 All right, now, who's going to present this? Mr. Coral. Mr. Coral has the floor. All right, now wait, so everyone's going to want to talk on this, so hold your hand up at least until I or Stephanie point at you. Like, go ahead, Joe, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Fellow Tom meeting members, I respectfully request 15 minutes for the board's report on this matter. Hopefully we can clear up some of the questions that are obviously out there. All right, we have a motion for a 15 minute time limit. Seconded, all in favor of giving Mr. Coral 15 minutes, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. All right, Mr. Coral, you do have 15 minutes. That means I have to reprogram this, hold on. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. Thank you very much, Joe, fellow town meeting members. I'm happy to be reporting on behalf of the Board of Selectment on Article 22, acceptance of legislation, Community Preservation Act, which was voted in the affirmative by the Board on a four to one vote, as appears in your report. I know that many of you obviously have been boning up on the Community Preservation Act, next slide, please. And I wanted to give you just a quick primer on what the CPA is. This is legislation that was signed into law by Governor Salucci, the late Governor Salucci in the year 2000 and was made available to towns which must pass it, first must pass town meeting and pass on a town-wide vote for acceptance. And it's a funding mechanism for historic preservation, open space and recreation, and community housing, affordable housing. Next slide, please. Many communities have preceded us in adopting the CPA. You'll see from the map behind me, at this time there are 155 communities in the Commonwealth have adopted this in regions all throughout Massachusetts. Those are reflected in the green, all of the Capon Islands, almost all of the South Shore, most of North Shore, Pioneer Valley, our western neighbors. Also, you'll see communities in yellow. There are nine communities starting with Arlington, ending with Abington that are considering putting the CPA on the ballot this spring. Next slide, please. So the basics of the CPA, essentially it prescribes two revenue sources for the program areas that I outlined. The first is a local surcharge on the property tax. The law allows up to 3% surcharge after exemptions. The Board of Selectment is recommending that we put to the voters the question of a 1.5% surcharge after exemptions. The second portion of the CPA, which is attractive to a lot of people, is the state contribution. This is an annual distribution from the Statewide CPA Trust Fund, which is administered by the Department of Revenue. It's a true trust fund. It is not subject to legislative appropriation. Most of the funds for the state contribution come from $10 and $20 recording fees at the Registry of Deeds. And I think this is a very important point to make. I think most of us know how hot the real estate market has been in Arlington. Just speak to any broker, you'll know that the big problem is inventory. Homes and other properties turn over almost immediately as soon as they're on the market. And since 2001, every time those homes have turned over, these recording fees have been paid by residents Arlington property owners and sellers. Not a cent of that has come back to our town. It's all gone to other communities participating in the CPA. Occasionally there are also additional appropriations by the legislature. We can talk about that in a bit. Next slide, please. The CPA allows for a number of exemptions to this surcharge. And the Board of Selectment is recommending that we put before the voters all possible exemptions that are made available to communities. $100,000 on the taxable value of all residential property. Plus also the first $100,000 of taxable value on all commercial and industrial property. Full exemption for low income families. Full exemption for low and moderate income seniors. And those income levels are calculated by HUD and that those numbers tend to be somewhat preferential to Arlington. Additionally, as far as the surcharge goes, any other existing property tax exemptions that we've put in place would apply. Next slide, please. I just put up here just an example for an average homeowner what the annual cost might be. And I used the average assessed value of $514,808. The way we compute this, if this were adopted as the Board of Selectment is putting forward, you would subtract out the exempted value of $100,000 to get an adjusted value of $414,808. Multiply by the tax rate, which is currently $13.79 per $1,000 in valuation. And you get the tax amount that's subject to surcharge. So it is not on your entire amount. You have to back out the exemption. Multiply by the surcharge rate. So for that average home, the annual surcharge would be $85.80. And just to put this in a little bit of perspective, if you divide that out, you can see in my hand what I have, it works out to a little less than a quarter a day. That's kind of the scope of what we're talking about on the surcharge. That's actually a little bit less. Next slide, please. So how much can be raised through the CPA? Since 2001, $1.3 billion has been raised both by cities and towns and the state match. So about a half a billion of that, almost half a billion of that has been the state match and the rest has been through cities and towns with surcharges in their own communities. If you look at the back of your Board of Selectments report, you'll see some analysis that the town manager performed for us. And he estimates that we could potentially raise more than $8 million over the next five years through the CPA. And he used the last five years, an average of the last five years state match rate to compute that. It's important to note that any match is estimated, though. It's not guaranteed. So for example, last year, the match was over 52%. That's because the legislature kicked in an additional amount of money. Just last week, the House of Representatives voted to do the same this year. That's not finalized, though. So it's important to realize the previous three years each year was roughly 26% to 27% state match, which is still not a bad return on your money. Next slide, please. So how do CPA projects happen? Assuming the town meeting puts this to the voters and the voters endorse it, we'll have to set up a community preservation committee. Town meeting will have to approve the membership of that committee within some parameters set by the state. The CPC reviews projects, gets input, works with other town committees to coordinate recommendations, recommends lists of projects to town meeting. Very important, a majority vote of town meeting is required for any expenditures out of the CPA. So any projects coming out of this must go through the town meeting. Next slide, please. There are some requirements around the spending of CPA funds that we do raise both locally and through the state surcharge. So 10% must be spent on affordable housing, 10% on open space and outdoor recreation, 10% on historic. Those can be spent on the current year or carried through to future years. We're allowed up to 5% of the funds for administrative overhead. The remaining portion, the large part of the pie chart there, says flexible. It's important to stress that that has to be within those three programmatic areas, housing, open space recreation, historic. Next slide, please. Mr. Moderator, with your permission, I'd like to ask my colleague, Mr. Dunn, to assist with these next few slides as they relate to it. He can assist with the slides. You guys are down to eight minutes. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dan Dunn, Board of Selectment. There are two big reasons to support the CPA, and you don't need to agree with both of them. You just need to pick one. Joe outlined one of them, about all the things that you can do with the CPA. I'm here to talk about the second reason that we can use state money to increase town revenue. Al Tosti walked you through the override picture last week. Our revenues are constrained by propositions about two and a half, and our expenditures go up by more than that. For the last 10 years, we have managed this challenge using overrides, but the projections are clear. There is an override decision coming. The question is how big and when do we do it? The CPA includes a significant amount of new state money that is additional revenue we can use to shrink or delay the next override. Next slide, please. Capital spending is the key. If we adopt CPA, we should take items that are already in the capital plan and pay for them with CPA money. Our revenues will be higher through the CPA. If we are smart managers, our future spending will be similar. Notably, our capital plan does not include any items for affordable housing. Still, the revenue increases should be larger than the spending increase. Next slide. Here's how it should work. We will evaluate the capital plan, we'll send relevant items to the CPA. As items are approved by the CPA, we would deduct the item from the capital plan. We would keep that savings and transfer