 Good evening. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Monday, June 26, 2023. I am Select Board Chair Eric Helmuth. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023 signed into law on March 29, 2023, which further extends certain COVID-19 measures regarding remote participation in public meetings until March 31st of 2025. Before we begin, please note the following. And before I do that, I'm going to say to the crowd in the room, it's wonderful to see everybody. This is the first time in anyone's recent memory we have been this kind of standing room only. Unfortunately, our usual overflow room is not available because of the ceiling being unreliable and we have funds in line to address that because of some water damage. However, if anyone is not comfortable standing, you're welcome to stay here. If you want, there are some chairs downstairs in the hallway outside of what is formerly the coat room and is now the ACMI control room. It's not air conditioned, but you can hear. So he's got a speaker there. So if you need to be seated, you can listen to the proceedings from that space just down the stairs from here. So regarding the hybrid format, first note that this meeting is being conducted in the select board chambers and over Zoom. It is being recorded and simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. So you're all on TV. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others. So if you wish to participate, we ask you to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting that goes for both Zoom and in person. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment. Those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching in ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials found on the town's website, specifically the select board agendas and minutes page. Let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight and there is a lot of it. So let's get moving. As an advisory, we have an initial presentation of Mr. Tosti if you want to take your spot there. After he makes a brief presentation for item two, I'm going to take the item for the senior, item 19, senior parking permit promosal. We'll move that up and take that next because I have a feeling that's what most of the people in Israel care for. We'll do that afterwards. But from here I will turn it over to Mr. Tosti for a brief update on a really interesting and important project for the town's history. Mr. Tosti. Thank you, members of the select board. I never realized we'd attract such a crowd to hear this presentation, but that is great. What I wanted to do was bring you up to speed on the status of the foot of the Rocks battlefield memorial. There was, I think you have received a copy of the master plan. I hope you have a chance to go through it. The first part is actually not that long. It's all the appendices that take some time. The CPA Committee on Community Preservation granted us $50,000 about two years ago to start initial plans. We hired a landscape architect, formed a working group, and then the landscape architect came up with some plans, working group modified them as we went, came up with two presentations, which are also in the appendices. We went to two public hearings and got a great deal of feedback and modified it to come up with what is sort of the semifinal plan, and nothing is cast in stone if you'll pardon the expression. But we really want to emphasize the historic importance of this to the town of Arlington. A rather cynical Arlington historian once said that Lexington Battle was a mistake. The Concord Battle was a skirmish. Arlington Monotomy was a battle. And what was happening there was the British were retreating from Concord and disarray. They were rescued by a relief party coming out of Boston of British troops. They were reorganized, fought off the militia in Lexington, and then retreated through East Lexington, not much of an issue. In Arlington Heights, then Monotomy, they were confronted with 1,700 militia from 35 companies drawn up in a semicircle, blocking their path back to Boston. The British have been in this war thing for a long time. They had two field pieces. They turned around their field pieces, started blazing away, houses, rocks, stone walls. The militia were militia. They were just that. They weren't soldiers. They scattered. And the battle, this became the bloody mile, the battle of Monotomy, all the way through the Jason Russell house and to a certain degree beyond. We want to tell the story. And not just about the battlefield, but we, from all the feedback we've been getting, we want to broaden this out. So we're not going to just talk about the battlefield at this memorial. We're also going to be talking about the people of Arlington or Monotomy at that time, about 400 people. What were they about? What were their, what was the economics about? And we have two groups working on this, one from focused on the Human Rights Commission talking about the people of Arlington, Monotomy, and the other talking about the battlefield itself. So we have plaques, panels along the edge. We also have an obelisk, and we've basically given them sort of carte blanche to get that going. But I also want to mention one other thing that I think should be really important to the Board of Select, the Select Board. And that is the aesthetics and the safety of this area. Now we all know the problems that we've had at the Appleton Street intersection with Massav. Well, the intersection of Wall Street and Massav is another area. Aesthetically, it is ugly. It is acres of asphalt. In addition to that, it's dangerous. Somebody crossing at the current crosswalk, which goes to the start of the point of the foot of the rocks, has to look up and down Wall Street, up and down Massav, people turning. They've got to look in three directions to cross one street. That is dangerous. What this plan does is take that crosswalk, move it down Wall Street. So you're crossing Wall Street. We only have to look in two directions. You go up the steps or on the handicap access across and you look in two directions again. So I think it makes a major safety improvement to the area. Now there's another addition that I'd like the Select Board to think about over the next while, and that is we could make this even safer. Now this is not tied to the foot of the rocks project, but it could be an ancillary project, which is to create a bump out out of Wall Street to Massav. So it comes off of Wall Street directly towards Massav. Now what this does is it forces, instead of a raceway going back and forth, it forces people coming up, cars coming up Wall Street to make a perpendicular turn into Massav and then make a right or a left. So they have to slow down. It forces people coming up Massav who want to make a right onto Wall Street that they have to slow down and make a right hand turn. So by creating this bump out as an addition, I think it could be a major safety improvement to that area, could improve the aesthetics. We could even take the horse trough, which as you all know got destroyed, not destroyed, but and take the horse trough and move it and put it right there. So the Public Works Department only has to move 50 feet instead of two miles. So I think the foot of the rocks combined with this could create a major improvement to an aesthetically challenged area of Massav and make a great improvement to the area and improve our history. Our timetable now is we basically need to raise $900,000 between now and July 1 of next year. The timetable is if we back up, we want to have this ready and up and running by April 19, 2025. Obviously, I could do a lot of construction work over the winter. So if we start construction July 1, 2024, we could finish up by November 30 of 2024, which several people have told me is very doable. This is all an outside project. There's no houses. There's no thing like that. We could have it all done, but we have to have all the money in place. Now to do that, we are looking at all sources. We're looking at local sources. We are looking at state sources, earmarks. We're looking at federal grants. Obviously, there's a lot of federal grants in this area, but it's not for construction. But it could be for interpretive work, panels, things like this. So the timetable is important. We need to have everything in place. I wanted to bring the select board up to speed on this. It's a major policymaker in the town of Arlington, and hopefully people in the audience, we appreciate any suggestions. We'll be always appreciated. A checkbook would even be more appreciated. We hope to have another, we were planning to have another public hearing on a more finalized project in late September, probably even early October. And with that, I welcome any suggestions or questions that you may have. And of course, you could always just shoot me an email or give me a call if you have any others. Thank you, Mr. Tosti. Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Mr. Tosti. Thank you for your championing of the Florida Rocks area and its connection to the town. I've been doing a lot of work with the 2025 celebration. Just last month, we went into a regional meeting with Lexington Concord and some of the surrounding areas. And it's funny to sit down to them is that we're always Lexington and Concord's little brother or little sister when it comes to historical significance. And they're a firm on ahead of us in their planning. And it was clear to us from Arlington that we have to start thinking of creative ways to get once the 2025 celebration comes afoot to attract people from those areas to come to Arlington. And I think the foot of the rocks project among our other treasures that sometimes get unnoticed like the Jason Russell House and Schwann Mill and whatnot is a really important cog in our plan to try to get people to Arlington for that celebration. So I'm happy to hear that it's in process and hopefully we can hit that timeline. As part of my participation, I started to reach back to my fifth grade social studies lessons and get a little more history. And in the joint meeting, we talked about the different battles of Concord and Lexington and how the bloodiest battle was right here in Arlington. And I don't know if that's something that we want to be known for, but it's certainly our history and it's our way of participating in the celebration, which is going to be significant at the time. And we don't know who's going to come, but it could be whoever the President of the United States is at that time with the Vice President coming through. And we're anticipating millions of people to come to our little area. And we have a lot of planning to do, but again, I think this project will fit in very well. I think we will have to have some get creative with both permanent fixes, but I certainly anticipate if this project is done, it becomes part of our plans for that time. We could make Lowell Street one way for a short period of time just to allow for buses and parking there. And we'll come up with safety improvements. It's going to be a work in progress, but again, I was very happy to see this coming forward. I think this is a really important project for the town in general, but specifically for the 2025 celebration. So I do appreciate your work on this. Thank you, Mr. Herb. And I'll move her seat. I don't know if I do that. Mr. Dickens, I'll second that. And I will say I'm very excited about the additional safety element on the bump out. I read the plan or the report last, well, when I was chair, so early in the spring, it wasn't me. The whole additional part is new. Any idea how much it would cost? I got a bump out itself. I got a rough estimate of 100,000. That's a bad. And which I thought was very doable. It takes away asphalt. It's sort of traffic calming that whole area. Obviously, more has to be done down in Appleton Street, which I realize has other issues. But this is 100,000 approximately that could be done in conjunction, calm the traffic, put the horse trough there, and sort of make this whole area much more attractive and safe at the same time. And it might be eligible for a complete street as a complete street project. I mean, so you might want to look into that because right now we are we're doing the prioritization of our complete streets plan. Okay. And I think this would be something to be right up that alley. The price point is right. I mean, I'm trying to remember, I don't recall any projects in that area, but I think it could work. I mean, it may be that we haven't put any project in that area because it's considered part of that core to work from Appleton Street down Mass Ave. But still, I mean, if we want to get this done quickly, I mean, I think you might want to look into talking to our planning department, the senior transportation planner about that, and you might get like half the funds from that plan, right? And I can talk, if you couldn't hear me well, that's why we can talk about it later on, right? I'll talk to you. We'll get that later. No, that sounds great. Thank you, Mr. DeCours. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Tash, I'd like to thank you for all the work that you've done on this. And you really got this going a couple of years ago with the application through the CPA Committee for the funds to do this study. And I encourage everybody who has an opportunity to look at the master plan. It's on our agenda. It's also on the town's website. It is well thought out. And the public process is very impressive in terms of the comments and how the project evolved based on those comments. And the last thing I would say is I couldn't agree more on the crosswalk moving it further down Lowell Street. It actually incorporates nicely into your plan. And the plan right now looks great. Moving the boulders to the front. I learned a little bit about the horse truck, too. I always thought it was there originally. Evidently, it came from the first parish church and was moved up there at some point. So thank you for the history lesson as well. Okay. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. And just to a motion to be received by Mr. Hurd and seconded by Mr. Diggins. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? unanimous in favor of receipt. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your service to the town and this interesting project. All right. Now, as announced previously, we will now take up item 19, the senior parking permit proposal. Let the proponents come to the table. Just introduce yourselves for the record. And please welcome. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, select board for taking us on the agenda this evening. I'm Christine Shah. I'm the executive director at the council on aging. This is Pat O'Connell. She is an awesome volunteer, a participant at the community center and a community mobilizer tonight. I think as shown by how wonderful the response has been. And I just wanted to start by saying thank you. I know this is a crowded room. Everybody here are just gifts to Arlington truthfully. They are thrilled to be presenting this with me this evening and you know, I think are really excited and motivated by having something to benefit the older adults community in Arlington on the agenda, the select board meeting. So it's pretty exciting for me to see everybody here. So the council on aging serves residents as many of you know in Arlington that are over age 60. Right now, we have about 12,000 residents over age 60 in Arlington and by 2040, it's going to be closer to 14,000, which will be over 30%. It is one of the towns in Massachusetts that has the highest percentage of older adults, which I always find really interesting and it comes up a lot in our Massachusetts council on aging meetings that we have. We wanted to start off the presentation with a big thank you because we just as many of you know came off a big renovation at the community center. 2020 to 2022 was a huge period of time for us and involved a pandemic which we were not expecting, but we were able to reopen last April 2022 on not the other side of the pandemic, but there were some you know parting clouds in the pandemic and a beautiful new community center to have programming in. It has been absolutely unbelievable to see the numbers of people that we are seeing in the community center, which is I think why the town supported it, why the select board supported it, and why the town made the investment in the renovation. So thank you for that. We are, I wanted to make sure people know that the community center is not a membership driven center. Anybody can come that is you know over age 60 for a council on aging program. We don't charge any membership fees as I said. Some of our classes have a nominal fee and the highest we charge is $3 for a class or an activity and we always have scholarships available for people. I did want to share that some statistics that are pre renovation and post renovation. In 2020 for example we have 700, I'm sorry, there was about 3400 walk-in social work appointments that we received throughout the year. This year as of June 8th and these are fiscal year numbers, so they're about three weeks short of a full year. We have about 4100, so it's 700 new people that came this year as opposed to pre renovation. Our transportation program, many of you are familiar with, is partially funded by CDBG funding. We have about 1600 additional rides. We have 8779 as of June 8th as opposed to about 7000 before the renovation. One number that is why there's so many people here and so many people in the community center, it really helps show that is that there was about just over a thousand events and programs that happened in the center and this year as of June 8th we had 4,420. That is mostly because of the amount of space that we have. We have a lot more rooms we can do things with. We're programming many different rooms at one time before we had to, we were pretty limited due to being able to here in the rooms that were closed off. So we've served about 1400 more unique individuals so far this year. So for just under 4,000 unique Arlington residents were served by June 8th of this year. I did include in the presentation two, two pages of just pictures and slides from some of the programs we've had and that was mostly just to show the sheer numbers of people enjoying the community center. A lot of our programs have waiting lists and then we are extending to additional sessions of programs because the demand is so high which is great and that's again why we had the renovation. We want people to be coming. We want them to be engaged and a part of their community in their older years. So the reason we are here tonight is as we know parking was a challenge before. Given the numbers that I shared it's an even bigger issue now but I wanted to share some of the things that we've done to try to help with this issue during you know the past especially few years of frustrations with parking. We first made all rides on the council on aging vans free of charge to and from the community center to try to encourage more people to take the van. They do and the vans are packed full every day but they absolutely are free of charge and we encourage people as many, many people that tend to do that. We've also hired two additional van drivers so that there can be two vans on the road at all times. We of course encourage carpooling and many of the residents participate in carpooling. We continue to partner with the local taxi company, Arbel Taxi to offer discount taxi vouchers or free taxi vouchers. We hold rideshare training on services like Uber and Lyft. We