 Oh my God, you're out. Two, test one, two, here we go. Test, test, test one, two. Please come to order. Please come in and sit down. Please come in and sit down. Please take your seats. Joining us this evening on the piano is Mr. Charles Gallagher, who's gonna play for us. Please rise. Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. I have one or two announcements this evening. The Allen Community Development Board is gonna be holding an ad box meeting, a meeting in the front foyer at the break at 9.30. So if anyone's interested, it's part of the public, the new public open meeting law. We're gonna announce these meetings as they're gonna happen during calm meeting. The high school girls softball team is out selling us cookies and drinks and things again tonight. So please help them. And the other thing, the veterans are selling these night shirts regarding the moving wall help support that effort that was here a weekend ago, two weekends ago. So go out there anytime during the break before, after the meeting and help support them. Thank you. Are there any new calm meeting members so you have to be sworn in? Anyone who's just elected who hasn't gotten sworn in yet? If they so, please rise. Now you're a repeat. All right, anybody who's just elected this year, please rise, we'll do them all at once. Now, it's good to have a night. So everyone here has been sworn in, good. Oh, rare. Oh, okay. Did you just get elected? Yeah, you gotta do it. Okay, I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties and comfort upon me as a calm meeting member of the town of Arlington. And according to the bylaws, calm manager act and the general laws of Commonwealth of Massachusetts to help me God. Congratulations. That's it for my announcements. That's swearing in Chairman Board's second throat. Good evening. It has moved you. The fall of the business of the meeting has set forth on the way for the annual 10 meeting is not disposed of at this session. When the meeting adjourns, it adjourns to Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 8 p.m. All in favor, please say yes. So moved. Thank you. I want to start the meeting tonight by recognizing the service, long service of three wonderful public servants for the town of Arlington. They include Corrine Rainville, our former clerk, Joe Curran of the school committee and Jack Herd of the Board of Selectment. Thank you. Placements for resolutions. Sir. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Roland Chavitt, Precinct 12. Just a quick announcement. The Friends of Robins Farm Park, holding their annual cleanup day this coming Saturday from nine to one. We'd love to have you there. It's across the street from the bracket school, if you're not sure exactly where the park is and we meet there right by those picnic tables. A special note this year, we're gonna be planting three new trees. Courtesy of Trees Please is a great program. We had an opportunity to pick up some and so that's gonna keep us busy for a couple of hours that morning. Looking forward to seeing you if you can make it. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Ms. Howard, did you have an announcement? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Jane Howard from Precinct 10, also co-chair of the Vision 2020 Standing Committee of a similar announcement to Mr. Chapitz but in a different location. The Spipond Committee of Vision 2020 will host two events next week and the announcements are on the back table. The first is something called Spipond Stories, Fish, Fables and Tall Tales and that will be Tuesday evening in the Selectman's Hearing Room at seven o'clock and we'll have some notable and new people to reveal many things about Spipond you might not have heard about before and to teach you how to use a Secchi disc. And the second is that next Saturday, the seventh, will be the seventh annual Spipond Trails Day and we welcome all of you to come down with your rakes and shovels and litter bags and join us to keep that trail that abuts the Route 2 Access Road to Pleasant Street open and to take care of all the trails that we've already put in over the past few seven years. The third is not on this sheet and it is that on this Saturday, we will be planting and also adding soils to two areas at the reservoir. Money has been given for a habitat wildlife garden there and it will be installed hopefully by the end of Saturday. We spent several hours pushing soil around today and there's more soil pushing around to do and it's on either side of the new spillway and that is also from nine to one. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. O'Connor. Jim O'Connor, Precinct 19, I wanna thank you for your support of my candidacy for the assistant moderator and in brevity, all I can say is if anyone needs any help in how to conduct business in town meeting or has questions about different votes, I'll be glad to help, thank you. Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Gordon Jamison, Precinct 12 and co-chair of the Arlington Recycling Committee. We once again, this year have for your amusement some party favors. We have our single stream recycling stickers which you can put on any barrel and make that into a recycling large bin for single stream recycling. If you already have one, give one to your neighbors. In the back of the hall, but while not on your seats are also some yard trimmings, it is spring and many of you will be cleaning up your yards both here and at home. These are available for those in the room in the back and also for those at home at the DPW office. Ms. Yenetti, recycling coordinator and office manager to the DPW would do a much better job on this next one. But we have here your Uncle Sam, multi-purpose shopping recycling bag. You can take it to the store. I saw someone at Trader Joe's shopping with this the other day. You can take it into the house. You can unload your groceries. You can then fill it up with the recyclables and take it to your bin. It even comes with a handy emptying strap. So each of you got one of those and if you don't have already have one or don't need another one, again, give one to your neighbors. And last but not least, not to spend too much time tonight. On May 7th, we'll be having our nth annual community collection day. We now have these both in the spring and the fall and I believe David has some. Yes, thank you. This will be at the DPW yard on Grove Street from nine to one. And we really request you to those here in the hall and at home to come at nine and don't come after one because we're setting up before nine and we're done at one. You can bring a whole host of things that you normally can't recycle or dispose of at the curbside recycling or through your trash to the event. Next slide, please. First and foremost, you can bring your CRTs or televisions. If you pay the DPW to pick it up on the curbside, you pay 15. If you bring it to the event on the 7th, you pay 10 per unit. You can also bring that old propane tank that no longer conforms to standards for free and dispose of that. Next slide, please. You have those documents. You just did your taxes, many of us did. I always postpone to September, personally, but you have those old documents. I have my father's, I'm gonna shred them for him. You can bring two boxes, basically those paper boxes per residence, two, and they'll be confidentially shredded securely by these guys that have volunteered that have a tie with Arlington for years. After that, it's five bucks a box for businesses you pay from the first box. There's a paper bin that you can recycle newspapers and general papers, but not cardboard in the yard there as well. And those go to the proceeds of that go to the Arlington Schools Foundation. Again, no cardboard. That can be picked up in your normal single stream curbside recycling. Next slide, please. This is one of the ones that I really think is one of the most marvelous things that happens is you can bring an in good condition used bike and give it to bikes, not bombs. They ask for a $10 donation to ship it overseas. This becomes a family's sole transportation. It's a really wonderful thing. The Board of Health, Ms. Connolly and her team will be collecting syringes and used prescriptions, a big hit with the seniors. Next slide, please. You have some old children or adult clothing, working toys, working toys and sneakers. You can bring those and the little fox and the big brothers and big sisters will benefit from those. If you have old books, basically any type of book. DVDs or CDDs, CDs, no VHS tapes, tapes, sorry. Again, no VHS tapes. Those go in the regular trash, sorry. Bring those and the Stratton PTO will make big bucks that day and the little fox will benefit as well. Next slide, please. A big hit instituted by Dan Warren, a member of the DPW is metal recycling. Pipes, poles, shelves, cabinets, metals, but no appliances that requires a sticker can be brought and disposed of on the seventh at the DW yard between nine and one and a brand new one, folks. Hold on to your hats, e-waste. This means basically, and there's a list on the back of the handout that you have on your seat. If it has a plug, a cord, it goes. This is gonna take a huge amount of stuff out of our normal waste stream and we encourage you to come and utilize that will be both in the fall and in the spring, but no, again, no large appliances that requires a sticker. Next slide, please. The Arlington High School Save Club each year with the mentoring of Nigel Krauss, who drives the returnables to and from the, to the recycling center, will be collecting returnable bottles and cans. Please bring those to them so they can support worldwide sustainable and events. And this is the last slide, okay, and batteries. Batteries was new last fall. Car batteries, computer batteries, camera batteries, and rechargeable batteries can all be brought and dumped off and those will be recycled. A note, alkaline batteries, current alkaline batteries can go in the regular trash. The toxins that used to be in those are no longer in them. And you can pick up stuff on how to recycle. And last slide, please. Remember, Arlington needs you to recycle. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can we get one of those handouts up here? Any other announcements or resolutions? Front row question for the rest of the light bulbs. One makers. Any other announcements or resolutions? It's also time for the precinct committees to form. Precincts one through seven are supposed to form today. If they haven't already met, please do so at the break. Precinct one and the corridor outside the clerk's office. Precinct two on the other side of the corridor in the clerk's office. Precinct three and over by the parking lot. Precinct four over by the parking lot. Precinct five by the town gardens. Number six in the lobby outside the auditorium. I guess that's out front. And number seven is also out in the corridor by the garden. So if you could organize, get that piece of paper signed and hand it back to Ms. Luccarelli. That'd be appreciated. Article three, any other reports? Any reports to be submitted? Mr. Tosti. I move that article three be taken from the table. Fall in favor. I move that the report of the town government reorganization committee be received. Second. All in favor. Report is so received. Just very briefly, this is on the table on the back and you know how you go through these reports and you study them carefully and you try to get every error and then I realized that the title of it is really not the right title. The town meeting created the reorganization committee but the correct title of course is the town government reorganization committee. Now I'm not gonna make any report at this time. I would ask that you read it. What we've done is show the warrant article, show the comment of the town government reorganization committee and then the proposed motion. Now the motions that will be before you will be those of the Board of Selection. I'm on that, but we wanted to put there's only one article where we disagree on and I'll put a substitute motion in at that point. If you have any questions, you see the individuals who have spent a great deal of work on this, on the second paragraph, please feel free to ask them any questions or myself and I look forward to talking about this when we get to these articles. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other reports or committees? Seeing none, Mr. Tosti. I move that article three be laid upon the table. All in favor? Aye. All opposed, so moved. That brings us to article 18. Yes, good evening. Article 18 is what we think of as a housekeeping article. One of the things that's happened in our lives is we have dumpsters and now we have pods. And this warrant article is talking about putting the portable storage container after the word dumpster in an existing bylaw. It is because of, as everybody knows, these pods that people use as they're moving oftentimes stay for a long period of time, either in people's driveways or unfortunately, often in existing streets and roads and they've become more of a nuisance. So this is really an article that was brought to us by the town manager and the police chief. We have a number of recent incidences where the pods have been found to actually disrupt traffic. So that's the point of the article. And unless anybody has any other questions. Nope. Well, there are a few people on the list. Okay. Mr. Loretty. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Chris Loretty, precinct seven. I would agree this is largely a housekeeping article and I would ask town meeting to support it. I do have a question pertaining to the scope though. The warrant article speaks specifically about establishing a permit system and I think fees for portable storage devices. However, the way that the article has been amended, and I think this should be clear, if people look at the strike through text, is that it changes the fee for dumpsters, the permit fee for dumpsters from a fixed figure of $24, which presumably was set by town meeting at some time, to some amount set by the board of select men. And I think that's something that people who take, or use dumpsters a lot like contractors and therefore have to pay the fee, might be concerned about. And I wonder, given the way that the warrant article itself is written, which doesn't say anything about amending the bylaw as it pertains to dumpster fees, whether that changes within the scope. Mr. Loretty, fortunately brought this to my attention earlier in the day, so I had a chance to look at it. And I do agree that that portion of the recommended vote, D, by deleting $24 from the second sentence and replacing it with the word set by the board of select men is beyond the scope of the original warrant article. Thank you. So we'll amend it to delete that, Mr. Rowe. Yes, we have a substitute motion to do exactly what you've said. I believe it's gonna be on the screen. So I don't need to read it for the town meeting unless they would like me to. Read it? Wait, wait, wait, wait. You can't read it. Everybody can't talk at once because I can't hear more than one person, sir. Okay, that's fine. I don't mind reading it. I was hoping it was readable. I, Clarissa Rowe, chair of the board of select men and town meeting member from precinct six, hereby move that the proposed vote under warrant article 18 presented to town meeting in the report of the board of select men be amended as indicated below. Deletion struck insertions underlined. Voted that title five, article nine, placement of dumpsters of the bylaws, B, and hereby is amended by, A, adding the words and in quotes or portable storage container, which is what a pod is, after the words, no dumpster in the first sentence, B, and then we will delete the following, deleting $24 from the second sentence and replacing it with the words set by the board of select men. So we're deleting that entire phrase. Adding the words and portable storage containers after the word dumpsters in the third sentence and D becomes C, inserting the following sentence between the fourth and fifth sentences. Portable storage container is any outdoor container temporarily placed at or in front of a private residence or business for the packing and or storage of items of personal property, goods or materials and E becomes D, inserting in the fifth sentence after the word dumpster, the words or portable storage container, such that the proposed vote will now appear as voted that article five, title five, article six, placement of dumpsters of the bylaws, being hereby is amended by, and I'll read it again, adding the words and or portable storage container after the words, no dumpster in the first sentence, B, adding the words and portable storage container after word dumpster in the third sentence, C, inserting the following sentence between the fourth and fifth sentences, that sentence is, portable storage container is an outdoor container temporarily placed at or in front of a private residence or business for the packing and or storage items of personal property, goods or materials and D, inserting the fifth, in the fifth sentence after the word dumpster, the word or portable storage container. So, is that clear? With, yeah. Hopefully. So, you're getting rid of B through C. Let me just, let me ask. Everything after the, in the second, third sentence after the semicolon, parentheses B, all the way to the end of parentheses C, change in D to C and C to D. Okay. Oh, is everyone clear what she wants to do? Yeah. If you look at her recommended vote, the Selectman's recommended vote, which you've had before you, in the third line down, after the words, the first sentence, they're striking out everything from there through the end of this fourth line down to the letters, parentheses C and parentheses. Down in the last line, they change in parentheses D to parentheses C, and in the very, one from the bottom line to change in E to D. Basically, what we're doing is, is taking out the, One second, Mr. Hanner. We're taking out the reference to the dollar. Yeah. They're taking out the reference to the dollar values and re-numerating the other sentences. Mr. Hanner. Bill Hainer, precinct two. I thought we were supposed to have amendments on our chair. No, right, well. Just for this reason. Yeah. This is why we were supposed to have them on our chair, and this isn't supposed to supplement the chair placements. This is borders on the line of simple. It's a little bit, I can see it because they gave it to me. You guys can't see it. If you want, we can postpone it till one day. Or we could vote on it now if you wish. Wait, I'll put you on the list, Ms. Fury. Now, Mr., there's other people in front of you. Mr. Hainer made a point of information which don't really exist. I mean, I think that Mr. Hainer's right. We unfortunately didn't see the question about the money until this afternoon. So we were trying to get this in your hands. It actually is quite simple. I probably made it sound more complicated than it is. Yeah, you kind of did, but let's... I'm afraid I hadn't read it before. Yeah, it's actually pretty straightforward. We're just getting rid of the whole section B and renumbering the other ones. We'll take up whether we want to substitute it or not. Mr. Trembly was next on the list. At Trembly, pricing 19. So if this passes, if I'm understanding right, the fee for this would be $24. Or what's the fee gonna be for this? Mr. Sullivan, can you answer him the question on fees? Probably was unfortunate that the fee was mentioned at all because under the state statute, the select men get to set the fee. So it'll be whatever the select men set the fee at. In the current bylaws, is there a fee, Ms. Rice? So do the select men have any idea how what they want to make the fee? Wait, Ed, I'm gonna find out if we currently have a fee. Matt's gonna answer your question better. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Juliana Riesetown Council. The current bylaw does not refer to portable onsite storage units at all. So there is no fee for them. The only fee in the current bylaw is $24 for dumpsters. Okay. But that still doesn't say what we think we might charge for a fee for this? Well, it looks like they don't get to charge a fee. Oh, we will be charging a fee. If you'd like to know what the fee is, we'll have to have an emergency meeting to discuss it because the board of select men hasn't, we haven't discussed the fee. We said all fees in the town, but we haven't discussed it. So this is kind of open-ended. You know, you could whack somebody for 500 bucks if you wanted to. I mean, I don't think you will, but you know, I'm not comfortable with the idea of voting on stuff that's kind of open-ended. All right, if you'd like us to, then we'll have an emergency meeting and report next week. I mean, I don't want to tie up the town meeting. Wait, wait, you guys are bantering. We're not supposed to have that. I'm sorry. Ms. Rowe, if you could wait to, I asked if you have a question from that one. Fees by state law have to be reasonable and in line with the services provided. So they couldn't be hitting you for $400 if they're going for 24 bucks for a dumpster. I'd imagine it'd be somewhere in town that, but I don't want to speak for the Board of Selectment. In general, I'm opposed to things like this because we ask for, we ask a lot out of town residents. And when somebody wants to get one of these pods, and I can't say that this is a serious problem because when I ride around town, I don't see a ton of them all over the place. You know, okay, so the police chief seems to think that there's an issue with the melt in the street, so maybe there's a thing there, but this seems to me, if the moderator can correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to regulate them on somebody's private property too. And people only get these pods if they're moving, which means it's not going to be there very long, or if they're using it for storage because they're renovating a house. Either way, the town is going to get some money out of that. If they're renovating their house, they get fees out of the building permits. If they're moving, they're leaving, and it's not a nice thing to whack them on the way out the door, but if they're moving in, we're going to be getting fees out of them for everything that goes along with house transactions and everything else. And I just don't know, especially if the town wants to pass an override, I don't think we should be needling the residents yet again for another fee and permit for something that isn't really a problem. I mean, I don't see a lot of them around. Thank you. Mr. Fisher? Andrew Fisher, precinct six. How do these changes address the problem of a pod, for example, that's obstructing traffic? And how do these changes, do these changes pose a time limitation? I don't see the time limitation. You went to that question, and I thought that was the reason for the change. It is actually the reason for the change. Our parking officer, Corey Roto, has had to come out on numerous occasions in the last year to deal with pods being put in streets and in ways that have been obstructing traffic. And that's why this warrant article was brought to our attention in the first place. But how does the warrant article? Because it had. Oh, he has to approve the location. Right, right. We also, I mean, he has to, if it's in a public way or a private way, he has to come back and talk to the board administrator about how long that pod can be in the public way. We haven't had any kind of jurisdiction over these pods in the past. And that's, we thought that we would put it into the dumpster bylaw since it's a similar item. Are you intending to just use judgment or something about whether it can be there for three weeks or three months? Well, what's happening is that there are, most people, it started out as a couple of day use. It's now, it's sometimes extended for three or four weeks. So it is, it's not as, as people have gotten used to it, it's because there's been more misuse of the pods. We do ask for an insurance certificate for $250,000, which they have to supply to us. Because obviously because it's their, their personal goods have migrated into a pod instead of being inside of a house. That's an insurance buy it or it's a common household requirement. I don't want to bicker about that. It just seems odd to me that that's the town's business. If somebody, I think whatever rules applied to dumpsters are now going to apply to pods. If you had to comply with the pod, dumpster rules, you now have to apply those to a pod. I've never, I've had a lot of dumpsters. I've never had any such rules unless it was on the street when the dumpster's on private land. I'm sorry, I didn't. But anyway, my main questions were, is there going to be a time limit? If somebody's building an addition take, sometimes an addition will take three to six months. I would hope you would use leeway. And the other thing is I, this talks about personal belongings. There are dumpsters on Swan Place right on the sidewalk. I take it that this does not pertain to those. One belongs to the auto body shop and the other is the pizza shop. Does this only apply to public property, the streets? It doesn't apply to someone's private property. If I have it on my front lawn, it's okay, right? I'm getting nods from up front. Mr. Rice, will this apply to pods or dumpsters that are on people's private property or only on the streets and sidewalks? Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Julianna Ristown Council. Currently, I believe that the dumpster permit program is applied only on when dumpsters are placed in public or private ways, ways to which the public has access. And that is the intent of this bylaw as well with regard to pods. So you can put it on your front lawn, Andy. Okay, well, okay, thank you. Ms. Fiori, oh, are you done? I'll take a leap of faith and vote yes on this. Thank you. Mrs. Fiori, oh, wait for the mic. The tape can't get it. Here it comes. Hey, turn that phone off, man. Yeah, I talked to you the other day. Elsie Fiori, you're preaching too. Oh, I'm all reaching. This is very minor. Just that the chairman said article six and I just want to make sure it's article nine. Title five, article nine. Yeah, that's what's in the vote. Okay, thank you. Mr. Smith? Dick Smith, Precinct 17. Unless I'm missing something completely, the changes up here should not have been made. There is no A, B, C, D, and E in the text of article nine. By deleting B, you're in effect saying that you're not taking out the $24. As originally written, as far as I can see, this was completely correct. All of these changes, none of those should have been made. No, the point of Mr. Loretty was that was beyond the scope of the original warrant article. The warrant article didn't speak to money issues at all. It only spoke to portable storage containers. It didn't talk about money. Well, the effect of this is the $24 stays in section article nine because you haven't taken any action to delete the $24. You've lined out the B step which would take out the $24. So the $24 still will be in article nine if you take the action as it's written. Correct, $24 stays in the bylaw. We're not getting rid of $24, we're leaving it in. We're not letting this article accomplish that. Okay. If you want both, yeah, it'll cost you $48. Wait, wait, you can't yell from your seat, Ms. Phelps, you're on the list. But to answer your question, a permit is gonna cost $24 by what's in the bylaw. My interpretation of that, I could be wrong, I'm not interpreting the bylaws, that's Ms. Rice's job. I'm Mr. Sullivan, you were next on the list. You passed. Mr. Cacovaro. Thomas Cacovaro, PC-11, I'm really confused. And I get confused easily. So is the fee, when I'm hearing the last 30 seconds, is $24 for an open container? Is that correct? Or is it still needs to be set by the board as well? As the bylaw currently reads, article nine, placement of dumpsters, no dumps that shall be utilized in the town, et cetera. The fee for each permit shall be $24. That's what the bylaw currently reads. Okay. Their recommended vote was gonna delete that and give them the power to change it. Correct. That wasn't in the warrant article, so we're striking that authority out. Okay. That's what's being proposed. Okay. The problem that I have with this, once again, it's an article that has a question mark to it. And the question mark is, what is the fee? $24 to somebody could be ridiculous and could not be. If we're gonna do this, we need to put a fee on it. I don't know. I'm sure you're not gonna charge $400, but you might charge something that's not reasonable to the people already in for an- The fee is set at $24 by the bylaw. We're not changing that. But the board, okay, but can the board of select men change it? They gotta come back to the town meeting and change the bylaw. Okay, so the fee is $24. So why did select men will get up and say that they could have an emergency meeting and do the fee? That's why I don't understand. Yeah, they either so can. Maybe someone could- Wait a second. I gotta get this guy. Yes, Ms. No, you gotta get a mic, Ms. Phelps. And there's no such thing as a point of information. We're getting off the rules of town meeting time. Ms. We- So what I'm hearing is- The town manager just told us that select men by state law set the fee. The fees and the bylaw. But he just told us the select men have the right to do that. So excuse me for a minute. So I guess I need to know by the town attorney is the fee $24 by our bylaw cannot be changed unless it comes to town meeting. Or is it true what select men said that they're gonna make the fee? That's the question. Ms. Rice, can you answer his question better than I tried? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Giuliano Ristown Council. Many of these bylaws that contain particular fees or charges were passed before this town meeting adopted a state law called chapter 40, section 22F. That state law allows any department or town instrumentality to charge a reasonable fee for a service it provides as long as that fee is used to offset the cost of delivering that service. If the bylaw is amended or if it's not amended as proposed under this article, the fee for a dumpster or a dumpster and a pod if it is amended will be $24 in the bylaw. If the board of select men as the entity charged with implementing the bylaw determines that that fee is not sufficient to offset the costs of service necessary to be expended in connection with the permit program, it can adopt a new schedule of fees in accordance with the state law as adopted by this town meeting without a change to the bylaw. So I stand corrected. Okay, thank you. So it can be changed. Now we know that. Okay, I think it's important in any article or any decision that anybody makes that you complete the article. We need to know how much it's gonna be. I think that's simple. And I think the residents need to know that. So I suggest I cannot vote for this. Not that I'm saying that storage containers shouldn't have a fee, but I need to know the fee. I need to understand the whole article. I need to know the fee. I'm voting against this until we do have a fee. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Phelps, now it's your turn. Okay, from now on, please wait your turn. Mr. O'Connor. If memory serves me right, Jim O'Connor precinct 19. If memory serves me right, we've discussed issues about dogs, chickens, and lots of different things. But one of the things been clear that this town meeting is done is said that any amendments should be before us at least 48 hours ahead of time. That these issues of clarification about fees or no fees or whether fees can be changed should be clear. So we vote representing the people that elected us. And I really think we should postpone this article until further clarification from the Board of Selectment is clear. Thank you. You're making a motion to do so? I will postpone this article until next Wednesday at which time the Board of Selectment would give us their final details of their emergency meeting, which can be held anytime in between as long as it's by Monday night. So we have 48 hours to deliberate over it. Thank you. We have a motion to postpone to time certain next Wednesday, which I believe is May 4th. All in favor please say yes. Yes. Opposed say no. No. My opinion is postponed. That brings us to article 19. Increase fines for off feed dog leashes. Four fees. Mr. Chappett. No, you're on the list. Go ahead, Ms. Roe. Article 19 is a 10 taxpayer article that was brought to the Board of Selectment about raising the fees for any misbehavior of dogs. We agreed with the proponent and thought it was a good idea to raise the fees, especially the fee that is the first offense was just a warning instead of a fee you have. The fee amounts in front of you and I believe the proponent is here and wants to speak. Yes ma'am, I see you in the back. When I pointed you, it means I got you. I don't know who the proponent is. Someone has to introduce her. Is there someone from Mr. Dice? Would you come up and introduce her? John Dice, precinct 13. I request the permission of the meeting for Ms. Christina Chalopatis to address the meeting. She is a resident of the town and resides in precinct 13. As a resident of the town, she has the right to address the meeting. Good evening. I'm the proponent of article 19, Christina Chalopatis of Overlook Road. Article 19 seeks a vote from the town to amend the current bylaw. Article two, section two paragraph C to increase the fines for violating the bylaw. Article two, section two, leashing of dogs. My proposal to increase the fines would be as follows. The first offense would be by a fine of $75. The second offense would be by a fine of $100. The third offense would be by a fine of $150. And the fourth in each subsequent offense would be by a fine of $200. The current schedule does not provide for a fine for the first offense. My personal guidance for this was another town bylaw which deals with fines for improper disposal of dog waste. And I followed the guidelines in that bylaw in coming up with the schedule. I'm proposing the amendment to serve as an educational tool to create an awareness of the importance of the current leash law that plays in the safety of both residents and pets. The amendment also gives town safety officers additional tools to enforce the current leash bylaw. You may already have been briefed as to my personal family experience where my mother was knocked down in the heights by an unleashed dog and broke her arm. The offense was the first for this dog owner who received only a verbal warning for this offense. However, my family experienced considerable upheaval from this experience as my mother's the caregiver for my father. She sustained a serious injury which she is still working really hard to overcome. I urge your support for this article to help strengthen the current leash laws in order to communicate the leash laws importance to our community safety for both residents and pets. Thank you. Mr. Ruderman. Thank you. Mr. Moderator. Michael Ruderman, precinct nine. I offer the following substitute motion on article 19 which you have on I think 90% of your chairs. I apologize I ran out in that direction. We are a very well attended meeting tonight but Mr. Good has done me the favor also of putting the text into his queue of slides and if he can bring it up loud or large enough if you don't have the buff colored substitute motion which I move now and ask for a second. Second. Thank you. Not to read the text to you but to summarize very briefly. There's a statute on this. Mass General Laws chapter 140 section 173A. It tells towns what they can charge in fines for unleashed dogs. The schedule that the substitute motion proposes that the proposed schedule of fines is the schedule that's in that law. The law does have as I quoted on the backside of the substitute motion the option for towns to come up with a different procedure or a different schedule but the last line in my reading not a lawyer but just reading the text in front of me I think controls no new schedule of fines shall contain a fine in excess of $50. That's what I read. That's what I'm putting before you. I'm offering you the substitute amendment where the fines that are suggested in the statute are the fines the town shall impose being a warning for a first offense being $25 for a second, $30 for a third, $50 for a fourth and each subsequent offense. The current schedule of fines for unleashed dogs that we have at present is well in excess of these. So I offer you the substitute motion as a means of correcting the error that is in our schedule of fines and we can do something to the good on this. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Fisher. Andrew Fisher, precinct six. I would object to this because it requires that all areas of town be treated the same and the animal control officer told me that he just has no problems other than two parks at the top of the hill and it would be a shame to have to treat the entire town all situations the same and remove any latitude from him. So I would oppose, I'm speaking against I'm speaking against the high fines and I'm speaking against requiring him to issue a fine on the first offense. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Cacovaro. I rise in support of this article. I do have a personal story to tell my mother who is 86 years old who walks every day down Edge Hill Road to Mass Ave to go to the center. One of the people had opened the door and let out their 50 pound dog and she usually lets him go to the front but there's a bush where he does this little thing. Well, the dog got a little excited and charged at my mother and knocked her over. Thank God my mother didn't get hurt. So I think this article is very important. I do disagree with Mr. Fisher. All areas in the town, in this town should be treated the same. What's good for your area is good for my area. We should never treat areas in this town differently. We're all the same. When we start doing that, we start dividing up the town and there's enough of that now. So I do support this article. I don't know about the fines and I'm not gonna get into that again but the article is long overdue. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Jamison. Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. I'm actually speaking on something that I didn't anticipate on. So I have a question for the town council if possible, Mr. Moderator. Yes. Whether or not we pass this and even with the existing bylaw, does state statute take president? Ms. Rice. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Juliana Ries Town Council. State statute does dictate what towns may do. However, there is another applicable statute here. It's chapter 40, section 21, which provides a broad bylaw and regulatory authority to towns and allows towns to make all manner of bylaws for preserving peace and good order and specifically allows penalties for violation of those bylaws to go up to $300. I'll point out that the current bylaw which the claim has been made that that bylaw is illegal, that bylaw was approved by the Attorney General when passed in 1991, presumably on the strength of chapter 40, section 21. So I hope that answers your question. Yes, Ms. Rice. Thank you very much. So I'll get back to the point that I put my hand up about originally. If you look at the existing at the bottom of the page in your report, the existing bylaw has warning 50, 75, 100. It goes up by 25, a pop after the first 50. The new one is 75, 100, 150, 200. I have a very simple proposed amendment, Mr. Moderator, that we change the 75 to 50. Can I have a second on that, please? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Which? That the first offense would be 50. No, that the warning would be changed to $50. Okay. And then the second would be 100, 150 and 200 as originally proposed in the vote. Thank you. Okay, that's pretty simple. The next one on the list is Jeannie Leary. Jeannie Leary, precinct 19. I just wanted to say last year in February, it was a frigid, frigid night. And I have two little bichons. And I was taking them over to the sports complex. And I had enough layers on between parkers and fleeces and sweaters to go to the Arctic. But I brought them over there and it was really too cold for them. So I picked them up, they were on leashes, but I picked them up and put them inside my coat. And then a neighbor called to talk to me. And out of the blue, two off-leash dogs came charging at me. One of them saw the dogs in my coat and attacked me. And I was severely hurt. I mean, not only was I bitten multiple, multiple times, but it wretched out my shoulder. I had to go to the hospital that night. I went to a P.T. for months and months, cortisone injections and fluoroscopy and adhesive shoulder. It went on and on. And the woman that night just walked away with a warning, I was completely floored. So I am totally in support of this article. And I support Mr. Carcavara's comments and the woman who actually brought this up. There needs to be more strict fines for this kind of stuff if we're going to have off-leash dogs in town. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. LaCorte. Annie LaCorte, precinct 15. I'd like to just mention something that I and my colleagues discussed when we voted on this article, which is that one of the difficulties with the animal control officer only being able to issue a warning on a first offense is that the chances of the person who committed the first offense of having their dog off-leash outside of the legal hours and outside of a park, the chances of him encountering them again, given the size of the town, the number of dog owners, and the limits of our resources are pretty slim. So our feeling in wanting a fine on the first offense was that that actually might provide some incentive for people to behave better in terms of the application of the leash law. Whereas a warning is not going to motivate them at all because they're perfectly aware of how often it is that they themselves will encounter the dog officer with their dog off-leash. So I feel that a fine on the first offense is very, very important, and just a warning is not effective enforcement. I'd also, as a town meeting member and a dog owner and someone who supported the creation of off-leash hours in the park, like to give you my personal opinion about this, I think stiff fines are very appropriate here. I cannot think of a good reason for a dog to be off-leash outside of a park where we allow off-leash hours and outside of the off-leash hours. We created the off-leash hours specifically so that those dogs who need off-leash exercise will have a time and a place where they can obtain it. All of the offenses that have been discussed tonight, all the people who've told you their personal stories, they're walking down a street or a sidewalk or otherwise simply going about their business, and there is no excuse for a dog to be let out of the house off-leash on Edge Hill Road or to be off-leash walking down a sidewalk in the city or whatever, and I think stiff fines are appropriate. So I hope that you will not support the substitute motion, and I hope that you will support the original action. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Fiore. Gentleman right here. Yeah, name I don't know yet. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Carl Wagner, precinct 11. I was going to suggest to the body here that the status quo is probably what we should stay with and the subsequent motion and the article before us should be left to wither. The reason is that if you think about a small crime or a first offense, like forgetting to do your sticker on your car, a warning is all that's needed for most of us to get the sticker on the car. And for most of the offenders who have a first offense with their dog, a warning will be better and probably be more applied by the people who do the application, the police, than a stiff fine. I also think, while I feel sorry for the proponent and the person who spoke earlier about getting injured on a first offense, that what happens in that scenario is a person is injured and the town gets richer by it on the first offense. If the person is injured, perhaps they should have civil law or a lawyer and see the person through the courts that way and actually get some remuneration for the injury or the hospitalization they suffered. So I'd encourage you to go with the status quo and reject both of these. