 On behalf of the League of Women Voters of Arlington and Vision 2020, we welcome you to this event. Introduction to town meeting and congratulate you on your election as a town meeting member. And I want to thank and introduce our town moderator, John Leone, who's going to tell you everything you always wanted to know about town meeting. Thank you. Hello, I'm John Leone, I'm the town moderator. How many are new town meeting members? Is everybody? Okay, we have one who's not, he just likes one. So, have you watched town meeting to understand any of it or are you just starting from the beginning? The moderator, my job is basically I'm the chairman of the town meeting. We follow the warrant. If you didn't save yours from the advocate from a few weeks ago, you'll get one in your package. The select men have mailed out, I think yesterday he went into the mail, a package that has the warrant. It will have a package for the select men and all their recommended votes, Fincon and all their recommended votes, and maybe some other stuff put into there, including my letter, which you should read because it's really important. And how to be a town meeting member. So basically we're going to go over this tonight. So the warrant is what we're going to discuss. So my job will be to present each of the articles in the warrant. We start at one, we go right through to the end, I think it's 54th this year. And we memorize that, go to the end. So we go through in order, I'm going to tell you how many exactly. 56 articles this year. So we'll start at one, go through, each one will address, we'll have a debate on that and then we'll eventually call the vote and move on it and take the motions. Each of those articles, the select men have reported on the bylaws. The redevelopment board will get their report as well. And the zoning bylaws, their report on the Fincon Financial Committee reports on anything having to do with money. All the other ones, some citizens articles. So in those packages you get how the recommended votes are selected. We don't vote what's on the warrant, the warrant strictly what we're going to do with our agenda. So you should actually take a little bit of time and read through all of those reports. It's not heavy reading, it's pretty light. There's a lot of verbiage and everything, but we don't want to just look at what the recommended vote is. That is what we're going to be debating. And if there's no recommended vote, it says vote of no action. That means we're not going to do anything on it unless somebody else, one of the proponents of the article, if it was a citizen article, they have to come up with their own recommended substitute motion. We'll get into that in a minute. So we'll follow through due to select men's and they get up because it's theirs or the Fincon get ups first. They get the first crack at it. They'll try and sell us on their point of view and why we should go with what they're saying. Anybody can amend it during the meeting, but if it's going to be long, you have to do it. You actually should see me if you want to change anything because I want to see it first. The town council has to see it. Not that we're going to stop you, but we're just going to make sure it's properly worded and properly formatted. So eventually, after everybody's spoken or we've heard it and we've beaten the horse to death twice, someone's going to get up and move the question. After they move the question, all you can really say is, motion to terminate debate on the article before us and all matters before that article. If you say anything else, we can't terminate debate because that's in our bylaws. So you have to say just those magic words and if you're straying a little bit, I'll help you or someone else in the crowd will kind of guide you to say just those words. We vote on it, two-thirds vote. We stop debating it and then we vote. I will explain what we're going to vote on. This is a recommended vote in your report and if it's short, I'll read it. If it's long, I'm not going to read it. I assume everybody can read and they should have read it themselves. So then we take the vote. Before any prior to this year was a voice vote first. The yeses and the noes and the moderator would declare the yeses have it and the noes have it. Now, this won't change. If five people in the crowd don't believe me, think I got it wrong, they can stand up and doubt the vote and we would have a standing vote. If 30 people stood up, we would have a roll call, which is literally go through and call everybody's name and they would shout out yes and no. But this year we're going to have clickers. Oh, I'm not supposed to call them clickers. Handsets. We're going to vote electronically. This is the first time for everybody. It's going to be an experiment. When debate's terminated, the OTI option technology, that's the company we hire to run these things for us. They're going to have a guy sitting over there. He's going to tell me the computer's ready. I'll tell everybody vote. There'll be a 20 second countdown clock and you can vote. One, yes, two, no, three abstain. That's it. We'll talk to the computer. The computer will talk back and it'll tell you yes, vote received, no vote received. So you'll know that it got it right. If you think it got it wrong, press