do MBTA senior Charlie cards. Really anything can do to to decrease the number of individual cars coming to the center. We really try but many people for a variety of reasons do want the independence to be able to drive to the center park and come in if they need to. So that is why we are again here this evening. This is something we've been talking about for a few years with you know the residents that come in and on the COA board and we had Pat here who mobilized a group of residents to help explore the options because like I said we have really tried pretty hard to exhaust some things to take the sting out of how hard it is to park and then this in 2022 Pat found a group of residents and peers to explore some of the options. They presented some of the options that they found to the Council on Aging Board in March of this year and that is how we are here today since that. They learned a lot about the programs in surrounding towns and we've done a lot of research talking to those councils on aging and towns on how their programs are run and Pat is now here to present some of what she found here to you. My name is Pat O'Connell and I have been a resident of Arlington for 59 years. I am representing many Arlington seniors who have asked the Council on Aging Board at their past March 23rd meeting to propose to the town and now we are asking the town to accept and approve the proposal for senior parking stickers. Many of the surrounding towns listed on the fallen page which I hope you all received have given their seniors stickers. I may tell you that it's Belmont, Winchester, Newton, Medford, Watertown and Lexington and many of those towns have a big senior parking area. Why do we deserve such a privilege? As Lexington stated and I was quite impressed with their comment the general purpose of the program is to act of good is an act of goodwill for our seniors something we can do for them without any negative ramifications and without much cost at all. We want our seniors to feel respected and appreciated in the town. We have supported the town for many years like I said I've been here 59 this is my second high school all the new schools have been in the town it's not just the schools we're paying for I'm very happy with the town I don't compare I don't complain about the school money I know the town is only as good as your schools. We have supported the new schools and yet we have no students in these classes we're all in our late 60s 70 80 and even older. We have good-sized homes however should we sell those homes it would more than increase the school budget because there'd be more children going to the school. We have educated our children here and many have become productive adults giving the town a very good name when you go around and you hear oh you're from island I'm very proud to say yes I am. These are a few reasons why we would ask you to implement the senior parking stickers which the COA would issue then we could park on Mass Ave and walk up to the center then our time would not be watching a clock so to avoid a parking violation ticket. We see many seniors getting tickets I can think of five while we're in a program you're paying yes a normal fee to keep the fees down with your income and you go out you got a $15 ticket senior years should be easy years without watching a time clock and our motto now in the senior center is we earned it. All the people who work with me the many seniors on the project so it could be brought before you tonight we Elaine Jane Mary Marie and so many others who helped passing out the flyers my thanks also go to Michael Quinn chairman of the COA board Steven DeCorsi the representative of you people to the COA board and of course Christine Shah the executive director of the COA thank you. I appreciate that and it really kind of needs to be underscored how much work into work nation went into this by the by Pat and the group and also the group that's here in the room and in the hall and downstairs tonight so I Pat mentioned like like you saw on your materials the additional towns who do have senior parking sticker programs as Pat called them and I'm happy to answer questions about those there was a kind of a snapshot of them in your packet but right now I wanted to go into exactly kind of what we're thinking or what we're proposing for a parking for a parking sticker program and then we can go from there but as Pat mentioned the program could be managed and implemented by the Council on Aging department we're proposing a pilot program a two-year pilot and in that program interested residents who are age 60 plus would need to visit the Council on Aging either during designated hours or applying by mail or online various other towns had success with different models and we would look into that we would be limiting to one sticker per address and they would need to provide proof of address age and vehicle registration we would be not charging to receive the sticker and as a Council on Aging would be managing the database and renewal process vehicles that have this sticker affixed so not a hang tag but a sticker affixed to the car would would receive the following benefits not being charged well parked at metered spots or in municipal lots within Arlington not being ticketed for exceeding time limits along along Maple Street and Academy Street as long as both vehicles were legally parked otherwise of course and this is the piece that assists with the parking around the community center and when Pat mentions the tickets that people are getting are usually on those streets the parking stickers would not allow for overnight parking in any situation and they would need to be affixed to one vehicle and not shared between family members or people within the same house people participating in the program would need to sign document agreeing to the terms and conditions of the program and outlying restrictions um which which we would do as we registered individual people for the program um I also just wanted to mention some considerations that went into the the proposal and kind of the thoughts through this process and speaking with other towns um we recognize that the program will certainly not solve all the parking issues at the council on aging and the community center and 27 Maple Street or the center of Arlington um but as Pat so nicely um read that quote from the Lexington representative when they were advocating for their program um that it's really an act of goodwill and something that we can do for our older adults without negative ramifications not asking them for anything in return and giving them a benefit um we also recognize that training for parking enforcers would be necessary and our coa staff would be happy to um lead or assist with those efforts and I've spoken with um Cory Ratau with the police about how how this might work um also I wanted to mention that and I'm sure you're not surprised to hear really the lack of parking is a main reason that people give us when we say why did you stop coming or why haven't you come um and the center of Arlington's hard to park and we we all know that it's not not not something people don't realize but um really the older adults who are spending time socializing and participating in our programs are engaged with their community and many say that they come every day no matter what because it helps with their their mental health and what we learned over the pandemic and we knew this before but it became even more exemplified is that social isolation is is detrimental to people at all ages and as people age staying involved with their community coming to a place like the community center to participate is is really important so we want to try to get deter any barriers from keeping people um from coming um also I wanted to make sure to note that the resonance that we serve and I don't always know if this is um as a parent as a parent as it should be um many most are on fixed incomes but more than half are on a low to moderate income range unfortunately every week we have people who get a $15 or so parking ticket which doesn't sound like much to some people and I completely understand the rationale of well if you're coming for a free program you get a $15 ticket it's still only $15 which is cheaper than a gym membership um but it's really unaffordable to the people we serve um and it is it's just a financial piece that a lot of people don't truly understand. I also wanted to mention that we are limiting to one sticker per address because we completely acknowledge that driving personal vehicles is not the way of the future um but we want older adults who really seek the independence to be able to make a choice to drive if it works better for them to be able to make that choice if they would like um and just really in closing to say you know Arlington invested in the renovation so that it could be the center could be used um and a key piece of you know dealing with keeping our older adults in Arlington and and everywhere um engage and avoiding social isolation um is really important and that's really my main reason for for putting putting the proposal out there. I also briefly wanted to ask Michael Quinn who Pat mentioned he's our council on aging board chair for those of you um who aren't we're just to come up and say a couple words. Good evening Mr Quinn. Michael Quinn 15 shiny road precinct 10 I am the chair of the advisory board to the council on aging um and we view our role as you know trying to support Arlington seniors in any way possible um that was just for broadcast so I think if everybody if we can kind of keep the conversation done that'll help people in the back of the room hear what's being said. I got a teacher's voice I can speak a whole lot do it um we view our role on the advisory board as supporting Arlington seniors and working with the council on aging and um I've been on the board now I think this is my sixth year this is one of the really great proposals that has come to us it did not come from our board it came from Pat and and the people with Pat who had looked around at the other towns in March at our meeting when this was when they brought this forward we just thought can we implement this tomorrow this is just such a wonderful proposal um in terms of all the details of it I think that Pat and and Christine really covered it all quite well the only thing I would want to add to that is sooner we could get this implemented the better and if after review of having the program in place for a while there was some way to expand it or improve it or make it better I would hope you would give that um doing fair consideration um that's all I thank you thank you thank you thank you for the excellent presentation I'll now turn to the members of the board and I think we'll start with their liaison to the council on aging Mr. DeCorsi thank thank you Mr. Chairman and I want to thank everybody for coming this evening um and showing you support for this program I have to say for myself I was convinced on March 23rd when Pat made the presentation to the council on aging board but it's um I think it's a wonderful program I think it really truly would be an act of good will to support this um I have a few other comments but I also don't recognize all the members of the council on aging who are here this evening and thank them for coming to Mary is here Michael is here Nancy the leave is here as well might be a few others and um I have truly enjoyed being the liaison to the uh to the advisory board to the council on aging and as far as this um project is concerned um I was really impressed with the amount of homework that was done and and looking at the other the the other communities and it just made a lot a lot of sense to me to to really um go forward with this the the one thing that I did see from other communities and hopefully we can talk about this among other members is um nearly every other community does this program for age 65 and above I know we serve age 60 and above and as a person if we do a two-year pilot who actually would be within the pilot group before the end of the period um maybe 65 might be for consistency with the other communities there's nothing else and I'm fully happy to support the the the whole thing but the other aspects of it make perfect sense to me parking throughout the town not just around the community center I had a few questions early on about maple and academy streets because it was concerned if you're in a program and you run late um you don't want that ticket if you go past that four hours and we want to encourage people to come to the community center I do note that newton for example has a program on a side street near their senior center where they allow for permit parking throughout the day so um I'm going to move approval of the proposal um with the only caveat I I um I think 65 are over maybe for consistency that that the right way to go for now but if we see that there's more demand certainly willing to to expand that um but a two-year pilot makes perfect sense miss shark has been very gracious in terms of agreeing to implement the program through the council on aging working with the treasure well not even with the treasurer's office working with the town um to get people signed up I don't think that some communities charge for the sticker I don't think we should be doing that here so I agree with that the period of time you receive a sticker uh for no charge so on that basis um I move approval this model we haven't heard from you this evening I'm taking a page from the moderator I will uh definitely second that um and I agree with not um charging for this uh as well as the two-year pilot in exploring um beyond that um and thanks to everybody who's worked on this I would just ask and I know you've had conversations with um Officer Corey Reteau so I'm sure you all have already discussed this that you have sort of a uniform or an agreed upon spot for where those stickers that have to be affixed go just for traffic enforcement um and that it has to be affixed and not on a placard or a cardboard or or anything like that and then the other thing that I that I'd like to know just for information sake not for criticism or wanting to oversee it but when you all think it's appropriate six nine or even 12 months but maybe six or nine months just sort of a report back to the board of you know how many stickers went out you know what the policies are in terms of you know where it should be um as well as um maybe again at the either the nine or the 12 month um process or 12 month and 24 some ideas that I know you all probably have already started talking about um at the community center and at Galeons and everywhere else that I see you all um about opportunities to expand this program um so just so the board can know as an FYI or maybe more appropriately through our liaison Mr. Decorsi he can bring that back to the board because um we're going to talk about parking later on tonight and not your parking a different parking and one of the things for me is um I totally get that you know a dollar is five times and ten nickels you know my parents never owned a home I knew that we had put it on the tab and most of the small stores here in Arlington I know the block of cheese that they won't cut for you which is really embarrassing trying to cut that so I totally get what a $15 ticket means um and god forbid you get two I mean that's probably six to 12 months of your extra spending right there and it really is sometimes when I tell people that story I think they think I'm exaggerating but it's not so um we'll gladly second Mr. Decorsi's motion like to start it also at 65 and up um would like that um sort of mini report just so the board knows uh in terms of where you decide with the police department and with the uh council on aging where it will be affixed um and I like that you're saying one um sticker per household because the board is really trying to you know look to the future alternative modes of transportation but I know certainly for the community center it's it turns into a job sometimes when you have try to find versus getting in your own car getting down to the appointment that you need so thank you Mr. Chair. Mr. Decorsi, thank you Mr. Chairman and my excitement to move approval one other thing I didn't mention um and I talked to Mr. Sharp about this in terms of an implementation date and we had talked about a date you know later than September 1st um to to to implement this take a little time to develop um the application process and and and just administering things but I think we discussed that that we thought was a doable date so just uh so the board knows that Mr. Diggins. Thank you Mr. Chair you know so yes I support this me and although I was fine with 60 but and so so then I have a question why was 60 chosen as a number and indeed would you uh yeah anyways hang out there could we have other take other questions yeah just to move the microphone over to you um all of our programs through the council on aging um are for adults age should see and above we do have um and a program for income tax prep through the AARP and that is age 65 and above that is the AARP age um but all of the councils on aging are 60 or above and in Arlington our offices our programs are available for 60 and above so that's why it was just for consistency I knew there's some rationale behind it and if you could stay just it'd be great you know so so and I will note that this was part of the age-friendly and dementia-friendly um plan to meet and and along with that was um um a recommendation for um spots that are devoted only to seniors I mean um in that area are we doing that now um yes this is you know this is an effort toward that yes um we do have our lot that is for the entire you know building and neighborhood behind our our um our building but that the spots aren't necessarily designated for seniors only this this is you know really in an effort to make some senior parking available all right so so that's a possible next step okay great um so um how much carpooling goes on now with people coming to the center I think a decent amount we have a lot of our programs that are on the bigger side are in the first half of the day and I do know a lot of the seniors that come for a 9 a.m exercise class and another one that's at 11 a.m many of them park in you know their neighborhood side streets and then we'll take one car um a lot of people will you know say I'll pick you up on on this street and truly because they want to but also because they have to and by the time they get there there probably is only one or two spots left so a decent amount I would say and I always hear it being discussed his little geeky you know transportation transit question do they do they ever carpool and then take the van it makes you know in one visit yeah I like so much of them get together at a location and then they they get because that might make the van more efficient we've talked about that before the the thought of having kind of van bus stops and we have so far been able to pick up everybody at their individual homes on the van but it has been discussed and it would absolutely be possible and there are sometimes I guess now that I'm thinking about it that the van will stop at one address and pick up two people so yeah because we right now the MPO is working on his coordinated human transit made of and and um transportation plan and I think any things along those lines mean like ideas meaning that could make that work better mean and certainly they are in favor of doing pilots mean and and so you might be able to find some funding meaning