 the minutes now keep in mind make sure that your attendance is correct up top that's how you get paid and so make sure all the all the people who presented their departments make sure the numbers in the minutes are correct because very hard to correct afterwards. Does anybody have any corrections on the minutes? Mary Margaret has made changes in the library section item. Okay. I think I might have misspoken last time. So the issue is what was there was a full-time librarian and a part-time children's librarian. The part-time children's librarian left and they're going to replace there was a full-time children's librarian. Okay. Are there any other corrections? Okay. Peter, I just had one under the finance committee vote. According to my records the vote was 905. 15 people in attendance. Okay. Okay. Any other corrections or comments? Okay. Do I have a motion? No move. Second. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Water bodies. Bring them in. So who will be leading the charge? David. Okay. But we're all going to be speaking on different parts. Okay. So I'm David White. I'm the conservation commission in the water body working group. Maybe we should introduce ourselves. Should we introduce ourselves? I'm Susan Chapnick. I'm the chair of the conservation commission in Arlington. I'm Brad Barber. I'm the co-chair of the Spython committee and my other co-chair Steve Ritchie. He's in Florida first. Check out the water bodies. Check out the water bodies down there. I'm Emily Sullivan. I'm the town's environmental planner and conservation agent. And I'm Chuck Taroni. I'm the vice chair of the Arlington Conservation Commission. Welcome. So we have our report I believe. We're going to go through it in sort of sequence. But the first thing is we're going to talk about the budget process this year and how we organized the budget for this year. Yeah. So historically the water bodies budget has been administered by the department of public works. And so this year it's been a little different. And so the conservation commission took over the administration and management for the account. And so you'll see two spreadsheets in front of you. The first one is a water bodies program analysis giving a kind of a history and a projection forward. And that is the overview of what the budget has been and kind of what we're predicting it to be in the future. And then the second spreadsheet is a little bit more detail about what exactly those numbers on that first spreadsheet mean and where they're coming from. This year we've reformatted the detail sheets and hopefully provided clarity on what services and treatments are being financed by this water bodies fund and how they apply to each water body. So this working group we oversee the management of spy pond, the Arlington Reservoir, Hill's pond and then some MacLennan work. And we always are looking at the other water bodies in town but those are the water bodies that we decide to integrate that need treatment the most. So looking at this year's fiscal year 20 we've received $50,000 from the town meeting last year. And for fiscal year 21 we're requesting $55,000. You'll see the breakdown. A lot of or since I guess 2017 or fiscal year 2017 we've been building what's called the spy pond reserve and that's for what's called the sonar treatment in spy pond and Brad will talk about that in more detail. But you'll see that that's a large part of the budget and so that's just the treatment that costs a lot of money. But effectively so far this year we have expended $53,000 and next year we're projecting to expend $68,000. Our big goal this year in past years has been to lower the reserve as appropriately based on what we're expending the funds on as well as being conscious of what we are requesting for funding in the next fiscal year. So the big change is tracking the spy pond reserve fund separately so we see how much we can set aside for that treatment. We have not spent that so we're just stopping any further investment in that reserve fund until it's needed or until we decide what to do but it's not needed. So that's the big change in terms of our budget spreadsheet. And the other major change is on the second page on the details. We have more details on each water body of exactly what we're proposing to spend the portion of the budget on and this also helps us in the water body group that are managing our water bodies understanding what we're spending and what kind of effect we're getting from that which is something that is a goal of ours to start tracking that more aggressively. Year to year to see that we're getting a return on investment from our management and our budget. So the first water body, and we'll talk about this, is the Arlington Reservoir and the big issue there has been water chest management. They've been harvesting mechanically for the last many years and we think it needs to be re-evaluated in terms of the timing of the harvesting process and perhaps other things as well. So hoping to do an earlier harvesting this year, a month earlier when there's fewer plants to harvest, we're also planning to ask God for our RFQ to evaluate the reservoir as water quality and possible treatment plans for the reservoir. So we're trying to get a better handle of what needs to be done at the reservoir. Any questions on that? We're sending a request for a quotation for an evaluation to somebody, RFQ. We can send that copy to you. I'll be public in a couple of weeks. We're ready. So are you going to continue the mechanical harvesting? We're going to continue that because that seems to be recommended to the public, but the timing may be wrong. The timing may need to be earlier than it has been in the last couple of years. Any other questions on the reservoir? Is there a chemical solution to water chest management? I'm not aware of it. I never heard of it. And the recommended solution appears to be harvesting. I mean, if you chemically treat them, they're just going to die and pollute the reservoir a lot. I'm not sure if that's a viable coach for the reservoir. The other problem is I believe the chemical treatment will kill the live plants, but the seed pods would still be in the sediment, which would not be effective. Any other questions on the reservoir? And the reservoir also has an algae blue, which is rare for the reservoir. That indicates a combination of too many nutrients and very hot weather. Where would the nutrients be coming from? Just down from the Great Reservoir? From Monroe Brook. It fills in Lexington. It's not actually from the Great Meadows. It's from above the Great Meadows. Whipple Hill and Reeds Brook and all that. Monroe Brook. And also from runoff, surface runoff. And there's two storm drains from Lexington. 15th Reservoir as well. So, a combination of sources. Does the farm drain into the reservoir? The Lexington farm. Not directly. Not directly, no. There's a lot of water and there is that outflow on one street. Yes? You mentioned two storm drains in Lexington that flow into this body of water. Is there any way to approach the count of Lexington to put some money into this situation? Is there a solution? Is there a water flow going into our farm? We have to test the outflow from those storm drains. That might be part of the analysis that we asked for. What's coming into the reservoir from various sources? Other questions? Okay, thanks. Okay. No one can't be here tonight. We'll talk a little bit about Hill's pond. This is the pond from Mountain Rocks Park. And it's extensively used as a small pond. And it's under regular treatment. It's aerated now, which was finally resolved a couple of years ago. And the plans continue pretty much as we have in the past with regular monitoring and treatment of the pond to keep the usable and attractive spot inside the pond. Any questions? Millbrook. So Millbrook, the water quality of Millbrook, works in a little bit this year compared to last year. Arlington isn't doing anything to actively, I guess, the chemically treat Millbrook. But there are interventions like at Wellington Parks. There's that big project where we built some flood storage capacity and kind of built some green infrastructure, trying to remove some pollutants before going into Millbrook. The EPA just released or they just updated its storm water permitting. And so Arlington will be undergoing more rigorous storm water regulations that the town will have to adjust to. And the hope being that through these more stringent regulations, water bodies like Millbrook and Ale Lifebrook, which are huge conveyances of water to the Mystic River, will the town will invest in private property owners and public property owners will invest in interventions for storm water to improve storm water quality going into Millbrook in the future. That's a long-term vision in both. The primary problem with Millbrook, I think, are the storm drains you have to into major storm channels. So if I may ask, I don't see any funds here for Millbrook. Correct. So I would say this working group is actively managing water quality at the water qualities. More so managed through the engineering division in their investment in outfall investigation and in looking at the storm water infrastructure that's conveying into Millbrook. So that's mostly where, or how Arlington is investing in Millbrook quality. And also the work that we're doing at Wellington Park for Millbrook restoration in order to add flood storage. Those are separate funds, so CPA funds and state grants were leveraged for that. So we didn't need to request funds from the town. Which is a good thing. Now did you get that project behind Wellington? Did you have a chance to look at it? Did you take out the bridge? No, the bridge is still there. Okay, I'm going to stay here. It's really very nice. Other questions on Millbrook? It's a great project if you haven't been down there. There's educational signage that talks about the history as well as the environment and what was done to improve it. It's really impressive. There was a gentleman at a precinct meeting in my precinct which amazingly enough goes down that far. The purple helps. Yeah. We know the owners. They're very environmentally conscious. Especially since Millbrook periodically floods into its basement. That's a good reason. Is there anything sort of being done in that direction? So the reason why that area isn't flood plain, so historically known to flood, but the culvert that goes under Grove Street is a real bottleneck for Millbrook. And so I think a large-scale infrastructure project would have to be implemented in order to resolve that flood. Okay, so they have to rebuild that section? They have to make the pipe bigger so that more water can flow under Grove Street and like under the high school back to where the Brook Daylight is by Mill Street. It's all connected. You increased upstream by flood downstreams. It's a great complicated procedure. So there's a project in the underway, not just the high school, but also on the public works department. And that's a big problem. Flooding a DPW facility is a big problem. So are we going to go redesign the culverts or DPW in the high school and not address Grove Street or what's the plan? Because if you address it later then you could be undoing the work that gets done on the building. So I believe that the culvert that actually flows under the high school and DPW, they don't think that touching those culverts are part of the scope of either the DPW rebuild or the high school project. The high school project right now, they're relocating some drainage but it goes from Mass Ave to Milburg so closer to the CBS item of the high school and they're not... The culvert under the high school was replaced maybe about 10 years ago or was relined. I don't believe that there's any right now effort to increase the capacity of that culvert. I mean that would probably take a huge undertaking because all that was in line with the toxic waste. Yes, I think it certainly is a complicated project, I believe. Good choice of course. Any other questions? No. Okay. The clinic is next. You may remember the McLennan Park detention basins. For those of you who don't know, these are the stormwater detention ponds that are behind McLennan Park all the way in the back which were created when the landfill was closed and they were created... The landfill was closed in 2006. We were requested several years ago by this committee to investigate the brown muck that ends up forming on the ponds back there which is basically iron circulation and to investigate whether this is harmful to human health or the environment and if we should do anything about it. So we set aside some money in our budget which you approved and we've been doing this for a few years to