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Agne, Ms. Rowe. Did you wish to speak? No, Boca Lopi. Ms. Rice, you were put on the list. Did you want to be there? Okay. Ms. Rowe, put you there. Mr. Smith. Scott. Pass. Mr. Foskett. Charlie Foskett, precinct eight, and a very proud dog owner, I should say. And I would strongly support Mr. Warren's comments a few moments ago. I won't repeat them, but I think that we should stay with the status quo. I also am surprised by Ms. Rice's comments about changing the state law. About, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, I don't know what it was before after the 91 instance that she cited, but there was a debate here at town meeting about the Pooper-Scooper law. And at the time, I made a motion, which was accepted by the town meeting, to increase the fines for the Pooper-Scooper law. And the attorney general, I was told by the town council at the time that the attorney general had turned that vote down because it was in excess of the recommendations of state law. So I think we have a law in place. I think, and I would strongly support Mr. Warren's concept that the remediation or damages could be sought in the case of a severe injury, but that a warning should suffice in the first instance in normal cases. Thank you. Thank you. There's a person in the... Yes. No, no, no, not you. You're the orange short person, that guy, yeah. Right, I'm Guillermo Balmón, precinct 14. I think the town needs to be selective as to what fees it is going to be charging because they have to keep in mind and they have to keep their eyes on the price. And the price is the override. If you're going to be insisting on nickel and diming the residents, those who are pro-dogs or those who are against dogs, then I think that you're just getting very distracted. The civilized way is to have the animal control officer call you up and you have a very nice conversation with that officer. And I think that's the end of the matter. To exact highly punishing fines, then I think it sounds very vindictive. It sounds more like community A, B, C or D in Massachusetts. And you don't want to go to those communities because they don't want you. They don't want your animals. They don't want your cars. They don't want, if you have the wrong sticker, they tell you literally to get out of town. So I don't want to be told to, or actually to have to encounter so many offensive and so many attacking residents in the town. But pretty soon I will not have a dog to be part of the site because he's dying. He'll die tonight. He'll die tomorrow night. So I don't need to be pro-dog or against dog. But it's just stop nickel and diming all the residents of the town. It's petty. It's actually very offensive. Just have the officer talk to you personally. Thank you. Excuse me. Mr. Kleinman? Thank you, Ms. Marvin. Stewart Kleinman, please, so I want to move the question on all matters related to this article. I have a second. The motion to terminate debate on the article in all matters before it. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. My opinion is 2 thirds. So all of them have been seconded, madam. We're going to first do Mr. Ruderman's substitute motion, which is to lower the fines. If that loses, they're only going to go Mr. Jamison's, which is to? Yeah. What is it, Mr. McCoy? Because he was run by me earlier today. And because if you'll read what I said in my letter, if it's very simple, we're going to let it in. He went as far as to give everybody in writing, and this is simple. I mean, he's changing $50 to $25, $75 to $30, and $50 to $100. It's not a complicated where he's adding new bylaw provisions. He's not giving us new things out of the blue, which are paragraphs and paragraphs long. It's $3 signs that he's changing. That's pretty simple, and he couldn't get any simpler. Well, you've got to get to my mic, first of all. And this is a, frankly, it's a procedural debate that you can have with me later, but it's my ruling that this is OK. Do you want to talk to me about it at the break? I will, but I don't want to have a procedural. OK, I respect your opinion. But listening to the debate tonight, it doesn't seem to be that simple. That's my observations, and there's really been two substitute motions on it, and there's also some questions regarding state law. It doesn't seem that simple to me. Well, you could have got to vote against termination. They want to terminate. We have two substitutes. What we're going to do is first vote on Michael's rudiments, which is to decrease the fines, as listed on his piece of paper, and it shows up here, $25 for the second offense, $30 for the third, and $50 for the fourth. That loses. We're going to vote on Mr. Jamison's to reduce the select men's recommended vote to $50 for the second, and then we're going to vote on the select men's and the first offense. And then we'll see what happens after that. All right, so we have Michael Ruderman's substitute motion. You all understand what I'm putting forth? Yes, OK. All in favor of Mr. Ruderman's substitute as presented, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. No. That loses. So now we're going to vote on Mr. Jamison's to reduce the first offense to $50. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. No. My opinion is a negative vote. That loses. We now have three and a half people. Four. All right, five people rose. Same tellers, all in favor of Mr. Jamison's motion to make the first offense, $50, please rise. Yeah? You can count. One up front. The left. 12. 12. Center. 24. 24, center left. Center right. 13. 10. 10 on the right. OK, all opposed, Mr. Jamison, please rise. 9. Up front, 9. 29 on the right. Right center. Oh, going backwards this time, because he was quick. 27. 27. 21. 30. 30. OK, someone stole my count. Oh, 12. Yeah, 60 in the affirmative, 116 in the negative. So I guess my call is right. 60 in the affirmative, 116 in the negative. OK, now we have the recommended vote of the selectman as presented with no amendments. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. No. My opinion is an affirmative vote. Five people rose. We're going to have a standing vote again. Same tellers, all in favor of the bylaw, please raise. 9 up front. 32 on the right. 33 in the right center. 37 left center. 29. 29 on the left. OK, all opposed to the bylaw. Men would please rise. All opposed. He proudly stands. He wants to tell it twice. 3 up front. 3 in the negative up front. 12. 12 on the left. 5 in the left center. 10. Right center. 5 in the right. It is approved 140 in the positive, 35 in the negative. That brings us to article 20. Bylaw amendment minute man bikeway to recommended vote is of no action. That's what I have, right? Yes, no action. All in favor, no action. Please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No action on number 20. That brings us to 21. I'm going to personally make a motion on article 21 and 22 to postpone to, you know, Wednesday? No, Monday we have to give it to you in writing. The next Wednesday, because we are meeting on tomorrow night to finalize our recommended votes on these two articles. OK, so all in favor, postponing until Wednesday, 5, 4, and 20 and 21, please say yes. Opposed? Thank you very much, appreciate it. Yeah, 21 and 22. That brings us to 23. Bylaw amendment sidewalk snow removal enforcement. Remove your snow and ice, or the town's going to charge you accordingly. Up to 300 bucks, I think. Went a long way, a little walk. Thank you. This bylaw enforcement tool is really a way to give us a little more teeth for the people that are not doing their snow removal on a timely way. It gives us another way of really trying to get the residential and commercial butters to sidewalks to clean their sidewalks in a timely way. This is not something that we would do, obviously, to people that are elderly. This is something that we would do to repeat offenders. The point of it is to really assist the police and the DPW in a very difficult time where we're doing an awful lot of work and we need other people to step up. And if you have any questions, Mike Rademacher, our DPW director, could answer them for you. Mr. Berkowitz. Thanks, Mr. Moderator. Bill Berkowitz, precinct date. I'm sympathetic to the intent of the article. Can I ask if someone might know the number of fines for violation, for failure to shovel during this past winter season? Mr. Sullivan, do you know that off here? Current fines, if you don't? Does anyone know this rice? Do you know? Current fine? Is there a current state requesting again, Mr. Berkowitz? Does anyone know the number of fines for failure to shovel under the current bylaw during this past winter season? That I don't know. Oh, you don't know? I thought you said what's the current fee. I'm sorry. Is Chief Ryan there? Did you have any tickets for no shoveling this year? Good evening, Mr. Marrard, Frederick Ryan. I don't know. Last time we checked midwinter, the manager asked that question. It was in the area of 50 combination warnings and fines. We always try to give a warning first. We can fine right off the bat if they've violated bylaw. We try to give a warning, give an opportunity into compliance, and then we issue a citation. Thank you. I appreciate that. I would suggest that it would be helpful if accurate records for this be kept in the future so that we can have some, we're working with exact numbers. I would suggest that the figure of 50 ballpark, at least through midwinter, is low. And I'd offer, and someone perhaps can correct me, that the reason for that, a primary reason for that is lack of sufficient staffing to enforce the current bylaw. If that's the case, then I'm wondering what the net effect of this bylaw might amount to in terms of if it's true that there's not going to be adequate personnel to enforce increased fines or liens for that matter. And I'm interested in if someone might comment on that. Would you care to comment, Mr. Sullivan? I know our office gets a number of complaints about unsheveled sidewalks. And there are a number of people that do go away for the winter or away. So even with fining the people, the sidewalk still does not get shoveled. And the school kids are left to walk across those sidewalks. We just thought that this would be an additional tool in those instances where we can't get compliance right away for whatever reason. And again, a lot of cases, people may not even be home, whether it's that day or that week or that month. This just gives us a tool to make sure that the job gets done one way or another. And then the town would bill whatever the costs of having that shovel that snow removed. The town would build a homeowner for that cost. I understand that it's an additional tool, but I do question how effective a tool it can be if there's not sufficient enforcement for it. But I understand your point, Mr. Sullivan. I do have one other point, which is that I think there are other ways to increase compliance besides increasing fines or liens. Not that I'm opposed to this, necessarily. And I think one way is to, one of several ways is it would be great if there were a publicly available list of high school kids, maybe even middle school kids who, that was well-publicized, available to shovel snow on the website or advocate or through the Arlington List and perhaps someone here from the school committee or elsewhere might enlighten me if there is such a list now available. There is such a list. Where would we find that? That's a Council on Aging, keeps that list. Okay. I confess to not being accurately apprised of that, but I thank you for pointing that out. And I hope that there might be ways of further publicizing that in conjunction with this measure if it does. Yes, we do make an effort to publicize that on our website, probably a dozen times each winter, advising people, you know, snow advisories and that you can contact the Council on Aging if you need assistance. So it is well-publicized that people will go on to a website and occasional newspaper article, point that out as well. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Levalli, you next on the list. Mr. Kleinman, I got you on the list. Mr. Marquis, you can sit down. I got you on the list. Thank you, Mr. Marquis. Stewart Kleinman, Precent One. I have a problem here. My question is, how are we going to do this? We really, really enforce it now. For example, at the end of my street, there's a business all winter long. They piled snow on the sidewalk. I saw elderly people. I saw children. I saw a blind person having to go into the street all the time. We complained. They never did anything about it. I go around town and I see constant businesses, houses with snow piled up all winter long and it's not getting enforced. So all of a sudden we're going to increase the fines. Great. And it's not going to get enforced. So it's another law we have in the books that we don't do anything about. So we have more paperwork and we don't do anything about it. What I actually, if you read the recommended vote, what it says is the town can send shovelers out and find you for their services. Is that correct, Mr. Sullivan? Yeah. They can send people out, shovel that walk and then send that person a bill. Correct, except we're not doing that. Well, this will allow us to do it. Except we haven't done it. We already have a statute on the books that's not getting currently enforced. I don't trust if we vote that this is going to get enforced either. We still have people walking in the street taking danger in their hands because they can't go on a sidewalk. And I can tell you what really makes me angry is when I see an elderly person have to walk in the middle of the street in winter. That's in addition to children and others. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Carmen, could you want to speak? Yeah. Grant, code, precinct six. I don't think this is that complex of an issue. The enforcement I think is a very valid concern if we have a new law and it doesn't get paid attention to. It's sort of useless, but I get up every morning, I walk through East Arlington over to Krabada to get my coffee and most of us help each other out. We shovel, we snow blow. Sometimes the sidewalk tracks are very wide but we get it done. But there's occasionally a house and it looks like Ice Station zebra. You're just walking over and you're trying to balance and in this yard I've actually been carrying a newborn son of my stomach a lot. And you start to appreciate that the offenders here aren't the random person away for a couple of days. It's a person who doesn't even pay attention to being screwed. Not even a father shovel. You don't get compacted ice on your sidewalks because you miss a couple of days. So frankly, any tool that gives us the ability to find these people and to really, in the end, clean the sidewalk because that's what has to happen here. I'm in support of it. I hope it kind of enforces it but it's giving the tool to enforce in the first place. Thank you. Mr. O'Rearden. Steve O'Rearden, precinct 11. My only concern is that I know that I shovel my sidewalk pretty religiously. However, being on a corner lot, the DPW constantly piles a mountain on the corners. And so I just hope that if we do get into the, you send out your guys to shovel something that I'd already shoveled but you already filled over. I mean, I know the town's very reasonable in dealing with these issues. So I just want to make sure that we're thinking of those things as well as when we set this up. But I think this is a great idea, actually deploying our troops to clear something up and then billing the offenders is probably a very reasonable approach if those folks aren't going to do it themselves. Thank you Mr. O'Rearden, Mr. Chappett. Can I ask Mr. Foskett? Charlie Foskett, precinct eight. First of all, I'd like to remind everyone that most of the sidewalks in the town are actually owned by the residents in that the town is proposing here to increase its all, the fines that it already has on you for, I'm sorry, most of the sidewalks in the town are owned by the town, not by the residents and they have a fine on you for not cleaning the town sidewalks. And there's a certain, I think a fundamental inequity in that. When we passed the original bylaw years ago, I don't remember, it was 10 or 15 years ago, it was only after some debate that we managed to get an exemption for senior citizens to be included in the original bylaw. And I hope that this change in the bylaw does not remove that exemption for senior citizens. I do believe that we have a requirement in the current bylaw, which again, I hope isn't changed here, that citizens have at least eight hours after the end of a snowstorm in order to remove the snow. This year, I think, as people pointed out, it's been a particularly difficult year. But one of the problems here is that oftentimes in the course of a storm, the snow turns to ice. And then it's very difficult to remove whether you have a snow thrower or whatever. And I don't know how the town intends to treat that, but there are many occasions I found where the snow is not gonna move no matter what you do. And you can spend a lot of time and energy trying to get rid of it, and it won't happen. I also would like to point out that I think that at least in my view, the town is one of the biggest violators here. First of all, I can tell you that on Jason Street, outside of Manami Rocks Park, the snow was not shoveled in front of that on the town's property for months, okay? So I don't know how the other pieces of property in the town were addressed, but that was certainly not addressed. Secondly, I can't count the number of days that I and other neighbors in my neighborhood cleared the snow off their walks, only for some period of time later, the snow plows come by, excuse me, snow plows come by, and snow and ice is thrown back, back onto your walk and your driveway again. And I think it was last year's town meeting on the town meeting before, we had an extremely lengthy debate over whether or not the town was cleaning these corner cuts around schools and to have access to certain parts of town on a timely basis. And I think we all came to the conclusion that it wasn't happening on a timely basis. So I'm looking at this and coming to the conclusion that first of all, the town is contributing to the problem here. Secondly, the current bylaws are not being enforced. And thirdly, we're proposing to increase the fines or increase the penalties, except in the case I noticed here we have a warning on the first offense. Again, and while I consider it an egregious way on citizens of the town, and I strongly recommend that we not support this article. Mr. Butler, you're next. Mark Butler, prec 19, and I support the article. I live on a hill, okay. I think I'm getting assigned to speak up here. Okay, I live on a hill. It's steep, it's Overlook Road. And one of the problems that I saw this past winter were a number of people who just didn't bother cleaning their sidewalk. In fact, one person had the plow people that plowed his driveway simply dumped the snow either side on the sidewalk, which left school kids trying to travel through a pile of snow that was taller than I was. And enforcement or not, if the town had the authority to just come in and clean that off and then charge for the cost of doing that, I think that that's a valid point. Whether or not we're finding anybody, at least we can get the sidewalks cleared and make travel safe. And I think that we should support this motion just because of that. It gives town a tool to get the sidewalks cleared and we don't have to worry about going to court passing fines or anything else. As soon as the person's, as soon as the decision is that sidewalk needs to be cleared, it can be cleared and it's done and we can worry about any fines after the fact. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's 9.30, let's take a 10 minute break. I think I think I'm on the watch. There's two, three, four and it's 11 seconds remaining. Four, four. Please come to order. Please come to order. Yes, John. Three to three at the end of three. Please come to order. Two announcements, three announcements. One, it's three to three at the end of the third period. We're gonna go into overtime. Okay, that's what matters. We have a new town meeting member who was just elected for his precinct. We're gonna swear him in and Miss Weber is telling me that everybody's not checking in at the beginning of the meeting. You've got to make sure you check in at the beginning of the meeting for two reasons. One, that's how we can show we have a quorum and two, it keeps attendance. So the next time you go to get elected, someone says you didn't show up for any meetings when you did, that's the official record. So where'd he go? Where's our new town meeting member who just came? All right, raise your right hand. Aye. Do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties incumbent upon me as a town meeting member of the town of Arlington in accordance with the bylaws, Town Manager Act, Town Manager Act, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So help me God. Thank you. Mr. McGinn, you are next. Mr. McGinn has the floor. Why don't you come forward? Kevin McGinn, 16th in Henry. Does this work? Hello. It's working. I only have a few things to say. I am like everyone else here also in favor of snow removal and I am however really opposed to this particular article and what is bothering me is the way things are done in it, the method that it picks to implement itself. And what I'm referring to is what is my understanding that eight hours after a snowfall, the town could unilaterally drive up to my sidewalk, clean my sidewalk, shovel it and charge me up to $300. I believe that is within what is written here. And I find that repugnant. We have a system now that has graduated fines and if it doesn't work, it's for lack of enforcement. I do not think we should vote for this simply because it's not a good idea to ever and I say this cautiously to give any government power the ability to do what this gives the town the ability to do without consulting, without warning basically as I said on their own impulse. So I understand that not many people see it that way and as I said, I'm in favor of snow removal but not with this language and this is a sort of an approach that I have towards the way communities should operate and governments should operate. So and I do not favor the Tea Party. That's all. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan? It's just wanted to make it clear here we're not talking about fines here at $300. We're talking about charging people for the service of having the snow removed. And as Mr. Foskett said earlier, it is public property, it is a sidewalk but nonetheless there's a legal obligation on the power of the resident to remove that snow and if they're not there, generally what we do the police department gives a warning if it's not cleared they may issue a ticket not a $300 ticket and if it's still not removed then we may consider bringing in someone to shovel the snow and then we give them a bill for that snow removal. That's just a charge for service. It's not a fine. We're not talking about a fine here. So just this tool that we're looking for is just that after repeated warnings to get it done if it's still not done, that we have the opportunity to go in there, have it removed and bill them for the service, period. And if they fail to pay for it, that we have a mechanism where we can collect on that bill. Mr. Warden? Thank you Mr. Moderator. John Warden precinct date. I have an amendment to the proposal of the Board of Selectment and I did put this on the listserv thing and I did, oh there it is. Technology, I hope it's large enough to read. But I will read it to you. I move the following amendments to recommended vote of the Board of Selectment. Add following the words in addition to or in place of any applicable fines the words provided that no such action shall be taken to the town by the town until all sidewalks of a budding town-owned property have been cleared to the standard set forth herein. Now, I and most of my neighbors in Jason Street were pretty good about clearing our sidewalks. And when I, but we've had occasion as Mr. Foskett mentioned walking our leash dog up Jason Street on the sidewalks properly cleared to the most part pretty well by the residents. You get it from Nonody Rocks Park, a town-owned property that's about one and a half, two house lots wide. It's an impenetrable mess of snow. Now, and this is just for the only one I'd say, well they overlooked it. Who knows about Nonody Rocks Park. But in other walking that my wife and I have done during the past winter, we found such places as Arlington High School, sidewalk not shoveled. Summer Street adjacent to the bike path just beyond the Napa store. Up till you get to the first house, not shoveled. Pleasant Street along beside the old burying ground. If it was just ice, it would be one thing, but it's ice, it's been trumped on and walked on and it's full of holes and stuff. Just almost impassable. Maple Street around the central school and 23 Maple Street and so on. So the town, the town I think needs to lead by example and of all of us householders, business owners, apartment house owners and so on are to clear their walks and we should. Then the town should clear its walks and until the town sets a good example then I think it is gonna be very hard to have the enforcement of this. I'm reminded of a line in the Bible that it says before you try to cast a speck out of your brother's eye, take the beam out of your own eye. Thank you. Is there a second, Mr. Horowitz? Gary Horowitz, Precinct 18. The part of this article that I like is the part where the town will come and clear the property. However, without an override is not gonna be anybody to shovel your snow. Thank you. Mr. Smith. Scott Smith, Precinct five. I rise in support and I'm inclined to support Mr. Warden's amendment too. I think it's, talking about my own neighborhood. Corner lot, I have a lot of sidewalk to clear. Last winter was tough. I sympathize, I dealt with it. But in our own neighborhood we know it's important except for a few people who don't get it and I think this gives us a tool to deal with people who are away, not responding and you're still all of the school kids going to Thompson, walking in the street so I'd urge support. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the list is Mr. Cacovaro. Thomas Cacovaro, Precinct 11. Nobody knows snow better than me. I've done it for 40 years. Okay, I'm out there when it first starts and especially this year. I've been out many hours or many days after. I cover one end of the town to the other end of the town. Ask me anything about it and I can tell you what happened. More than ever, people have stopped me including businesses during this year and asked me, we shovel our sidewalks, we shovel our businesses out like we're supposed to. What happens? We go to bed, you wake up the next morning. The town decided to clean the streets, clear them, make them wider, three, four, five, six hours later, whatever. That sidewalk is loaded. It's frozen. Should they have to do it again or should we have to find them? It's not their problem. It's our problem. We have to stop every time somebody makes a comment and I saw this all winter when people got up in front of the select men and talked about the snow. It's not the DPW. It's not the few seven, eight, nine, 10 employees we have to plow, they're doing the best they can. You can't do a town with the DPW employees we have. It's impossible. You can't clean the snow when the snow stops with the DPW employees we have. They're tired, they have to go home and sleep. We have a habit, let them go home and sleep which they have to and then we wait because we do not want to hire. We do not want to pay to clean this town. The town can't clean the town themselves. I've driven by fire stations many, many hours after. They're not done. I've driven by schools, they're not done. 50 feet from my front window is the corner of Edge Hill and Ridge Street where the kids cross to go to Bishop's school. I watched it for almost a month and a half with 12 feet of snow on that sidewalk that my poor neighbor, Mr. Bill Matum could not shovel it anymore, nobody could. Nobody did it. I finally got tired of it and my company went down there and took 80 yards of snow out one night so the kids could cross, 80 yards. It's not the DPW's fault. It's not the people that plow for the DPW, people that plow for us. They can't do a better job. So when somebody stands up and makes a comment, don't jump on them and say to DPW people. Nobody's saying that. We as a town has to take responsibility. We have to spend the money. We have to hire. Pickup trucks are not gonna clean the town. They're not gonna clean the town. We've lost a lot of good contractors over the years because we didn't take care of them. If you looked out your window all winter, all you saw was pickup trucks. You wanna know why? Because they're the cheapest. They can't plow, they only plow driveways. So what's the answer here? We shovel our sidewalks, we shovel everything. The town has to go out after, which they do, absolutely. But these guys are gonna get rest. Instead of us hiring immediately contractors to start cleaning and cleaning, they block us all in again, it's frozen snow, and you wanna find us. We have to clean up our act people. We have to tell our town officials, spend the money and do it right. Well, you know what? Don't do it. Thank you. Ms. LeCourt. Annie LeCourt, precinct 15. With the moderator's indulgence, I just have another question for the chief of police. Yes, ma'am. Chief Ryan. You asked a question and you'll come to me. Yes, I just wanna clarify for Mr. Berkowitz. I believe that what you were trying to say was not that we don't know how many fines and warnings we issued. It's simply that you haven't looked at that piece of data recently. Am I correct? Thank you. Frederick Ryan, chief of police. Selecman always say it better than I do. Yes, it's exactly the same. Yeah, we have the data in our database and I'd be happy to research it for the next meeting. I just don't have a clear memory of how many violations were issued. So we do know every single time we've sent a warning or a fine, et cetera. Yes, ma'am, we do. Yes. Thank you. Okay. So I'd just like to say a few words in support of this particular tool for the town. Particularly in light of Mr. Kleiman's question about enforcement, it is true. It's very difficult for us to enforce the snow by law. It's a resource problem like the enforcement of