for for creative ideas for helping to get any people who need you know transit especially elderly people who need transit around um just a couple more um short questions you know uh you know so you mentioned that it's hard to park in Arlington now in the center now how is this going to help with that so you know I think the what it's going to do is help um the the seniors that are in in Arlington park without having a fee and then park in the streets around the community center without the time restriction that they're getting parking tickets for um I think that we can't build a parking lot to create more parking and that's what usually what I tell people when they come in and say this is awful the parking's terrible and I say we're trying to get creative because we can't build a parking lot anywhere around here that I can see if anybody has an idea I'd love to we'd love to hear it but um we have to get creative and how to address the parking issues so I think this is really our creative way of trying to do the best we can when we can't make more parking spaces magically appear um I don't think it solves all the parking and this is my honking way but I can't you know so I'm kind of interested in what if some of these other ideas mean that you're thinking about you know I mean I know we've talked about maybe me the the um dedicated spots me but you said that this pilot me could lead to some other ideas that your pot the part of the pilot is to perhaps give you some other ideas it could yeah no I definitely think it could and I we're you know discussing with other towns on what they're doing through through their senior parking sticker projects and I think what we'll see over the one or two years that we're trying this out um is what actually happens and how many um you know people are now going to park on meeple and academy that might have been parking elsewhere because they won't get a ticket and just really the domino effect of of what we can learn from this is I think what will create those new opportunities and new ideas I don't have anything really new or exciting at this point um but I think that it could it could probably come out and like you said we're constantly applying for grants we're constantly trying to rework um how we're using the vans we have the whole ride share platforms now um and we're always looking for different accessible transportation options the accessibility piece is huge that there is not that many accessible um transportation options outside of our vans truthfully and and the MBTA ride so um that is a piece that I would love to focus on um next and before the pandemic uber was doing a great job with wheelchair accessible vehicles um but now there's almost none um that I that I've seen recently so just kind of looking for ways to expand on that and um just constantly offer more transportation because it is it's necessary for sure all right thank you very much thank you mr. yes thank you mr. chair thank you for the presentation this is very exciting um my question which you answered mistaken in comment was similar is that I mean there's two ways I look at this one the meters and I went to the center and one the parking on maple street and it seemed to me that the age 60 was directly related to the fact that the programs are 60 plus so I'll go with what the the board what the majority of the board wants to do but I'm also fine with 60 because I think to some extent because it's not just over on maple street in the academy street that's not a revenue issue it's not parking meters it's a time issue and to say that some participants in the program can park there unlimited for if I don't know if you have four or six hour programs and some can't I think is a little inequitable that I would say as far as parking in the center and I'm actually not going to be in the in this time frame during the pilot I got a few more years to go but I think from that perspective you say yeah you know I think 65 is a good day for the meters but I think to cut in with the multiple stickers would be difficult in enforcement so again I will go with whatever vote yes on whatever the majority of the board puts forth as a motion but I'm also fine with 60 just because of for that reason I think it creates a little more equity in the programs that are being offered whereas it sounds like a lot of the rationale here we hear a lot more about the community center community center than Arlington Center and the parking to make it a little more accessible for people so that said I mean again I think there's an amazing program when we first implemented the meters and Arlington Center the purpose was to create parking and because a lot of people from the businesses were parking on these these spots but you know I think it's very important to make it easy for seniors to use our businesses in Arlington Center and a lot of people drive by if you can't find convenient parking in some of the municipalities have done this do they have I know you mentioned senior only parking spaces like we've had I've had a lot of conversations with people where I've said we can't magically create parking it's just not there in Arlington but if we were to say in Broadway Plaza take two or three spaces and list senior permit parking only I mean are any programs any if you're aware of do any municipalities use those methods I think that is a really great idea but I don't think that they have had specifically designated senior parking spaces because in most of these towns around their senior center or community center they have huge parking lots so excuse me it's interesting because their parking permit program is more like we heard from Lexington a token of appreciation for the seniors the Lexington Community Center if you've been there has more parking than all of Arlington put together so I think the unique senior parking spaces haven't been as necessary in those towns but I could look to see if in communities that are you know have more meters or less parking overall maybe like a summer villa if they have I haven't heard but I think it's really interesting and could only benefit so I don't want to create more work for you so I think that's something that we can take on if we vote the permit the program through as I'm just kind of spitballing ideas if we have a pilot you could create a couple spots you could designate areas in Arlington Center where you're not getting you're not getting to meet a revenue anyways so you get designate those spots maybe around the community center senior sticker parking only from you know 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. which maybe is the when you have most of your programs but then you know when you're town meeting those spots back for when the town hall gets so I think this idea once we implement the program then we can kind of spitball some ideas how to improve the program we don't have to wait to the end in order to do that but I think it's a great idea I think it is very well deserved and I think thank you for the presentation thank you to everyone that worked on this um Mr. Conn during your presentation I kept looking into you shine very brightly on the ACMI feed with your wonderful green jacket we all look very dull behind us it works but um again happy to support this and I think it's well deserved and I look forward to the results thank you just a quick question for Ms. Shaw do you know off the top of your head of the 39 71 unique individuals serve approximately how many of them are 60 60 to 65 um I don't have that number I know about 3100 of the total age 3100 people are between 60 to 65 so I think it's um of the 11,000 where is it 20 yeah of the 11,000 203,000 of them so it's a decent size amount I can say that most people start utilizing our programs and services more in their later 60s but we have lots of people that come that are 60 on the dot so there would absolutely be people that we would have to explain that this is something that is for 65 and up um for the people who are who are coming in the 60 or early 60s do they tend to be people who are taking early social security social security retirement are they still working and what sense do you have retired versus not most of the people that are coming for most of our programs have have stopped working but we are starting to add on a lot more programs Thursday evenings later in the day so that people can come from work we do have people that work a couple days a week and come the opposite days but most of the the crunch time for our programs are people that are no longer going to work every day so um I think I love this program I was a yes coming in and I'm a yes now so I think it'll support this too and I like Mr. DeCorsi's motion I would suggest that maybe we give this little more thought maybe just some some further conversation I'd be open to a brief item on one of our summer next summer meetings if we wanted to consider lowering down to 60 and maybe you and I can talk to offline just just a little more consideration to make sure we get that right so any further discussion for the board so on a motion by Mr. Diggins to approve with the date no later than September 1st and Mr. DeCorsi now it's my turn to be I was gonna say there's something about that and that's right second by Mrs. Mahan so it's to approve the program with age 65 and starting no later than September 1st in a two-year pilot and a two-year pilot and everything else as is in the document all in favor please say aye hi posed it is unanimous thank you all I'll uh give a moment for people to um move on we are going to move on with our agenda so if you are planning if you're planning to leave after this item please do and uh we'll we'll continue on with our business how are you we we are still in business sir so you're back in session that was exhilarating um and I mean that true that was that was wonderful we now have item three for approval Arlington farmers market banners yes I'm here in the hot seats yes substituting for Andy Done who's the director of Arlington Eats who's in Iowa on a family vacation just introduce yourself for the record yeah pasty kramer I'm the onsite manager for the farmers market I think as many of you know we merged the farmers market with Arlington Eats this past year and the request for the banners is just given that it's a new entity and a new owner basically of the farmers market a new logo they wanted to take the opportunity to just spread the word that it's still there still functioning still doing a good job so that's what our request is wonderful thank you very much any comments from board was approved second enable grade any discussion for the motion of approval by mr. Herb seconded by mr. Diggins all in favor please say hi hi hi that was unanimous thank you very much come to the market yeah we look forward to that okay item four we have art in the park july 15 2023 at widermore park and chuck luka from the dollom museum mr. luka are you here in person or on zoom if you're in zoom you'd raise your hand and I don't see the presentation I would entertain the discussion from our i'm going to ask you mr. chair is the application blank for everybody yeah I know I just didn't know if it was just me um I can't it's since this is when is our next meeting 17th so which is after this I would ask the chair attorney heim how to handle this if we should approve it subject to receiving the actual application where it's July 15th but mr. chair should have heard mr. vice chair I would sorry I don't want to step into your request for clarification I would just say I would be comfortable moving approval and shifting it to the chair to use his discretion to make sure everything's done safely and appropriately for the for the area attorney hi would you be comfortable with that I think I guess I think the appropriate motion would be along those lines would be you know moves that uh the application uh being understood to be x is approved subject to conditions appropriately set forth by the chair and town departments yes sound better than mine I guess I'll I'll second and I thought that was my motion that can we approve this subject to getting the particular so I'll second mr. no no no I get to be more clear discussion from the board just make sure they look good just make sure they look good yes that's all that's all thank you okay so on a motion from mrs. mohan a second of a mister heard all in favor say aye aye opposed it is unanimous so uh mrs. maher we can work together on uh on uh getting the final fixing that technical glitch now we move to our consent agenda items five through nine minutes of the meeting june 5th 2023 banners for the owenton international film festival fourth of july banners outdoor restaurant and retail permit application and fusion taste and this is just a reapplication of a previously approved application of our year and then we have reappointments terms to expire june 30th 2026 to uh to the owenton commissioner out in culture we have christine noah to the conservation commission we have mike billis game and susan chapnick cpa committee we have a collier sirro and alexander franzosa the human resource board syntia gallagher the redevelopment board rachel zimbary and vision arlington standing committee julie brazil we further how on the consent agenda of items requests for contractor and drain layer licenses for atlantic masonry and tile champion environmental services of this construction and supply and finally we have an approval for electrified to receive electrified owenton grant funds mr hurt was that you what oh mr hurt was actually deep in thought yeah well i'll move approval subject to all the conditions there mr diggins i'll second i'm really excited about the um the electrified owenton grant you know so it's great so for the consent agenda on a motion by mr hurt and seconded by mr diggins all in favor say aye unanimous approval of items five through eleven on the agenda via the consent agenda next we have item 12 appointments for the disability commission uh and i apologize in advance if i get the pronunciation wrong uh carries the sport us and i believe that uh yep we are carries coming there we go to uh on zoom um and mr hurt can you do anything with the with the display i don't know if you have control over that too um there we go so uh good evening and please uh please correct my pronunciation of your name and introduce yourself to the board and uh tell us a little bit why you're interested in serving on the disability commission and uh go ahead and unmute yourself hi i wasn't sure if you called me first i just joined so i couldn't hear yes i did i probably mangled your last name so please correct me by introducing yourself and say it properly sure hi i'm kary sas portis um and i'd like to join the disability commission because i really feel strongly that um i could add a perspective of lived experience of um living with a disability to the disability commission and i'm interested in advancing um some of the issues around town systems and policies in relation to um the adh transition plan um that are non capital expenses and so i i really feel like i could um provide some insight there um and just in general i want to um continue to be civically active in the town i'm also a commissioner on the lgbt qia plus rainbow commission i'll turn to the board mr diggins how to make a motion to approve her appointment and as uh the liaison to the rainbow commission you know i have worked with kary and she's great and so i'm sure she'll do great work with the disability commission any other questions second second mr thank you wonderful um and i think while we're here we'll take our well let's go ahead take our vote and then we'll we'll speak with uh with miss gating tober um but i want to say thank you for willing being willing to serve thank you for servicing the rainbow commission and signing up for more work is the sign of real dedication but we appreciate your love for the community and uh we're very lucky to have you serving on the disability commission so on a motion to approve by mr diggins a seconded by mrs mahan all in favor say aye aye opposed it is unanimous welcome now let's turn to jenice kagan tober uh was appointed on on june the fifth uh because i vouched for you and i said how wonderful you were to work with and our work together over many months on the remote participation task force and i specifically spoke to jenice for how um well you represented that the disability community's needs and perspectives as we considered that really important topic so tonight we asked you just to come back i know you couldn't make the last meeting but we you know asked you to come back and just say hello and introduce yourself and say a few words about your how you plan to serve on the disability commission thank you um it's a little difficult to hear you eric as well as some of the other uh people mr diggins very difficult to hear you too um you're so far away um my name is jenice kagan toiber uh not tober thank you if you think about sigmond Freud and how he spelled his name it's fr e u d and my last the last half of my last name is team e u the er so try to make that connection anyway i um my first foray into uh working um for the town was with the remote study committee and uh that was quite eye-opening but before that i started going to the disability commission meetings i think i started in early 2020 um i had recently retired and i wanted to become more involved in the town i've lived here since 1981 and knew virtually nothing about how the town functioned so i wanted to get involved and given my background as a former teacher of deafblind children and america certified american sign language interpreter um a an evaluator of american sign language interpreters i thought the disability commission would be the best fit for me and i have enjoyed working with the members of the commission uh since i started attending and am very pleased and grateful that you all have um proved my membership thank you very much it's wonderful to get to know you a little bit and give the public a chance to know how great how lucky they are to have you serving on the disability commission any questions or comments from my colleagues thank you miss kagan toiber thank you very much have a good evening have a wonderful rest of your meeting thank you have a good evening that takes us to item 13 the clean energy future committee appointment that would be amy graver see if amy is present on zoom here we go good evening good evening take a couple minutes to introduce yourself and tell us about your interests in serving hi i um excuse me i am amy graver um i am hoping to be part of the clean energy future committee for the town of arlington um i am passionate about sustainability and i previously worked for a mass save contractor in massachusetts in the marketing department so i hope to also bring those skills to the committee um i am very passionate about outreach and would like to be part of that outreach for the committee in the community that i am now living in and also advocate for electrification within the town of arlington and transportation thank you i will say as a as a select board representative member to that committee i think you'll fit right in with those passions and interests entertain any discussion or motions from the board mr diggins i'll make a motion to approve her appointment and i have to say what captured me was the fact that you found out about the commission i'll turn on my camera so i can talk to you i found out about the commission by romie through the town's website very cool thank you second second from mr herd further discussion