evaluate it. We got a final report in 2019 from our contractor Woods Hole Group and that report if you want details is online in its entirety and the conclusion of that report is that the observed iron flocculation does not constitute a condition of readily apparent harm. Redally apparent harm is a Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Mass DEP terminology of whether or not it is negatively impairs the ecology, the environment. However, some of the data we received for some metals are exceeding screening levels are not regulatory levels. They're not permit levels, they're not regulatory levels, you're not required to meet them. They're put in place as guidance for levels that you might consider when you're evaluating the environment to see if there's any negative effects. So we do have some exceedances of some metals in surface water samples and in sediment. Given that, what we did is we transmitted this information to DEP to the Office of Solid Waste which closed the landfill just to be transparent. We didn't have to report this. The landfill does not require any monitoring when it was closed. It was considered done and all the sampling and analysis at that time was considered acceptable upon the rules and regulations in Massachusetts. However, we asked DEP for guidance. Should we do any further research investigations? Should we just let it go? Should we monitor it at any level? We haven't heard back from DEP yet. They said they'd get back to us in the spring. They're very busy with active sites. This is low on the totem pole. We did do a little bit of investigation. There were many ponds and small water bodies in the state of Massachusetts that have this problem. In some cases, it's natural. It's just naturally derived iron and iron oxidizing bacteria. And similarly to in our situation it appears to be temporal. Certain times of the year it's there and certain times of the year it's not. For example, I went to visit recently and saw evidence of it on the surface water. However, you can see staining of the iron on the trees or some of the rocks on the banks and at the outfalls. So we're waiting to hear from DEP to see if there's anything further we should do. You'll see that we put a small amount of money in the budget for further investigation depending upon what DEP comes back with but we don't know. Questions? Yeah. So you don't know the source? No. The source could be ground water. It could be stormwater. There are stormwater outfalls that empty into these detention basins. It could be because they are stormwater detention basins. These are man-made. Outfalls were supposed to go in there. There's no place to hold all this stuff and then have it slowly go downstream. And it could be from the landfill. We don't know. We don't have groundwater data. There aren't groundwater wells there on the proper side of where the landfill was to sample. So if we were to try to get groundwater data we would have to produce wells which is fairly expensive so we were waiting to see what DEP suggested. We do, given that they have a lot of information about this kind of issue from other places in Massachusetts. I guess I'm implying whether there's a desire to find out because if it can be remedy and that would be a decision that I would think address or decide not to address as opposed to just be happy with what it is right now. Right. The desire would come from, I guess, the town, personnel but we were waiting to hear from what DEP said first. So DEP says to us you really should investigate where the source is coming from. We found XYZ and other types of ponds similar to this and we suggest you investigate. That would be very clear. That would be a clear message. At this point it's not so cut and dry to me in terms of circulation but that may be natural and not bad. The environment may be fine. We don't need to understand the source. It's not an impairment. These are stormwater detention ponds. Detention ponds might have that because they get a lot of stormwater input. So I guess that's where I am right now. Ponds appear fairly healthy. There's a lot of wildlife and turtles and water life. Great blue herons and muskrat and ducks and they also plan to extend the buffer area around the pond. Oh I forgot about that. Make it more environmentally friendly. Extend the buffer area around the pond. No mowing area. No mowing area. Is that what we're going to do? We're going to do. Right, so one outcome of this was in our original permit a long time ago. Right, as we found that DPW was mowing down to the pond. To the very edge of the pond. Which is not really safe for the environment but it's a real buffer strip for the habitat area as well as for water infiltration and things like that. So we're preparing a. We're going to DPW and Park and Rec. Right, a memorandum for DPW and Park and Rec and work together to create a buffer strip around these detention ponds. That reminds me that there's a fragmities problem that is getting worse and worse at the climate. At the end when it goes under the culvert towards Lexington. On the hillside towards the playing field. I think both ends are fragmities. Is there a plan to address that? We have not. No, I think that as soon as we get through this issue fragmities to take care we're just not looking at that right now. I also wanted to mention that it's not really ponds it's a detention pond to detain the water that comes in from the groundwater and from the storm drains and there's supposed to be an operation and maintenance plan with that and there's supposed to be a level that at which point it needs to be dredged up. And so there's a lot of things we're looking at now and I mean this iron flock is pretty unsightly. Personally I think that it would be nice to isolate that in a better forebay before it meets the pond but we don't know where it's coming from. So we're kind of in the middle of the process and don't have all the answers about that about those questions that you asked right now and working on it and I think we're still very interested in that area of town. Thank you. Any other questions on the client? Okay. By pond. By pond. It was a busy year. Some of it I think you probably are aware of and others you may not be. Last time one big worry as we've been lucky this year last year I reported that there was 11 water chestnut plants in spy pond and each one of those has 100 seeds and we were really really worried that it would be a problem this year. No water chestnuts this year. So that's a we actively the way to handle invasives is to prevent them from getting into your ponds in the first place. That was done by volunteers right? That's right. So we basically found all the pond them and both pulled them and the seeds. So it's still going to be a worry it's going to be continual monitoring just because the seeds I'm sure there's some seeds there and they last for about 10 years. We did two RFQs to for both plant surveys and for treating the pond our existing vendor Solitude Life Management came out with much the best replies both in terms of budget and in terms of technical contact. So we've stayed with that and they wrote us a spy pond management plan it was late but we now have it for the following year and they also did two surveys in the spring and the fall just for what plants are in spy pond. We have a big big project the CPA funds for shoreline restoration if you've been in spy pond park it's quite it's quite visible they're both restoring the bank and they're restoring above the buffer zone above the bank and the one project that still needs to be done on that is to finish the the wheelchair accessible platform to be near the pond the pond was lowered because of that and it was a banner year we have a rare plant on spy pond the Engelman's umbrella and Engelman's umbrella was very happy there's lots of it if you ever wanted to look at sedges last year this year was the time to do it the spy pond committee also did a tree planting we planted 45 dogwoods along the route 2 path and if you're walking in there out in the middle with the wire cages we're hopeful that most of those will survive next year the you know treating dealing with spy pond is still an issue it was basically unusable during the last half of June and the first half of July in this case it was curly leaf pond weed our Eurasian milk oil that historically has been a big problem for some reason that seems to have abated it's still in the pond there's still plants but it's no longer a lot of it and as you may know the pond was closed due to some algae blooms and we needed to do two treatments with cooperation from the Arlington Board of Health so that's you know we're still trying to figure this pond out and that's the best way to take care of it my expectation is we'll try to do two treatments next year probably on a smaller scale we're still we need to see what comes up and talk with solitude as to what's the best plan going forward any questions I remember from a few years back I think Bill I can't make the daily water measurements not daily he goes out he goes out probably half a dozen times a year so what happens with those measurements he keeps track of them and we have a spreadsheet that he sends around to the spike pond committee on the mailing list but I mean now they analyze do we know what's there those are what he does is the second disk which is basically water clarity and it it varies quite a bit it's hard to you know there's no this is clearly a problem kind of sense the one conclusion that you really can get and this is very quite obvious is that the spike pond is what's called utrophic it's got too much fertilizer and in fact what we did this year was I went out onto the pond with a 12 foot you know basically a pole wooden pole and tried to find the bottom of the muck that's the sediment and there's I couldn't find the bottom so there's at least eight feet of really rich organic muck underneath the water particularly in the sill between the north and south unfortunately it's also got some arsenic from from the attempt to solve these problems in the 60s in the 60s that's perfect that's perfect we'll figure something out great questions on the spike pond Peter what about the sandbar oh very good a big project that we've been the spike pond committee in particular Steve Ritchie and some of the others have been pushing for longer than I've been here so a long long time the sandbar is now a problem it's actually now broken there's at least ten feet of sand in the sandbar and in fact I've talked to the people who live right on the corner of root two and spike pond of nice family the whole family is there so I've talked both with the daughter and her dad and when they moved into that house they used to dive off the bank into six feet of water and now there's this big sandbar and Steve Ritchie has with encouragement from some of our neighbors some of the others has taken on this project and we've got a fabulous person Brian Poguerrio who's taken on this project he got the money reserved so there's a pot that comes in once a year from the federal government to deal with environmental issues and they've gotten it through the Army Corps of Engineers they did a public meeting last week and the plan is to put it out for bid and to and to dredge remove the top three feet off of the sandbar so it'll go down significantly below the water level and also rework the there's a gigantic pipe going down the entire hillside all of the storm water comes through one pipe and during a storm event it's quite a rush of water it currently is all directed right into the sandbar and it's what was almost surely the cause of that sandbar like the next winter they'll do that next fall and then if you're using the path the path will be retained there's going to be a thousand feet of geo tubes which are 5 foot by 9 foot tubes in a trough to dry the sand they're taking out before they can do that so hopefully this time next year we'll be talking about the completion more than completion we won't see it it'll be gone any other questions that's by upon okay Mr. River you may remember we talked about this last year for those of you who may not remember we had a spill of almost 10,000 gallons of fuel oil on the Mr. River in 2013 it's taken us this long to do a project on it but that's the way it goes the town won a grant a natural resource damages grant to improve the habitat and climate change resilience and water management and water quality in the area that was directly impacted by the oil spill we finally completed it last year the last piece of the project was a community planting event this is an environmental justice area in the town of Arlington and we coordinated with the third grade students at the Thompson School we got them all