In writing which is available to all of us and has been passed out to finance committee And we can distribute it as necessary If that override fails on june 14th, I will not issue those bonds And so that is why we don't i'm not the structural failure that charlie is concerned about. I am not Mr. Foskett's concerned about I am not concerned about Uh, and so I want to talk about and i'm going to touch on some of his other issues But i'm also going to make a few points of my own and bring back some of the points that, uh, Mr. De Curse and um superintendent will kill unmaid I want to talk about outcomes Not the paths we get there, but what are the outcomes that we're going to get? One of the classes of outcomes is if we participate in the building There's a good outcome, which is essentially what you've seen planned it comes out as the costs that we expect There's a great outcome that could happen Which is another town joints that our costs become lower water town joints Wall tham joins metaphor joints ever joined something like that The negative outcome would be as if the district begins to wither i'm going to cover that one a little bit later The other class of outcomes is the no build This is where we block the outcome where we block the building from by voting no tonight We block that building from being built I'm going to start from the bottom All of the things that are in the other category are They're they're hopeful, but they're mirages Every thing that we could think of over the last seven years has been evaluated In terms of dissolving the district reconstituting it like getting wall tham to build a school with us They're all just distractions. I appreciate that many people including myself get very creative when faced with a difficult problem But we're at a place tonight where there really is only one option left on the table Going back to the top the no build option the cheap renovation I've come to believe that that is simply a mirage and it doesn't exist Uh one of the members of our permanent town building committee Alan reedy was a member of this minute man task force and he explained it this way He said sure you can do the roof for three million dollars And then you can do this project for a few million dollars and then you can do this project for a few million dollars We've got a really old building And you have and once you hit this point Then you've got the eight a restrictions and then you have to like in their code violations And then you have to spend a lot more money. There is no cheap option available to us So that leaves us with The middle option which is Expensive renovation So I want to compare like these four possible scenarios in front of you starting in the upper left the yellow the left hand column Is essentially what's being proposed on the paper of what could happen with this building The yellow is the amount of money that the state is contributing The gray is what's coming from out of district students The orange is what's coming from other members of our district And the blue is what's coming from Arlington. It's really about 27 million because we expect the out of district money to come in The second column is if the out of district money doesn't appear It means we completely fill the district with in district students Which would mean of course that Arlington's enrollment has gone up dramatically In that case you can we spend the 33 million And the end of the state covers the top of it Now I have what I call imaginary renovation a and imaginary revenue renovation b I don't really know what the costs of those are going to be. There's there's too much There's a lot more study that would have to happen One of them is a 60 million dollar column The next one is 90 million and of those we'd pay 20 and 30 And so that right hand column the the blue box the amount that Arlington would pay is 30 million Which is more than what we'd be paying in that left hand column And now I want to refer you just to what the overall height of this is you get what you pay for And I want with our 20 or 25 to 33 million dollars. I want to buy the left hand column I don't want to buy the right hand column I'll also leave it to you to ask One another member of the the task force paul schlickman Who if he will tell you what the problems with the other building what the renovated building version would be I'm not worried about the enrollments because the school or I am worried about the enrollments Legitimate people can worry about the enrollments, but we've been at 700 people are more for years I believe that we can finish just fill a 628. We're going to be able to do so going forward I'm going to skip that last point because I'm running out of time The bill reasonable people can disagree about whether or not we're going to actually fill the school I think that we can if you don't think that we can then you probably should vote no But if you think that we're going to be able to maintain the 700 going forward, then you can I am wrapping up. Mr. Moderator town meeting has taken several votes over the last several years and the things that we're concerned about were the fairness The fact that out of district students were not being We're not paying their fair share and the governance We've managed to solve the fairness through additional state regulation and that we're getting a fair share from those And we've solved the governance with this new regional agreement This is the best solution at the best price that is available to us. Please support this building project. Thank you Thank you. Mr. Tosti First of all, I want to apologize to mr. Foskett For trying to take his spot I think my wife may be correct that I about those new hearing aids Um, I'm here for two reasons Um, I prepared a handout for you that you got last week Relying on some data that I obtained from Minuteman on tax impact Unfortunately, they