well i think you'll you'll be terrific but they and it's it's delightful to have somebody new as mr diggins said who just looked for opportunities to serve and that is what makes arlington such a wonderful community is that people are willing to step up and do the work and i look forward to seeing you on those friday morning meetings on a motion by mr diggins and seconded by mr herd all in favor please play and this is the one point motion for appointment please say aye aye opposed is unanimous welcome and thank you thank you that takes us to item 14 license and under licenses and permits we have for approval a class two license from arson arzumanian real motors incorporated for dodley street place good evening gentlemen good evening thank you for your patience this evening my name is david arzomanian um i apologize arson arzomanian is missing today due an emergency personal emergency today i'm here to receive um your permission for our new business name for for dodley street place um we're planning to do the same business as before selling these cars i used to work with edward there from the very beginning and today i'm just looking to receive your permission for the new business name mrs mohan um excuse me i'm sorry i have a tickle i'd like to move approval subject to all uh conditions uh contained here in which i know you're aware of those just from the building department but there are no objections from any of the department so second any for the discussion on a motion to approval by mrs mohan seconded by mr decorsi all in favor please say i i composed using the animus thank you so much good luck with your business thank you thank you again for your patience tonight that brings us to item 15 for approval common visual or license from tata back bakery and cafe we have christopher hennel might be it's bob inessie oh and oh mr inessie i think it might be the mr robert inessie is on zoos uh my vice chair suggesting maybe representing the applicant so i could promote him to panelist so he can uh zoom not responding for you there mrs mar so i've from i've asked to promote i'm not sure if he has to accept it there we go yeah this has declined to be promoted as a panelist probably hit the wrong button maybe um i'll try again yeah and if so if anybody on zoom is here to speak to this to the tatae license if you raise your hand okay we have mr boil yeah all right still working out the kinks and this whole hybrid thing proper boys should be able to there we go unmute good evening sir hey good evening everybody so are you you're here to speak to the tatae uh license application i am we having trouble getting bob into the meeting yeah let's try it so mr inessie is is on your team as well he is he's representing tatae in the matter i could speak to it if we can't get him in all right yeah so uh so mrs mar if you could try try again to uh promote promote bob to uh to panelists and he um mr boil do you have anybody else on your team that we should be bringing in christian how should be in the uh room as well he's there he's the applicant he's the uh the operator manager of cafe all right so uh let's see if we can bring in mr now as well yep there we go saying that mr inessie is declining so um i can go yeah yeah yeah so um tatae bakery and cafe um we are a uh restaurant brand we have been on under construction at 645 mass avenue uh converting the former restaurants there uh not sure if it shows to a tatae bakery and cafe um tatae is a breakfast lunch and dinner establishment um we operate seven days a week from 7 a.m to 8 p.m uh no alcohol we um we have 111 seats inside of the restaurant and uh we hope to be approved for an additional seven you know on a parallel path not subject to this matter here but uh for patio and we're about three weeks out from uh when we hope to achieve certificate of occupancy another two weeks for training we hope to open the establishment on august 2nd and did you want anybody else from your team to make remarks before the board has questions and comments i don't think so we could take your questions i'll turn to the board for discussion questions or motions mr i'll move approval i think there's a lot of people in town they're very excited about this uh tatae certainly has a good name in the boston area and so we'll uh you're joining a long list of many very successful and well-loved coffee shops in allington but i uh spent a lot of time in allington center so i'll find my way down down to tatae as soon as it opens i think there was a tarteen with your name on it mr herd i think uh there was a modern family where you said i'm not poutine that in my mouth so i'm more of a bacon egg and cheese guy they do they're balt it's not you can't i'm sure if she said no avocado you would get a blt but anyways i think it's at the same yeah i'll happily second that and i'm glad to remain the restaurant you know so yes yeah i am too any further discussion questions for the applicants yeah we we are delighted that this is happening and as mr diggan said i'm glad that that we are able to reclaim that retain that space as a restaurant and um you know that's something that i think the demand for coffee shops and and gathering places like that is is far from being that in allington so we really welcome this and wish you the best of success so in a motion for approval subject to conditions by mr herd and seconded by mr diggan's all in favor please say aye i opposed congratulations we look forward to the opening thank you very much have a good evening thank you for thank you for a while more so next we have uh item 16 uh for approval and change of ownership interest for an all alcohol package store uh for sancropa llc 64 summer street is anyone here in the room or perhaps on zoom if you're here we have somebody in zoom coming in tomas tracks should be able to unmute yourself and turn your camera out again excuse me anybody else is here for that item there we go good evening sir uh mr chair members of the board yes attorney tom truex here with the fellow massachusetts on behalf of the licensee sancropa llc and i believe with me virtually is alec rodriquez he's the uh proposed new member of the llc um before you as a petition for a change of the membership interest right now there are two members in the llc and they have proposed to sell and convey to mr rodriquez each of them a five percent interest in the llc so mr rodriquez would end up as a 10 percent owner um all the uh financials the person sale agreement between the parties have been included in our submittal as for mr rodriquez he's been an employee there for i believe almost 11 years um not only this ownership but the prior owners as well um he works there full time and basically this this is a reward for his years of service from the current ownership so um i think it's a great thing he he's excited as heck and besides being just uh uh uh working there full time he will now have a a stake in the corporation is taking the business so um we're just asking the the board to approve this change of ownership interest thank you sir return to the board mrs mohan um i would i would like to uh move approval and i just would like to say that um uh previous uh to the this ownership conglomeration thereof um we did have some issues um at this particular establishment on summer street um and the llc and uh the individuals contained contained there and came in and i'm happy to say we haven't heard anything since um which tells me that they took this board's concerns very seriously regarding uh the previous ownership in llc's um violations and i definitely was pleased that uh mr rodriguez um is part of the business and knows the day-to-day routine i don't know it's up to him if he there's anything he wants to say or if he just wants to um let us do all the talking i'll leave that to him if he raises his hand he wants to say anything but i'll be happy to move approval second for the discussion so we have a motion of approval from mrs mohan seconded by mr decorsi all in favor please say aye okay post unanimous approval congratulations mr rodriguez and best of luck to you all right thank you very much okay we now turn to item 17 for approval in all alcohol package stores city wine spirits and smoke shop from nikon 232 incorporated we have delegation including ashika patella owner manager and i see they were present feel free to pull up another chair and then um as you speak you can swap around the microphone and try to move the microphone a little bit just for the cable audience we have updated packets in front of us good evening good evening mr chairman members of the board andrew upton for the applicant with me is ashika patella co-owner and proposed manager of record and her husband nilesh patella welcome yep yeah please proceed if you are ready i would uh briefly like to talk about the character and fitness of the applicant to hold the license uh the character and fitness of this applicant we believe is strong uh ashika is approved by the uh town of tukesbury to hold the liquor license um nilesh is not a partner in this business but he has recently been approved uh by the city of boston and the abcc to hold the liquor license uh and they work closely together on the operations the issues um this is a well-capitalized enterprise ashika has quite a bit of experience in age restricted products and id checking they are cambridge residents so they are quite nearby and she will be uh taking charge of this store on a full-time basis should it be approved it's a family business the patelles are using their own personal funds and the balance is a loan from the brother brother and brother in law so it is a closely held family business which will be run by the patelles uh staff by the patelles obviously there'll be other staff and members as well um as i'm sure you're looking at uh mr heim attorney heim has uh given a list of considerations for the boards i thought i would just run through those um and we're sure that i'd answer any questions along the way or after just to give a brief overview um the views of the inhabitants of the town obviously important in a hearing like this we have uh 48 letters of support we have submitted in our packet uh and we as of today we have two more which include uh the owner of the novita salon and the venice Italian kitchen which as you probably know are the two of budding uh businesses on the same block uh so i suggest to you that uh the interest of the inhabitants is uh very positive for this proposal uh the patelles and some of their associates actually walked up and down the block talking to people to solicit the support explaining the concept explaining what they were doing how they were doing it what their proposal was and uh a surprisingly large group of people were willing to sign and submit letters and support on top of that the two of budding businesses obviously do not see it as a detriment to their operation since they are also in favor during our outreach to the community uh and our discussions with the board of health we came to the conclusion based on the input from people that uh tobacco products at this location uh were not what the community wanted um we understand how the rules and regulations work um and we have reached out to the people and we have listened to them and uh i'm here to tell you that we are proposing a liquor store not a tobacco store uh we have no pending applications for any tobacco licenses and no plans to apply for further along that uh this will be a we believe a unique type of liquor store this is a high-end wine and spirits and beer store we will not sell any single service uh single serving bottles formerly known as nips uh we will not sell any malt liquor we will not sell any cakes um we will not have neon beer signs in the window we will not have posters advertising 36 uh packs of bud light and things like that it will be tasteful visible transparent well-designed uh and not saturated in the kind of advertising we will also have uh no lottery so we're looking we're looking at a a wine experience craft beer artisanal spirits higher end store which we believe will be uh a big plus to the neighborhood and also unique for the neighborhood um so just running down the list from attorney heim uh traffic considerations obviously important as you drive up and down mass av to all the retail stores traffic is traffic and parking are a challenge yet uh we believe that this would be an appropriate location for the store uh we're essentially have opposite hours of the post office which does its majority of business nine to five uh where we are more likely to do business in the four to seven range uh the post office does the majority of its business on saturdays in the morning we would do the majority of our business on saturdays in the afternoon so i think that would be a favorable contrast um as you may know this location has been a retail store for a generation at least it was a dry cleaner up until two years ago for several years before that it was a grocery store noise concerns we do not expect uh noise to be generated from a retail store any more than it would any other retail store the size of the establishment is quite manageable um the type of establishment is obviously a package store the reputation of the applicant is very solid as i said they've been approved by two towns and the abcc to hold all their license so i think their credentials speak for themselves um the total number of licenses in the community as you know this is uh an open license under the quota so population-wise there is a need for one more license um the views that you have into the town we have discussed excuse me the level of direct involvement of the owners and stockholders uh is clear as i've discussed uh the size of store traffic and noise seems like we've covered that uh the variety of product uh we are again not going to have nips not going to have malt liquor not going to have kegs we are focused on good wines for which there'll be wine tasting and wine pairing events and activities um the quality of the training program this is described in our brochure but in their other stores and also uh in their other businesses uh tips training id scanner a significant amount of cameras that record the activities and are able to be shared with the police um so a very very strong compliance program and also a desire to work with local businesses and the police uh and any community outreach people to uh further dissuade uh young people from uh trying to buy liquor but a very strong compliance program is already in place uh as i said uh we've received great input from the butters and from the general public and that is basically our overview and before i go on too long we're going to answer any questions thank you for that i will turn to the board for discussion this is mahan oh mrs mahan sorry to see you this is mahan sorry i was going through the application i usually print everything out because i'm still a paper person but i didn't do that tonight so that's fine um now um i understand i believe from the application and from your attorney that mrs patel will be who will be on site the majority at the time and um i know your attorney you said attorney correct i apologize your attorney uh represented that you know you have been approved um elsewhere how are you going to split your time between tuxbury and i forget what the other community was or are you not are you going to be arlington based yeah yeah i'll be at arlington um only and tuxbury will be managed by employees and management okay and um because she cares about a cambridge resident so she'll be coming from fairly close by okay and then um i i know your attorney referenced the tits program and the and the id scanner um it may be in here and i apologize i just didn't see it but um do you have and will you have an employee handbook as what a employee handbook and be um how will you oversee administrate to make sure everybody is tips trained as well as trained on the id machine as well as that machine is fully functioning appropriately yeah um so i am already just trained uh and the id scanner uh we will make sure we work with the company of whatever id scanner we choose we choose to work with with this location and uh train whoever will be working with me um and make sure that they know how to use the machine and both of those will be mandatory before the store opens okay and again it may be um i i do have what you all provided us and it may be in here um and if it is i apologize i just didn't see it but if it's not in terms of um and if you don't have the answer tonight that's okay but um what uh case point scenario that you use the id machine and realize that the id that's been submitted uh is not valid and is forged in some way or other do you have a policy what your next step is on that meaning do you return it do you retain it if you retain it are there any steps after that yes um we have to according to what i learned in tip certification and just my experience with our 21 plus um smoke shops that i've managed for a couple of years uh we just need to be able to handle the customer in a proper manner so that we don't aggravate the situation or anything like that but we should just deny service to them okay and then um where you are focusing on um and i won't go into that we had here last week an ollington brewery that's just getting started so not in any stores or anything yet and i have no interest in in the the brewery company um but i knew i know that some of the other establishments do have uh wine tastings or something around that is that something you've given thought to it's okay if you haven't but if it's something you've given thought to i'd like to hear um how you envision that possibly happening i'm not saying that's something you have to do yes um so if we do consider doing wine tastings uh we are going to source our wines from uh local towns and neighborhoods in the northeast and they do offer their reps to come out and do tastings and things like that so that's something we would consider we would we would just be willing to work with the companies on that okay thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Mr. Chairman um just a few questions procedurally um when the application was initially submitted um there was a a building plan that was submitted with the application and at that point to believe that you were planning on opening both the um alcohol and and a smoke shop and and i know that there was something that was delivered to the board on friday but i don't think there was any indication that you sought to amend the application i think that the package may have been dropped off at the board i'm just um i just wanted to ask you um it seems to me that we have a situation here where we have an application clearly the intent at that time was that to have the smoke shop if i look at your articles of organization you were incorporated for the purpose to operate a retail liquor store in the smoke shop i think this is the only asset of the of of that entity so my question is um how we're acting on on something here i'm just wondering why the application wasn't amended or the first one withdrawn with a new one put in because clearly based on what you're talking about tonight it's a different a different operation also want to ask you if you've um amended your articles of organization to remove the smoke shop i think i can best answer yes this application is based on the abc's abcc and the town's application for a liquor license this application doesn't ask it doesn't have anything to do with it later um as we were making our proposal initially we considered city wine