walking down there and planting plants small plants that could improve the habitat there riparian habitat right near the river they had a great time we talked a little bit about what happened what was the spill what did we do about it why is it important and they were just so excited we gave them a little plant to take home as well and they kept asking can we come back and look at our plants and take care of it so it was very exciting we also installed an educational sign in that area and we had a celebration of the completion of the event with the several different regulatory agencies and parties that we coordinated with to get this done including DCR Mass DP the Arlington DPW Park and Rec and the conservation commission so we also had a compatible project that we did with DCR in the town to put an improved storm water scepter above where the storm water comes in so that we can clean it more of it out before it actually reaches the river better water quality and more clarity which we are seeing in that area now so that was a success that project is completed other than to just monitor for the health of the habitat and the plantings that we put in there any questions on that is the what's been the latest quality rating of Mr. Goodman I believe it's A- yes A- as an O-I-K as of 2018 yep the difference between the upper mystic and the lower mystic the upper mystic are you talking about the lake or the river the lake the lakes actually have A or A- as well they are very good water quality problem with the lakes and I'm glad you mentioned this because it segues into the next thing we were going to talk about the plant problems in mystic lakes and though the water quality itself is very good the water quality ratings I don't know if you're familiar with what they're based on so the EPA ratings are only based on bacteria they're not based on chemicals they're not based on nutrient levels they're not based on turbidity or secundity or vegetation or invasives versus natives they're only based on bacteria and though that's an important indicator it's not the end all and be all of a healthy ecosystem as we know so in the upper mystic lakes we have invasive plants that cause problems cause problems for recreation cause problems for competing with native plants and the environment and we have perennially approved chemical control of these invasives in different permits because a lot of these permits are for private landowners some of them are more public like the Medford boat club for example which is on mystic lake which comes to the Arlington conservation commission for permitting because their part is on the Arlington side and all of these are using chemical controls as their number one approach and so what we're looking at now one of our goals in the water bodies program is to look for a more comprehensive management approach where chemicals aren't always the number one go to to take care of these invasives and one way to look at this also is to coordinate with the resilient mystic collaborative which is a bunch of different communities that's being coordinated by Myra, mystic river watershed association and Emily is our representative on that and she can talk a minute about that approach just one thing on your question about the health of the mystic lakes one really good news mystic river watershed association is doing fabulous work they really expanded their programs working on green ways and working on the herring part and the herring run sort of unbelievable is getting up the Evershawnee river into Winchester into Horton Con they're actually getting ale life way way up going through culverts so that's a big sign and so that's a sign that it's healthy however we don't want to keep using chemicals and potentially affect the young fish so there's a balance here and that's why we're in this collaborative so the resilient mystic collaborative it's a relatively new collaboration between all of 19 out of the 21 mystic river watershed communities the focus right now is more so on storm water and so you've talked a little bit about storm subters or rain gardens the resilient mystic is really looking at trying to find opportunities for large scale infrastructure interventions to improve water quality going into the tributaries of the mystic river then right now the collaborative is not so much looking at holistic management I'd say like chemical treatment or mechanical treatment of the mystic lakes or the mystic river we can look more so at storm water quality because as we mentioned place like Saipan and Arlington Reservoir a lot of the eutrophication in the invasive species that we're seeing are so successful because of the increased nutrient loading from storm water runoff I think that absolutely in the future trying to coordinate all of the mystic lakes communities around more holistic management is feasible I think the water body the water body has agreed to try to initiate that conversation and kind of start that partnership I don't know if this is directly on the subject or not but there are several times tonight people talk about intervention for storm water problems and the nutrients and all the things that are getting into the water bodies but where does the water go does it have to go into the bodies? Absolutely that's a great question and so a lot of the interventions they're engineered interventions so it's something that it still lets the water flow through and eventually go to these water bodies but it might detain the water and let the nutrients kind of settle out into the water flows and it's less contaminated or somehow engineer the nutrients to be removed or to lessen exactly it's like filtering systems Thank you Is there any kind of public education on the types of fertilizers people use on their lawns and such? Another great question so the spy pond community is huge with that they pass out fires for at least the communities in the spy pond watershed I know recently the conservation commission every permit that's issued there's a condition about what type of fertilizer is allowed to be used on the properties permit so there's I'd say it's a bit of a fragmented effort to try to educate people about what type of fertilizers are appropriate like slow phosphorus releasing fertilizers and also though the engineering division did hold a public education session for landskeepers in town to talk about fertilizer I guess tactics being deployed for education Is there any material that will say use this, don't use this? Yes for every fertilizer bag says what type of fertilizer should be used and then there are actually state laws I'm sorry fertilizer bag your hand out so when you purchase a first fertilizer it will tell you what's on it but the town does have content and information about what fertilizer is appropriate for what types of soil and what type of property so what we do have on the spy pond committee we actually just designed this year's fertilizer flyer and that will go to every the distribution is in about a month and it will go to every household in the spy pond watershed and will that basically say please use so the most important we use no phosphate fertilizer but it's also a matter of when you use it when you use it not putting fertilizer on hard surface making sure it stays just on the grass and worrying about dog waste and all of the other contributions Is that something you could email to the committee? Sure, I can send you a PDF I can send it to Liz could you send it out the reason I ask is I'm on the board of a condo complex that's right on Milbrook and so we're hiring landscaping contract for next year so if we could put some restrictions I mean The biggest one is fertilizer on established lawns you do not need phosphorus which is that middle number almost no waste you've got plenty it's just the nitrogen and potassium I think you bring up an excellent point though is that we have this flyer for spy pond community why not distribute it more widely because it's useful for other areas in town as well so I think we can talk about how we can do that we've also looked into there was a big project 15 years ago to put stickers on all of the drains and to basically say anything that you so every single drain stormwater drain in Arlington and you can there's some movies on the on the web if you put a rubber duck into that drain that rubber duck is going to appear on a water bottle every single it doesn't just disappear it goes to the water bottle and so we did about 15 years ago they put stickers with the with the high school I went looking for that effort and unfortunately I found one sticker in good shape it turned out that it was a the kids love to take them to souvenirs really oh it's you know whether that's worth repeating I have found out how to do it but it's a matter of rivets it just appeared okay any other questions okay turn to stormwater control we're also doing things like rain gardens Emily? yeah so the time received a state grant to install rain gardens and underground trenches that we mentioned in East Arlington to improve the stormwater runoff going into Elweth Brook so we should she's going to get some more right? yeah so we're getting some more Elweth Brook has always had a tough water body because of combined sewer overflows in adjacent communities releasing contamination into the Brook there by impacting water quality okay standing in on the Elweth special that's it there will be more rain gardens in our future what's the status as far as Somerville and Cambridge closing off their combined strong water sewer pipes it's always something I think they're working on a lot of that has to do with the MWRA and you know their responsibility to remedy that I have a bell not two yeah bell not in so I think the efforts lost a little bit of seam in the past year but I know that you know the Mr. Grigger Watershed Association is always huge advocates for improving CSOs or you know closing them and improving the stormwater drainage system I don't know that they have anything lined up for the existing CSOs that still flow to Elweth Brook we do have a big thank you to whoever was the engineer back when when they built Arlington's sewer system not combined not combined the sewers okay are there any other questions Alan the spreadsheet has a $55,000 appropriation for next year do you need to fix the warrant? it's a different number warrant warrant but it's inconsistent I just didn't know the warrant has a number yeah the warrant has a number of warrant article 65 when we submitted the warrant article we didn't put a number in so I guess this is news to us that there's a number okay so can that take that number out before it's published? I don't know the warrant articles but they shouldn't after last year yeah what is the number? 65 should be left open until I didn't know it was possible to get it out I'll talk to the SWAC office tomorrow last year it was not possible but maybe this early when we came thank you we don't know where that came from it slips into these things it's a bit something that changes so the total request is 55,000 expenses are likely to be anticipated to be 68,000 which brings the available fund balance down okay any other questions on the water bodies? okay well thank you very much this has been informative as it was last year so that was pretty good thank you we'll miss you thank you thank you very much Emily do you have an e-mail please? yes okay thank you Mr. Manager while we have the water bodies in front of us the request is for 55,000 if you remember correctly I think that was the request last year but the number that went into the war was 50 and so they had to drop their request down so this is sort of what they were thinking of for the last two years any discussion? if not a motion okay move for 55,000 okay second discussion Christine I continue to be concerned about the large reserve that they keep carrying and rolling over yeah they do have a plan to send it it's all spent next year come on yeah it's about cut in half I read this for well I could spend on the FY22 going away 56,000 is the 5,000 sonar treatment reserve which is an FY21 shows up the 56,000 and the FY22 budget has an expense so it appears that they're using it yeah FY22 it drops big time okay any other discussion? as I recall they didn't bring that up this time but I think don't they carry that reserve because the timing of the spy funding of the spy fund treatment isn't predictable I believe that had been explained before I'm looking up Y22 it's spent 56,000 yeah any other discussion? okay the motion has been made and seconded for 55,000 for article 65 for the water bodies any further discussion? all those in favor we say aye aye pose okay favorable action unanimous today's the 18th 19th okay welcome Mr. Manager