it into the stabilization fund. The Capital Planning Committee has not taken a position on the CPA, but here are some examples. Next slide, please. Those are some lines about the Widowmore-Robbins Projects, the capital plan that we're going to be talking about later this town meeting. If those plans were, excuse me, if those projects were taken on by the CPA, the cash would be spent out of the general budget and we could save it in the stabilization fund. Remember that this expenditure, like all CPA expenditures, is approved by this body by town meeting. Next slide, please. My last example here is, excuse me, the previous example was a cash item. Many items in the capital plan are bonded. Here's how it would work for a bonded item. Up there, we're looking at the Reservoir Beach renovation that's being planned. You would pay that out of the CPA funds in cash, and then the annual payments in the interest savings would flow back into the town budget over the subsequent years. Hopefully this illustrates how the CPA funds can be used to increase the town's overall revenue and help manage our revenue spending mismatch. Thank you very much. So to summarize the overall benefits of the CPA, CPA is a steady source of funding for local CPA needs. The town managers even analyzed that potentially we could use part of that for rebuilding the high school where it's a historical renovation. The Arlington CPA could work within the current capital plan, as Mr. Dunn just explained. And CPA leverages other state, federal, and private funding, serving as local aid that has been untapped to date by our community. Most importantly, CPA is locally controlled. It's controlled by you by the town meeting. Next slide, please. I just throw up a few examples of ways that you might think of this. Whether you look at the CPA as a fiscal tool working within the capital plan or a CDBG program, or you look at it as potentially expanding our capacity on other projects that have been discussed, I have a few examples that you might think about. For example, under open space and recreation, the current five-year capital plan, and you'll see this in the town manager's analysis, includes playgrounds and fields such as Bishop, Wellington, Magnolia, Spipon tennis courts, Robbins Farm. Other types of projects that we've discussed in this area around town include the acquisition of open space, perhaps someday down the road, Mugarra Poets Corner, trails and amenities at Millbrook, Elizabeth Island, or Sims Woods, Minutemen, bikeway improvements. Next slide, please. Similarly, with historic preservation, the current five-year capital plan includes Whittemore-Robbins House, Jefferson Cutter House, Parmenter School Repairs, and other items include, as I mentioned, the Arlington High School Senior Center and Central School Building, which is a historic building in the old burying grounds. Next slide, please. And lastly, affordable housing. Mr. Dunn mentioned this is not covered through the capital plan. We do cover a number of items through the Community Development Block Grants, which will be asked to endorse in two articles from now. We cover an affordable housing program right now, and the Arlington Home Improvement Loan Program. Other projects that are in early stages right now include the Drake Village Senior Citizen Housing Renovations. There was a request from the Housing Authority for $500,000 towards this program this year under CDBG. We could not fund it under CDBG, but we believe that this would potentially be eligible under CPA. And there are a number of Housing Corp of Arlington projects on the books right now, Downing Square, Westminster, Mass Ave, Broadway. I think we're looking at something like 40 to 50 units that are being planned that potentially could be eligible. Next slide, please. So in closing, the Board of Selectments recommended vote, again, majority recommended vote, asked voters to give town meeting important fiscal and programmatic tools, clears a path for new funding of important community initiatives, and most importantly vests town meeting with ultimate decision-making over any CPA project funding decisions. I want to thank you for your attention, and I hope that you will please consider supporting the Board of Selectments recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Stamps? Susan Stamps, Precinct 3, and I'm the lead proponent of the Citizens Petition that put this article on the warrant to begin with, and we're really happy that the selectmen decided that they'd do the presentation, but I wanted to say that I and Brian Rehrig and Clarissa Rowe are here in the front row to be available to answer any questions. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Sayer? Kair. Mike Kair, Precinct 12, and Chairman of the Redevelopment Board. I just wanted to point out to town meeting that as part of our report to town meeting, we actually took a vote with respect to this particular article. And so at our April 7th, 2014 meeting, the Board voted unanimously to support the Board of Selectments recommended vote and the rationale for accepting the Community Preservation Act. After discussion and debate, we felt importantly that the Community Preservation Act and the usage of these funds dovetails nicely with the elements of the master plan as we move forward. Thank you, sir. Mr. Carmen? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dean Carmen, Precinct 20, a member of the Finance Committee, fellow town meeting members. I stand before you tonight to ask that you vote no action on this article. It is extremely short-sighted. Since this article deals with raising taxes on Arlington residents, to consider it, we need to talk about the town's larger financial picture, the past, the present, and the future. Let's start with the past. Over the last 10 years, Arlington homeowners have incurred significant increases in their property taxes. In March 2014 review by the Boston Globe found that over the last decade, Arlington's average tax bill increased 61%, an annual increase of almost 5%. Now, I'm sure someone can and will come up after me to nitpick this data. But the reality is that after a decade where we had two overrides of 10% on top of the annual 2.5% increase in property taxes and debt exclusions for elementary school rebuilds were on the tax rolls, a 5% annual increase is about right. I also don't think I need to lecture anyone when I say that a 5% annual increase is significantly above the rate of inflation, and it caused for concern over whether it is sustainable into the future. Now let's look at the future. The five-year budget projection in your Orange Fincom book, Page D1, shows the town is currently projecting a deficit of $12.8 million in the year 2020. Meaning, if we needed to fund a shortfall for just that one year, it would require an 11% override on top of the normal 2.5% annual increase. But that's only one year. And maybe some will argue that these projections are conservative. Either way, it's more likely than not that the future is envisioned by the selectement in our town leaders will include another large override in growth and property taxes far and in excessive inflation. At the same time, town leaders have notified residents that the high school needs to be rebuilt at a cost of between $100 and $150 million. As will Minuteman Tech, it costs at least $60 million with Arlington taxpayers on the hook for no less than $20 million. Town leaders are on record as saying the town budget simply cannot afford these projects, so we will need an override for each. Now let's talk about depression. Every year at our opening finance committee meeting, we are joined by the town manager who goes over the five-year budget forecast, current town business, and answers question. Each year I ask the manager a standard question. What keeps you up at night in order to understand the big issues that are bothering him? Almost six weeks later, we are joined by the superintendent of schools. Trying to be consistent, I ask the superintendent the same question. Six weeks apart, their answers were identical. How are we going to fund town services and also pay for two large capital projects, the high school and Minuteman? So with a citizen read that has seen their taxes grow for a decade, at twice the rate of inflation, and has massive challenges in the future, you would logically think the selectmen who sit behind me are asking to increase your taxes 4% next year, the standard 2.5% plus 1.5% for the CPA, would do so with a comprehensive plan for how we're going to address these challenges. And you would be wrong. There is currently no plan on how we are going to proceed through these challenges. The current plan of town leadership is to continue increasing the town budget at a rate above inflation, as shown on page D1 of your FINCOM book. Then place three large overrides on the ballot, beginning in the year 2018. So where does the CPA fit in? Though the selectmen try to make the CPA seem like a cure for what ails us, it is not. The CPA has very specific rules. Rules you would have been better informed have had the selectmen chosen to put the actual legislation in their