spirits and smoke shop during our outreach and our discussions with the board of health we came to understand that that was not desirable for our lifetime so not only does this application not include any requests for tobacco we're here to tell you we are not coming back with any requests for tobacco okay and we will be not using the word smoke in the title either okay and and just in terms of what we receive we ask for a package with the application one of the things that we ask for in addition to the lease is is is a plan and clearly the plan that at least was on file um showed a a there's a humidor in the back of the of the building for example and and so i maybe a question for attorney hind in terms of what's before us notwithstanding the package that attorney up then has within tonight what it seems to me absent some notification that the application has changed and the application does talk about it doing business as city wine spirits and smoke shop it seems like we have one thing in the application another thing tonight and and so i'm just wondering from attorney hind what in his view what would be necessary for an amendment to our reapplication given what we've we've just learned here in the presentation attorney huh so let me just make sure i understand is this the same as what's been uploaded to the agenda if i may ask so by understanding the application includes some details including the name of the entity this is more just an informational packet for the board it doesn't necessarily reflect the plans that are in the application that was submitted to the abcc is that correct i believe the floor plan is the same the application under two the first section so license information the abcc application online that you fill out and submit to us as your dba as city wine spirits smoke shop so i think that's the confusion i'm sorry if i could just ask is there are there two separate is enough there's not a floor plan submitted with the application the abcc sorry no no no problem that i believe was submitted on march 7th and that's part of our application process and i believe well i know it's different than what what's in the book well i guess what i would recommend and i want to speak for the applicants is some kind of formal amendment so that we're not approving something that is approved by the abcc is x and we're approving y there's a couple different ways that that can be achieved i don't know if the applicant has a specific perspective on that but from my perspective i understand concern which is that you're being asked to approve a license under a dba that includes at least some level of detail about the smoke shop minus things the applicants no longer want to pursue that so you know depending on what the board wants to do it may be necessary to make some you know formal amendment to the application to make sure there's not future confusion yes but exactly that just the state of what's before us and not knowing where we're going as a board here because i just do feel that you know completeness of the record is important and and it's also important that what we have in the in the office from what was submitted earlier is consistent with what you're asking for tonight may i mr chairman yes of course i i think attorney hyman's has got it exactly right it's well within the board's power should you choose to approve this application to make a motion to approve it with the dba that does not say smoke and with a floor plan that does not include her humans i mean all that could be done right here and now if you so desire i do agree that the board is within its power to set certain conditions but i also understand mr christy's point which is that i think the concern of the board is they don't want to be voting on what the formal application is versus the understanding of what it would likely be given that it's already been submitted to the abcc right no it is it's it's well within the power of the board to make a motion to approve any variation that you want and the way the process works is the city is the first approver and whatever you approve goes directly to town we're town army no that that means a lot if you don't know i do business like that it's going to hurt i apologize um the the the local licensing authority is the first approver and what the town approves goes to the abcc the abcc has not yet received anything and will not consider anything unless it comes through this board with modifications by this board sure i guess they just want to clarify something though are you proposing to formally amend your application or are you saying that the board is going to set the condition that amends what you can and cannot do i'm sorry mr chairman that's fine this is this is constructive so i'm happy to permission yeah yeah it's fine i mean if it's the pleasure of the board to approve i'm happy to do it either way yeah that's helpful i think it's a helpful clarification anything further on that point mr yeah i do i i think what's helpful for just speaking for myself is is you you've made a decision and based on feedback and and that's certainly i i think given your discussions with the health department that um a smoke shop and a package store can't can't operate not only tonight and so it's not us telling you that it seems to me that having that change the amendment should come from the applicant not from the board in terms of what the what the conditions are and and i'm just concerned because when this came to us and miss my understanding this was this was delivered to the board office on friday thursday on thursday but no cover letter nothing saying that this is this is what it is i mean again just for what's before us and whatever conditions if if you whether it's neighbors that are challenging what happens if it's an affirmative vote or i don't know where we're going to go as a board but it seems like the state of the application should reflect what you're asking for us to do you this is the first time you're before us you've made some changes to what you've done and then what i'm hearing is well you can condition it on on on some things i i'd rather have you say affirmatively this is this is what we're asking the board to approve now through through the application and again um it just seems like that's a clearer way to develop a record of what we've done and what you've asked for right well i i i will say right now we're asking you to approve the name city one in spirits yeah if you want to say i just want to say and you know they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing i'm just my day job is court retort so i'm i'm really big on on process and housekeeping as well as um and i'm not saying other cities and towns don't take alcohol packaged licenses very seriously but the board does and we try to treat everybody as the senior member on the board which i never thought i'd say that the oldest longest member or whatever we've done everything the same way all the time and what i'm fearful of is if i'm prepared to vote on if i was prepared to vote on the application that's before tonight it would it would not be successful from board of health and other uh talent departments i understand you and your attorney have met with them and have changed and modified that for the board to vote something to not have something actually before us from the application and it's something that we have to oversee administer um i don't think we should start doing for packaged stores that sort of process i think um that's where i would not be comfortable with the suggestion of it could be approved with me understanding a certain thing that's that's that that's not what's for me so i'll stop there uh mr jacuzzi anywhere yeah now i and as i think this through and again um i i think it it makes sense for attorney upton you know perhaps to contact attorney heim and in terms of just developing exactly what you're looking for and i i i'm going to make a motion to table this or continue the hearing rather um so that we can get that clarification so it's absolutely clear lined up what's in the application what you're looking for um because you know while you have cited a number of letters of support we've also gotten a number of letters from neighbors that have opposed this and some of it is because of the smoke shop aspect and some of it is for other things so it's it's this isn't one of those applications that is before us where everybody who has been contacted supports it um and and that there's a somewhat unique procedural history on this as well where i think it's important um that we're all on the same page at least what you're presenting to us and and so um i'm just concerned about lining that up and i'd rather not do it through conditions i'd rather do it through an amendment to the application so that we all know what we're looking at and and we're all on the same page notwithstanding what you told us tonight this is this is what what you'll be doing so mr gorsen your motion to table do you or continue to continue to rise it yeah sorry mr chairman if i may just just a moment please um would the continuation be to a specific date what parameters would you in your motion just so i get this clear in the motion then we'll go to more discussion yeah well i i i think and again we may hear from attorney upton in terms of some time issues but i mean i i i think it's we don't have another scheduled meeting until july if there's some other issues that can be done i think maybe it's at the call of the chair in terms of between now and then um to come back but i think i think there are points that need to be clarified um yes sir mr attorney upton the way i see it at this point is if we were to amend and change the application the only thing we would do is white out the word smoke under the dba to me that seems a little bit formal over substance there is no tobacco application or smoke shop application in front of you that's a separate board and a separate application and that's not something you're considering at this time if you vote yes you do not grant tobacco if we say on the record we will not apply for tobacco we would hope you would take us at our work but we're more than willing to come back and engage in more discussion but literally what you're asking us to do right now is white out five letters from the cover sheet of a 40 page application and i'd like to hear more as to whether that's i you know completely necessary yeah well no i'd like to give you a little bit more um we received this on friday okay every member in this hearing had been continued from a few weeks ago um because of whatever circumstance we've got a request can you continue the meeting until tonight um and and so for us as a board preparing for a hearing based on the state of the record what was filed here a couple months ago and then i saw this for the first time today um it was posted over the weekend okay and i inquired of miss mar okay where did this come from um did you receive a cover letter from returning up then explaining what what this is and the answer was no so we're sitting up here as a board and we have one set of facts that we've all been working on we prepared on june 5th for a certain set of facts on friday there wasn't a tobacco license on june 5th but there was a different intention in terms of what you want to do now we have this i think it behooves the applicant to make the change to come back before us in terms of what exactly you're looking for and to say we're just going to white out a few things i'd put it to you if that's all you had to do why didn't you change the application so that we could consider it because you can consider it's it's it's well within your power to do so administratively but but no explanation nothing that this is what was dropped off okay so none of us and my colleagues can talk about what they had we didn't know what you're proposing or that you were no longer doing a smoke shot based on what came in and and so well i think for for the state of the record um and and for what happened i think it should be cleaned up based on what type i've never had an application for an alcohol license come in where things have changed in terms of what's going to be there before the board okay on the night of the hearing without an explanation and and i i think we should have a clean application or an amended and maybe there's something else that needs to be changed because you're talking about five letters well the the lead as i said the the document that um was submitted that that had the plan of the building is different than what's in here so even a cover letter from you this is now what's different from what we submitted from what we're looking for i still the question about your articles of organization because you're still organized to operate a smoke shot i i i think a little additional time to clean that up for our consideration um i i don't see where the harm would be to do that just so we're all we all have the same information before us and then i can't see your client not his head but i i no we're we're more than willing to do that but can can i refer you to page one of this document and you know it is traditional for for applicants to come before the board with materials amplifying discussing and illustrating the application and it's traditional to ask questions and for us to answer that's all this is this doesn't change the application one bit and there's an introductory cover letter on page one no change to the application and again this is this is outside and attorney heim um i i'm going to go there because i mean we we have a change in application will you have an appeal before the abcc on another application um that you submit and i believe that's still pending so what what's before the abcc is it this or is it what you submitted that you didn't get a hearing on earlier mr chairman can i ask for a brief recess sure the meeting will be in recess in session give the technology a moment to catch up with us good this mark yes okay we're back good evening good evening thank you mr chairman um i feel that i'm fortunate to be heard by the board i feel like the board is especially fortunate uh to have board counsel as skilled and diplomatic as they do and based on those comments i would suggest that uh we exceed to your request to come back at a future date to amend whatever amendments are necessary and i would also suggest that if it pleases the board uh we take a few more minutes to answer any other questions or issues as long as we're here on the application thank you i appreciate the spirit of that i think that's an appropriate use of time um mr of course do you have anything for i i don't thank you for those comments and working with with attorney heim and taking the time to to think that over and and i don't have any further questions right now mr thank you i would say that i certainly look forward to the business i think it is i have no problem with the location um having an accurate floor plan for us is important even if it's a small change our allison has a pretty short history with liquor stores so in every time we've ever looked at a liquor store even we've made asked for very small changes to where a cooler is and that's why i think it's very important for us to see exactly what's being proposed in front of us um um just a comment that not for the next meeting but in perpetuity we certainly trust the word that's put in front of me we have heard before with other applicants not you that they weren't going to put you know advertisements and marbore ads and you know whatever else in the windows so that is also important to this board and since the inception of the liquor store as we've always had the sign regulations there are a lot of sign regulations to so just going forward and i think maybe discuss this at the next time we're on as well that's something appearance from the street is something that is important to this board and the town residents and we've had successes and non-successful businesses relative to that um then i just asked i was looking at your list are you going to sell prime sure are you going to sell prime if it's available my kids are very every time my eight-year-old is often asking me to go to the liquor store down the street so it's a little uncomfortable for me but prime is taking over the world it seems like it is but just a lot in the morning uh with the floor plan we'll make those adjustments from 100 but that will again still has to go to the building department so anything that we submit has to go through the building department approval and then the process of occupancy and in terms of just a little bit of experience my wife and i have been working hand to hand the open numerous retail stores for the last 20 years at only operated retail stores and she's grown up we've been together 15 years and all she's done is retail she's you know she went to college got a degree but we're in retail business so we understand uh the repercussions of adult use retail establishments um and that's primary focus majority of our establishments are in boston all adult use retail stores and in terms of the product and category we follow we have zero violations in any establishments of your own and with majority of them we're over a decade um the goal is to continue that yes and just just following on on that one one thing we don't sell is candy gum mints stuff at the counter that would appeal to the 121 craft yeah and we certainly understand the inspection process it's just i don't think we've ever approved any business without an accurate no that's just 100 that we look for so i look forward to continuing this and certainly having a productive discussion at the next meeting that this comes up so i'll second mr. de Corsi's motion you do know that the name of this is just going to confuse everyone it's who other harley could is a city or town these are like so so yeah i'd say humorously you know but hey who knows maybe maybe you're presaging something you know but but um that aside you know so are you anticipating that most of the customers are going to walk um to the store sorry i couldn't hear you i'm sorry are you anticipating that most of the customers are going to walk to the store um we are anticipating most of the pedestrians okay all right you know so so then um we have some things working that we're working through in town i mean i'm so so um if the parking in front went away and um always reduced would that be an issue for you no like i said we're anticipating mostly pedestrians okay should be fine all right that's it thank you thank you i have a couple questions as well um i'd like to inquire any reference to public public opinion and you know the board received i think the american election five or six uh individualized very detailed personal letters from the community that had concerns about um the location of vis-a-vis density and and that there you know other other practice stores within a radius so i noted with interest the significant number of signed mostly hand signed letters and i also noticed it was a form letter so they're all the same um and i wonder if you could uh just for our understanding of the process and the quality of the of that those expressions of support if you could detail for me how you went about soliciting that support and you know going to explain why they're all the same words um yes some of the people that we work with uh drafted these letters and they walked up and down the block and approximately the two hundreds of mats have talking to people who were residents visitors or shoppers and said hey we're proposing this what do you think would it be a good