were using medium selling price instead of assessed value Which resulted in in slightly lower estimates Then the manager is using and evaluating our own schools So in the best case scenario Where we get a third of the students from out the side of the district or we attract new towns that do that Instead of a 75 dollar annual impact on the taxpayer. It'll be about 90 dollars In the worst case where we pay Where they have no out-of-district students. We have to Fill the school ourselves meaning within the district Instead of a hundred and three dollars annual impact. It would be about 120 They're not big numbers, but I like to be accurate and I should have caught these and I apologize The second reason I'd like to is the whole legal issue has been raised And I know mr. Dunn just spoke to it, but I'd like Doug hymn our town council to speak to whether there is any legal risk From our contingent vote that the finance committee has recommended that if the Voters on june 14th vote know that somehow we're still going to get stuck with the debt service Mr. Hyman, what's your opinion on that if you have one? Good evening. Doug hymn town council There are two closely connected pieces which makes The risk or any risk of being saddled with debt That we can't pay for because the debt exclusion was not successful Insubstantial in my mind the first is that Mr. Foskett has noted chapter 71 section 16 d Does have this 60 day window But it actually doesn't even require approval. It just says it requires an expression of disapproval There's no form of that disapproval that's outlined no further definition of it So a contingent yes has essentially been analogized to a contingent appropriation And so we recognize on the face of it it appears that there's this 60 day window But what town meeting would be doing tonight is saying Yes, so long as we can pay for it The second issue is has to do with bond council who you've heard a lot about already and the issuance of the bonds And the bond council as mr. Dunn had already summarized indicated in writing That essentially Because he views this as analogous to a contingent appropriation. He's not willing to issue the bonds And while I think that my opinion matters on this and lots of people's opinion matters on this It's really his opinion that matters and whether the bonds actually get issued to Allow a minute man to To incur the debt and if minute man can't have bonds issued on its behalf to incur the debt Arlington can't be saddled with that debt I'd be happy to answer any other questions about this and this is a complicated issue in some ways, but again It's not that anyone disagrees with the plain language presented in Section 16 d It's that absent a bond council who's willing to actually write bonds with that type of risk because remember the bond council is trying to Appropriately hedge risks for minute man. It presents no risks to arlington. Thank you Thank you Mr. Ruderman Thank you. Mr. Moderator michael ruderman prec 9 Minute man is a fantastic place to get an education and it educates a more diverse public Of students than you can imagine sitting in this room as mr. Dr. Bacquillan mentioned District 32 miles by 35 miles from arlington belmont in one end to Lancaster at the other end think what that means For the educational formation for the socioeconomic backgrounds For the nascent goals Expectations desires for outcomes Minute man works it works for a broader student population Then we can imagine sitting here Minute man is a dump If you've been to the building you will cringe I can tell you as a minute man parent That the one thing that holds back minute man recruitment Is the building that the numbers are up 15 percent already this year from year to date last year Is a testament to both the optimism and the execution Of the recruitment plan that the minute man administration has undertaken and is performing on today They don't lose kids in the description of The majors which they call shops They don't lose kids when they talk about what the outcomes of a minute man education are Whether it be Going to college Going to work Going into the armed service of our nation Minute man loses kids when they walk through the door And they cringe too Because the steps are broken and the walls are cracked and the roof leaks it leaks a lot It leaks in a lot of places you can tell by the number of trash barrels on the floors of the various classrooms And the one space that technically serves as the auditorium How often it's been raining in the last week The money has been spent and spent again to fix these things It's an old building and it's hard to fix One of the things that prevents it from being fixed thoroughly Permanently is the fact that you've got a population of students in there all the time And you can't send them out someplace while you're trying to fix it This is one of the unheralded bargains If I can use that word in terms of a 145 million dollar building project one of the unheralded bargains Of the new building plan for a minute man in that the school district already owns the land that it's going to build on Separate from the existing footprint of the building which means that during the course of construction Nobody has to live through the job happening around them on top of them underneath them surrounding them in the next classroom over I certainly don't have to remind anyone who's done a home remodel that didn't move out for a month or two What this is like Or if your own kids in one of our own elementary schools has gone through the Exquisite torture of not knowing where the buses are going to run this year or next year for for your elementary school Because your elementary school is being torn apart and rebuilt Minuteman won't have to undergo that for a new building Of course If all we commit to is a renovation We get the same general outcome