article or in their report. Under the CPA, as Mr. Kurosad, we would first increase property taxes by 1.5%. Then we would create a new CPA committee, which would work outside the current governmental structure with no requirement to play nice with the capital planning committee or anyone else. The CPA would create their own proposal and bring it to town meeting for an up or down vote. Of the new taxes collected, as Mr. Kurosad, the CPA is legally obligated to spend 30% of the money in areas the town is currently not obligated to spend money, 10% for open space acquisition and preservation, 10% for historical buildings, and 10% for affordable housing. The remaining 70% is divided up among those same three categories plus recreation. The CPA prohibits the use of funds for maintenance, but allows tax revenues to be, these tax revenues to be spent on private property. With significant restrictions on the use of CPA tax, you'd think the selectmen would come before you with a multi-year spending plan that has been vetted by legal counsel and the comptroller. They have not, instead choosing to go with vague individuals of what we could use it for in fancy slides. This leads me to what I said to my finance committee colleagues and will say to you tonight, I take raising taxes very seriously. I have supported overrides in the past and will likely do so in the future, but it is something I approach with extreme caution and do so only when there is no other option to maintain town services or our quality of life, because I know that each override will cause varying degrees of financial pain for our residents. When I look at the future of Arlington, I see three major issues that we have a moral and I said moral obligation to work on. The budget with its staggering annual growth rate and massive deficit in 2020, the high school in Minuteman Tech. None of these are currently being addressed by the selectmen. None of these would be cured by the CPA. On the flip side, I see a CPA that commits the town to spending money it is not currently required to spend, is not part of a comprehensive solution to the problems we face and legislation that this town meeting might not fully understand because the selectmen shows not to include the legislation in their report to town meeting. And so here is what I ask of you, defeat this motion by the selectmen. Defeat this motion as elected representatives of your neighbors because it is not fiscally responsible. It is not part of a larger plan to solve the big problems we face as a town. It does not meet the criteria of an absolutely necessary tax increase to main services or quality of life. And because it obligates the town into new spending that is not necessary. Please send a message to the town leaders to focus on the big problems. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Ruderman. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Michael Ruderman, precinct nine. Decade ago, I advocated for the Community Preservation Act. I campaigned for it. I apologized to people who came in front of myself and my colleagues on the historical commission that we didn't have it available to address their projects and needs. And I believe I spoke over there from that lectern in front of this meeting urging that we adopted 10 years ago. 10 years ago, it was a much better deal. 10 years ago, the real estate market was very different. And as our colleague, Mr. Carmen, was just asking you, I'm asking you also to vote against the selectman's recommended motion. Yes, we pay our portion of the money that goes into the CPA trust fund. We and everyone else in Massachusetts that transact business at the registry of deeds. That money goes out to the towns that participate in the CPA. The money is dependent upon the overall level of activity in the real estate market. It's a document surcharge. The fewer documents that come across the counter, the recording counter at the registry of deeds, the less money is collected. I believe the match was 100 percent when the CPA was first inaugurated. It got down for three years into the 20s, 28, 27 percent. It became an embarrassment. Legislature had to kick in more money to keep it from sliding below a quarter of what towns themselves were pledging to come up with. So they bumped it up for one year to 52 percent. But that number is entirely dependent upon the whim of the legislature to add more money to the trust fund should it decide. And the money that's collected in this surcharge on the general level of activity of real estate in the state. Not in Arlington, but it's statewide. So that money will fluctuate. Right now the reimbursement has been, for the last several years, way down 52 percent only because the state kicked in enough money to bring it up to that. Now I know speaking against the projects that have been identified somewhat loosely as qualifying for the money to be spent under the CPA, it's hard to speak against them. It's kind of like speaking against apple pie, motherhood, puppies, and flowers and dandelions, things like that. But a budget is always a series of choices. Some things are in, some things are out. Some things are we'd like to have it, but that'll have to wait. The Community Preservation Act was conceived to promote certain projects under the theory that a roaring real estate market was demolishing the ability to do them forever. If your town has a large amount of open space that falls under the backhoe and the plane and becomes developed, well that open space never comes back, at least not in our lifetimes, in our experience. So the open space disappears. Cheap rental housing that gets demolished and turned into high-end housing doesn't go back to low-income affordable housing in our lifetimes. And certainly historical assets that are not protected by various historical covenants and preservation restrictions, should they be bought, demolished, turned into more lucrative real estate development, they disappear forever, certainly. So the CPA, the P part, the preservation part, was conceived of in a time when there was intense pressure upon open space. And that slide we saw a few minutes ago, heavily in the South Shore, Cape Islands, heavily in the North Shore, these towns have adopted it. The great impetus towards the adoption was the preservation of the existing open space. Those towns thought it was a worthwhile contribution of their own tax dollars with what state participation could match that in order to preserve their open space. The amount of open space that we would be preserving in Arlington, I suggest to you, would be relatively minor. It's out there. I mean, it's possible. There are open spaces that are held by private parties that people have said for many years. Wouldn't it be nice if we could buy that to keep it open space? It would be nice in many of these places. But that would promote that project above something else. Every budget is a series of choices. The Community Preservation Act does not address them all. It doesn't give any extra money to roads and ways. It doesn't give any extra money to pensions. It doesn't give any money to rebuilding a high school, the portions of which are not deemed qualifying historical assets. Certainly wouldn't apply to anything at Minuteman. It's only 40 years old. The Community Preservation Act sounds like a good deal. It was a much better deal 10 years ago. My chief objection to it at this point is, as Mr. Karman said, looking at the obligations that we have looming in front of us and seeing what it does not address there and seeing that philosophically it is designed to promote certain projects above others for all time. Well, for however long a town is required to participate in the CPA before it can take a vote to come out. It takes those projects and says that we are going to carve out a piece of the town budget and make sure that that money gets spent on those. And to me, we have projects even in light of the ones that the CPA would address that would be good to do. We have a lot of other projects that we must do. And so I'm asking you to vote down the selectman's motion. Thank you. Mr. Rearig, did you have your hand up? No, Brian first, Al. I thought you had your hand up. Did you not? I did. Oh, okay. Brian Rearig, precinct eight. I think the notion that the Community Preservation Act only addresses some of the needs of the town is a very narrow view. The purposes that we're talking about here, affordable housing, open space, recreation, and historic preservation constitute a very broad swath of what makes this community valuable to us and to others. You've heard about the projects. You'll hear a lot more. I don't want to take up a lot of your time. I just want you to ask the meeting to think about a couple of things. You've heard that 155 communities in the state have adopted CPA. That includes not just the kinds of communities that were just referred to as open space paradises. It includes cities like Fall River, Fall River who have adopted this tool as a means of improving their community and taking advantage of state funding to do it. We are leaving some state funding on the table. Imagine being the 351st community to