idea what do you like about it what don't you like about it um some said they liked it some said they didn't like it so much some said they liked it a lot and the people that liked it a lot we asked them to sign a letter so we had them there and they signed much like you would with the petition i mean some people said i really like this concept but i don't want to give you my phone number i don't want to say i don't like to write i'm in a hurry i gotta go but uh the response was overwhelmingly positive thank you and um interest i noted that you know the report the reports from special services just noting that we're the board grant this license you know that that's really just your first step and that you would this property because it's it's um not an allow use under the r6 residential zoning would require um variants from the zba and then various accommodations and conditions would require a further environmental design review approval by the ar for the redevelopment board if you comment on on you know i'm assuming you feel that you have a viable path forward you know that that's a lot of hurdles um but and i understand that we would we would make our decision without respect to that and leave leave it to those bodies to to make those determinations that withstanding i think it speaks to uh how i'd be interested in how you plan to address the reason for those hurdles that this is not an allowed use in that residential zone and um and and you know all the all the reasons why this would trigger special review and variances and and permits and you know kind of what kind of a case you would expect to make um to achieve success there uh i am the liquor license attorney not the zoning attorney however i will say that uh based on representations from the landlord and the non-conforming pre-existing use history um both the applicant and the landlord feel comfortable that zoning relief would not be a high hurdle and we're certainly happy to have should we get approval from this board i mean i don't think you even have to condition and it's contingent on right all other permits anyway right yeah no that would still have to happen yeah okay okay i think it's all my questions um do i need any further discussion on the board uh according to information i we don't really have a point of information in these proceedings uh we don't have one in town meeting either um but i'm not this is not a public hearing so i think what we are going to do is continue is if the motion is successful um we'll do a continuation of that and then i can contemplate you want to if you want to contact me afterwards we could contemplate um a public comment at that time i'm attorney have you any comment on that ruling no i don't understand that the board can take public comment and so chooses um rather than afraid that uh i well my vice chair has reminded me for the purposes of anyone on the zoom or in room that i think once we take this vote this matter will be concluded however the next item on the agenda is open forum and residents can take up to three minutes to talk to the board about anything they wish so that might be a further opportunity for any resident to make a comment on any matter just before the board so on a motion to uh continue to the call of the chair by Mr. Decorsi and seconded by Mr. Heard thank you for your time for your efforts all right thank you very much we're seeing you again thank you i'm going to uh shuffle the deck here okay now we move move next to open forum and uh i will this is the opportunity for the public to comment on anything in the meeting we don't have any other public hearings so when we move to open forum i'd say if you want to make any comments about any matter but also including anything that we're going to be taking up that could include parking um or or um either the parking proposals that this would be the time in the three minutes that that are granted to make the comments so um i want to also explain to people who are participating on zoom uh if you want to participate in public forum open forum to please raise your hand i got some people in the room i think and i've got people on zoom so i will go alternate back and forth each person we will give uh three minutes to speak and i don't think we'll need this but i'm going to limit open forum to a period of 30 minutes tonight um just because we have a lot of other business we get to i think that should allow enough time for everybody um so we have a first speaker um um Mr. Moore uh and you need to come to the uh table there and introduce yourself and dr make for the record of it uh gentlemen the yes thank you mr chair steve more uh precinct 18 piedmont street i um i'm not sure that the way that open forum and public comments are being handled uh reflects very well the way we used to do it in the before covid times i'm not sure why it is now that we're doing hybrid that we're reverting still to the covid forced open forum approach we used to take comments on each item public comments when hearings were occurred we seem to move back from that and i understand during covid why that was necessary i think now that we're moving back into more normalcy we should go back to the way we used to do it in that i had a particular question for the applicant as a public as a member of the public i think they've probably left now um so i'm going to suggest that when they do come back for their continuance that you ask them if they're going to be selling lottery tickets because that is a little bit of a different business approach than high end liquors which they were moving towards there's issues that move along with that as well as litter and all that kind of thing so i would ask that but obviously i was unable to ask that during the time when that was being considered by the board and i think that's a more sensible approach is to allow that so thank you for hearing me out thank you sir of course and thank you for your understanding so as i promised i'll now go to we'll alternate between people who are in remote land and people in the room i think we have jennifer letoski raised your raised jennifer's hand and then after that we'll go back to someone in the room so miss letoski is coming back we do this just so everybody feels on equal footing good evening miss letoski thank you very much can you hear me all right yes great so my name is jennifer letoski and i live on oxford street in east arlington precinct three i'm here to discuss the dangerous traffic conditions that we have on oxford and winter street these are narrow residential streets that connect broadway and mass avenue in east arlington they're the home to the leslie ellis school and prosby park which has a playground the playing field and the tennis courts we see a high volume of traffic using these streets to go between mass avenue and broadway many of which are traveling far too fast for narrow residential streets like this with the a high number of cars parking on in the no parking zones on both streets particularly during the school drop off and pick up times blocking driveways preventing delivery trucks from getting through we also have a lot of people who walk in the neighborhood and bike particularly children as they're going to the tomson school the gibbs school and prosby park and this combination has created an increasingly dangerous situation it's not just theoretical in march a child was hit by a car on oxford street across from the leslie ellis school she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and in the past seven years there have been at least three collisions on oxford street in one of which the car actually went through the brick wall of the locksmith business right on the corner so on june 3rd a group of 20 people met at the leslie ellis school to discuss our concerns and possible solutions we represented local residents the head of the leslie ellis school other members of the community and the newly formed broadway neighbors coalition a group of arlington residents who want to see improvements all along the broadway corridor in the neighboring uh and surrounding neighborhood so we've identified three actions that we strongly encourage the town to take first to promote the development of a traffic management plan to improve the issues during the arrival and dismissal time at the leslie ellis school in time for the start of school in september second implement short-term traffic calming measures such as speed display signs or temporary bump outs like those used on chestnut street before construction and three plan and search for funding sources for long-term traffic calming measures such as speed tables or chateaumes but put those in oxford and winter street as a pilot program to then develop a traffic calming toolkit not only for these two streets but for residential streets across arlington where there's so much need so these actions align with the goals in the connect arlington plan particularly enhancing safety to and from schools and community facilities and for developing and implementing a neighborhood traffic calming programs we've sent these actions to the select board in a letter signed by 36 people please act on this before more people are hurt thank you very much thank you very much for your comments we now return to the room and uh the gentleman who's been waiting very very patiently thank you sir thank you introduce yourself uh and you're will you live for the record yes i will uh my name is william gallin old jr i live on york sir rhodan arlington uh i started out as a young kid here in 1955 when my mom and dad owned a bakery up at the heights uh i ended up meeting my wife in 61 which i got married in 65 and i've been here in this town we just celebrated our 58th wedding anniversary uh one of the biggest things i'm having trouble with is the traffic for the handicap uh i have now been twice ticketed in arlington the first time i got ticketed was right in front of the bus stop on mass elf they have a parking spot there that looks like a parking spot but i was told downstairs the two lines out in the street don't match each other to be a parking spot everybody's getting tickets there and i don't think it's fair to anybody that parks there to get a ticket so they should you know put up the signs i am an ex-town employee from the town of lexington i served 13 years with the town before i got hurt the thing of it is is that they have to make better signs i was on alt street they have a little 8 by 10 sign up on the top of a post stating that it's a loading zone the the uh donate the uh signs for the area should be put up on the wall to show that it is a loading zone i parked in the handicap spot right there at the beginning of alton street and there's three parking spaces and then the handicap the little sign is way down in the end so you can't see it and i know mr. lennard i've talked to him before about this so anyway uh just uh you know they should put signs that denominate the parking spots there's another one up on mass elf right by uh mill street where the sign is up in the light pole and it says don't park to the corner but there's another parking spot there for somebody else that you know is in town who wants a park to go to these stores and you're eliminating these parking spots trying not to take and eliminate them but to gain more legal parking spots so they can park their cars legally i've already had to pay two parking tickets and it's not my best thing and i just uh you know i feel that uh all the parking should stop being looked at and all the signs should be posted legally i worked on the signs up in lexington i've done a lot of them parking meters and everything else and it doesn't take much to make a sign to post it legally i'll put a post a sign on the side of the building that says loading zone eight to three o'clock you know and that's that's where i'm coming from i mean there's a lot of areas in town that could be good parking spots with parking cars there's a lot of places that are handicap parking spots i mean that handicap spot is in a place where i'd never seen this sign you know it's a little thing in the top of a pole we've reached our three minutes um but thank you for those comments and something i i didn't i usually read ahead of time is that for open forum the board makes a practice of listening only and then we'll consider whether we want to bring things back to the board for the future but that's that's all i want i just wanted to notify them and to see that the traffic department would you know get the signs out legally thank you sir thank you for my time of course i do anybody else uh in zoom who wants to participate in public forum you can raise your hand and zoom now and zoom out in the room who wants to participate in public forum that's really good to see you back there too uh 15 last week please enjoy our new table for the comfort of our guests yeah thanks it's cool um i'm a little perplexed i so is this is the the only time to speak now or never i mean if when the the hearing is reconvening continue they're reconvening for the packet store will it be an opportunity to speak then mr attorney heim i think that the chair could afford an opportunity to speak on the record for as part of the hearing yes yeah that that is um i mean normally for open forum we don't respond but i think this is timely that that will be my intention to to afford a public comment period during that hearing after uh so they they'll reconvene and you'll you'll talk to the applicants and and then people the people will be able to speak i'll do i'll do a public hearing for community so then i'd rather wait so you're not going to count this time against me i'll stop the clock was there anything else you want to talk about no uh i'm i'm glad i didn't the last time i made a presentation in town hall i got food so i i didn't just now i don't think we'll bill you sir mr diggers and mr the course you'll be glad to know that i'm not going to stick around to the overnight parking you'll bring it on just bring normal all right thank you so much did we have any other participants for open open forum open forum yeah please go it's a new team good evening okay state so this is for open forum and um so state your name and address for the record please i'm lisa cronin i am the landlord of 232 mass af so um and i was born and bred in arlington i'm at arlington calvate graduate um and i just i guess my families own this property since the 70s i took over in 1999 um during covet rainbow cleaners the the owner of rainbow cleaners decided to retire after the tiring trying to get through covet in a failing business he tried to sell it i you know i worked with all my tenants to try to help them save their businesses through covet um i've been working with my three sons this is one of my sons just to clarify 232 is where the liquor stores oh i'm sorry no thank you that's good for the benefit of the public thank you um for two years we've been working tirelessly trying to get that place rented um to our a reputable business that could come in and and you know run a reputable business there um it's been um and right now i feel like um i guess you know it's it's tonight was a little frustrating for us and i and i understand that you need to have all your your keys crossed and your dots um your eyes i'm sorry that's okay um you know i anyways i um um yeah i guess i just wanted to i guess i just wanted to get up here and at least stayed you know where we're coming from i'm a single mom i'm a registered nurse trying to get this place rented like i said to a reputable person um which i think these people you know i've visited their other stores and i think that they would be a great asset to allington as well so i'll only be a minute uh just wanted to emphasize a few points from what she said just that covid was tough we worked with the other tenants and we were able to make sure that they all stayed in business um and we're very proud of that um that it has been very tough financially as well my mom single mom nurse we've taken out a lot of loans to get it in a place where we have a tenant who wants to go in there right now um and we've lost rent for over two years from that now that we've been trying to support the rest of our lives with and then on top of that a lot of time so i'm a consultant during the day but two to three nights a week or on the weekends i'm coming up doing stuff that the tenant would be doing like taking care of this inside of it um shoveling shoveling anything outside to make sure that it's safe for everyone else there um dealing with potential tenants and we've had a lot of potential tenants and we've been working with the broker as well i think that we finally found a really good tenant for the title rental so just hope that's taken into consideration when we come before you again um if hopefully enjoy thank you thank you thank you christine thank you and uh we have one more raise hand uh if susanna for chair is here for open forum bring susanna in for and uh susanna you can unmute yourself hi um yes we can hi i'm susanna for care and i live next door 230 mass avenue i'm an owner of a condo there and i've owned it for 36 years um a number of us really are very upset about this proposal there are two other liquor stores within half a mile of this particular location it is a residential area our driveway is between our building and 232 it's a very narrow driveway with parking in the back when the dry cleaner was there we already had a lot of problems with people coming to the dry cleaners that would um block our driveway constantly this happened we had to go to them and tell us we have signs that say resident parking only but they're still doing it the liquor store will be much more invasive in that respect we also are opposed to it because of the hours going to 11 o'clock at night with lights on our building is very very close actually we will see these lights from our units in our building so we don't approve of that at all we don't think that we need another liquor store in the area the traffic situation is very very bad at that corner with orvis street um in the past there has been at least one accident with pedestrian being hit it's constantly a problem with people trying to they cut through from lake street to come up to mass avenue whatever they can even though there are certain times in the day that are now no longer allowed so they cut up that way and then they turn left on mass avenue to go west towards the center that causes a much more traffic it's very difficult to see with three lanes of traffic there haven't been accidents we don't want this kind of traffic situation there in and you know because they actually have flags on either side of mass avenue at orvis there for people to cross with to use the flags because it's such a difficult intersection particularly at night in the dark when people pedestrians trying to cross we feel very strongly that this is an unnecessary business to put into this neighborhood we don't need it there's no reason for it to be there i understand that the landlord would like to rent the space we would like to see it rented too we enjoy the neighborhood as a pedestrian friendly neighborhood where people can walk it's dangerous enough as it is there we don't need an alcohol store to be there when there's two others within such a close space i also would like to say that the number of letters that were shown by the people that want to do this they were form letters they asked people without any information about the real situation a number of those people who signed that letter are on streets that are there's certainly not a butters and