many laws that let's say don't seem like as high a priority as stopping speeders or taking down drug dealers or all the other things that our officers do. But I actually think that this will make some of that enforcement easier because after we have discovered that we have a recalcitrant homeowner or an absentee landlord who is not traveling their sidewalks and we've tried several times to get them to do so, we have a way of getting the sidewalk cleared and we have a way of getting reimbursed for having that sidewalk cleared. So we will be able to hire high school students or contractors or whoever and simply send a bill to the property owner and the sidewalk will be cleared. I spend most of my time as a selectman during a busy snow season fielding two kinds of calls. The first kind of call is a call from a constituent who says, hey, there's a town sidewalk, Jason Street is a good example, that has not been cleared. And then I get on the phone to the DPW director and the town manager and I say, you know what? We have to set a good example here. We need to get that sidewalk cleared. We can't find anybody. We can't issue any citations. We can't do anything till we've cleared those sidewalks. However, I can only get the ones that someone complains to me about. There are a few that I regularly inquire about because I know I'm gonna hear from people about them. The other kind of call I get is from somebody who is panicked because they don't have any way to get around town except by walking on sidewalks and there are unclear sidewalks in front of private homes between them and walking their child to school, getting to mass or getting to a store and they're not someone who drives and it's very difficult for them to get around. So those are the people that I have the hardest time helping because I can go and I can look at their walking route and I can ask the town manager to issue a citation but I can't cause the sidewalks that are hanging them up to get cleared. And particularly when those sidewalks are on main streets and walking routes to schools, we need this tool in our toolbox. It's a common tool that other cities and towns have. I think, I don't know, Somerville, Cambridge, have similar rules. So I don't believe the town will abuse the ability. The statute here reads may result in the town causing removal of snow and ice. It doesn't read chow. And even under our current system we don't enforce by hitting you over the head with it. We try to figure out why somebody hasn't cleared their sidewalk and get them appropriate help first. And then issue a fine if we really have someone who is recalcitrant. So I hope you will look favorably upon this particular bylaw and give us this tool in our toolbox because I think it will help us with the kinds of problems that we have all over town in a busy winter like this. I have a very different relationship with snow than most of you do because I was born and raised in Wisconsin. So I actually don't mind snow and I like walking in it but I can tell you that for most of my constituents it's a real hassle and they need it taken out of their way. Thank you. Mr. Deist. John Deist, precinct 13. Periodically the town meeting gets into a mode that I always find very interesting. And it's the sort of we against the town mode. And that's just bizarre because we are the town. You know, they is us. And the process this winter of seeing little kids going to school, trying to get over the mounds of snow that people left on their walks, I thought was almost criminal. And many, many times I've seen mothers struggling carrying infants and their own children trying to walk over great mounds of snow, ending up walking in the street and then people would go buy in their cars way too fast. And it was a very, very dangerous situation. If you think it's unfair to an owner of a house who has not plowed his walk and that you might vote that way, I would suggest you just think about the small child who has to go to school with his mother on one of those bad days when there are enormous barriers of snow in the way. One way or another, we have to get the snow off of the sidewalks so kids and elderly people can walk on the sidewalks. Thank you very much. Mr. Lavalli, do you want your name? Okay, pass. Mr. Maher? John Maher, President 14, I would stand and urge you to not support the amendment. Essentially, it might be asked before a legal nightmare. I mean, who's going to certify that all of the sidewalks of Buttingtown property have been cleared? Just that's not going to happen. If you pass that, you might, you'll totally eviscerate the whole idea behind the Warren article. You have to give credit to town officials, I think to a certain extent, that they're going to exercise discretion. Only those people who are inveterate or violent as of this bylaw are going to find themselves. After warnings, numerous warnings, they're going to find themselves. They're going to have to finally get religion here and clear their sidewalks. And it is not happening now. To suggest, by the way, that the town has to do, set out their own example. I mean, have you looked at how many people are still left in the public works department? It's been reduced by something like two-thirds over the years. We just don't have the people anymore. If you want to spend enough money to clear the sidewalks sufficiently, then you're going to have to double the appropriation. And who's going to lose their jobs to do that? I strongly urge support of the main motion of this election without any amendments. Thank you. Mr. McCrory. Hugh McCrory, precinct 20. I rise in support of the article and in opposition to the amendment. I agree with the previous speaker. The amendment effectively makes the original article toothless. We all know, I think I also wanted to speak about the Elephant in the Room, which is lack of resources. It's already been mentioned quite a few times. I don't think there's any danger of the town of Arlington unilaterally plowing people's streets. We can't even enforce the existing bylaws with regards to fines. I think the spirit of this amendment is to help clear our streets with minimal expense. It's our time. I agree with the other speakers. It's not time and us, we are the time. So there's nobody else. It's just the town of Arlington and we've elected the leaders. So I urge you to support the amendment or to support the original article and I guess not to support the amendment. Although it was very eloquently put forward by Mr. Warden. So thanks. Thank you. Mr. Schlickman, you're next. Paul Schlickman, precinct nine. Motion to terminate debate on all items under this article. Oh, you missed your shot. We have a motion to terminate the debate on, Mr. Dunn is going to give us an update in the Bruins. So he's been texting or blogging one. Bruins one, four, three and over time. All right, I'll let that one slide, but put your toys away. With motion to terminate the debate, it's been seconded. All in favor of terminating the debate. Motion and all items before us on the articles, please say yes. Post say no. No. Oh, you lose. All right. Once again, we got one of these amendments that hasn't been given to us in advance. I really would want these things in advance. It makes it hard for myself, for Ms. Rode ahead of the vote of select and for Ms. Rice to look at these and make determinations on the fly. I think this one is pretty simple because it's adding one line. So I'm going to let this one in, but from now on, please, you got to get these things to us 48 hours. I'm going to stick with that because it's second or third time tonight and it's kind of causing trouble for me. So we have Mr. Warden's amendment to add, the words provided that no such action shall be taken by the town until all sidewalks, abutting town owned property have been cleared to the standard set forth here in. All in favor of Mr. Warden's amendment, please say yes. All opposed say no. No. That's defeated. We now have a force to recommend to vote of the board of select men as printed in their article. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed say no. No. My opinion is an affirmative vote. Okay. That brings us to article 24. Recommended vote of the board of select men is of no action. Mr. Loretty. Right, Mr. Loretty. Mr. Rowe? Yes. Go ahead. This is a 10 taxpayer article and I know that the proponent is gonna get up and speak to it. I'm here to tell you why the select men voted no action. It is our duty to provide email records under the state public records law. The, that law allows a certain charge, which is 20 cents per page for photocopies and time spent in search and segregation of records at an hourly rate of the lowest paid employee capable of performing the task. This bylaw would substantially cut the cost of a public information request. And as people have noticed. Yes, sir. That's, I think we should let Mr. Loretty put his proposed voting first. Excuse me. Mr. Rowe, then you can get up and speak against it. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jefferson. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Chris Loretty, precinct seven. I would like to move to postpone discussion this article and I'd like to explain why. I was planning to distribute this article on Monday. Last Wednesday, I sent copies of it both to the town moderator and to town council, asking the town moderator to see if it was within scope and town council to see if it wasn't already perfect. And if it wasn't perfect to make it perfect herself. Since that time, I've heard absolutely nothing from town council, though the town moderator promptly responded that it was within scope. So I'm in the situation now where I have a substitute motion. I haven't distributed it to anyone because I have not heard anything from town council. And the other thing I did is I believe it would be very helpful for town meeting to understand just how much people are paying for email requests. Well, wait, wait, wait. Let's not get into the discussion of the article. Are you gonna do something or not? Well, I was going to ask town council, one, whether she is going to make my article perfect if it isn't already. And two, whether the town was going to respond to this public records request. So I would know when town meeting would have the information. And based on that response, I would then pick a date to which we could postpone. Now I expect she'll probably get up and say, it can't be made perfect, but I'd still like to know the dates. Carts before the horse. Why don't you just postpone the thing for like two weeks and then endeavor to get a response. And get something on our chairs by Monday. Well, no, if he's gonna give us a substitute motion, he need five 48 hours, like I just said. So. So what would that date be? Four, seven, nine. Five nine is a week from Monday. That's the special. Five, 11. Then I would like to move consideration as article to Wednesday, May 11. He's postponing, Mr. Jefferson. Again, 21 of us. Yeah. We don't have a subject, we don't have a subject. I agree. That's why I cut him off. He's arguing his motion before he even put it in front of us. Correct. We've done that in the past. He's making the point that there's nothing in front of us, so we're tabling something we don't have. And we've done that in the past, but we shouldn't be talking about it. If you wanna postpone, you stand up and say I wanna postpone, and you postpone it. And he gave us his reason. So it's a motion to postpone, is it seconded? Seconded. Okay, he's postponing to five, 11. All in favor, say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. No. In my opinion, it is affirmative. So that would be postponing it to five, 11, Mr. LaBretty. I would suggest you get something on our chairs as soon as possible. You have to take that up with her, sir. I can't ask her to do anything. Chris, if we're on article 25, if you don't like what she's doing, take it up with her boss, which is Mr. Sullivan and the Board of Selectment. Well, oops. It's article 25. Recommended vote of the Board of Selectment is no action. Again, no action. Does anybody have anything else to do with 25? Okay. You don't wanna do anything on that one, Chris, that was your recommended vote, okay. All right, no action is recommended for the Board of Selectment. All in favor of no action on 25, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. Nope, no action. That brings us to number 26. Motive votes on spy pond and wakes. Recommended vote of the Board of Selectment is no action. Does anyone wanna do anything on that, sir? Please come forward. Hi, my name is Ethan Zimmer. I'm from Precinct Six. There is a substitute motion you'll find on your chairs today. I would like to postpone debate on this until next Monday, May 2nd, so that a person from Friends of Spy Pond Park can be here to speak to you about it. Here you go. Okay, and we're just getting this today so that would comport with our 24, 48 hour rule, et cetera. All in favor of postponing to Monday, five, two. Please say yes. Yes. All opposed? No, it is postponed to five, two. We're exposing a lot of things to postponement. Number 27, vote, what is the same darn thing? Motive vote regulations on spy pond. I recommend the vote of Selectment is no action. All in favor, no action? Please say yes. Yes. All opposed say no. No action. Number 28, home rule legislation sale of wine and malt, beverage and theaters. Go down to the theater, region theater and the Capitol and get yourself a beer. Ms. LaRoe. Yes, thank you, Mr. Moderator. This is an initiative that was started by Selectment Jack Herd in conjunction with Richard Freeman of the Capitol Theater who is on his way down the steps so he can address town meeting. As a town meeting member from Precinct Six, I'm asking for permission for him to speak to you. He is not a resident of the town. Is it a prerogative of the meeting, have Mr. Freeman speak? All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed say no. No. The gentleman can't speak. He has remained at your time. I want to introduce him because I think that Mr. Freeman as the owner of the Somerville Theater and the Capitol Theater with Mr. Herd came to the Board of Selectment to ask us to consider this. It's worked very well in Somerville and he has a long history of how well it's worked and what kinds of problems if any have occurred. And I thought it would be best to have very practical advice from a man who's done it in one city and would like to bring it to Arlington. The Regent Theater is very interested in this. We did include all theaters that have more than 100 seats so that could include the Arlington Center for the Arts and the Arlington Friends of the Drama if they so wished. Mr. Freeman. Thank you. My name is Richard Freeman. I live in Lincoln. I grew up in Belmont. Congratulations to the Bruins, first of all. We own and operate the Capitol Theater and as Clarissa mentioned, also the Somerville Theater. And I just wanted to make my remarks very short about why we are in support of this warrant number 28. Capitol Theater has been a part and parcel