with all of the trauma of trying to renovate it around the existing population The same general outcome that unfortunately we've seen through many years at arlington high school of too little too late never quite effective and Economy is short and memory is long in ruin what we should have done back then to do it right the first time But let me speak about fairness previous speaker raised The issue of it's too expensive because if you take the number of kids we're building a new school for And you look at the cost and you divide it by the number of kids. It's a big number. Well, of course it is If you take a six and a half million dollar fire station And you divide it by I don't know Chief I guess he's not with us tonight at the moment. Um, what four five Six house fires in the last year. Am I am I approximately correct? Okay Six and a half million dollars four five six house fires in the last year We spent a million dollars on those people that couldn't even fix their smoke alarms No, this is not the way we look at municipal expenditures Minuteman Even though it's not part of the arlington public school administration and budget Arlington is our our minuteman is ours. Call it the 10th public school if you will It is ours It's not it's not in our downtown. It's not in our town center It's not in anybody's town center It's like You know the hypothetical 10th planet. It's out in the exosphere somewhere. It's in nobody's town Nobody feels the kind of allegiance to it That the kids do And that the faculty do and that the parents do pretty much In one of my first year or second years as a town meeting member I guess I could say I fell in love with this institution Because the speaker got up and said We've got a problem. It's an expensive problem All of our elementary schools Are approaching the end Of their useful lives And we're going to have to rebuild them Big gulp, we're going to have to rebuild them all And we are going to rebuild them all because we're all in this together We're going to start with the school It's the oldest and then we're going to go until we finished with the school It's youngest we're going to start with the school In the neighborhood where the parents have the means To raise $25,000 in a silent auction in one night to stock the new library And we're going to get to the school Where so many kids are on free and reduced lunches That they just opened the doors to everybody and said we'll call it breakfast club in the morning But we're going to do them all Because they're all ours These kids are all ours Minuteman is ours And I urge you to vote for that Thank you, sir Mr. O'Brien Andy O'Brien precinct 16 Those that are new to tau meeting May not They obviously don't remember that I spoke to tau meeting As a student a post grad student at Minuteman and a town meeting member three years ago Just a little update Most of my classmates at the time Worked from Arlington They were people of color They were English Most were English second language students Graduates of Arlington high school Working in a nursing home Another was working at a grocery store as a bush butcher And you know like anyone else they dreamed of the American dream and Wanted to make more money and So they ended up going to Minuteman the plumbing and the HVAC programs And uh today I can report You know, they're probably making triple the salary they were making before They're doing quite well And I just want to say three years ago I'd mentioned I was trying to think well, you know, if we we don't vote for Minuteman, what are the alternatives? and You know, we could combine it into Arlington high school I do remember When I was in fourth grade when there was another When the schools were overburden And I was at the Parmenter school They sent us over to the there were so many fourth graders They sent a classroom of us to the industrial arts, which is the senior center today And it was humming with activity with trades going on then and that's such a small building and I guess the high school had some automotive and all that but You know in 2010 Newton North redid their school, which includes, you know, they kept the trades within their their school district And that was 197 million and then at the same time Cambridge Ringe They did a remodeling and that was 93 million And those numbers now do seem kind of quaint, but as someone who's in the trades right now, I can tell you The price of materials has gone up tremendously The requirements Just to put in a hot water heater takes probably double the time to put in a hot water heater There's probably 40 percent more for a basic hot water heater Just pipe and other materials have gone up in the last few years quite a bit Finally, I don't know if I have time for this Is his what would happen if we voted no tonight with the district go on Does anyone have an answer to that question? Dr. Boquillian Mr. Moderator, I believe the question was if Arlington votes no tonight with the district go on My answer is absolutely the district will go on How it goes on and where it goes may come into question But I believe very strongly That we will achieve a pathway to a new building We need to it's been eight years But the district will continue. Yes Thank you His so any numbers about the possibility of merging the Say that some of the trades and maybe a robotics program into Arlington high school Oh, is that a question to the Arlington school committee? Is there one of you guys? Oh, mr. Tosti is going to give us an answer Yes, sir The this whole discussion around vocational technical education and where it should be placed There are superintendents of regional vocational schools to get very uncomfortable with that. I'm not one of them I believe that we can work together with Arlington high school as we have with Lexington high school to provide access to students from lexington high school We