think about adopting CPA when we're essentially subsidizing the other 350. It is true that the CPA was a better deal 10 years ago. The program started out with 100% match by the state, which was a fabulous deal. And it was widely thought, well, that can't last. And it didn't last. And the match dropped into the mid-20s. We now have, first of all, last year, as you've heard, the legislature stepped up and added to that funding with an explicit appropriation. No one can promise that that's going to happen again. But think about why that happened. It happened because 155 communities have adopted the CPA. And there is now sufficient political pressure on the legislature to ensure that the program is highly successful for their constituents. But let's assume that doesn't happen. Let's assume it's only a just under 30% match from the state. That quarter that Mr. Currow showed you earlier is matched by, let's say it's a dime from the state. Let's say it's only a dime from the state. It nonetheless is state revenue that we are leaving to other communities to pick up. I suggest that we capture our fair share by supporting this program, supporting things that are very important to Arlington, many of which we are already doing through the capital plan and can free up funds to support the stabilization funds, up stabilization fund. Others of which will be new exciting projects, including affordable housing. As has been pointed out, let's not gloss over this. The affordable housing spending that would be done through the Community Preservation Act here would be new. It would be new support for affordable housing because none of that is happening through our capital plan at present. So that minimum 10% of the Community Preservation Act revenue, including the state match, would be invested in affordable housing. I urge you to support the selectments motion. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chappett. Rowley. Damage. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Rowland, Chappett, precinct 12, and I support the warrant article for the passage of CPA. Number one, because it's us who gets it started, but it still goes to the voters for approval. I'll be very brief. There were two issues that concern me here. I've been around for quite a long time, so you remember when this CPA article did not pass here in town meeting almost from the very beginning. It was disappointing, if you will, and what really made it disappointing to me was over the last 14 years, we have seen almost half of the communities in the Commonwealth who were a little smarter than we were and took advantage of this program. So two areas that I think we should look very hard at. First, the four categories are the categories that typically don't get good support, because we have other needs. We have police and fire and the school budget and we have Minuteman and so forth. So there are a number of issues that are quote unquote critical and need to be passed, and guess what? That's what's really happened over the last 12 or 14 years. I'll give you a good example. About 10 years ago, the capital planning budget gave us funds to do some work at Robbins Farm Park. And if you've been up there, you've seen the playground equipment and so forth. That was installed pretty close to 10 years ago now. I'm not talking about the new double slide, I'm talking about the original playground equipment that went up there. At that time, that amount of money paid for the first half of the work that had been planned for Robbins Farm Park. So what happened in the second half? Then it was a lot of money. The members of the Robbins Farm group that I'm involved with actually raised some of the money for that first phase and were willing to do the same thing the second time. Never had an opportunity because the decision was made year after year after year to put that second phase off into the future. So for the last five or six years, we've been waiting and it's nothing that's happened. I think this gives us an opportunity to go back to the capital planning committee and say, look, now there's some money to make that happen. Let's do it. Second, very quickly, across the street is the Jefferson Cutter House. That's a home that was built about 1832 and it's something we can be really proud of because it does represent a historic structure that makes this town what it is. It needs work. It needs work. We don't want it to fall down, obviously. And so here again is an opportunity to take some of the funding from CPA and get that thing done. So there'll be other folks who make other comments. My personal feeling is two issues here. Robbins, Farron Park, Jefferson Cutter House. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tossi. First of all, just making an announcement, the superintendent of Minuteman personally has driven from Lancaster, Massachusetts out on 495 to deliver 200 plus budgets. So they are in the back of the hall, but please don't get up now. Fellow town meeting members. The key issue before you that you're going to have to decide is what is nice and what is critical. This priorities is what we have to do all the time with a limited amount of money. When we just clarify one thing, people keep talking about a surcharge. Well, it's a tax increase. Surcharge just makes it sound a little less painful. The finance committee is recommending against approaching the citizens for additional tax revenue for several reasons. The first and most important is the need to go to the ballot in the next six years for additional funds for two, possibly three projects. And all you have to do is Mr. Carmen pointed out is go to Appendix D and you're looking at the five-year plan and you're looking at a big deficit out there. You're looking at a high school that needs a lot of work. How much work will that's going to be discussed and decided over the next couple of years? But it's going to be a big project. Minuteman, we don't know. But there'll be some money needed for that, none of which is in the capital budget. It's just far too big. When these things have to be decided, we're going to have to go to the voters for it. Just like we did in 2005 and just like we did in 2011, it's going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money. Can we reasonably ask their approval of this tax increase as well? Another reason is a matter of priorities that I mentioned. We're going to buy some open space. Well, there is no open space. People have been talking about Mugher ever since I've been in this town meeting in 1973. We're not going to get our hands on it and if it does become available, it's going to be a huge amount of money. Fixing a historic house. Well, that's nice, but it's not essential. What is essential is the basic operating services of the town. Our schools, our public safety, our public works, our library, our human resource services. These are the essential critical services of the town. These are essential. Maintaining the accreditation of Arlington High School, that is essential. When you look at a couple of the other elements of the Community Preservation Act, affordable housing is one of the things that's mentioned. Well, right now, we're attacking affordable housing on three different levels. We have the Arlington Housing Authority, which provides a great deal of affordable housing in the town and has been for many years. We have the Affordable Housing Corporation, which buys when they can and when they can pull together money, additional funds like the capital apartments down on Mass Ave, which they did a very nice job for, for affordable housing. Our own zoning bylaws encourage more affordable housing there, so I think we're attacking that on several areas. A lot of the public entity's reconstruction infrastructure, it's in the capital budget. I'll let Mr. Foskiet go into that a little bit more deeply, but we are taking care of a lot of these, maybe not as quickly as some people would like, but we're moving ahead to do these things. They are getting done. Please, think what is critical to the town. The CPA is not critical, and it could jeopardize what is critical to all of us, our services, our schools. Please vote no. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. LaCorte. Annie LaCorte, precinct 15. So I want to talk a little bit about affordable housing and how we produce affordable housing relative to the CPA because I think there's some important information that you should have about this. When I was a member of the Board of Selectmen, I spent a great deal of time on two projects. One was our annual CDBG allocation, and the other was encouraging the development of affordable housing through the Housing Corp of Arlington. And the Housing Corp of Arlington gets a considerable amount of money every year from the CDBG pot of money, and you're going to vote on CDBG later, and I'll point out to you that when you vote on CDBG, you're going to be voting on supporting the Selectmen's recommendation, but if you don't support the Selectmen's recommendation, the Selectmen still get to spend that money anyway they want. The same I do not believe, and I'll form this as a question, Mr. Moderator, I don't believe the same is true of the CPA, that we actually get to vote on whether or not we want to spend the CPA money in a particular way. Am I correct? Doug? Mr. Heim, is he correct in that assumption? In other words, CPA spending has to be approved by town meeting. That's correct. Any CPA project has to be recommended by a Community Preservation Committee and that has to be approved by town meeting. Thank you. Okay, so right now we're spending CDBG money to support the Housing Corp of Arlington, and every year the Housing Corp of Arlington comes to the Board of Selectmen to report on how they've done with that money. And every year they say, we have leveraged every dollar you gave us nine to one, which means that for every dollar we give them, they're able to go to other sources of funding, other grant funding, and other lending sources and get another nine dollars for every dollar we give them. And so that money's very effectively spent. Remember, however, that every year we also come to you and explain to you all the cuts we've made to the various programs that CDBG supports because those dollars are shrinking because the feds are giving us less money. So what the CPA would do for us is it would allow us to increase the amount of money that we're spending on affordable housing and therefore increase that leverage. Remember, nine to one, nine dollars for every one dollar we put in. Okay. And it's not a pot of money that the feds can shrink on us. The worst thing that could happen is that the state doesn't come up with matching money. And although we're required to spend 10% of the earnings, some 80, 100,000 dollars a year, we could put more into affordable housing. And it's very important that this community continue to produce more affordable housing. First of all, the more affordable housing we produce, the closer we get, if we haven't already crossed the line, to being exempt from a hostile 40B development in Arlington. And I know we all think there's no open space left and there's nowhere to develop a hostile 40B development, but trust me, developers will find a way. They have in the past and they will in the future. Okay. Second reason that we need to continue to develop affordable housing in this town is because the character of our town is based on the wide diversity of the people who live here. And part of that diversity is economic diversity. Personally, I would argue it's the most important diversity that we have. It's the reason I raised my kids here, because I didn't want my kids to grow up in a town like if I may malign a fellow town, Lexington, where all the examples before them are, oh, everybody grows up to be a doctoral lawyer or a businessman or a PhD. I wanted my kids to grow up in a town where they knew that it was okay to grow up to be a firefighter or a police officer or a teacher or a plumber or whatever. Okay. And that's part of what producing affordable housing does for us. It keeps our economic diversity intact. So obviously, I support the act. I understand all the arguments that the Finance Committee members have made. Obviously, as a member of the Board of Selectment, I dealt with all of those arguments. I understand the risks involved, but I still think that this is a good deal and that it preserves important values in this town and that we at least need to put this question in front of the voters and ask them what their priorities and their values are. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Foskett? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Charles Foskett, Precinct 8. Ladies and gentlemen of the town meeting, governments the cement of our civilization and it binds us in a common purpose. And the work you do in town meeting is a high calling and I want you to know that your vote tonight on this is critical. Don't accept the argument that you just heard that you can pass this on to the voters and let them make the decision. You influence the town. Your vote is important. So you should think carefully about how you vote. Next slide, please. Government has four fundamental core obligations to its citizens to provide for the common defense and community safety, provide for the legal and physical infrastructure that enables the common, lets us live our lives and earn our livings, to provide for the education of our children and to provide for the health and human services from the quality of our food to the security for the agent. I submit to you that the objectives of the CPA, open space and recreation, affordable housing, historical preservation are nice to have, but they're not necessary to have. The act, however, gives them a permanent priority over the core purposes of government that I just outlined to you. And this is wrong. This is not community preservation. This is community balkanization. The act creates a permanent entitlement for a narrow purpose because it carves out a contribution from our common resource, which is taxpayer support and it permanently segregates its use. This act is recommended by the Board of Select and Forever adds one and a half percent to our taxes every year for non-essential purposes. We heard tonight about non-essential water use. Well, this is segregating our taxpayers' dollars for non-essential purposes. Consider that whenever we hire a new teacher, it's going to cost 1.5 percent more because this is a surcharge on our annual tax bill. If we spend $100 million on Arlington High School, it's going to be 101.5 million because this is a surcharge on our taxes. If we pass an override of 20 million, it's going to be 20 million, 300 thousand dollars because this is a surcharge. There's a limit to taxation. Ask our founding fathers. There's a limit to what taxpayers can support. The law may be revocable in principle after five years, but what government in the history of mankind ever revoked the tax once it started collecting it? So if you vote for it, you better be sure you want to see it for a long time. Next slide, please. From an operating viewpoint, our $104 million tax base, a 1.5 percent surcharge would produce about $1.6 million a year. Well, what can we buy with that? In community safety, we can buy 27 additional police officers or firefighters. Our communities first responders. In education, we could buy 28 additional educators. And in public works, 33 additional DPW professionals. This is from an operating viewpoint. What if we had these funds? What if we took this funds for 30 years, present value that into a capital purchase? I've done this, done the numbers. You could purchase 3.92 Thompson schools. You could renovate 4.35 Stratton schools. And you could pay for 75% of a new Arlington High School. This is real money. It's not 25 cents a day. This is real money. Keep in mind, you've heard this before about the deficit. $12.8 million in 2020. I was co-chair of the Override Committee in 2005. In order to pay a $4 million deficit, we had to raise a $6 million override. This $12.8 million deficit is going to require a lot more than $12.8 million to cover the deficit for five years. We need to stick to our knitting. We don't need to undertake financial adventurism. Next slide, please. We've heard a little bit about the greater fool, but I call the greater fool theory for making decisions. 115 towns have adopted the CPA. Therefore, we should. Real estate speculators were saying the same thing in 2007. And .com stock purchases were big in 2000. But like investments, not every town is the same. And I've read from the proponents of the CPA that Lexington was very happy with their CPA. This was given as an example to the FinCom when we heard the hearing. Lexington is a population of 32,000, where Arlington is 43,000 people. But their tax levies $142 million versus R98. And only 6% of our taxes are paid by industry or commerce, where in Lexington, 23% are paid by businesses and commercial entities. In the 2012 DOR, Arlington's per capita income was 45,654, and Lexington was 88,000, 97, or 95% higher than Arlington. My point is every one of those 115 towns are different. And you can't use the existence of one town to argue why Arlington should make a decision to support the CPA. Now, the Board of Selectments recommended the CPA, and they said, this will help. This is a quote from Mr. Currow to defray an override. He won't defray an override. This is an override. It's a 1.5% surcharging your taxes every year for the next 20 years. A principal advocate of the CPA at the hearing of the FinCom stated unequivocally that the CPA will not save the town money. In an appendix to the Board of Selectments report, the manager cited approximately $3.5 million in the capital plan that could be covered by the CPA. Yes, it's in the capital plan. It's in the capital plan within the limits of Proposition 2.5, and why do we want to raise our taxes 1.5% to pay for something we've already got budgeted within our long-range financial plan? It just doesn't make sense. Finally, the town manager suggested in an appendix that there can be big savings on the Ellington High School. Well, I think everything I've heard from the principal and on the tour that I took is that it's a Potemkin building, and