thank you children sleep yeah okay well we had asked the manager to come back and basically go through his article which is now by the way do you know this is the second year this has happened water bodies puts in a thing that says to appropriate a sum of money and Sony puts in a dollar figure do you know where that comes from? so I think the history is and maybe Peter could tell me that Jane Howard who used to be very involved likes to have a number to guarantee that there'd be a certain number there but it's not just oh yeah it's happening throughout the war in other words they put in and same thing last year they put in to appropriate a sum of money and then somebody put in 50,000 they wanted 55 and the moderator ruled that 50 was the max they could have but somebody between the time the articles are submitted and they get in the war and it's substituting numbers we submit what they sent to us I can talk with them but they need to clean up all the town council puts in is what they sent to town council no one is making up numbers in between oh it's just the second year in a row they have the same story itself I'm positive that is what they ask okay they have the right to change the mind it serves the argument okay so we now of course all the article numbers have changed okay so let's start off this article 7 which is now article 8 oh no it's article 9 bible bible amendment bikeway hours I think somebody had a question on this if there was any if you saw first of all what do they want to do and do you saw any current or future costs so the Arlington bike advisory committee came before the select board at its last meeting after doing quite a bit of work on this and proposed changing bikeway hours from what I believe is dawn to dusk or I think it's listed right now is dawn to dusk and move it to 5am to 11pm to match more closely with the actual usage of the bikeway for commuting times and it sounds like it's late but people do actually commute that late the select board voted favorably though board member Kuro suggested that the hours entirely be taken out of the bylaws and be set by the town manager which the board thought favorably was a good idea as well however town council wasn't sure if the language of this article was broad enough to allow for that change so he was going to talk to the moderator to determine that one way or the other though the select board was planning on taking favorable action to either extend them to the hours that he was recommending or moving to take it out of the bylaw with simultaneously me saying that I would be setting up at the hours that he back was recommending what are the implications of operating hours so of having them at all what is the purpose of them so the becomes a police matter of how comfortable they are having some expectation of policing the stretch and not wanting to advertise that we think people should be on there 24 hours a day they drafted a memo which I don't have with me but basically describing those hours between 11 a.m. and 5 a.m. as target heartbreak and saying let's not say we're comfortable with people being out there and advertising that it's open during those hours where there's not a lot of traffic there's very little visibility because there's no there's no lighting and not saying that we want people and is there signage anywhere that goes to those hours I think there's signage on some of the openings that says what the hours are not a lot of signage though I think if we if this is if this past we would probably agree on that so if we the police were aware of that at 11 p.m. and dusk is at 5 p.m. does that mean that we have to have some sort of police presence for those hours that we didn't have before is there a cost to that so we don't I mean we we do bike patrols in the summertime along the bikeway and bikeway and bike patrols in general but we don't the chief doesn't feel as though we're adding any further patrols we don't have bike patrols out at 8 o'clock now so she doesn't feel as though you'll need future cost application that I think is fair to consider is that as we make more official nighttime usage of the bike path I think there's already been an existing call for lighting portions of the bike path I think we'll see that amplify a little bit so I could see more consideration of whether or not a stretch is in the bike path that's not part of this request it's not part of the five-year capital budget today but I could see there being community interest in years to come as a matter of history had a the bike path was designed that issue was discussed should we include lighting or not and it cost down no lighting so I guess I'd say two things I'm not advocating for lighting I'm a lot of people right to me today asking for lighting I'll also say from the time the bike path opened until today the population probably turned over by about 70-80% so relying simply on the establishment of the bike path and saying there'd be no lighting isn't a direct translation of the people who've been here at the bike path history John and would there be any potential liability if we should extend the power to when it's dark and do not provide lighting I could double-check the town council he hasn't suggested that there would be any but I could if you get to shoot an email back to a liaison that issue doesn't have to be short John as I recall there's been a number of contentious articles in town media several years with respect to lighting and if we put lighting on the bike path it's almost certainly going to be shining on all the homes along the side of the bike path and that seems to be I tend to agree with you I am more sympathetic to people who are concerned about the lighting around the bike path because that can be a particularly uncomfortable area for people to walk from where Varnum dumps into the path over to Ale Wife and that's an area where there's less houses close by but I think you're right usually when I reply to residents who write to me I say what Peter said and what you said that a long time ago we talked about this there was an understanding there wouldn't be lights and there are obviously a lot of but to be clear I'm not saying that we should be promoting it I'm just saying we should all have eyes open and already existing drum beat could grow louder okay any other questions okay so there's any well we'll discuss this afterwards so I'm suggesting we not hear this article with the sort can handle it okay article 11 which is now article 12 and the only reason this quite a ride this is the amendment stormwater management to update such by water who definitions and adjust fees adjust fees jump up is there any what fees do we collect for stormwater management is it connection fees no so when someone is doing construction of their property rebuilding or doing a significant renovation that qualifies under the stormwater bylaw they have to file plans to be reviewed and receive a permit from the engineering division that currently costs $25 under the recommendations that engineering and planning are making there's a whole set of recommendations they're making for us to become in compliance with the federal NS4 permit they're asking that we take the fees out of the bylaw and allow them to be set by the engineering division with my approval of a works approval to be more in line with how long it takes the cost of actually reviewing the plans and engineering says that it takes about eight hours of an engineer's staff time to review plans in regards to stormwater that would probably be that would come out to over $300 which would probably be a little pricey so engineering is saying they're looking at a fee of about $100 for this particular plan I think I want to talk a little bit more about that but the general case precedent is you can't set fees higher than what it costs to produce the permit for a license order Any questions? Okay Article 12 This is not for a change I think this is the one of the better terms I guess the only question that came up here would this affect municipal buildings the high school? So the way the current proposal is drafted yes the way the Brookline proposal was adopted yes interesting right now the high school as designed would meet what's being proposed under this bylaw no gas infrastructure aside from small gas line for Bunsen burners feeding the high school the high school would be fine better question about the central school which is actually starting very soon so that will be impacted we need to time a few with the DPW project to determine whether or not the applicability the projects I think more about are discussed in regards to expanding the Robbins library and a rebuild of the fossil and I don't know that I need to use the word impact but if this was to pass and be adopted or approved by the attorney general the buildings would have to be designed Any other questions? Does this affect private building construction? Yes Is that going to have a cost impact? So the numbers that I've seen and I think there's more work to be done on this to make sure that we're all that we believe it's incredible that if you're building new which this mostly will impact new construction if you're building new designing from scratch putting electric heat pump heat sources in is pretty much cost neutral from the fossil heat that's what I've read that's what I'm told but I think we need to see a little more about this Any other questions? Steve I'm just reading this and I know the final might be different but if you're prohibiting the installation of fossil fuel infrastructure that means the gas pump at the DPW and the new project and we can't pump gas into a truck So the I'm confident the wording the bylaw itself is specific to structures and not auto fueling but that's a fair part of structure but it's not a building it's not an inhabitable building Have you heard this article yet? No Any other questions? So How do you feel about this? I'm just saying I'm deciding the first thing to say I think it is the future of heating and cooling homes I think if we have any shot at getting to net zero by 2050 which the town is committed to this has to be a part of it by via carrot or stick get people in institutions including the town to move off of fossil fuels as part of it I'm not at all confident that the Attorney General is going to approve I am not an attorney so I get a little hesitant to weigh in but it seems to me that this could very much be trying to supersede the building code So I think this is a good policy discussion I think we should have the debate and the proponents should look forward but I think we're all very curious to see if the Attorney General's office says what they roll over about it Do you know what that's scheduled? So they have 90 days from the time it was submitted and I think it was submitted by the late December early January I believe the Attorney General asked for an additional 90-day period for the Attorney General Any other questions on 13 Article 26 Article 27 Article 27 retired police officers in for detail Christine, I think you have the question Yeah, I have many questions and what will the cost be what are these people going to be are they going to be in uniform are we paying for the uniform are they going to carry guns are they with training and what's the genesis of this So the genesis of this is a request in bargaining made by the ranking officers and we agreed as part of that bargaining to bring this forward for time making consideration I will say for years and years we've had a lot of trouble for years and years we've had a lot of trouble filling details we often have to go to other towns for their officers to come to town to work with details and sometimes we even have details that go unfilled and it can slow down road construction projects gas line replacement, gas main repair So I would say from where I sit I have an interest in expanding the pool of people that can work details I I talked to the chief I talked with Sandy I don't think there's any town financial impact here the details that either the town would be hiring we would be hiring anyways the details that private contractors would be hiring they would be hiring anyways and this would just divvy up who is working those details differently than it is now they would be police officers they would carry a gun the chief would have a set of standards that they would have to adhere to I sitting here tonight I don't know the answer about their uniforms but I can find that out so these would be officers say between 55 and will be an age women yeah 55 55 to 65 one does it says that if you are the age of 65 mandatory retirement you couldn't participate in that okay so if you're a retired police officer between 55 and 65 and I will say I don't offer this