have a minute man in the morning program where juniors and seniors come to minute man For half a day for their entire junior and senior year They graduate with a degree from I mean the high school diploma from lexington high school although some might think it's a degree And trade certificate from from minute man So there may be some programs that would be appropriate in the new Arlington high school And I'll work closely as asked With the school committee to determine what the best mix might be and There are some vocational programs that are fairly low low cost And that's a possibility. I appreciate the the creativity and the question Thank you I guess one final comment A lot of you folks have probably Wanted a plumber or electrician to come to your house and You might have had a wait a while You might have You know been aghast at the size of the bill and all that You know the trades are graying I think the average age for a plumber now is 59. So me at 55 being an apprentice plumber. I don't feel too old But one of the reasons is graying is is it's You just can't go to you know in theory you could go to like your a local plumber and say Hey, can I be an apprentice for you and take a code course at night? But state law really kind of prevents that Um, they can't take on a lot of people minute man provides an opportunity Where you get practical experience In the trade you get credit practical hours that goes towards a licensure and um You know when you get out You're the type of you're the type of apprentice that the people in the trades Need and require right now. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Mr. Carmen ma'am Leba. Hi. I'm precinct 11 and I rise in support of the substitute motion Um, I think that every child is entitled to vocational education. I don't think that's what we're debating But there are a lot of opinions being put out there as they are facts That really are opinions We've heard that minute man is a great value Minuteman charges over 26,000 per student northeast 20,000 shahsheen 18,000 There's a difference in what vocational schools cost Minuteman provides a great education For a lot of different students. There are level two school right now A lot of voc schools are in the same position But not all of them are shahsheen happens to be one of the level one schools Arlington high school is a level one school and has a very diverse student population So we're in a position where those are just part of the information the background that guides our decision about what kind of facility we want and While the cost of the facility does seem like quite a lot In essence schools are expensive and good schools are very expensive But what concerns me even more is the Assumptive cost that we're going to be taking after this renovation If it passes based on This idea that we're or opinion that we're going to either attract schools that currently have their own vocational programs To abandon what they have in place and choose a more expensive option for their students and join this district Or that we're going to increase enrollment of the member towns And in terms of enrollment of the member towns, I'm not sure We all know that Arlington is about a third of the Minuteman population But Arlington about nine percent of our high school age public students go to Minuteman All the other member communities that numbers more at two percent So already we have seven percent higher participation in this school Now what does that mean? There is a cost Vocational education is more expensive than a purely academic education and that difference is about 13 000 dollars per student So that seven percent difference This town has committed to those students already For 1.2 million dollars To have additional students beyond what the other sending towns have What we saw in the new figures Suggested that Arlington's enrollment would definitely need to increase by 45 students. There's another 600 000 If that building they don't attract other districts and they look to further grow the population We're talking about even more and those are reoccurring expenses. Those are not capital expenses They're not putting a building in place their expenses that are going to take money out of our budget Move it into Minuteman and You know, it's I mean, it's important these children do deserve a good vocational education I think every child deserves to finish at the high school. They started But I think we need to stop just throwing money at Minuteman and saying What they tell us we need to do we need to do and it's the right and the best solution for Arlington. Thank you Thank you Mr. Deist So I've spent the past week as my wife will tell you With an awful lot of time on this issue Trying to figure out for myself What do we get for our money? What's it worth? Sort of the bottom line and it was very hard to get information That allows you to say Yeah, this is a good thing or it's not a good thing From the point of view that that is quantitative to try so I'm I'm just going to give you a few Figures that I was able to put together that I think Hopefully will make it clearer to some of you anyway As to what's going on here So my first graph Points out that the current budget for Minuteman it Is three million six hundred fifty thousand and three million six Yes, three million six hundred fifty thousand and that four-year projection Is a hundred thirty five students So that's a per pupil cost Of twenty six thousand seven hundred dollars and across massachusetts all the schools including vocational schools costs somewhere in the range of Ten thousand to thirty thousand a year per student So as you can see Minuteman Is the very high end of that Lexington which maybe is the best school In the nation school system in the nation Is at seventeen thousand five hundred dollars Weston Which probably doesn't have the quality