the vote again. When you have 20 seconds, you can keep changing it. Until the clock stops, then the computer locks down. If you press the wrong button at the last second, too bad. There's no way to change it. I ask the guys, well, what if I press one and it records a no vote. He just looked at me like I had two heads and was a total idiot. He says it can't. It's foolproof. Well, yeah, technology's not foolproof. But it's pretty close to it because it's computer magic and I don't know how it works. But it's supposed to be pretty good as far as I can see. The computer guys on the committee said it works and it's fine. It's no way to hack it. So that's that. So on the articles, we'll go through them. Recommended votes of the select men. Now, say you have a vote you don't like. They want to have all the stop lights run for 25 minutes before they change. You can make a recommended substitute motion. I'll have them up in the front. If you're going to have any beforehand, email me. I have a card here. It's got my email. It's got my phone number. Get one. I'll send you the substitute beforehand. You have to get that. Fill it out. Get three of them to the front of the room up to me and you have to place one on every chair like tonight. See these pieces of paper? You'll find paper all over your chairs. So you'll want to get that on everybody's chair the night before we're going to talk about the article. How are we supposed to know that? You've got two weeks. You're going to get the paperwork this weekend. You should know by a week from Monday if you want to have the substitute. The first night we're probably going to get through six articles. So figure anything after six you should be ready to go. The first night you bring it in. Why do I have that rule? Because initially, because I'm a slow reader. I don't want to be trying to read someone's complicated substitute article while I'm trying to listen to the debate. And then make a rational informed decision on it. It doesn't work as far as, for me it didn't work. So that's, I instituted that rule when I became moderator and everybody pretty much likes it. Because it does give us time to ponder. It does give you time to think about it, form your own questions and have an informed debate about it. So that's, if you think you want to do it, please just contact me and I'll help you. And I'll run up by Doug Heim to town council. He's new, he's really helpful this year because he is new. But I think even in future years he's going to be helpful because I've had a lot of chats with him. So what happens at town meetings? First night you're going to come in. You'll come through the front doors. Oh, let's even go back. Parking. The earlier you get here, the closer you're going to park to the town hall. People start arriving around 7.40. The lot fills up pretty quick, mostly with the town employees. You can park behind the big old school. People don't really realize that or you're going to park on the streets. But the closer it is to 7.30, the farther away you're going to be. So it's a word of warning. If you can walk, go for it. The night of the meeting you'll come in like every night. You'll come in the front door. There's the two doors, the door on the right and the door on the left. You go in the door on the left. Janus Weber. Sorry, I'm calling Weber. Janus Weber. The assistant clerk is sitting at a little table. She'll ask who you are. She'll check you in. Give you a little badge. A piece of paper that says town meeting member. One of the town meeting members, Josh's little bell, will have made everybody a button. So it'll be all these buttons. You can pick one up. John Leone, precinct date, town meeting member. Get your button. You can wear it if you want. You don't need it. No one's going to ask you to see it, but it's this kind of... He wants us to walk around town with them so everybody knows who our town meeting member. So you check in with Janus. This year you're going to... because of the clickers, you just move right to the right. And there's going to be another table there stacked by electronic voting, study committee volunteers, and maybe some high school kids if they ever get back to me. You'll tell them your name. They'll look you up. Now where'd my list go? Oh. They're going to look you up on a list. You can come look afterwards. Everybody by precinct has already been assigned a clicker number. This one is one. This one is actually Nancy Butts clicker. But this is not because this is the one they just sent me. So we'll all have our clicker number with the number. And then you'll turn around. And between those two doors, two 8-foot tables, it's full of paperwork. Look through, see what you don't have. People put substitute motions there. There'll be the annual report there. Extra copies of the selectments report. Fincom reports. Everybody's reports will be back there. And this other stuff that's of interest. So pick it up. You'll get a package. There's also a folder, which I believe the town clerk puts together. That has a copy of the warrant in case you lost yours. Some other paper. It also has a parliamentary guide, which goes through what are the different motions that we make? And what can you actually make a motion on? This will explain what they all are. Motion to