as a justification but I do know this is commonplace across the commonwealth it's not we wouldn't be the only ones it's not innovative or new okay David and Dean if they're going to be special police officers Adam doesn't that mean that they have inservice training once a year so that's a class factor I think they have to pay for that they being the they being the special police officer or just attend without pay to qualify to do this it appears to me that it's only for a certain group the farmer is to get an 80% retirement for a police or fireman it's 55 and 32 55 years of age 32 years of service now you can include now your military time up to four years but if you if you're if you stay on the job to 65 you can't work details because according to this bylaw you're retired it says mandatory retirement that's what I read in this bylaw I don't think this says you have to retire say that again I think it says the mandatory retirement age of 65 not 55 that's what I said 65 so in other words if you stayed on the job to your 65 you couldn't then become a special police officer and work details because you're retired another question would come up if you went on disability pension could you work details I don't believe so I don't believe so but it doesn't say that yet I think it's pension law that would dictate that but if adding that specificity is important again it appears to me it's only for a certain group of officers who opt to take an early retirement I want to be clear a police officer retiring at 55 is not an early retirement by definition an early retirement would be retiring before the age where you're eligible to max out I just don't want to make it seem like there's an extra benefit coming to people by retirement majority of officers do not retire at 55 the majority of officers maybe once in a while you might get one that hits the magic of 55 32 35 35 that hits the magic of 55 32 it wants to go but the majority of officers they might retire close to 59 or 60 rather than so it narrows your group down as to who want to be eligible to work these details how many times do you have to go out in town in the summertime in the summertime now this wouldn't if a lieutenant all wanted to take retired one take advantage of this what salary would he be paid at would he be paid at the patrolman just the detail rate flat detail because an outside detail would be paid at whatever the current detail outside detail rate okay and the detail rate doesn't make a difference between patrolman and lieutenant outside detail no on outside detail if you hire more than three men you have to hire a ranking officer to supervise the three men that's where it becomes very often for big project the other thing is this idea of hiring outside police officers to work in here that has been going on for years that's never going to start each community it's up to each community whether they want to participate in that program or not for years Allington didn't and then they decided to and for officers missing details it's all by choice if you get a telephone call and say hey Dave, you want to work a gas detail at Massick Grove Street no oh yes and then you get to a point you have so many officers working that that's why the so many officers saying no to the detail that's when you happen when the details then become unfilled then so the argument years ago was if we can get officers from outside to come would that be allowable eventually they said yes I mean we have officers that all the way from Bill Ricker but you can see that same Bill Ricker over in Watertown you can see that same Bill Ricker in Method it's all around this I don't think Cambridge allows it do they add them I don't think they do some of them does Method does Winchester does Lexington does in the town of Lexington the majority of people doing police details in Lexington special police officers not regular police officers for at least 50 years so it's a little different but going back to this article it narrows the scope of who's eligible to work these details it definitely narrows it down well it explains it because it's not allowed now no no well these same officers that are working details now so what you're saying to me if I retire at 55 in 32 I can still work details well that's a small group it's going to be eligible to retire at that magical farm like I say most people that work it's 55 59 years of age and 32 years of service it throws in a little mix now if you have military time you could add in to a retirement purpose for four additional years I understand you detail this doesn't count towards pension I'm good for now okay anybody else Grant he's ahead of me but I'll take it for now so the idea this is to not go out of town for the officers how many Arlington officers are you expecting to be in this pool of retired to be available for these details I don't have I don't know how many would be interested I think it would probably be a pool of only maybe 10 or 15 people it wouldn't be it wouldn't be a huge pool and this is of Arlington of Arlington like retired recently enough that they're not yet John I just want to go back to this issue of cost to the town in terms of applying requirements and if I'm reading section 5 correctly what it says is that the special officer will have to apply with all the requirements to the police department including training, medical exams uniforms and equipment and then it says compliance will be at no cost to the town of Arlington that's what I thought thank you for putting it on this that's that okay anybody else okay those articles were basically applied if the finance committee wanted to hear them make any kind of a recommendation the next articles are actually finance committee articles okay 49 so I got a number on this from Sandy what's the status of collective bargaining when did most of the contract run out what are the hold-ups and what's with them so all units but the patrol officer's unit are settled through FY21 so the upcoming budget year so we'll frankly be starting another round of bargaining for FY22 not all that long from now the patrol officers have not settled we are in the early stages of the JLMC that's the state level arbitration for public safety unions we're in mediation with them right now before we actually go to the full-blown arbitration so there was actually a pretty long mediation session earlier this week and we'll probably mediate several times again before it advances to the next stage of the process the hold-up is not coming to agreement on terms saying much more okay there are any questions on this how long has it been since they settled the contract is it two years or three right now we're coming up on two years so we're July 1 starts the third year of the contract that everyone else is in so we're coming up on it being two years without a contract anybody else okay okay 251,000 okay all on 52 do you have the parking benefit district so we are we're finalizing some expenditure estimates and revenue estimates I can tell you that revenues are coming in surpassing our FY20 projections for the parking meters in the center and the lots in the meters last year we had asked for and it was approved putting all the money in the parking benefit district money towards the Arlington Center sidewalk project it's likely that we will ask for further monies from the parking benefit district for the sidewalk project as part of the FY21 expenditures as well as some operational costs still focused on sidewalk cleaning and planter and tree watering in the center as well but I can get either she or the next couple of days so you'll send that to us and she'll send it out okay so you're planning on redoing some of the brick sidewalks so we fully designed and are ready very soon ready to go out to bid to redo the brick sidewalks basically from Franklin up to the intersection of Mass Mystic and Pleasant to completely concrete sidewalks with a stamped concrete colored brick trim while also redoing the Broadway block the same as East Arlington similar except it will be stamped to look exactly like bricks and not the larger panels like East Arlington where are you going to get up the next block because that's where I have to shovel in front of the church so I think once we get this done we'll start a planning process for the next block the next block is more likely to qualify for state funding we've met with MassDOT and they feel like from Mass Mystic and Pleasant westbound to Bartlett is a good complete streets and or MassDOT participating project because we would be doing more with the roadway to make it safer than we'd be doing for the stretch we're talking about now questions Jean well it's more of a comment not to say what to say but on the bricks that are being moved it's worth it to note that while they're beautiful my recollection is that a disability commission identifies the current small bricks as a mobility hazard for people like it's very difficult to walk around and so by getting rid of them these like small cute little bricks that are possible to walk on depending on who you are the bigger things that you're putting in actually give people more access to walk down the street so I had to shovel the walks and then they're hanging in the neck to do other questions comments so you'll send the exact budget and we'll get back to you if we have any questions on answer any other questions on brick sidewalks or replanting trees in the center that were killed by the gas so we're still we actually had a gas leaks task force meeting today the gas companies told us they had fixed all of the leaks in the center near town hall in the town hall garden that killed 14 trees however we have bought a gas sniffer for the tree warden to use and he still picks up gas so before we replant anything we still need to keep going back to national grid trying to figure out if we can confirm that there's real gas leaks questions okay 50 7 okay infrastructure transportation fund here's one that's really exact 34,279 dollars and 30 cents so this is the excuse me this is the money that the town or every city in town now gets from uber and lyft or TNC transportation network company rides is part of a new fee that was put on those rides two years ago so there's a 20 cent fee for any time any of us take uber or lyft or rideshare service the state gets 10 cents from that ride and the city of town from where that ride started gets 10 cents for that ride so last year we got about 25 thousand dollars this year or for 2019 I think it's actually all the way back to 2018 we received 34,279 dollars and 30 cents that's the exact amount we received last year we asked town meetings to appropriate the 25 thousand dollar amount to go towards our implementation of the bus rapid transit lane in East Arlington to help gain the roadway this year we're asking for that sum of money to be appropriated to go towards the center sidewalk project there is I'll mention that the governor is has filed legislation to increase that I believe the 20 cent fee to one dollar with the state keeping 70 cents and the town city of town is getting 30 cents I would doubt that that is what would be eventually passed but this could be a revenue source that grows okay now you want to use that towards the center sidewalk project in addition to the parking money yes we're pulling funding from a lot of different areas we use park and benefit district money chapter 90 money we want to use this money supplemental chapter 90 money that was released as part of the supplemental budget back in the summer so we're trying to pull from as many sources as we can probably go to bid soon the sidewalk work will likely start in the spring or the summer the plaza work won't happen until late fall through the winter into the spring of 21 because we learned that under Broadway Plaza is a large mwra valve that they were planning on replacing now so rather than us redoing the plaza and having them dig it up we're going to wait for them to do that work put it out as one big contractor that's doing that valve work for them will be the one that does in Broadway Plaza questions and so this sounds like a thing you want to market right that you want to make these little pockets of money coming in from these various taxes clear to the public they're not property taxes they're paying for improvement projects don't mean to mix metaphors here but Joan should have a field day with that one I'm sorry any of us Joan should have a field day with we should advertise that we're using this kind of money to do this kind of work and it's not coming on property taxes yep you're right on okay you'll get us some wording yeah okay so Adam is there a now a comprehensive plan for the plaza in Broadway Plaza so we for the time being which is probably