that Arlington has Is a twenty one thousand seven hundred dollars The one at the bottom Is beast bridge water and they do not do very well at all So to some extent You pay for what you get Or you get what you pay for maybe it's the right way to say that In some instances school systems Do a really good job of getting High quality for what you pay for And next one please and that's Arlington public schools The current costs for us Including benefits and things like that and we can go back and forth about because we Put money into The town in addition to the school budget puts money into retirement and health care So my number there of seventy five thousand is a guess More or less about what it costs us to fund Arlington's school system We have a Population of fifty six hundred students So that's thirteen thousand four hundred dollars So it's one Great buy We're doing very very well Arlington's doing very very well We in my estimation the school committee might disagree with me But in my estimation we're in about the top twenty percent in terms of academic achievement And the bottom thirty percent Of school costs, so we do very very well And as you can see Minuteman costs are about double ours Well, it turns out that we have a brand new Regional agreement Thanks to a number of people Including charles foskett And dan done This new regional agreement gives us much more power In terms of being able to handle Uh what goes on at Minuteman high school? I think That if we go at it wisely We can make Minuteman The kind of quality school But not the most expensive school In the in the in the commonwealth It's sort of the most expensive vocational school that gives you a superb education What I would like is a superb education from Minuteman That doesn't cost us so much and now with the new regional agreement We have a hope of doing that Because now we have proportional vote According to how many students we sent More or less So we have the ability to kind of control the costs In much the same way that we've controlled the costs In the orlington school system Okay now how one more Maybe shaky You grab this next one Which is um Costs for Minuteman Authorization $144 And a half million dollars A planned school population of 628 students And a per pupil building cost Then of $230,000 And I also have my Concept of a new orlington high school So that's 200 million For what I think should be 1600 students And the estimated cost Is 125,000 per student Now none of the state reimbursement is in any of this It's all just cost versus how many students are going to be there So My conclusions are that both Minuteman and Orlington Provide a very high quality education The new Minuteman per pupil building cost for Orlington will be about 1.8 times My hypothetical high school costs That's not unreasonable There's a study that you can find from columbia university But the only thing that I could find anywhere That handles anything like this Which says that the cost For a typical vocational Building as compared to a public school building is about 1.4 to 2.8 times Minuteman is 1.8 So it's not off the wall It's a pretty good number for what they are proposing And if you think about the fact that you get a new building as opposed to a renovated building I think it's a real buy And I think we also maybe have a chance here Of driving the cost down a bit the way Orlington schools drives the cost down Because we have much more power So even though I was one of the people on the finance committee that voted against this I was one of the 8 out of 10 that voted no I'm going to vote yes. That is to say I hope I would propose that the substitute amendment is defeated. Thank you very much Thank you Mr. Gilligan Thank you. Mr. Moderator Stephen Gilligan town meeting member from precinct 13 and town treasurer I rise in support of mr. Foskett's substitute motion I do so not because I am against Technical or vocational school education. I support it I rise in support of the substitute motion Because we're looking at a lot of money here and this is a money article If we truly want to look at what kind of education we wish to provide our Arlington students Where is the comprehensive plan that says how do we deliver that? We are being asked to vote this evening prior to a debt exclusion vote, which is forthcoming for the town To spend 33 to 35 million dollars of the taxpayers money That's after msba reimbursements If you add in the msba reimbursement to Arlington's portion, we're looking at 50 million dollars What kind of vocational technical education could be provided in a brand new Arlington high school with an additional 50 million dollars Maybe not everything that's being offered at Minuteman technical school, but certainly a good chunk of it Because we're talking one third the total cost of that full project What is the comprehensive plan for all education for Arlington students? This it's a rhetorical question because there's no answer. Nothing's been provided I would like to point out in mr. Foskets Presentation and comments made by others the word taxpayer fatigue This body needs to be aware of that So keep the following in mind If we vote no Minuteman continues if we vote no tonight that doesn't mean the project doesn't go forward But it certainly means that a harder look has to be taken at it We are also being asked to vote as a pre-emptive strike Against a ballot question that the voters your constituents of Arlington are being asked to decide in another month So the argument will be made town meeting voted for it. So should you? Keep the other another point in mind a comment was made by a select man That they will not off that individual will not authorize the bonds if the debt exclusion fails Well a select man cannot stop executing bonds Three select men are all it takes to move forward with bonds not five Also, keep in mind The Minuteman