of Arlington for almost 90 years now. And it is a rarity in that it is one of the few remaining surviving neighborhood theaters despite all the challenges in the industry, big box, cinema chains, myriad choices for entertainment that everybody has and of course the tricky economic situation. We have spared no effort in restoring the Capitol Theater, trying to keep the theater relevant and providing Arlingtonians and neighboring residents an affordable movie ticket and concessions. We have fought and obtained first run films at the Capitol. We provide, we think of a variety of amenities that we've added, great movies for children and adults, an extensive birthday party program, opera and ballet broadcasts and HD, and of course our ice cream parlor. But we find ourselves in a position that we constantly are needing to do everything we can to keep the Capitol an attractive entertainment destination. And that is why we think that providing adult patrons the opportunity to enjoy a glass of beer or wine at the theater will really help. And as Clarissa mentioned, we also own the Somerville Theater. And since 2007 patrons have had the opportunity to purchase a glass of beer or wine there. And since then, about a half a million patrons have entered the theater and not all bought a beer and wine. I don't want to give the wrong idea. But those who have, we have had not one single problem since that time. So we respectfully request your support for this measure and we think it would be a big plus for the theater and would help us continue keeping the theater as a wonderful asset in our community. Thank you very much. Thank you. One of the things that Richard didn't mention that should be mentioned is his employees do take a tips course so that they do learn about serving alcohol and how to card people and really have the understanding of what serving alcohol means. It's the same process that we have in our restaurants in town already. And tips is training alcohol preventive services or something. Yeah, it's not how to get money from the patrons. Mr. Schlickman. Paul Schlickman, Prec. 9. I think we have a hundred seats in here. Nope, we have 260 something. So we meet that category. The next question is, are we engaged in either dramatic or comedic performances? Comedic right now. This is a good thing for the town. We also have the region theater in our Lincoln Center, which does a lot of live performances. This would be an asset to the theaters in the town. And we are not making the final decision. The voters would be by ballot in the town election. I think we should give the voters this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Cacovaro, Mike, here we go. Thomas Cacovaro, Prec. 11. I just have one concern that I'm always concerned about, the underage drinking that goes on. Maybe the owner can answer this. How would he control that? You're in a theater, it's dark, somebody over 21 buys a drink, goes back to the seat, you can't see, answer to the underage drinking. How would that be? How would your police staff? Mr. Freeman, can you answer that question for the gentleman? Where's the person at? Straight back. Oh, so I can answer it. That's a good question. And we have that same situation at the Somerville Theater. We do have ushers that poke their heads in, but we have not had one incident of that happening. And it's more of a situation where movies that are for adults, children are not present. So there really isn't an occasion for an irresponsible parent or adult to slip his kid a beer or wine. And as was mentioned, the carding system is very effective. Nobody gets anything without including use, or you would be carded as well. If everybody gets carded, we don't go by, oh, well, this person looks of age. It's just a blanket policy that everybody gets checked. It's not the question about the carding system. I know it very well. You serve to over 21, you card them. They do bring the drinks back to under 21. It happens everywhere. My concern is it's dark. I do not know how you can police that. I think that's something we need to think about. It's difficult as it is now in this town. We don't have the resources or the manpower to keep up with what's going on with all these liquor licenses that were given out. I know the owners are trying their best to police it, but we have a dark theater now. I think we really need to think about this. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Fiori? Elsie Fiori, precinct two. I may be the only person who for 50 years now has been voting against liquor. I don't drink myself. That is not why I vote against it. I just think we don't need it. And it just seems to me that it was a few years ago when seven people got set up in small restaurants and they got beer and wine. And then slowly it crept to them getting liquor and it just keeps escalating. And now we're going to have it in the theater. I don't go to the theater either. I'd rather come here and enjoy town meeting and politics and things like that. So I'm concerned also about children. And you mentioned Somerville. I don't see, and I drive around a lot, I don't see as many children wandering around in Somerville in the center as I do in Arlington. And I see lots of people that have to take the children with them to the theater in the evening. I just think it's something that I would prefer the town not have. We have beer and wine and we'll soon have liquor on every corner. And I just think we're going the wrong way. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gromley. Maureen Gormley, precinct 20. I rise with two hats tonight. One is a precinct and a town meeting member. But also as a member of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce I'm on the executive committee. We sat down at our recent board meeting and we discussed these questions, this one and the next one. And we feel that it's a positive thing to be able to put it before the voters, let the voters decide if this is what they want. It's another way for businesses to become unique and keep Arlington a very unique community. We have a lot of people that come to our community that are looking for entertainment and for a nice relaxing evening. If they choose to bring their kids along, they're probably not going to buy a beer or wine. If they're going out on a date, maybe they might. It let the people decide what they want to do. And that's what I'm standing for, is please vote for this and allow the people to decide if they want to have this at our next time that it's put on the ballot. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Leonard. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Leonard, precinct 17, I rise against this. I'm reminded of the few times that I've gone into downtown Boston, whether it's been the Wilber Theater or other theaters, they have presentations, live presentations down there. And for the most part, when they have breaks or whatever, you go out into the lobby and you have your alcohol there and then you return back to your seat. Now occasionally some people may sneak a drink back to their seat, but for the most part, for the money they've spent, they just basically want to come and enjoy and it doesn't mean such a big thing to them to bring the drinks back to their seat. I'm also thinking about the fact that if I spent good money to go see a movie in some of these theaters, would I be within rights to be annoyed if people in front of me constantly were getting up and running back and forth and buying beer to bring back to the seat? What am I going to watch the movie for? I'll constantly interrupt it. So again, I rise against this. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Marquis? No, wait for the microphone. Ken Marquis, precinct nine. I don't think theaters should be made guilty for the misuse of alcohol by people who are not old enough to be drinking alcohol. That kind of stuff happens all over the planet. So I don't think theaters should have to pay the price of having a more restrict environment within this town because they are sort of paying the price for crime that occurs with the use of alcohol. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kleinman? Thank you, Mr. Marquis. Mr. Kleinman, precinct one. I think this is a very good thing. The thing about carding, I must say that, I wish I was carded. I haven't carded in years. I would like to compliment it, but this is very, very good. I've actually have been to the Somerville Theater and I've seen this in action and I've never seen a problem. It's actually very, very, very lovely. I also think that one thing that we need to do is support our independent theaters. We have too many chains around and this is an independent theater which I want to see in operation for many, many years. So I would suggest a positive vote. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Cook? Grant Cook, precinct six. I rise in support of this. I mean, we can talk about all these hypotheticals with this mission impossible scheme to get a beer back into the theater, but frankly, if you have somebody who's willing to buy beer for you over 21, you're not gonna be doing the capital. You're gonna go down to the package store in Lexington and pick up a case. And I think we talked about the tips course, but I don't think you understand what that means. I mean, you go into, I guess the owner in comment, but I don't think you can walk up to the bar, the stand and go, give me some jujifruits and I want six Budweiser toe necks. You can maybe buy one or two beers at a time. The people back there are trained to spot if you're sloshed. I mean, they can refuse you. That's part of what they go to training for. So to say that somehow we're gonna open the door up to massive underage drinking while they watch, you know, the new Pixar flick is, I don't think it's a really likely happening. So, you know, I'd encourage this. I mean, you know, to have something to go and have a, you know, in the end overall, the theater owner is responsible for making sure that his patrons have a positive experience. So if people are raising a ruckus in there, I suspect they'll be asked to leave. And if they continually have a suspect, they won't be walking back in. And it's his best interest to make this work. And it's really our best interest to put it to the voters. I mean, this is really, it comes down to letting them decide. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Weaver. Janice Weaver, precinct 21. I rise in objection to this article. I, like Elsie, have not voted for any liquor articles probably for four years. And the thing is, I love the Capitol Theater and that's what I like about it, that it is a family theater. I don't think it's necessary to go to a movie that doesn't even last more than two hours and you have to have a drink in between. I think that's ridiculous. And in light of the fact that so many people have been hurt by alcohol in this town and other towns also, I feel as though you're just pushing more and more liquor and I just object to this whole thing. And I will still go to the Capitol Theater because it's a wonderful place to go. But it's a family place. And that's what makes this town unique, not having liquor, but not having it when we don't need it. Thank you. Mr. Good? David Good, a town media member from Precinct 13. I have a question for Mr. Freeman, but a statement also. I have recollection friends of mine in my youth would bring their own beer to the theater. So if people are gonna bring it, they're gonna bring it. And I think that having it ID'd and have somebody validate that you are of age is a huge value. You can do almost anything in the DAC. And so, and I think kids are real good at that, but I do think that you can only control so much. My question for Mr. Freeman, some 25 years ago, I lived above the Capitol Theater and there was a 90 year old fellow who took tickets at the front door. And he used to let me come in and buy popcorn when I was sort of broke and run back upstairs and watch TV instead of having to pay to go to the theater. But he did show me an area before the theater was renovated that had an enormous chandelier in the ceiling, a very large bar and a whole lot of bar stools, cabinets for liquor. So my question for Mr. Freeman was the Capitol Theater already a facilities that held functions that served liquor and had some type of a bar function there. Kind of lost the scope, but it's interesting. If a Capitol was a speakeasy during Prohibition, that was before my time, so I cannot tell it. But during our tenure there, since the late 70s, I am unaware of this very interesting arrangement. There are some hidden treasures in the Capitol that are buried behind walls, including an old pipe organ when the Capitol was once a had a live stage presentations, but I am unaware of this meeting place that you're referring to. Mr. McCory? To the concerns of those who are against it. I think it's, I guess I grew up in a bar, my parents own a bar, they still do, worked behind a bar for many years. So I've seen both sides, I've seen people who drink too much and I've seen people who can drink moderately. That happens in Ireland, it happens here, that's a human nature problem. I think we're forgetting about, so there are concerns there, but I would point back to the article, this a few people have mentioned liquor, I think this is for beer and wine and it's not for liquor, it's my understanding. Secondly, I guess I would say we've expand, since I moved here in 2004, we've expanded the licenses, the selling of beer and wine in Arlington. And from my knowledge, my limited knowledge, I hope it's, it still seems to be a good place to live. For some people, that may not be the case and I respect that, maybe there's too much liquor. But I think we should think about most of the average residents, the people who do shovel their drive with us know, people who do like to go to the Capitol Theater, even if they aren't selling beer. I've been to both theaters, both the Somerville and the Capitol. I'm not going there for a beer, I have a fridge and you know, there's usually one or two beers in the fridge. Although I have to say that I've just come off Lent and I have six weeks of... That's something I'd like to do. So, but getting back, I'm actually serious. With regards to the concerns of the people who are against it, I would urge you to have faith in the residents of Arlington that most people are moderate and support the two theaters. Let's not have to drive to Burlington to see a movie. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Klein? Hi, Christian Klein, precinct 10. It's my understanding that the Board of Selected Men have been asked in the past to provide temporary alcohol licenses at theaters, is that correct? Mr. Rowe? Yes, we're asked for one day liquor licenses. Many places do that as a fundraising venture. And have there ever been any problems associated with any of those events that you're aware of? None that I'm aware of, Chief, any you're aware of? Not recently. Not recently. So it's my understanding that there have been a number of events at these theaters that have included beer and wine in the past without incident. And for that reason, I stand in favor of this. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Lewerton? Marvin Lewerton, precinct 16. I think that most of us are elected to represent our precincts and the people who vote for us expect us to use our judgment in voting on bylaws and all kinds of other things. I frankly think that people in my precinct would be disappointed if I voted in a way that didn't give them an opportunity to vote on this. This Warren article is about authorizing a ballot question. And whatever we may think, I think it's incumbent upon us to let our fellow residents have an opportunity to say their piece about it. Very good. Mr. Smith? Scott Smith, precinct five. Move the question, it all matters. Motion to terminate debate has been seconded. All in favor of terminating debate, please say yes. Yes. Opposed say no. Debate is terminated. We have a forced homeroom petition of the Board of Select and it's printed in their report. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. All opposed say no. Okay, because it's homeroom legislation, we're going to have a standing vote because the legislature likes to see if we're really in favor of this or not. So we'll have the same tell us all in favor, please rise. 12. Righty. Mr. Schlickman? 24 on the left. Mr. Connor? 34. 34 in the left center. Mr. Trembly? 31 right center. Mr. Horowitz? 32 on the right. All opposed, please rise. Zero up front. Mr. Schlickman? Five. Five. Connor? One. One. Mr. Trembly? Seven. Seven. Mr. Horowitz? Three. Three. It's a passes to vote of 133 to 16. That brings us to article 29. Now the homeroom legislation. Two additional package stores. Again, this is to put it on the ballot. Ms. Rowe? You're correct, Mr. Moderator. As you know that the Board of Selectment has been inching along in their approval of liquor licenses in different places. We made a commitment to the three beer and wine existing stores that we would give them the three licenses for all alcohol once the public had voted on it. It's the selectman's feeling that there is still a part of Arlington with no potential all liquor store and that's the height. So we are putting this warrant article in front of you to ask the town voters to vote yes or no for two additional all alcohol stores. We have had a non-binding vote on this but we haven't had a binding vote. So that's what's before you. And again to try to, we have the Board of Health spends a lot of time actually checking on and going into all the existing stores to make sure that they're not selling to underage minors. We have almost a perfect record in Arlington of the existing stores. And so I wanna say that we may be going down the path to damnation but we're doing it very carefully and we have a wonderful Board of Health who have really, really been working with the police to ensure that we're really watching what's going on. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fiori. Elsevier Fiori, please sing two. And like I said earlier, I don't wanna break my record of always opposing alcohol. A few weeks ago in the newspaper, all of the restaurants that served food, I don't know about all of them but a lot of them listed their menus and the new one on the corner of Lake Street which apparently is a nice place and people go in and out and all, they listed their food and then at the top they had put in beer and wine coming soon. They hadn't even asked for it and they put that in the paper. I thought that was a little audacious of them to do that but I'm going to have to now say that because we don't really, we're not getting rich from all of these licenses we're giving out. We're told all the time where we have to do these things because we have to attract good businesses and we're gonna get money and all but we don't get any money. My understanding and maybe I'm wrong maybe I'll be corrected is that all that we get is the money for the liquor licenses. All the tax money we get out of restaurants and things is for the property that the tax in restaurant is contained in whatever the address is. So unless they can tell me that we don't need an override because we're gonna make lots of money now when we get these two additional liquor licenses I will still vote no. Okay. I'm gonna have Ms. Rowe address how much money we do or don't get. The Board of Selectment on Monday voted to set the all alcohol license at 3,500 a year per license. With this was done at the recommendation of the Selectments Office who looked at the surrounding towns and we put ourselves right in the middle as we do with all of the fees that we charge. We look at what the poorer and richer communities around us do. The other thing is we do get a portion of the beer and wine in the food and wine. Meals tax, thank you. It is coming back to the town for your information. Ms. Gormley. Maureen Gormley, Precinct 20. Again, I'm rising in support of this article. Again, I'd like the voters to make the decision on this. The Arlington Chamber of Commerce is pro-business. We would like to be able to see and attract more businesses to town. This would give opportunity, as somebody said that the heights might be able to secure something. Yes, we do have Bermans just over the line in Lexington to help with the people in the heights area. But again, which is trying to create a fair opportunity. And that's all it is. It's an opportunity for somebody, another business to try to do this. There are hurdles that they have to overcome in order to do this. But the first one is let the voters decide if they want that to happen. Once that's done, then there'll be the discussion as to what needs to go on with that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hanner. Mr. Schruckman. Paul Schruckman, precinct nine. Last year I stood before you, urging you to vote down a similar article because we had a ballot question pending in the November election. And I wanted to be informed of the sentiment of the town for all alcohol on their existing three licenses before you went and expanded it. Well, the vote came in. It was 12,094, yes to 6,439. No, a two to one margin. The town clearly wants us to move in this direction. Whether they will vote similarly again to do that. I don't know what's up to the voters to decide, but I think the voters have sent a very clear message to us that having alcohol available on retail within the confines of the town is something that they desire to have. Going up to five licenses now seems to make sense. We know the meat houses got a little sign on their counter asking town meeting members to approve this article because their business model includes beer and wine in many of their stores. And they have told me that they would be asking for one of these licenses if we expand it. Again, this is going before the voters. This is not a final decision. And I think we respect our voters by placing it on the ballot. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Logan. William Logan precinct two. First, I'm going to ask a question of the board of selectmen, but I want to disclose first that I have a client that is interested in this. So I'm disclosing that now. As I believe the rules indicate I have to as an attorney. The board of selectmen, did anyone officially say that they were interested in this? I'm not saying individually to the members, but did anyone write in support that they'd be interested in this? Mr. Logan. Not that I know of. Okay, thank you. And I'm in support of this as I support any initiative that allows the voters to directly decide their own future. Thank you. Gentleman right here next to Mr. Lawton. Yep. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Eric Helm with precinct 12. Mr. Moderator, I have a question to the appropriate authority regarding the excellent compliance checks that I know that the board of health and the APD conduct to ensure that our liquor outlets do not inadvertently or otherwise sell to underage customers. And my question is, if we put this forward and if the town were to put this forward, would the town be able to maintain the same level of compliance checks for the existing outlets and these potential two outlets? And this is a resources question. And I say this in light of our budget reality. Chief police can address him. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Frederick Ryan, chief of police. Certainly the fiscal 12 budget as it currently stands is a challenge and these type of operations are labor intensive and have to adhere to guidelines prescribed by the alcohol ABCC, the alcohol control commission state agency that lays out guidelines as to how these operations are to be conducted and they are labor intensive. So short answer is given the challenges of fiscal 12, we will be doing fewer compliance checks because we just don't have the resources. I think Ms. Roe also wants to address this. Yes, one of the reasons that we set the fee at $3,500 is hopefully to help defray the cost somewhat of the board of health and the APD doing this kind of compliance checking. We think it's very important. Thank you, I'm glad I raised the question. I'm not opposing the motion. I live in the Heights and I remember from last year that my friend Gordon mentioned that he just assumed not have to drive to Bermans for his booze and I would feel the same way. But I think that it really is important that we remember that doing this is a convenience for the citizens. It is of economic benefit to businesses in the town but it does not come at no cost. There is always some level of additional risk with moderate consumption of alcohol for most of us and with outlets with respect to selling to underage individuals, we definitely don't want to do that. So I think I would be very happy and I'm happy to hear Selectman Roe's commitment to finding a way to maintain this same level of compliance checks and if this indeed moves forward, I hope that we keep that in mind. Thank you, Mr. Maher. I just like to make a John Maher, please take 14. I think there's a surface attractiveness to the argument that let the voters decide. I just want to briefly mention that we decide that to simply say that, well, let's just give it to the voters. No, there's a three-step process here. This town meeting must support going to the legislature. The legislature in the second instance then determines whether or not the law passes and only then does it get to the voters. But to simply say, and I'm speaking not particularly on this item, but any ballot question, this town meeting has prerogatives and I don't think we want to lose sight of that. So to suggest that, well, let the voters decide, I think overlooks the fact that we have that prerogative in the first instance. Thank you. This gentleman straight back, yeah. Neil Duggan, prison 15. I came in front of this board last year and asked for time for our business to get going and really start working. You gave it to us. I'm in favor for this. The Alton Heights needs another store. The town really pleases us. I know that more than anybody in this room. I see no issue with the Heights getting a store and it doesn't affect my business. I'm not speaking for the other businesses, but I'm speaking for mine. Thank you. Can you say your name again? Neil Duggan. Oh, Neil Duggan, okay. Okay, thanks. We didn't get it. Mr. Smith, Dick Smith. Dick Smith, prison 17. It wasn't too many decades ago. When people went out in Arlington, they could go to a pizza parlor, maybe a Chinese restaurant. There wasn't much else to go to. Gradually, Arlington started becoming a dynamic town as wine and beer was allowed to come in. New exciting and unique restaurants have been opening up. And Arlington now is a place that people in other communities come to because of these new features that Arlington has. Used to be so that Arlington people went somewhere else. They'd go to Boston, Cambridge, places like that. So all in all, Arlington has benefited greatly by easing up on the restrictions and allowing in more alcoholic beverages. However, we now have three units that sell wine and beer. By having more units, we're not gonna attract people from other communities to come into Arlington because the other communities already have a place to go to. By having more, an additional two, one or two outlets, that means the outlets that are here now are gonna have to share the Arlington business with other, with the new shops. And there isn't that much, Arlington is a small town. It isn't gonna attract much business from outside of Arlington. The argument that there should be something in the heights means that instead of driving three minutes to a store, you have to drive five or six minutes to get to East Arlington. But I think by allowing more outlets in Arlington, we're hurting the outlets that are here we're gonna diminish their ability to prosper and survive. And I think Arlington is, in this particular instance, we're making a big step backwards by not doing our best to support what we have now. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Butler, gentleman right here in the black sweatshirt pass, Mr. Foskett. Charles Foskett, precinct date. Actually, my subject is very similar to what Dick Smith just brought up. My question for the Board of Selectment is, have they thought about how many, I mean, is there's two sides to this issue. One is the social impact and how we monitor these retail stores and how they sell and to whom they sell to. The other side is how many, on the economic side, how many of these retail liquor outlets can the town or can be economically supported in the town? Because I remember years ago, at least the rumor was that the neighboring towns, the liquor stores in the neighboring towns were sort of funding the opposition to having relaxed rules in Arlington because it might affect their business. And I'm wondering if the Board of Selectment have given any thought to the economic impact of more liquor stores and how many can the town support? Is it Ms. La Courte? Sir, can we get an answer to his question and then adjourn? OK. Annie La Courte, resident data geek. We actually asked this question when the topic of whether or not to add licenses first came up and we looked at surrounding towns of similar density with a similar number of people living in them and discovered that most of the towns with about 40,000 people living in them have five or six liquor stores that they seem to be supporting. So our feeling is that the town can support, via its own business, five licenses. And that's why we asked for two additional ones. Thank you. Is that answer your question, sir? OK, we have a motion to adjourn on the table. All in favor? All. All opposed? All. Let's try that again. All in favor of adjourning, please say yes. Yes. All opposed? Yes. And those who yell in loud but there are more yeses yelling. All right, we're adjourned to Monday. Are there any motions for reconsideration? Motions for reconsideration and the articles we passed this evening? I see no reconsiderations. OK.