I would only draw you in that it's got a nice facade, but there's not a lot to recommend behind it. And I would mention that of the seven elementary schools we had to rebuild for because renovating them was more expensive than rebuilding. So, for all of these reasons, I would recommend to you that you take the long view here, and the long view is don't vote for Article 22. Please vote no action on this CPA article. Thank you. Mr. Harrington? Steven? Steven Harrington, Precinct 13. Gee, what a sales job I get to learn from these guys. They came right up here, went after another 15-minute speaking for it. Bam, bam, the original opponent. You know what I didn't hear, though? This motion was first in front of Fincom and they voted no. We heard how the ab got on the bandwagon, how the board of selectmen. Fincom voted no. Generally as a group, we take their advice very solidly. In the beginning, too, I had some problems with some of the numbers they showed. So, you know, I don't believe you get something for nothing. And they're talking about a 10 or $20 fee at the Registry of Deeds. Well, that's about 1,000 home sales a year in Eilington over the last five years. This is $20,000. So, would you tax people $1.5 million to get $20,000? Eventually, when there are 351 cities and towns, that's going to be the number that will be available on the match. And the biggest problem I have with that is if we seriously just wanted to do this to get the state aid that we're leaving on the table, let's lower our taxes to the general populace by the 1.5%, put the surcharge in, revenue neutral to the taxpayers, and we capture all of that state aid. When I asked the proponent why they didn't consider that, the flip answer was, well, that's not a front-of-town meeting. Reject this. Let them come back with that as a suggestion. Finally, you know, Lexington? Sure. I don't know why we wouldn't want our children to grow up to be PhDs and doctors and professionals. I don't like scare tactics. I was up in Lexington. I go up in Lexington a lot. And last year, we were in front of the library and they had a CPA-funded installation. And it was this enormous flag. I don't know if anyone of you saw it. On the side of the building, it must have been 40 feet wide and 20 feet high. CPA is things that we wouldn't normally spend money on. And so why are we going to spend other people's money on stuff that we wouldn't normally budget for? And then finally, the open space considerations. Buying the Mugau property. We bought Elizabeth's Island. It's not just the cost of buying that open space. It's the fact that we'll never receive property tax revenues from that open space again. So it's not just the purchase price when you consider that we're going to spend money on open space. It's the decrease in property taxes on land that's not actually developed right now. So for all these reasons, I urge you to vote no on Article 22. Thank you. Mr. Fitzgerald. Thomas. Pass. Mr. Rowe. Did you want to speak? I think you raised your hand at one point. Hi. Clarissa Rowe, Precinct 4. And it's very interesting to me to be called pretty and nice and non-critical. And I have for a very long time, 20 years, devoted part of my life to CPA. I've seen it used all over the state. And it does wonders for tiny towns for large cities. I have always wanted it to be adopted by Arlington. And I think one of the things that came across and the presentations of the nice gentlemen who were very pretty over there, behind me who have argued against it is the finance committee are the watchdogs of a town. We really appreciate what they do. I wish they had worked a little more cooperatively with us. So we could have put together a five-year plan. One of the things that we'd like to see on the Community Preservation Committee is a member of the capital plan and is a member of the finance committee. Because that way we would have an integrated plan that both their committees and the long-term planning committee could adopt. It isn't critical. Well, it is critical, really. Our, no, we don't have a lot of open space left. And I, as one person who's been in Mule Garden negotiations for, I think, three or four times, I know that. But what about our parks? What about our playgrounds? What about the amount of money? Look in your budgets, because we probably won't vote on this tonight. Look in your budgets tomorrow night and tonight. And look at the amount of money that's spent on our parks and playgrounds. I have heard from my constituents that this is very important to them. I'm also here as an affordable housing person. And there are a thousand people, a thousand Arlingtonians, who are signed up on a list at the Housing Corporation of Arlington to try to get into affordable housing. That is a real need. And as the CBDG funds get smaller and smaller and smaller, that need will even happen to grow greater and greater. And then that nice area, historic preservation. Historic preservation in this town means the Jason Russell House, Old Schwab Mill, Jefferson Cutter House. These are economic generators. We have been trying in the last 10 years or so to refocus on tourism in this town. To bring in businesses like tour buses to come and bring people here to not only go to our historic resources, but to eat here, to go to our theaters here, to enjoy the parks that we have in this wonderful town. And I say to you, I really think this is critical. This is a critical economic issue. And there are lots of figures that are being thrown out. But two and a half percent and one and a half percent that we're talking about tonight, two and a half percent proposition, proposition two and a half. And the 1.5 percent do not get added together. So that is phony math. I would like this town to stand up for the values that Annie so wonderfully espoused. I raised my children in Arlington because it has got wonderful parks. I loved walking in Monotomy Rocks Park. It's something that gave my soul joy every day of my life when I lived in that neighborhood. This is a time for us to say we are the policymakers. The selectmen have been the policymakers. And I'll tell you a little story. In 2011, I happened to be the chair of the Board of Selectmen. And Cindy Starks was the chair of the school committee. And we had a problem because our wonderful finance committee did not want to support the override. So I said to myself, that doesn't seem right because that money will guarantee our future. So I asked to go to the finance committee. And I said, I would just like to remind you that the Board of Selectmen and town meeting are really the policymakers of the town. The finance committee is our guardian. And they should continue to be our guardians, but we are the policymakers. And so I ask you tonight to not be, to listen carefully to those words of critical and non-essential. These are not non-essential uses. This is part of what makes our town great. And I urge you to vote yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. O'Brien, did you have a hand up? Andy, oh, it's right in front of you, Mr. Dohan. Sorry, Andy. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I'm Mark Dohan from Precinct 12. I'm on the board of the Housing Corporation of Arlington. And I just want to talk about one of the uses that CPA can be, which is affordable housing. We heard about the need of it already tonight in our master plan. We've heard about how the Selectmen have endorsed this. But I want to talk a little bit about how the affordable housing actually gets developed in Arlington through the Housing Corporation of Arlington. And I wondered if I could ask a question about what's happening with our sources of revenue that we've used, the CDBG and the home funds that the town has had access to, Mr. Moderator. What's the question? I'd like to know what's happening to those sources of revenues at the federal level. Oh, well, they're going away. Carol? Carol Kowalski, Director of Planning and Community Development. We have two federal sources of affordable housing funds, the Community Development Block grant funds, and the town moderator is correct. They are going away. I shouldn't say they're going away, but they've been reduced every year. In particular, since 2005, they've gone down from $1,476,000 to this year $1,084,500. That's for the whole program, our whole entitlement grant, not just for the affordable housing category. We also get affordable housing funds through the home consortium. That's the North Suburban Consortium. It's Arlington and eight communities, including Arlington. We had $2,800,000 in year 2005. This year, we have $1,519,000. We have about 50%, a little more than 50% of what we had in 2005. Thank you. So one of the issues that's going on is that we're getting less and less money to be able to develop the type of housing. And we've heard already about there's a couple different ways that we're leveraging this funding, that we're getting a great return on the investment. The first is that we're getting 36% back from the state. The second, Annie La Courte talked about already, which is the leveraging that we're getting. Capital Square cost about $11.7 million to be able to do that type. All of that money is coming from other state sources. And this gets to the real point of this is that not all money is created equal, particularly with regard to affordable housing. The money from the Community Preservation Act is much more flexible and allow us to leverage all that other types of funding in a way that the CDBG and the home funding doesn't allow us to do, because not only is the money shrinking in the amount that we get, but it's getting harder and harder to use. So I urge you to support the Community Preservation Act. I think affordable housing. I think historic preservation. I think the open space are all things that make our town a great place to live. It's a great place to raise our family. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harris. Pass. I'm Mr. Warden. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Warden, Precinct 8. Well, several of the points I wanted to make have been made. Namely that the should we adopt the Community Preservation Act, it will free up funds that were coming from the ever shrinking CDBG. A lot of which goes to affordable housing has really made a lot of that possible, and we will have that money. But the other point I think that hasn't been made is I've been going to a lot of the master plan meetings that were addressed earlier under reports. One of the themes that's run through all of this master plan business is the importance of Arlington capitalizing, if you will, on its historic heritage. And this is something a lot of us are aware of, but a lot of people are not aware of. And there are various ways to do that, and a lot of them cost money. But in that connection, I do want to report to you at the Historic District Commissions by unanimous vote asked that their sentiment supporting the adoption of CPA be reported to this meeting. Obviously, they have a very strong feeling about historic preservation. And that's what we do in the 350-odd properties that are scattered throughout the town over which we have administration. That's something that works on the image of this community. One of the things that makes us proud of this community, that makes us want to continue living here, is that we weren't some suburb that sprang up after the war with a lot of tic-tac. We've been here for 350 years, and we have a rich historic fabric throughout all of our neighborhoods that makes Arlington the special place that it is. And the other thing, and with great respect from my friends on the Finance Committee, the Capital Planning Committee, but I think we can, and we must, go beyond the bare bones essentials of running a civilized society. I think we're a little above that. And I think we need things like historic preservation for the reasons I just mentioned. I think we need some open space, and maybe somehow we can, sometime, get our hands on that nougat puzzle. And so if we don't pay taxes on it, we don't get taxes out of it, if we're getting open space in trees and grass and habitat for wild animals, that's something you can't buy with money, or it's very hard to buy with money. And certainly, if there's anything there's a dearth of, it's that sort of environment here. And look at our parks. Years ago, we had substantial funds, town funds, devoted to the care and maintenance of the parks. And what happens now? If the park doesn't have a friends of so-and-so park doing about half the work, it doesn't get done. And the trees have fallen down, or across the pass, the paths have worn out, the ponds aren't even filled. Right here, next to the town hall, the beautiful statue of the Indian hunter, somebody mentioned his bow is busted again. The little pond in front of him has no water in it. What's with that? It always had water in it. We can't afford another pump. So let's get a little more money into the till and do some of these non-essential but terribly important things. Thank you. Mrs. Fiori. You know, I've seen everybody who had their hand up. Just because you wave your hand doesn't move you up the list. I've got you all already. LCFiori, precinct two. I know nothing about money. I live on social security. So I don't know about all these financial things. I never figured out how to become a millionaire. But the people who become millionaires are the people that buy up open space and build housing affordable and otherwise. I drive a lot, even though I'm in advanced age, but I see places that have huge playgrounds and huge sections of open space. But when you go around Allen, can you see hardly any? I border on the Mugar site. It comes right up to my backyard. And when there's water out in the Mugar site and a lot of rain that meets the water in my backyard, we have a huge pond. The Mugar site is wetland. The roads across route two, all of that land in Cambridge that was open space and wetlands and had all kinds of animals, as Mr. Warden noted. It's all just business buildings. Now they do have a huge apartment. I don't know how much affordable housing we need. I hate to think this that many people in Arlington itself that need to have affordable housing. I'm sure they were are. Or are they coming in from other places? And I'd probably be criticized for saying that. But nevertheless, it may well be true. So perhaps we don't need all that affordable housing, but we do need open space. And I'll have to say I've guarded the Mugar site all these years. And because I'm an immediate butter, unless the law has been changed, I can, by myself, if it's voted to be taken to be used for business or anything, I can appeal the decision to the whatever group of nature in the state. And or if I weren't an immediate a butter, I could have 10 people join me. And I have done that twice, brought in action by myself. So I'm still taking care of that little bit of open space we have left in Arlington. And the birds are still out there and we got woodchucks and rabbits and all kinds of things. But they'll be gone if that little piece of land that everybody talks about is a Mugar site is used. I appear, I ask you to vote for this article that we're talking about here. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Fisher. Peter Howard. Peter Howard, precinct 10. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Hello, Tom, media members. I had planned to respond to the, or tell you about why the, I'm one of the people that, I was the only person on the finance committee that voted for CPA and I plan to explain why the reasons that the finance committee report has for opposing it are not completely accurate. But other people have already done that. So let me go right on and speak about another topic. If the CPA is passed by referendum, the time will have to establish, according to the statute, as somebody has already mentioned in passing, a CPA committee. This would require the town meeting to take that action after the CPA referendum is passed. The committee would be responsible for annually recommending to us the town meeting how the CPA funds would be spent. The CPA committee has, by statute, a maximum of nine members. Five of them are designated by the statute. And the other four can be, as whatever the town meeting decides. The five that are, that are required by statute would be the conservation commission, a member, a representative of the conservation commission, the Revealment Board, park commissioners and housing authority, and the historical commission. Obviously, each of these people would have an interest in the CPA and in the, in the topics that, or the matters that CPA is interested in, is able to fund. So, to a large extent, it's probably as obvious to you, the CPA committee's responsibilities overlap the responsibilities of the Capital Planning Committee. Would the CPA, an issue then is, would the CPA committee support the Board of Selectments idea that a bulk of the CPA funds be spent on projects in the Capital Plan? And likewise, would the Capital Planning Committee would accept projects recommended by the CPA committee? I'm confident that if the town votes to accept CPA, then the residents appointed to the CPA committee will act in the best interest of the town and that the town manager and the chair of the Capital Planning Committee will find ways to coordinate the efforts of the two groups. Please join me in voting in favor of the Board of Selectment recommendation. You, yep. I think I don't need your name yet. No, no. Hi, good evening, Linda Hanson, precinct seven. I guess just a few thoughts have been floating around in my head as I've been listening to this conversation. I first heard about it at an email from precinct seven. People were passing around ideas around it, and I have to say I originally felt very much the same as one of the first gentlemen who spoke for the finance committee. I'm a teacher in town. I'm also the president of the Arlington Education Association, and I'm therefore, and I have kids who went through our schools here, very, very focused on the next five to ten years and the importance of the getting everyone behind building a new high school. Minuteman is out there too, so that's a big concern, and I'm just wondering, I have the same questions about