vocational school district is going to be asking the region for a region wide ballot question to move forward They are going to have to provide Better answers and a more comprehensive approach to what they want in the future They're asking this town meeting to preempt any decision of the taxpayer. That's wrong Keep the following in mind again We're looking at a new Arlington high school pre msba costs upwards of 200 million dollars After the projected msba reimbursement the town share 125 million Minuteman 33 to 35 million dollars for town costs The Gibbs middle school at least 15 million dollars the stratton renovations that have been previously voted 10 million dollars Autism renovations being contemplated 25 to 30 million dollars the modular classrooms for the tomson school and the stratton school locations In the area of 20 million dollars We are asking the voters to take on 230 million dollars of additional debt in the next five to seven years That's a hefty amount of money to ask the taxpayers to bear without considerable talk without knowledgeable conversation Voting no tonight does not stop a new Minuteman vocational school But it does mean that the pencil has to be sharpened I'm asking you to support mr. Fosk at substitute motion. Thank you Mr. Ruderman Thank you. I'm julia ruderman precinct nine second Okay, um, I'd like to urge town meeting to vote yes on article six as a current Minuteman student in the engineering program This issue is very important to me because I witness the need for a new building every day It's essential for the future of Minuteman to have a new building As dr. Brooklyn stated simply doing renovations won't be enough And it would be impractical to try to add 16 new programs to arlington high school I'd also like to address some of the concerns people may have about this article As many realize vocational and technical education is becoming more and more important The world needs plumbers welders electricians and carpenters as well as all the other careers Minuteman prepares for But those future plumbers and welders need modern facilities and equipment In order to be prepared to obtain their certifications enter the workforce and be successful Without a new facility these students will be at a disadvantage compared to students from other rotex with more modern buildings In addition enrollment is a legitimate concern As others have mentioned a new state of the art building would certainly attract more students In addition middle school outreach has been very successful for recruitment I've been on some of these recruitment trips as a student ambassador and we've had a wonderful response at every school That's allowed us to visit I'm certain that if we could reach out to even more middle schools enrollment would also increase Even if the msba wouldn't msba would allow a smaller school We've seen the risks of building too small at the thompson school, which is my elementary school So I guess the biggest concern here however is the cost And yes, Minuteman is expensive, but it's a necessary cost As a previous speaker said schools are expensive and good schools are even more expensive Vocational technical education has always cost more than traditional education Due to the necessary equipment supplies and tools and if Minuteman is going to be a A very highly ranked vocational technical school that we need to invest that money in it Arlington should not be short changing its students of their right to an effective vocational technical education I've lived in arlington my entire life And I'm proud to say that this town has always prioritized education And I hope that Arlington will show the same dedication to students on the vocational technical path as it does to students on the more traditional path. Thank you Thank you. Mr. Ed Trumbulli Ed Trumbulli's precinct 19 Mr. Moderator I had a couple of questions sort of on the the Mechanical side of the building I believe I recall a few years ago hearing That the Minuteman school building project was prepared to spend something like six million dollars To remediate caulking around the doors That kids have been walking past for 40 years Um, so I was wondering if there's somebody here that could Tell me whether or not my recollection is correct. Dr. Bequillin Mr. Trumbulli remembering correctly Mr. Moderator I believe the the the reference to that project was in one of the engineering reports where they costed out removing the caulking On the caulking in schools of that vintage is expected to contain pcb's So in order to fully remediate it you have to remove about three feet Of the masonry wall That the caulking has been laying next to for 45 years That project has not been initiated because of all the uh Well, I think it would be much more than six million Now is is that Is that remediation expense based on current standards? Or based on standards from three or four years ago Um, that estimate was done three or four years ago Um So is that is that figure still built into the cost of? Uh renovation versus I mean will you have to go through this expense if you build a new school the new school? Project that was approved by the msba that they're going to participate in Includes the demolition of the existing building and the remediation of the site in other words. They'll pay that 44.75 percent Towards the complete demolition of the of the building and remediation The question is if you tear down the old building. Are you still planning on cutting three feet out of every door? No No, no, no, we're not doing any of that. Okay, so so we won't have that expense if you tear down the bill No, we've been pretty Sensitive to not investing in a building that we may not have in a few years So we haven't invested anything like that. No, the question is are you Will you have to spend the remediation money that no more? Okay. No But you would