a long time being we have abandoned doing actually expanding Broadway Plaza as we had talked about I think four years ago now now there's I guess I call it a comprehensive plan for redesigning the existing space of Broadway Plaza but leaving that triangular space monument square that goes from the fire station up to the Civil War monument leaving that alone as part of this project I know the veterans the veterans committee the veterans council is still working to figure out what the right thing to do is with the honor roll and I know they have been talking about Gonzalo I think we put the brakes on that a little bit talking about what the right thing to do for the veterans monument is a separate discussion so when you say redo it you mean from with the end of that memorial section is all the way up to this extreme yeah so the site we are planning on redoing the site walks around Monument Square but when I'm saying redo Broadway Plaza I'm saying actually with in the existing current lines with little stones and battles on it okay so at one point there is talk about closing off access to Mass Ave so that's for the time for again probably a long time being trees on Broadway Plaza those are some nice trees there are they going to be able to be preserved we're preserving as many as we can there's a number of them that will be removed as part of the NWA work to get access to that valve there's others that would frankly like to die as part of the project based on where their roots are so there's a number of trees planned on being removed from Broadway Plaza but also I think actually a greater amount planned to be planted in their areas how big they are is still a question we might want to supplement with some tree funds from the McCankering the quest planting some larger trees than just putting in saplings so that we get better coverage you know faster and would that include replacing all the trees that were taken out on the American Alarm side we are fully replantable they have a planting plan for their property and we've coordinated our planting plan along the sidewalk so that species and size shape the coordinate any other questions on the 57 ok 15 8 ok this is the public access so this will be the same as last year ok sorry yes this I believe we did this for the first time last year there's still I guess somewhat new state regulations the department of revenue that the peg money that's the cable money we get that ACMI provides their programming with used to flow into the town and per the agreement we have with ACMI flow to ACMI the state now wants town meetings or local government legislatures to adopt those expenditures or appropriate those expenditures so we'll put a very again like last year very basic order of what we believe the revenue to be for the year and what ACMI is the most operating and capital expenditure ok there are any questions ok ok the next two are the water and sewer I think those are those amounts in the budget grant you're getting those yes we can yes ok 16 gone ok 4 bike share infrastructure so likely everybody knows that line bike has fully pulled out of the market so the dockless bike share that we had for a year and a half or so will no longer be here we did see very high ridership or usership of line bike so I think it demonstrated there was an appetite for bike share in the community so we filed this warrant article for $100,000 for us to be able to consider joining blue bike and expanding the blue bike network to Arlington that's a far lower number than when we were talking about it just a couple years ago they have since been blue bikes now acquired by Lyft so they have significantly more resources behind them I can't claim that I fully know what their business model is but we went from talking about an initial investment of over $200 to $250,000 to now an initial investment of $100,000 for five stations fortunately since we filed this warrant article we learned that we are receiving a state grant in the amount of $80,000 a workforce transportation grant that we applied for in partnership with several other cities and towns for blue bikes so we have to match that 80 with 20,000 to be able to provide us five docking stations however over the course of the next month or so we want to have a dialogue about if we think five stations is enough because five stations probably only covers East Arlington and Lyme bike was covering the whole town talking with some people I think people are interested in seeing whether or not a townwide bike share program could work so we have to say tonight we want to ask for the whole $100,000 but tell you that we want to have some discussions over the next month or so and come back with a proposal for either $20,000 to match the grant or $100,000 to both match the grant and be able to acquire more stations to stretch for a larger segment of town three bikes per station I believe it's ten bikes per station how did the bike share programs work that I've seen in Summerville and Cambridge do the companies own those stations I'm trying to figure out why we're involved in this so from Boston to Cambridge to Summerville to Brookline the infrastructure the bikes and the stations have been purchased either directly by the municipalities or by institutional sponsors but then they become the property of the municipality the model has been that the operator which was so it was Hubway operated by Motivate then it changed to Bluebike but Motivate was still the operator company and now Lyft has purchased them and I believe Motivate is still even if they changed their name I think the same company has operated them so the model is that the municipality owns the infrastructure but you work with an operator who are the ones that come out and service the stations and pick up the Summerville bikes and bring them back to Summerville and the Arlington bikes Arlington and so on and so forth that's the way the model has been so will this be involved will the other cities and towns in the area be involved in this so we would be able to instantly connect to the Bluebike network excuse me Bluebike network in Summerville, Cambridge, Boston it just expands the network questions Charlie who was the bike and do we have a sense of why bikes are in bikes and stations my understanding is they assume they will last five years I think the stations will last a long time so the citizens they use the bikes and we don't get a cut the town doesn't get a cut under the old model there was different ways to look at it would get a cut and have more of a capital payment less of a capital up front payment my understanding under this new model is the operator is going to operate it that's my understanding I think admittedly needs to refine my understanding of it I don't know that we cut the grant but I don't understand why we get interworking but that's what that is tonight that's my understanding Fallon so the 20,000 is that an annual fee or what are ongoing costs for maintenance replacements so my current understanding is nothing but I need to refine it if we have the bikes and the stations I would think we would be responsible for maintenance for replacement in five years I know we would own replacement I'm not clear on what what we own on day to day I want to know what the future costs of the program would you say the line bike was really popular do we have a count on users yeah we have all that I didn't bring that but I have I'm just wondering if all the taxpayers are subsidizing a relatively small number so how many unique users yeah we have that we didn't have to pay anything for a line bike any questions how do we determine locations and are we we wouldn't want to put this part of our business right but before we would place them anywhere we would go through a community process to figure out where we would I think we have some ideas so it's business without time if this were to go forward what's the time frame if it was to go forward we would hope to get something up and running by the summer including construction all the the hearing process are they gonna watch our bikes right now no they'd be shocked if they don't want to move there eventually but right now they don't okay any so did I miss this or do we have a contract we'll be entering into we haven't entered into it yet so there's like the length of that contract is how many years do you know I think they do five year contracts okay so $100,000 five years we own the equipment I do think that is going to be what I learned but they do all the moving the bikes back into place etc etc making sure there's a bike in every round yes Fran who's going to do the repairing so my understanding is that's part of the operator's responsibility so the company that does the operations the rebalancing moving the bikes around does the day to day if something like the pedals break or the brakes break they would fix it Fran well I would imagine my bike would love to come back with electric scooters and I'm just wondering what's the likelihood of that happening in Arlington and if it does what would happen what would be the continued interest in the bike sharing that once we make investments as opposed to everybody being interested in vibrating electric scooters so our current position is until the state law changes that legalizes the scooters we're not going to move on them but Brookline chose to not wait MassDOT's basic no one disputes that the state law does not the state law says those scooters are not legal right now MassDOT came out sort of passing the buck a little bit saying well we'll leave it up to you the law says this but we're not going to come crack down on you if you break it but Brookline's still the only one that has chosen to go against the law I think if they change the law we would take a serious look at it I'm sure like Brookline it would be a really fiery local discussion about the pros and cons of the scooters to your final point I don't know if the scooters have cannibalized Brookline's blue bike bike share well I can ask I'm sure they have data but I don't know do art bylaws I'm pretty sure they forget by certain some sidewalks do they say anything about scooters do art do art bylaws I'm pretty sure we dealt with all kinds of electronic vehicles I mean if it doesn't specifically reference electric scooters it has to reference motorized vehicles they are okay other questions on this John they pose a hypothetical if I may suppose somebody tears down one of our speed pills on a bicycle and goes over the pale bar gets injured we own the bike and they claim that the brakes were froze on them or whatever are we liable let me I don't want to give an off the cuff answer let me verify I can't imagine that there is significant municipal liability given the other communities that have been doing it for so long now and I'm sure there have been incidents but let me find out okay other questions any one last quick question just because nobody has asked it why are they not paying us I question myself for a long time I think the answer is and I think this is where this becomes a policy discussion for cities and towns like government subsidizes basically every form of transportation this form of transportation needs government subsidy I think that's the short answer right we subsidize transit people don't like to hear it but we subsidize cars I think this is another version of the transportation subsidy I'm not making a value judgment on that no I understand what you're saying I just wanted to don't think that we actually thought about it Ellen before this vote comes to town meeting there are other places a lot of Europe and I think Malden they just buy a bunch of old bikes and they paint them orange and they leave them around town sort of free life my question is are there any alternatives being looked at to providing convenient casual bikes for other than blue other options other than blue they're being investing in so the only other I guess I'll say two things we have for years and years and years looked at all the options out there and we settled online I shouldn't even say we settled online we settled on dockless because it was free and the major downside of dockless or the lay orange bikes around everywhere approach is you don't get the benefit of the network because we're not an island people aren't going to use these bikes just within the walls of Arlington so Lyme was good but it was also a little wonky because most people took their Lyme bikes down to Aleway but they couldn't use it when they crossed those two big granite barriers because you crossed the Cambridge right over there so at certain points you would just see these farms of Lyme bikes left right on the Arlington side down by joining the network people can take their bike from Arlington