how is this all being put together in a cohesive five to ten year plan that makes sense for everybody, so that it's not just put before the voters in a piecemeal fashion. So I am still looking for a coherent plan. I've heard some of the ways that this all comes together tonight, but I would like to, I am planning on supporting this tonight, but in between now and next the time that it actually gets on the ballot, I would like to see more a ten year look forward at what does this mean, how does this play into the total tax burden that we're putting before the voters. I've heard numbers like $85 per average house tonight for a CPA, $150, possibly as a number thrown around for the new high school. My own math, I come up with maybe another $50 for Minuteman, all depending on lots of things, but we really should be looking at the total picture. I think this long term, this five year plan that we've talked a lot about is a really incredibly important document. It's been very helpful in terms of giving us the stability that we have right now financially as a town. I've spent a lot of time over the last couple years trying to understand this document, and I'm not there yet, but I'm still working on it. This, but I do come back to this $12 million that I've heard talked about a lot is kind of something out there looming on the horizon in 2020, and I look at something like line J, the warrant articles that has $805,000 a year for the next five years. I'm not sure about everything that goes into that line item, but I know those are things that we vote on here at town meeting that get added. I guess what I'm saying is it's not an immutable plan. There are decisions that were made about what numbers got put in this plan, and there are decisions that we're all making as we vote up or down on things. There's another $470,000 I see in the budget, not in the budget, in the warrant articles, some of which actually could come under CPA, it looks like, if that were funded. So I think there are a lot of different things to think about tonight, but overall I think it would be great if we could come together and have a coherent plan that includes all of these things that we think are important for our town and figure out the best way to fund it and a way to do it working together. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Ozulski. Angela Ozulski, Precinct 17. First I want to just say I'm also co-president of the League of Women Voters of Arlington, and that we voted to support this article, that we support the four tenants and that the democratic process that would allow this to be on the ballot to be put before the voters. And I'm also on the board of the Arlington Historical Society, and the board also voted to support this article. And I just want to say on my own behalf that I do support this article, and I think it's important that we do put it out to the voters. I consider Arlington to be my adopted hometown. I didn't grow up here. I grew up in Western Mass, and I've lived here now for about 23 years, of which 21 years I've been a property owner, paying property taxes. I don't have any children in the schools, and I obviously didn't go to school here, but I supported every debt exclusion vote, and I actually worked as a volunteer on the campaigns. I voted for the debt exclusion to buy Sims, and I voted for, I don't know, it's either one or two overrides since I've been here. And for me, what makes Arlington a special place is a lot of what's in the CPA. And I want that opportunity because I want to vote for it. And I know about the other things that are coming, and I consider those important too. And so while we may be a policymaking body, I do feel that this whole debate will be had again if we put this on the ballot, and the voters will also hear about all the needs for the town, and that they deserve the right to decide whether they want to vote for this and increase and pay the surcharge. Thank you. Mr. Mahan. Well, we want to hear one more speak and go to 11 o'clock to adjourn. I have a motion to adjourn. All in favor, please say yes. Opposed? No. Okay, Mr. Mahan, you're up. Then we'll go to adjourn. Diane Mahan, person 14. Sorry, it throws me off when you talk when I talk. I apologize. Please don't do that. Member of the Board of Selectmen, I want to tell you my speech has been cut down because I really try not to reiterate points that have already been made to town meeting. Obviously, I'm asking you to support the Community Preservation Act. I'm going to try to add to some of the questions that I hear out there. My first foray into politics, as many of you know, when we're going to go to five elementary schools working to keep seven, and ever since then, I've worked on every override and debt exclusion that we've had, whether it be for a school or for Sims Hospital, I had the pleasure of co-chairing with Charlie Foskett back in 2005, as well as working in my role as a member of the Board of Selectmen and trying to make sure, with that override and the one that came after it, that not only do we keep the promise, but we spread it out. The reason I rise is number one, the previous speaker already spoke to it. This is to put it before the voters. I know when I've gone before the voters for whether it be Sims Hospital, an override for our operating budget, an exclusion and an override for our schools, those are the only two options I have out there that we all have out there. What I would like to do, what I envision is this town meeting voting to put this out as an option to the voters. I imagine, and I haven't been asked, and I'm not saying I'm volunteering, that if this town meeting voted to put this as an option to the voters, there would be a CPA committee that would be formed, that would get the information out, that we've got a little bit here tonight, but also would give us some of the information we have, and as well as educate the citizens out there. I also agree with one of the previous speakers that it might help move forward the discussions that we are going to have, whether it's a $12 million operating budget override or anything like that. One of the things I explained to people when I go into Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks, what this option is right now when we present you an exclusion or an override, it's 100% from the taxpayers. The Community Preservation Act, along with the exemptions that it has, as well as the first $100,000 is taken off your home's assessed value. It's basically, if somebody said to me, you have to pay $100 for these pair of sneakers, but I have a program here that you only have to pay $98 and two will be picked somewhere else, picked up somewhere else. So it's not an out and out exclusion override. We will get some matching funds. I know that that has varied. As far as the capital plan, I know a lot of people have spoken about affordable housing and open space. I'm really focused on the things that are in the capital planning budget and people have said about fields. The senior center, Arlington High School, not just the historic part of it, if you count the three buildings, but the field house and the fields. One of the things I think a lot of people will agree is that when there was a proposal, regardless of how you fell on it, the stop and shop proposal, and we would have gotten this high school that also had enhanced athletic facilities, which I am a big proponent of, that just fell by the wayside. We have an area for a field house out there that, again, one of the big plans that I've always wanted when I ran cross-country and track and you ran around the basement of the high school and you still do that. And if you hit a pencil or a lock or door comes, you can imagine what happens. We could have, a field house inside, not just for high school. We could have it for our seniors, anybody who wants to walk around inside. As far as the capital plan, if we can, I understand the conversation about teachers, police, fire, public works, it doesn't apply to this. However, if we can free up some already designated capital plan projects, CPA can cover that. Perhaps that will give the capital planning committee the ability not to hire teachers or police or fire or public works, perhaps some other capital planning projects that help our first responders, that help people down at DPW, that help EMS services. So what I would say to you is you're definitely going to think long and hard on this. I really hope that town meeting votes to put this before the voters and then whatever committee is formed not only helps answer the few remaining questions that town meeting has that has to do it from soup to nuts to try to sell this to the voters. Thank you very much. Okay. Do we have any motions for reconsider? Notice is reconsideration. Sir, I've written them in on 10. Any other notices reconsideration? Okay. Outback, there are the Minutemen budget. So are you ready? We're going to vote to adjourn. As soon as Steven's ready. All right. All in favor of adjournment, please press one. If you don't want to adjourn, press two. Go. Okay, time's up. Time's up already. 171 to adjourn 15. No, two abstains. We are adjourned.