in fact a number of them are two three miles away they have nothing to do with our neighborhood so they don't know the situation is it is a very difficult place for us to be we have liked this situation where we live there for all these many years and we'd like it to continue it's a pedestrian friendly and neighborhood friendly establishment thank you thank you very much this concludes our open forum for the evening thanks to all who took the time to bring the concerns before the board now move to item 18 request for an on-street overnight parking waiver for james foley another very patient individual well i think i'm a little humble way everything that came in front of me actually so there's a lot of very interesting proposals just to introduce your name address my name is james foley and i'm the owner of the residence at 1113 molten road it's been a family home since we had it built in 1907 i was not around at that time i was bought at sims hospital at 1962 but if owned that property for the past probably 20 years it's been in our family since 1907 i actually live up a long minute road where parking is not an issue we actually have a driveway so we can get the cars in off the street i have my youngest of four daughters living at 11 molten road right now with a roommate recent graduate and up until this day when i lived on molten road never had a parking ticket in my life but we park in the street most of the homes on the road as you know i actually have no driveways and we did have a driveway built over the years my grandparents did actually and it got developed we have tenants upstairs that have been there over 30 years and they are elderly they have two cars in the driveway my daughter's been parking in the street and you had mentioned one of the members have children well i'm my daughter's been getting parking tickets very very frequently lately almost every other night or third night or fourth night um and guess who she goes to to help pay for those parking tickets she's a recently grad and what i was hoping to do since we've had the house for so long we've been long-term island to residents Mcgradiel island to calvary is possible to get a temporary overnight parking permit for say a year if that is possible without inconvenient of course if snowstorms will get the car off the road we'll do other things in clement weather anything like that i'm just looking for a little bit of reprieve so we don't have to pay all these parking tickets i did start out by going to police station and they did say they understood the concern on molten the lack of driveways that sort of thing they typically don't like to take it but apparently had some complaints from some people that didn't have parking so and so they did complain at that point um my daughter does park directly in front of our two family home she doesn't block anybody else driveway she doesn't interfere with anybody else at all i'm just hoping for a small reprieve if at all possible because as they said earlier in the evening when you get tickets regularly it does get expensive having four daughters i'll tell you it can be expensive anyways and i was just throwing myself in the mercy of the select board to see if there's anything you could do for me thank you sir turn to the board mr herd this is a very interesting request i don't know if you've seen our full agenda but as of right now and this might change in about five minutes um you don't qualify for our current standards for overnight parking i don't know if we i don't want to keep you here later table the request because i mean i would just say i don't want to make light of your situation but as of right now our policy always been is there's a driveway at the property that we don't grant overnight parking permits there's a lot of properties in the same boat as you there's a lot two families in islington a lot of them are tandem parking um it's always been if there is parking we haven't granted those permits because i mean you had mentioned having it for one year once we traditionally when we've granted overnight parking waivers it's been sort of in perpetuity because the clerk's department handles it beyond us but we are in our next agenda item talking about a pilot program to allow overnight parking so i mean again i don't know if we should table it if you want to stick around or i can turn to my colleagues for additional insight i think just just procedurally um i'm not sure it matters a great deal because i think if the if the if the application sort of for permission under current standards yeah i think that's pretty clear um if my colleagues you know the our colleagues agree with you um but i think anyone's welcome to stick around for further discussion on an extra agenda item any other comments or questions the board uh mr course yeah and and it may be longer than a five-minute presentation on a subsequent item but i i agree with mr herd i mean i think we may be addressing something that would apply at least on a short term to your situation but unfortunately what you're presenting where things stand where where you are on the agenda tonight it wouldn't meet our standard but but maybe just stay tuned i'll wait around for the next presentation to hear that he went to select what has to say thank you very much your time we really appreciate it so so a motion to deny the application no action i know deny seems a little harsh to take no action on the application second all right so we have a a with the front least of intentions to vote a motion of no action by mr herd a second by mr decors the all in favor please say aye thank you very much i'll wait and listen we okay so we have an upset we have an extension so uh it was uh four in favor of mr diggins abstain of course okay i think we have now reached the um item 20 final presentation and vote overnight parking proposal and uh we have mr corsie and mr diggins do you have a slides yes yeah thank thank you mr chairman and um we have a power point that we can walk through when i want to thank the board and thank the public in particular that we have been talking about this a lot longer than all of us uh expected uh when we first brought this up a few years ago or started talking about things um and i want to thank mr diggins um for his collaboration and we've been trying to work on a proposal for the full board to consider a pilot program i thought briefly for the public's benefit i step back just a little bit give a little bit of background and then present the proposal that we have come up with for the board's consideration for pilot um so if i could just for a second yeah give us a give there we go went full screen we're good okay so we have talked about the situation in allington where there is the overnight parking ban um there are a series of exemptions or waivers that that are allowed that i want to touch on briefly but in terms of references that we've made for the public to our rules the references to overnight parking actually occur in two places in our traffic rules and orders in and our parking policies and regulations and if mr marr brings this forward this is the reference to the online parking ban that's in our traffic rules and orders there's a more complete reference in the parking policies um if we can go to that um and again it states that there's no overnight parking between the hours of one and seven a m um if we go to the next slide however there are four exceptions that have been applied over the years and that are contained within our policies one is short term that's if someone is visiting a home or a driveway is being repaired or a car is disabled and that short term is and i will go through each exception that is done through the police department the next three that the temporary or long term in the municipal lot is a treasurer's office request the final two or select board requests temporary or long term on street and hardship exemption on street um mr marr thank you again here's a little description of the short term up to 14 days a year the reasons that were put in the policy it's just as i said expecting an overnight guest and the two other categories there's no fee for that and i will say mr diggins and i did receive some feedback um from people who um they may have weekend guests from time to time family visiting the 14 days appears to be a hardship for some people there was some request to extend that we're not here to do that this evening but again something to think about as we go forward again that's issued through the police department there is instructions in terms of contact the police department for that the second category is municipal lot parking and this is done through the treasurer's office and this covers the situation where a family or a household has parking has a driveway but has more cars than can fit and and what what happens here is that the resident can go to the treasurer's office um it's a dollar a day and the individual is assigned a parking spot in one of our municipal lots um we can move on to the next one again it's discretionary but this one really is the least discretionary it's um you have a car you could theoretically park it at your house but you don't have enough room if you have three or four other cars or two or three other other cars the next category is what we often see here is the on-street parking issued by the select board valid for space in front of our adjacent to the permanent holders residence but the conditions we just brought them up with mr. Foley that that come up is it is there is there a driveway um is there construction taking place so we'll do it on a temporary basis for this one it's a hundred and sixty dollars for the first year seventy five dollars per year afterwards um and then the final category that we see is the hardship exemption this this came on just a few years ago where again it's for residents you have to establish that off-street parking is unavailable and that they have a long-term or permanent disability or can't afford off-street parking due to economic hardship there's no fee for that we see this often on a on a temporary basis both this one and the prior um discretionary where there may be a caretaker that has to come in a family situation um on a short-term basis we also see it on a on a more permanent basis so what we did and we've talked about our waivers and our exceptions but both mr. Diggins and I felt like okay let's give the board and the public a little bit more information as to what we're doing right now as a town and so the three discretionary permits and this excludes the short term that are issued by the police which is an allowance of an overnight there are 44 permits issued for the municipal lot parking um what I did is I and I want to thank miss maher for assisting me she gathered a lot of information provide a lot of feedback to me and I think as we went through this we learned a lot too um the three top precincts here precinct nine precinct 20 and precinct seven and what we found here is for the municipal lot parking the majority of this is people are in housing authority properties for precinct 20 it's people of drake village who park at the herd field and on drake road precinct nine includes a number of people both at winslow towers and chestnut manor and precinct seven you can see it goes all the way down to two every other precinct that's represented has no more than one permit the on street permits for people who might not have parking available to them um again the three biggest precincts a little bit of a surprise here precinct six precinct eight and precinct 20 with the top three and this goes to um what i'm going to get to in a little bit in terms of um whether we do this townwide or target it because when we look at these at least what's granted it's all over town um hardship exemption permits precinct 19 is the most and and that's really one property it's the new apartment building at 483 summer street uh has the majority of those precinct one has five and precincts three and six both at four each this is what's currently issued by the town red sticker for the overnight for the municipal lot yellow sticker for on street so this that sticker program is already in place next slide here's the history i know we could probably add a few more slides to specific select board meetings but again this this came out of of of articles that were presented um back in the 2021 town meeting uh by an individual civilian dominos from from precinct four mr diggins and i ran two forums one on june 23rd 22 the other one february of this year and then discussions at numerous select board meetings and in the interest of time we've taken that out again this is just for the more for the public's benefit because i know my colleagues are aware of um the comment that we had but this was our actual language uh when we basically said we're not going to recommend any action on resolutions that were presented back in 2021 but we're committed to further discussion of potential pilot programs and boy we've held that commitment for the discussions so after numerous discussions after feedback that's been given to mr diggins and myself and from members of the board at meetings had discussions with mr pooler we've had discussions with chief flaherty mr rata marker um we've had discussions with residents this is what we're proposing for the board's consideration tonight um and this is a program that originally talked about six months but where we are in the year it's a program that would begin august 1st and run until the end of the year december 31st it would allow for up to 125 permits townwide um permit would allow for parking in front of or adjacent to the permit holders residents we did receive a lot of feedback from people um who were just concerned where where the parking would be allowed no more than one permit per household and no more than two permits per property we have another series of um aspects to this too the cost would be a dollar day and on top of being able to park in front of your house every permit holder would receive an assigned space in a municipal lot in the event of a weather emergency um the applications are to be submitted to the select board office and upon approval the application payment is to be made to the treasurer's office and i believe we have the draft application um and apologize this is a little small but again thanks to miss martin for creating this this has the basic information what we're asking for or what we're proposing is that an applicant put the reason for the request to a reason isn't required the way what we saw this evening or under some of our other programs but we felt that if we could hear from the public in terms of why they're asking it may help us guide us to make changes or or make further consideration of our parking policies so that's the the form there at the end of the pilot period what we're proposing is that we consider whether to amend the parking rules and regulations on a permanent basis in light of the demand resident feedback town department feedback and other relevant factors and um talking to mr diggins um we while we'd like to do this as quickly as possible we're looking at a time period between january and march of 2024 um if we are able to gather information ahead of time to get to the board great but that three month period we would use to gather feedback and and just see how much interest and we selected 125 out of concern just in terms of how the select board office here in terms of the demand and what they would be able to handle what we have for stickers and just to see because we did receive a lot of feedback about concern that people um I think a number of residents didn't want us to just do this townwide with an unlimited number and this is a way to see okay what is the demand here and what can we look at um over the next few months and and hear back from people and I know Mr. Diggins do you want to add anything to to what I presented here um no no thank you I mean so there's the the right uh the edit of the policy I mean which uh you can see you know oh I know I did there was one thing I wanted to add and that is a whatever we decide being uh I need to really edit me that policy I mean more I mean I tried to limit it to the overnight parking stuff but as I read through it there's just formatting issues and some other things mean that or outdated or confusing you know and so so I think we really need to revisit me that that parking policy whether we do the overnight parking or not if we decide to the pilot decide to do the pilot you know then then I'll do that revision at the end of the pilot mean um if we don't mean then I'll do that revision sooner you know there's a revision sooner you know so that's it I'm sorry I missed you one one other thing and Ms. Marr if you could put up the statistics again on the on the three categories because the 125 permits um they would be inclusive of permits that are issued for municipal lots for those people who want to who are in a municipal lot who would want to park in front of their home I will say a number of those permits it probably isn't possible because up at Drake Village for example there there are spaces assigned and it's a private Drake road to private way anyway so that that's included in the 44 but the second and third categories the on-street permits and the hardship exemptions those would exist they would be in addition to the 125 so those two categories would not go towards the 125 and in our proposal in theory some of the 44 could I just ask so are you saying that the 44 municipal law commits would be converted to also giving them permission to park in front of their house just to keep that consistent because the cost is the same yeah again that the 44 in the municipal lot it's really you don't providing a reason other than you don't have room so it's not so much to keep the cost but I think there are some people who have asked for that that if the pilot were available they'd ask to park in front of the house there are others that aren't going to have a choice but I think for those that do have that option I think we make it available to them because it's the same price and so that it would be 150 would include we would take the 44 off from the off the top for the pilot or for those within the 44 that want to convert we would take it off off the 125 and I will tell you I I don't know how many less it is I know might even be half that number because of the the herd field parking yeah 125 minus 44 minus x I had some other stuff but I usually go last so jump a little bit all to the mother colleagues approval yeah we have a motion for approval and mr. I don't even let my brain start making the revision I think we've been through this no I I think this is a reasonable result of our many discussions and I want to thank mr. DeCorsi mr. Diggins for what I can only imagine was many many many hours so I think at this point we just take a look at what we have in front of us and see how it goes um I think this is something I appreciate the work that's gone into this you know I think through our courses of of of our of our sincere compliance with their promise for discussion I've had a number of concerns I appreciate the distance we've traveled to address many of them and this is something I'm happy to support um I have still reservations but I think I'm comfortable that this is a relatively modest number I think I'm comforted by the by the statistics that mr. DeCorsi and and the team and mr. Diggins put together that shows that this is likely to be something that could be utilized spread out a little bit across town so I think it dilutes some of some