center they can get on a blue bike and they can go put it in the rack at Aleway they can go put it in the rack at Teal Square they can go put it in the rack at Davis Square so on and so forth on a Saturday afternoon they could take it in Boston they could come down to Capital Square East Arlington and go see a movie and have an ice cream the network is the benefit of joining blue bikes so we could look at other options that Zagster is a sort of a lower tech, lower cost option that some communities have used I think Lexington is using Zagster right now Salem is using Zagster but I think I do believe that if we want to go forward with this getting the benefit of the network is how you really give your residents the real true benefit of this transportation asset we looked at the past use of the line bikes and what the anticipated cost of the residents are going to be to use these bikes in other words for that $100,000 how much revenue are we generating for blue bike companies I can get that I don't know so basically if everybody who was using a line bike went to use a blue bike how much can we sort of ask a broader question town government provides an array of services that don't always go to everybody library provides people services for people going to a library and I think there's a general recognition that to a certain degree we're living beyond our means we have to have overrides every three years five years whatever what you see is the justification for basically taking on a whole new transportation service to the tune of $100,000 a year $20,000 a year okay that may be different but I have a feeling that $80,000 state grants are going to last forever but it's $100,000 that we're sort of adding to the taxpayer's stress that benefits I don't know how many people a day do we have statistics for line bikes and how many people would actually use those each year we have literally the statistics where it started where it finished how long it was, how fast they went and we have like the attack on the line bikes was really sophisticated so we have really good data how many ended up in Millbrook but anyway what would be the justification for an added burden on the taxpayer for what yes is a fairly small number of people so I don't think it's as small as you would think okay I think it's in the thousands and not the hundreds I think it's a lot of people use these bikes or would use these bikes you know I struggle with that but I struggle with the broader question we we have our financial limitations that we're all very well aware of but we are a growing community in a very, in a rapidly changing region many people are moving here or currently live here who are looking for new and better ways to enhance their quality of life get to work, change their commute whatever it might be and more and more people are looking for these flexible these flexible ways to get down to ALY or get to their office or whatever it might be and I mean I think we could make the decision that we don't want to spend this money or that we shouldn't spend this money and that would be a fine decision but we would then have to figure out the way to respond to the residents who are looking for those better ways to get around to the question who don't want to take the bike out of the small basement in their condo in East Orleans and they'd rather walk down and get a blue bike I mean I could talk about a thousand anecdotes why this could provide an easier service but I think that is the policy question for me to consider for this body to consider for town meeting to consider yeah there is only so far we can go right I mean you know the next thing would be some day we'd be able to talk about running our own transit service there is so far we could go and at some point we have to say there is only so far all the tax I have a couple other questions could you put together all this data don't vary us with rides but I'd love to know how many people use this say line bike per day so we get the service when you get all your data together when you have the contract when you know about the liability question when you know about that could you make an appointment with Liz and come on back with whoever else you think now the schedule right now the 11th the 16th and the 18th of March are free now two of those are Wednesdays so if you can think of the 11th as the 18th as a standard of date okay now any other comments or questions Charlie you know you just you actually sort of collided over the core question is in my mind what's the difference between a blue bike if you want to ride a bike it might cost $100 or $200 or something that lasts for 10 years why are we buying these bikes in these stations I mean there are hundreds of people who have ride bikes all the time I can't make that leap with the with the line bikes it was free it's much smaller but now you're saying you said that somebody who doesn't want to take the bike out of the cello they'd rather walk three blocks than walk those bikes well tough you need the exercise looking at the cello and walking down the street that's probably good for you I guess I'll say again I think it's entirely legitimate policy I think some people will feel strongly that with the changing workforce the changing schedules that people have that if they're in a hurry in the morning and they decide that they want to get on get in a hurry in the morning but if they're in a hurry in the morning and they need to get on the bus get right down to the red line and get into work that's their morning commute but when they come out a bail wife in the afternoon they would love to get on a bike but they didn't ride there in the morning and ride home on a bike but I think I think there's a point and a counterpoint to some people will argue that it should be the town's or could be the town's responsibility but I think this will argue that you are going to buy a bike I frankly shouldn't because I see just because we're going to get in the arguments of yes or no on this when all the manager comes back any additional questions that you'd like him to consider or that you would have at that time anybody here okay local 72 local option taxes now this is one that we put in every year on the hope that there'll be something in the budget that do you see anything in the governor's budget or any talk that you have heard about that would provide or regulatory that could provide Arlington a new source of revenue that we might want to take advantage of quickly not right now there's lots of talks about different types of taxes and fees particularly around transportation at the state level I don't see any passing very soon or before we're at a meeting and I don't know that any of them actually are even local option there is talk not to go into too much detail but there's been for a couple of years talk about something called regional ballot initiatives that would allow cities and towns either by themselves or banded together to adopt I guess you'd call them debt exclusions or things that look like debt exclusions to fund large transportation projects so that's not exactly a local option tax that's something that could come up in transportation debate this year but it doesn't exactly stand this point and probably not likely to pass okay well is that exciting going on in the channel well it's always exciting any other questions for the block managers John speaking of revenue enhancement last year we voted on on the recreational marijuana taxes and what not and in the sense of when we might start seeing some revenue so we have received our first not very large but our first payments from Minnesota Medical Marijuana dispensary operating at Water Street I think we'll probably not start to see the recreational marijuana until next fiscal year they're still they're still not open I think they've finished their special program for ARB so it's probably still once before we see them and the second firm is further behind them and then there's a third license or host community agreement that hasn't been issued yet so that would obviously be much further behind them thank you any other questions for the manager or have them trapped so there are a couple articles I thought we were going to discuss the difference articles 9, 10 and 20 they're all fee adjustments or maybe we did 9 which is now 11 no the canine control fees and fines I listed all the ones but I'm sorry which articles canine control fees and fines article 9 oh so on so on so on yeah, former aid current 9 and then a couple others former 9 we had referred it to the finance department subcommittee to actually get a revenue impact on the dollar change so we referred it and then we were going to have the question we had an answer and I'll verify this but I'm pretty sure both of them are to become in compliance with state law okay I don't think we're just taking random action to reduce no I didn't think you were I just thought we might but I guess we'll wait for the answer okay anything else okay going back I did check with your assistant John Clark and I asked them about this particular article they requested to reduce the fine basically what they said that they found that more than people have more than one dog across the town and instead of a $50 fine it has to be $100 fine and they're finding out that people because of this they're not registering their dogs at all so they felt that simply stated to reduce the fine from $50 to $25 that's the way they explain it okay okay thank you very much for coming appreciate your time okay now okay now let's go back through these articles now article 8 the new one okay now the first 5 articles we looked at 8, 9, 12 8, 12 13 and 27 we're basically we had some questions do we want to hear them they're basically selection articles so the bike hours I recommend that we just let the selection handle that is that okay okay adjust fees that was on the stormwater again I would suggest we just let the selection handle that okay impact on municipal buildings is the book buying one on fossil fuels again my suggestion would be to let the selection handle it but okay and the 27 was the bike path noise details okay and I guess my suggestion is to let the selection handle that one too I don't see any additional cost okay now I think we can do some votes here some of the more routine ones let's start with article 49 this is all on the new updated motion okay article 49 like the manager said three-year contract set to expire in June 2021 so we don't worry about those the other one left is the patrolman they have not settled they're going into binding arbitration which is their right however we still need to appropriate money because at some point there will be a three-year contract and that will have to go at backfill last year this year and next year and so the manager's office determined that we need 251,000 to be set aside for future collective bargaining all the same way we did last year except last year with a couple more unions so the appropriation will be needed will be 251,000 do I have a motion? move Charlie seconds 251,000 are there any questions on this especially for the new people okay all those in favor please say aye opposed unanimous 19 okay so that one done now parking so Liz as soon as you get that send it around and we'll take care of that this is a semi-revolving enterprise fund that we set up for the parking district to take all those quarters you notice during snowstorms they don't park as well in the non-metered space as they do in the metered space to give you an incentive to go down and put your quarters in okay so we'll wait to hear that okay article 57 okay article 57 is there 34,279 dollars and 30 cents which is the amount of money that we actually received last year I guess and the manager wants to set that aside to contribute to the redoing of the bricks sidewalks in Arlington senate so moved okay moved and seconded any discussion questions okay all those in favor please say aye aye okay unanimous 219 okay public access we'll need a number yeah we'll need a number so as the manager is pointing this is the second year we've done it so basically the same instead of the money just flowing to the cable company we actually need to appropriate it so we'll wait to hear that Grant do you have any 58 or 59? okay 58 is sorry 59 sewer that's passed for 800,000 800,000 to be borrowed okay for new people each year we set aside an article what happens is the NWRA will loan this money to you interest free and then the pressure works out for a payment schedule and we pay it back over a period of time from the water and sewer enterprise funds so it's sort of free money for now we have to pay it back so 800,000 any questions okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed unanimous 219 and how much for water? 