if we you would if we renovated it. Yes Okay So I have another question if you had talked about running the the new school Building ideas past the students. Have you run it past all the teachers? Yes, and what did the teachers have to say? Um, I met with all the departments They've had an influence in the design what they have had what they have had to say is included in the design So are all the teachers happy with it? They'll be much happier with me after this vote. Yes But are they are the teachers happy with the design of the school? They're very excited about it. Yes. Oh, okay All right. Thank you very much Thank you very much. Mr. Court Annie lecourt precinct 15 Would it be possible for someone who worked on the new regional agreement to Briefly in a couple of minutes explain to us what it would take for us to withdraw from the man man District if the bad risk of the population at that school withering Would took place and what the implications would be for our capital obligation Mr. Dunn regard If the building is built and we are quote on the hook then we are on the hook Regardless of whether or not we withdraw So I'm short circuiting your question and just saying we don't get it once we agree to pay for it We have to pay even if we leave the district Okay, and so then why is there a concern that if the population withers our per pupil costs will go up Would we be paying additional capital expense? If our fraction of students stays the same We will at we will always be at a third if we became half of the school or two thirds of the school Then our rate amount of the capital we had to pay Would increase increase beyond what we're talking about potentially bonding, right? But that which is really neither here nor there with the withering because we're It's a it's a matter of the fraction regardless of the total as far as the capital costs are concerned Okay, and and did we consider The other options that miss hyam spoke of in terms of joining another district joining with other schools We definitely did okay so we So through Through work with for instance charlie lions first former selecting Former super in shashin. We talked to medford. We talked to well or the school of a minute Me and talked to medford wall fam ever at cambridge Watertown There's the salve collaborative. There's lexington belmont arlington. Needham have had separate conversations on the side I could go on okay And none of that Emerged as an appropriate Correct option. So we looked at the options. We have tried all of those yes um Having heard all of the discussion so far about costs um about the future of vocational education and the population question which looks to me like 628 is a Conservative number for the eventual population of that building Compared to what's there now compared to what has been true in the past Looking at the growth in population and our school enrollment and other school enrollments I'm prepared to vote yes for this despite the fact that I think that the risks that have been identified are the appropriate risks to be worried about Um, I feel very strongly that we need to provide a good locational option for our students I think that the world of um, uh, education and particular for education and kids at the age of high school Is changing dramatically And I think that kids are expected to be more prepared for a hugely varied work world now in ways that they were not expected to Be when I graduated, you know, if I knew how to write good english and had read shakespeare I was considered educated and I could go to college or I could go into the work world and get the next thing that I needed To go on and and have a profession That's not true for my children And it's definitely not going to be true for the children of those of you have kids in our elementary schools now And you need a broad continuum of that skill set That goes not just It's like a high school education and a college education are almost these two separate things and there's this gap in between And we need to fill that with both vocational education at the high school level and Vocational education heading into our community colleges and so on and so forth And I see this as a piece of the continuum that we need to provide Julia who just spoke is going on to college for a minute man. I don't remember exactly which school she's going to I think is it alabama? anyway, she's going to a great school And she's not the only graduate of minute man who will go on to a great college And there will be other students who do not go on to college, but who go on to more technical training or go on to Into the world of work And we're offering options to all of our students. I don't think we can do that in the arlington high school Um and more importantly, I don't think we want to do that in the arlington high school I think we want this tool in our toolbox And I'm prepared to support this project. I'm prepared to take that risk. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am Gentlemen in the back. Yep It's quarter of 11 I got you on the list, sir I have you on the list and I have mr. Heyner on the list Tom michelman precinct seven Our previous speaker came up here and said if we vote this down The new school could go forward That wasn't my understanding, but I'd love to hear from somebody who could tell me what happens What's the possibility of a new school or how long would it take if we vote? This article down today tonight Dr. McQuillen Mr. Moderator, I understand the question is if we voted down, how long would it take to get a new school or? There are varying opinions about that. I'll give you mine Knowing msba as I do and actually them knowing us as well as they do Um and having been at many msba board meetings where different projects have been discussed at different phases and stages The the idea that we could Stop this process And get