of the concerns I had and you know I think I think it's worth a try one recommendation I would make is that we are absolutely clear with people that this is not guaranteed to continue and I don't know if we want to issue advice on the lines of don't buy a car just thinking that you know that you'll be able to do this but I think that that is something that we should we should contemplate in our messaging that the you know that at least from my point of view when we go to evaluate this if this creates substantial problems in neighborhoods you know I'm not sure yet I don't know if you know the purpose of the pilot so I'm happy to do this as an experiment I think you've made a good case for that but I really would encourage anyone taking pardon this to understand that this is this is an experiment and it is no by by no means guaranteed that we would keep doing it or keep doing it in its current form because I think my biggest concern with this all along has been that once you start this it's really difficult to put the genie back in the bottle so I'm kind of you know drawing that line to say that this really is a this is really is an experiment so with that that's all I've got this is mine did you have anything I'm just going to be really brief because I feel like a broken record over and over and over again I'm just I'm going to vote no but and I feel bad about doing that because I do respect time and energy and meeting after meeting that mr. DeCorsi and mr. Diggins and the previous chair mr. Diggins and current chair mr. Helmut have really dedicated to this issue and making sure we're here all parts of it and in the only not the only but one of the main reasons why I'm voting no on this is sort of could be a reason why I should vote yes which is what I'm hoping at the end of this process that after the information is compiled it's on one meeting that we perhaps do some modifications amendments etc to our policy when they come before the select board and the reason voting no is the reason we started down this road was from a town meeting member who said I have a financial hardship when you're talking about socioeconomic fairness and equity the parking program doesn't address that and what we have before us still doesn't address that because we're not really giving out permits waving every 125 nobody has to pay for it because they have an economic economic issue and that's why only because in terms of what we've heard from quasi from our transportation advisory committee from you know clean energy net zero etc moving forward I think this pilot program is really speaking more to people who have a third fourth fifth car and are looking for it to go somewhere but I do appreciate the fact it's only 125 I do fear that where it sets a neighborhood issue in terms of and I hope it doesn't but I'm not going to go in here so I'm I'd like to see what comes out of the pilot I think what we need to do is you know keep our big girl big women and big men bridges on when we go forward because I don't think this is a town-wide solution I think that flies in the face of a lot of decisions policy committees subcommittees MBTA alternative transportation the environment clean energy to talk about a way that everybody can park everywhere and only to overnight and I think it flies in that but I'll be interested to see what comes out of the pilot program but really I think we need to get back I think there's kind of we've got down this road because we didn't want to make some hard decisions with what's before us and if those decisions are just too hard and too rigid then after this we'll get the information and maybe we add one or two more exemptions so thank you sorry for going so long when I said I wouldn't yeah I was just gonna keep forgetting about my microphone so it's starting in about a month do we have a plan for when we're publicizing how somebody applies where we have a limited amount how to get the word out to the public what the application date is and how one should apply just so nobody says hey I didn't get 125 for giving out and nobody told me how to do this we don't have a plan yet you know but but but be with the go ahead to do that I will then talk to the top manager to see how to go about doing that effectively hopefully using uh miss roman mean and um work with miss myron mean to me captain message me but it's always been a matter of like not trying to get ahead of where we are me so I did you know some preliminary work in order to determine you know that APD wanted us to have stickers as opposed to placards meaning that Mr. DeCorsi carried that forward to find out where we were so so so the short answer is no okay so the short answer in a long answer yeah I'd just like to sum it up me but but but also if I can just share I just wanted to add that that I mean with respect to that economic hardship me there is that the people can get you know these permits mean for for free if they just like they do on the municipal lot now if they you know are or supplied the necessary information meaning to select board's office mean and so it is on a first come sort of first basis me but but many discussions with mr. I'm hi maybe me I just didn't interpret things correctly you can correct me you know is that we we we have to create policies that apply to everyone in town pretty much equally you know and so at least you know at least give them equal opportunity to do it you know if we if we are able me to me do sections of towns with certain policies you know then let's have at it but that's not how I came away any further discussion I believe in your second on that motion unless I have forgotten any second though we have a motion from Mr. Hertz second okay in his chart just to clarify your motion is for approval of the program but when we're not going into the approving the the red line added to the parking regulations tonight correct that's okay that's okay that's what you asked for all right so on a motion by to approve the plan by mr. Herndon second and I mentioned of course the all in favor please say hi hi opposed no yes of course we have a four to one vote thank you very much thank you gentlemen for your work now we have item number 21 final road overriding cotton commitments two reasons for this item the first one is that the commitments have been updated slightly to add the additional line that mr. Herd requested and I ran the language by him informally so you see that before you that that makes a commitment that we will ask the town manager to to work with department has to continually look for efficiencies with the budget and second reason is that when we took the first override vote mr. DeCorsi was absent due to illness and this is a really important statement of recommendation to the voters and I wanted to give the board an opportunity to have a vote with all five members so I'd like to suggest respectfully begging the board's indulgence that we that we do the vote again to authorize the override just so we can get all five members on record and my traditional our traditional person to read these complicated motions dismisses maham but I know that you're usually have these in paper in front of you do you have a iPad ready to read the the different sections of the override no I don't think that's fine would you like to do it and I'll say that's my motion do you have I do and I will oh that's good because by by all rights we rely on for this so we have two two motions this will become the final official vote of the of the of this is like board on these so we have a motion first to hold a special town election on Tuesday November 7 2023 and the second motion will be to approve the override local ballot question so the first motion calling an election that we move that the following questions will be placed on the November 7 2023 special election ballot as sorry now I got ahead of myself so motion that the town shall hold a special number one town shall hold a special election on Tuesday November 7 2023 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the purposes of voting on a proposition to and I have override question to be approved by the select board and a timely written notice of such election shall be directed to the town clerk in compliance with the master of law chapter 54 section 42 c that's this is the hans motion do I have a second second we have a second by Mr. DeCorsi so on a motion from no Mr. Herd we have a motion from Mrs. Mahana second by Mr. Herd all in favor please say yes aye opposed is a five zero unanimous vote both have blue shirts oh yeah so the confusion is obvious right i'm just saying that you're sitting on different sides of me and the second motion the following questions will be placed upon the November 7 2023 special election ballot as follows a proposition to an override shall the town of ronton be allowed to assess an additional seven million dollars in real estate in personal property taxes for the purposes of funding the operating budgets of the town and the public schools for the fiscal year beginning july 1 2024 yes or no as your motion do i have a second second you have a second so we have a motion by mrs. Mahan the second by mr. DeCorsi all in favor please say aye aye opposed is a five zero unanimous vote thank you for your indulgence i'm glad to have all members of the board on record for this really important thank you mr. chairman thank you members is there any comments well now you appreciate being able to vote again i and and i as the chair said i wasn't able to be here in june 5th but i i think with the commitments with everything that we've done in long-range planning in in terms of laying this out um it's we're at that point where it's unfortunately it's necessary to pass the voters and and i think we have the reasons we've done our work there's been a number of months a lot of good discussion uh among stakeholders and and i'm comfortable with the work that's been done and the requests that's being made okay that brings us to board and staff announcements uh mrs. Maher attorney high manager puller i have a couple thank you uh first i know it's been a matter of interest on a lot of members on the board the premium pay that we made to our workers who worked during covet one group that did not get covered in that or people who had retired during that period but had worked some of that time we've looked at the numbers and i can say tonight that we will be able to make those payments to those retirees i'll be also working on other revisions to the current plan which i'll excuse me present uh at the july meeting but i just wanted you to know and i've already informed some of the retirees that we won't be moving forward in that direction the second thing i just wanted to mention is i would just show you this picture i don't think but uh we have started replacing our parking meters today um it's been a long bumpy road but we do have new meters um they are smaller than the other ones they will what where there had been two heads on some of these posts and now it'll just be one and you will have to pick a or b left or right but they are being installed and we think that then by after the fourth of july uh we will then have them in effect so if everything goes smoothly and we will certainly publicize that uh those are the two things i wanted to mention thank you very much thank you mr puler mrs mahan well i have to say ever since the chair renamed new business to board and staff announcements mr puler is i don't know we're going to do every time we we have a patrolman contract settled and we have the uh covered retire your money money but i i don't well kidding the signs i do appreciate i know that um every member of the board is certainly weighted on this um previously with mr chapter lane and unfortunately it fell unfortunately uh and mr puler's lap on his platter um to address thankfully didn't take you three years um and i'm happy to have resolution to that tonight it's sort of i have one other piece but this is a segue into that i did have a conversation very briefly with the town manager um about something i brought up the last meeting and at the last quarterly report by mr puler and miss cody regarding the opera funding um and i know that that's something uh that was in the mix but wasn't the only thing at the front of the line kind of is now with a contract uh with a patrolman being settled now with the covid uh employee reimbursement uh but the i'm speaking to mr puler saying one of the reasons i was concerned about is you know hearing and reading hearing stuff out out of washington dc reading the u.s treasury department regarding opera funding in the federal government looking at those uh monies i'm very comfortable with the town manager's former role as a deputy finance director along with powers and Sullivan for what the u.s treasury guidelines were for auditing and reporting but then there had been discussion and i'm not caught up as mr puler is on uh what's happening down in washington dc but i know there was some kind of serious discussion and some print uh regarding uh congress and others looking at opera funding and perhaps auditing it and asking for some of the back whether you had allocated and didn't spend it or for a whole other varied or myriad of reasons but the town manager informs me yes that was discussion and nothing's a given but i probably shouldn't have that concern at the top of my head so um i did say to mr puler but it's up to the chair but um whenever those i don't want those important figures and i understand the coordination with the finance department in allington with the comptroller and with powers and Sullivan um take whatever time you need because i don't want somebody rushing that um i cause a mistake and then um my other piece of new business which i'm going to ask the board administrator miss mar to email out tomorrow i was going to say please forward to my colleagues as an fyi i'll be bringing this up under board announcements but then i said no that kind of seems like a violation so um although if you're on one of the allington lists you kind of have a sense of it um i did how do i say briefly lots of points about yard waste we heard at a town meeting from mr warden we've heard it from others it really seems to um whenever there's a holiday that really seems to throw everything off but yard waste is you know some people are two three weeks behind um had gotten some public allington miss allington lists responses but also some private ones uh so what i did was just because i wanted to i compiled and i'm gonna smile will forge my colleagues tomorrow um especially people who said the second third week that um yard waste hasn't been picked up uh just compiled and sent it to the town manager and to um the assistant town manager mr feeny um a list of all those streets elite the when they've been out um and my new business would be i've had a conversation with one member of the board crazy as it is with mr decoracy uh also at mr feeny i understand this republic i understand the contract is coming up within a year and a half or so and i understand there's limited choices that we have out there um but especially with an override coming up uh and whatever lays down further on down the road um one of the things i've asked mr pooler mr feeny to look into is i've gotten comments that when people contact right now what they're saying is hey i pay my taxes i expect trash when i call the town they say it's not us it's republic call this number i think the needs to whether that's actually the response we need to do a better job of something else and then it's been reported to me that and i'm sure my colleagues that when you call that number after friday you don't get anyone after five p.m until monday morning that's not acceptable and and i understand we could say well republic is republics just not doing that job well then we the town of allington in my opinion need to look at that and try to figure out a way and one of things i would say is um and this may be being done but just me going through the exercise you'll see the number of streets i didn't include the people's names but i have them who reported each of their streets so it's not just like i went out and say um then i can forward that and they're already out there on a public list but um i'd like to see a different response from the town i'd like to see i understand the override and where the monies are allocated and where it's going to but i have had conversations including with mr. pooler thank goodness we didn't have a heavy winter because we really would have been in trouble uh the 16 or so vacancies we have on on public works you know everybody who wants organic fields and everything else if you don't have the people there to do this now this issue with trash and yard waste um it may be it is what it is and when we go out with a new contract we get stuck with something that's going to give us lackluster um um uh service but um i really think the town needs to explore what's going on with republic because this isn't a month thing it's been since they've had the contract pretty much i know and i think you all know so whatever suggestions we can get from the town manager on that but also as long as it's not too cumbersome or exhaustive of an exercise uh if there's something i said this to mr. decorsi and he didn't hang up the phone and if he was laughing at me he put himself on mute but i said to me one of the biggest things the board did which i wasn't on it was a pre-all of us was to privatize the trash we lost all those pocketfield dpw workers we watched we lost all our drivers for snow piles for winter and we got stuck with this trash situation so um i'm not saying the town should take back doing trash because we just don't you know have the employees and have the infrastructure the equipment to do that but um i have spoken mr. pool or mr. feney and now all of you not just mr. decorsi just to kind of keep it out there that when we're talking about mission you know mission and goals and moving forward maybe there's a in-between scenario um but i really want to get a handle on this um response even if the response from the town is similar to what i did this weekend i literally spent the whole weekend you'll see the list and got the information and try to organize that it was readable maybe that's what the person who works for us does even even you know and then stays in touch with those people because i said please let me know and a lot of that list got clear today and it wasn't because of me it's because um i also said please call republic and put that in but i'll stop there thank you that's my other new business that we really need to think about our trash contract and everything else i said thank you thank you mr. mahan mr. herd the announcements i've known new business others to say i'm glad to see the media is going in because i had a client today that came in and asked me why some meters work and some don't and i said they're actually not enforcing them right now he's like well i just put four quarters in the middle maybe you should have told clients on their way into it but so it will be good for a more equitable enforcement of our parking policies we appreciate all contributions mr. the course hi no announcements thank you mr. chairman mr. diggins i'm thinking maybe you could have the folks from sustainable arlington and zero waste arlington handle our trash recycling you know so that's it for me and i also have no announcements move to adjourn second on a motion to adjourn by mrs. mahan seconded by mr. herd all in favor say hi hi pose shockingly it is a unanimous vote to adjourn we are adjourned