1.3 million got a motion moved and seconded any discussion or questions all those in favor please say aye aye opposed unanimous 219 okay like infrastructure we'll wait to hear it should be an interesting discussion let's see the statistics okay and yes Alan quick comment on this this is a really moving situation lift just by motivate that runs blue bikes just by jump I'm sure blue bikes wants to lock us up with blue before jump gets here it's such a fluid situation it's not just either or it's wait maybe the best option I think everybody should look into the whole industry of bike sharing because if lime is going to go out of business such as it is now is anybody know how lime did they make money they lost $300 million last year oh that's not good I always thought they were a litter I just see lime bikes all over the place in the middle of the sidewalk it's an industry in turmoil it's not a contract with anybody it may be a vanity bearable okay so I walked down Mass Ave to Cambridge and then I walked to the left down the bike path to Davis Square there's a rack of bikes there that's blue it used to be Hubway and then they got sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield changed the name of blue it's operated by a company named Motivate which was purchased by Lyft okay there's a lot of churners okay and like I said if we put 20,000 down that's probably going to be for the first year and then we lose the state grant that's 100,000 after that so yeah I think now I was right think about this where this is going does anybody else have any general comments bye bike we Barbara and I moved right on the bike path and we brought our two bikes there and I think Barbara's used them once and I've used them twice in two and a half years I don't know Davis out there on the bike path he should use the bike and then there's always the issue about I'm going to talk to the manager about why rush this there's one other thing that's common in these so I don't know if our data is like that which is anybody who lives in Arlington can buy a bike and ride down to ale life the bikes originally in the business plans talked about somebody comes on the red line to ale life and wants to get somewhere to Arlington that was actually their primary use case so it would be interesting to see how many of the bikes are being used by residents versus non-residents and if it in fact is a lot of non-residents what value do we place on making it easier for somebody who got to ale life on the red line to get further in Arlington we can have a discussion with us more about those issues yeah so I'll just mention some people from Tufts I think took all of the GPS readings from line bikes they did a big map of where the bikes came from and went to I'll find the paper instead of the list but there's a lot of science in how those bikes moved around I hope to see that 300 million now is that like the whole country global what just okay so but think of the questions and if you have the questions like Alan I suggest just put it together in an email and shoot it to the manager so you might as well know what the questions are before he goes back and if I suggest that you know to anybody here question can he talk about a five year contract and then we apparently own the racks the bikes if you want a cheap bike by the way the police department have an auction I think in the spring in the spring of a lot of I would assume fairly cheap bikes in our neighborhood we have a bike exchange once a year the kids who right now give the bike away that they had when they were 12 they get the next big one from the neighborhood okay and the last so that's going to be later and the last one is the local option taxes which is 72 two okay I would suggest by the way we have 83 articles in the warrant and apparently if you can combine the special with the annual last year we had 83 articles so it's not as bad provided we don't have another special we said no action yeah I'm just trying to see how we took the vote last year so we are reasonably consistent yeah last year we just said no action would be taken comment there's no legislation and regulation available for adoption in this article I guess I'd recommend the same vote so moved okay no action on article 72 any discussion all those in favor say aye opposed no action unanimous 2019 okay so that gets rid of some articles I think we had one or two budgets left to do I got planning okay let's do planning 66 planning 66 budget as printed there are a few peculiarities here under expenses there is something called telephone which is mislabeled that's supposed to be dues and prescriptions and the history is correct on that for dues and prescriptions just a logical thing the auto allows has not been aligned in this budget before so I think these figures have been judged up from the expenses that were spent so it's the amount of the this rate's opinion this is just better budgeting to put in they use it to go to meetings and the conservation commission people use it to go to their sites around town what is it what is it what car is that it's your own car okay so these are people asking to be reimbursed for milling on their own cars so did this come out of technology in economic development what wine was it pulled from I don't know where it came from but they they've been paying it themselves from their own prepackage you know there had to be some place and they're not budgeting for it this year maybe better accounting but I'm not sure it's better budgeting well they're taking bikes that would be nice blue or green blue this year not wine so are they taking the auto allowance and putting it under technology and economic development looks that way doesn't it it's for $9 it's probably for transportation yeah maybe I should double check on the it's they need to be consistent you know if this is coming if this is not technology but miscellaneous or something you know then you'd be bringing money down so flipping through the book quickly what I've noticed is general ledger account code 5209 for everybody else is in-state travel and so what I'm what I'm guessing that they're doing here is they're saying reimbursement for mileage moving around the town of Arlington is not in-state travel and so they're taking it out of the in-state travel general ledger account and moving it down to 5350 for technology slash economic development so that use of 5209 auto allowance is just the only time the general ledger account is in-state travel they change it here to auto allowance so it's like where has it been in the budget no what I'm saying is it was a one line item somewhere else so every so if you think like this entire book rolls up general ledger accounts so 5209 is supposed to be in-state travel so none of the activities in the planning department that Peter described are in-state travel so I think right it's in town travel so I think what you're saying is they're just moving it out of that ledger account because it doesn't belong there because it doesn't qualify as in-state travel because it's not in-state travel where do you think the proper place should be I don't know if there's a proper place but I'm guessing I just want it out of there because it doesn't belong there otherwise unclassified so that's why they put it down to I think so I think what they did is they didn't eliminate the expenditure of the money they just reclassified it down to 5354 I would say and 5354 doesn't have a lot of usage in the other departments actually it doesn't have any so far they're just making this stuff up it's probably we saw the economic the awful person here this afternoon this evening she's a major user of this according to what we were told well I don't think it should be in that class I think it should be in otherwise unclassified it doesn't sound like it matches if it's truly a swap maybe it's something else and they just eliminated the auto and the increase in technology for some other reason well here could you go back to Sandy and say that the finance committee doesn't think that putting in-town under technology and economic development makes any sense that it should be otherwise if anything, put in the otherwise unclassified yes we'll be clarified that's what it is first right and then it should be budgeted in whatever line it's in they're going to call it auto allowance put the budget there see what Sandy says okay now where would inspection most of that would be inspection would be the same thing they travel around the town a bit of course I think they use town cars yeah but that's the difference we'll start putting tabs on these things they have travel and they've got other way to unclassify it with nothing in it but again I think they use town cars that's different okay anything else one other point offsets the conservation number is 4000 971 and their conservation commission collects fees the fund can only be used for certain things this is one of them and it puts a part of the amount or certain pay and it's a good part of that salary okay the fund has about 10,000 dollars in it so I asked them to consider extracting more than more than 4900 dollars how much they take in on an annual basis okay it's a good chunk of it 10,000 could you ask them how much have they been receiving on an annual basis and if they can't give you the number the controller should be able to okay anything else that's all okay any questions discussion okay with the caveats that we'll hear back from Sandy or whoever on the appropriate place to put the 4901 and what the conservation commission annual revenue is uh is there a motion some movement wait we don't have to have a caveat we don't need a caveat we don't vote line items no I know that if we vote on this we want to vote but we also want to get those pieces of information back to us it doesn't matter to our vote it doesn't matter to vote just make sure they are consistently in the same account okay I'm sorry any is there a second uh any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye okay favorable action okay favorable action plus 219 okay now uh on our calendar we have one more right but it's the redeveloped page the next page okay back to the next page uh 60 okay I'm sorry did we vote please okay redevelopment board page 670 does no change the same the same as last year $10,800 some movement second like it any questions or discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye okay the calendar is not fair uh we have a schedule meeting on Monday the 24th Liz do we have any hearings for that day no who is going to have budgets ready for next Monday we can do police we can do police okay police okay uh any others okay police will take about 15 minutes record rank will probably take another 15 minutes no hearings uh okay I hear by cancel next Monday's meeting Liz can you let everybody who is not here know so next Monday the 24th meeting is canceled Wednesday the 26th we are hearing the community preservation that will take a good chunk of the day Liz are they going to be sending materials to us yes they are okay so after we do community preservation we'll go into the record and the police how about by Wednesday are there additional budgets we'll be ready fire okay great okay now Wednesday March 4th we have uh capital budget I inadvertently left off the second um and I'll add it the calendar but we're going to put oxen oxen culture on the second of March okay the second okay okay so uh Monday March 2nd arts and culture coming in okay now they wanted the same amount of money that they did last year yeah yeah yeah are they requesting the same amount as last year I believe they were requesting the same amount last year but I will put it down and I will get the documentation okay the same amount as they requested last year or the same amount as they got last year I think the same amount as they got last year okay now and if they could talk about ways that they're raising money to reduce the burden on the town I have clarified for them that they need to do that however the email that I got from them was very long and a large and a corporate and I'm worried that they're coming in with 20 slides so I'm working on making sure it's concise okay so Monday the second we are hearing from the arts and culture okay so Monday they need to cancel we have some budgets to fill up Wednesday Monday the second what other budgets could come in the IT budget probably okay others um I was going to say the March 4th the assistant yeah well the second one the assistant okay public works are we okay did I say Wednesday Wednesday the 11th maybe for the manager yes the 11th for the 18th okay why don't you give him a call and ask about that okay is there any other business for the meeting meeting adjourned