back in line for a project of this scale Is is unlikely There's only a limited amount of money that the msba sets aside for new projects And the last I heard there were only three new schools being built in the commonwealth With msba from the ground up and minuteman was one of them I think the likelihood of entering the msba process again would be very unlikely the other dollar component of this is that We were grandfathered in as a 40 percent reimbursement rate a minimum of a 40 percent reimbursement rate If we get excluded or kicked out of the pipeline that minimum reimbursement rate Even if we do get back in shrinks to 31 percent So that's nine percent millions of dollars that we would not have even if we were to get in When you look at the escalation of construction costs and there appears to be quite a building Surge going on right now Those costs for the same building are going to increase or we're just not going to get the building we could get right now So i'm very concerned if this vote doesn't happen on a practical level Because of the belmont vote. I have a meeting with msba tomorrow to discuss our next steps And in the memo that I wrote I'm sorry if i'm going on, but is this helpful Helpful. Thank you. Okay. Thanks The memo that I wrote to all of you and need them as well that I would not support a district wide ballot at this time Is because I think there is a lot of misunderstanding About what happens during a district wide ballot or specifically what happens if a town A town citizen does not approve it There are some folks that think they could simply exit the district Walk out the door and not be liable for any debt. That's not the case There's a process that has to be followed and I think there's a a lot of misunderstanding about that So my intent is to discuss with the school committee and its officers If the vote fails To go to a district Under 16 d again And that we would just simply Force a town To hold a special town meeting over the summer to say no again Because no action is considered an approval I don't know if that's all this is complex stuff and it's getting late But I hope that answered your question Thank you I have one more question Um on slide seven On the uh school building Um you had an option b new building 143 million Option h For new building with 628 students 144 million And then you had an option e new with 800 students 192 million or 193 million So the economies of scale between 435 and 628 student size school are Minuscule And then when you go up to 800 They seem to Kick in What what is driving those numbers? Those numbers were submitted to the msba Facilities assessment subcommittee about a year ago in a meeting They were they asked us to update the previous preliminary schematic design submission of two years earlier than that Um So those all the cost options could be seen in the dollars that they wanted to see them in I the architects and engineers did that I didn't do that But I think when you looked at the 800 schools specifically there were three or four more programs Being offered in that 800 size to school facility In the 435 there was only one less program But a significant reduction in the number of career majors So the facility Was well designed, but it was designed for a more expansive curriculum and educational program plan. Thank you Thank you Mr. Helmuth Eric Helmuth precinct 12 I move the question and all matters before it Okay, okay, we have a motion to terminate the debate and the question and all matters before it um Soon as mr. Lathwood's ready. We're going to do a vote Yes to terminate the debate Number one. No number two We're terminating debate one to terminate two no Your click is not working Oh Liz you have something to do. I listed her job Uh, the debate is terminated 138 me affirmative 45 in the negative Okay, the debate is terminated on article 6 of the special town meeting we have before us First mr. Um Foskets substitute motion. We're going to vote on mr. Foskets substitute motion first depending on the outcome of that one We're going to have a second vote. We're going to have the second vote either way So if you want mr. Sub mr. Foskets substitute motion, you will vote one Yes, if you do not want it You'll vote two for no So soon as we're ready One yes to substitute Two no to not It's a negative vote 41 in the affirmative 151 in the Negative it is not substituted. We have now a force recommended vote of the finance committee This is a bonding issue. So it has to be by a two-thirds issue It's a majority that says borrowing Ah I'm wrong. It's a majority vote So soon as mr. Lathwood's ready What we're going to vote is on the finance committee's recommended vote as Mr. Tosti told us the one he handed out the other day To borrow the 144 mill though To say we're going to borrow it whenever you're ready mr. Lathwood All in favor, please vote one for yes two for no Huh? Yeah, well forget all that Forget the top thing That's wrong Oh, so at our clock go away Yeah, we already passed six by two-thirds Special town meeting number six Recommended vote of the fincom We are voting on the recommended vote of the finance committee on article six of the special town meeting to approve borrowing 144 million 922 dollars 400 144 million 922 478 dollars If you want to build a school vote yes, if you don't vote no Essentially That right then Yeah Ready mr. Lathwood. All right. Go ahead one for yes two for no It's an affirmative vote 165 in the positive 32 in the negative 31 in the negative. I'm sorry 165 4 31 of them that ends Article six of the special town meeting mr. Tosti Hey, wait a second. We haven't adjourned yet. We have to put this in the table and go ahead Al I gotta notice the reconsideration Move will you adjourn? And you notice this reconsideration Motion to adjourn all in favor. Please say yes No All right. We're journeying to wednesday