dissolve, adjourn, point of no quorum. They're basically parliamentary procedural motions. The only ones we mostly use are lay something on the table, postpone to a date certain, or to reconsider or move the question. Those are the main ones that Arlington uses. There's all these other ones, but we don't really use them too much. So you'll get one of those. Look it over. Any questions again? Ask me. Where do these motions come from? Town meeting time. This is our book. This is our rules of order. This is what we use. We don't use Robert's rules of order. We use town meeting time. It's put together by the Mass Moderator Association. Most, I think about two-thirds or more of the towns in Massachusetts use this as their parliamentary guide. In the letter I'm sending you, it tells you how you can order one. They're 25 bucks. You can either bring it a check, give it to me. I'll mail it off to you. You can go online for the Mass Moderator Association. You can take a look. Pass it around. And order it through their website. They'll mail it right out to you. They like me. I'm the biggest bookshel. I sell more books than anybody, but it's good because it really gives you an understanding of what town meeting is, how it evolved, how it started, and how we ended up here with the rules. Under the old moderator, John Warden, he would let people get up and make points of order about anything. It would delay our meeting probably by two or three hours overall over the seven or eight nights easily. I read what a real point of order was, and if it wasn't exactly what it said in town meeting time, it won't allow it. Now no one really makes them anymore. A point of order was before, oh, he said something bad about my street. Point of order, I want to get up and talk about it. He'd let it. I don't. Point of order is, it's hot in here. These people are noisy. I can't hear. Can we open some windows or something like that? Something that disrupts the order of the hall. So I went with what the book says and cut out a couple hours of delay in the meeting. Not that I'm all about rushing the meeting, but we can get through the town meeting in less than 10 sessions, I'm all for it. Last year we did it in six this year. I'm shooting for five because it's 50 articles. We may do it because we had 52 articles last year. It was five. We had a special for one night, so we only took six nights. That's my personal goal. Let's see what happens. That's going to guide us. The other thing that we talk about is scope. The scope of the article. The article will say, we're going to talk about, well, I'm going to pick this one here. Article eight, Outdoor Lighting Dark Skies Bylaw. So someone wants to change the way our street lights and people's lights on their buildings can't shine up anymore. And they'll have a substitute motion about that. We'll all get it the first night, hopefully. That's what we're going to talk about. Someone else can get up and say, well, I think that all the parks should have lights on all the time and they should be on timers. That's not really within the scope. So I'm going to let them dabble for a minute or two. Then I'm going to cut them off. Or one of the other meeting members will start yelling things like, John, scope, scope. And I'll say, oh, yeah. Because I don't always catch things I kind of forget sometimes. I'll call them out on it and tell them to get back into the scope of the article and narrow it down. Or sometimes it's just so off. They'll get off and start talking about some truck has bright LED lights and it really bothers them. Hello, can't do it. So I'll just cut them off right there. I'll just sort of rigorously enforced because we want to stay on the topic, move forward and not get off base and off topic. So that's one of the things we deal with. So you got all your papers. I'm jumping around a lot so just ignore me. You get all your papers, where do you sit? Wherever you want. We don't have assigned seating. Sometimes you will sit in an assigned seat. You'll sit with your precinct members. You'll sit in certain places, not here. You will find your friends. You'll sit with your friends. If you don't have any particular friends, you'll develop a buddy who you like to sit next to and talk to during the meeting. That's fine as long as you don't interrupt everyone else. Or you'll find other like-minded people around you like Google. Although it's going to be harder this year with the Clickers. But you'll see, well, I usually kind of agree with what all those people are saying. Maybe I'll sit over there tonight. Some people have sat in the same seats for the whole 20 years I've been a town meeting member. Other people, they move every night. Now the benefit would be in the moderator I can see where they all go. But most people sit in the same area. I don't know if it's by habit. I mean, Steve, you sit in the same chair almost every night. Habit? Or you'd like it? Can we flip right here a bunch of those three out? No, it's not going to happen. So everybody will sit where they want. And that's fine. Someone gets there before you and sits in your chairs. Too bad. It's not your chair. You have to sit next to them and grumble at them or something. I don't know. So you can sit where you want. Usually we take a break at 9.30 for 5, 10 minutes. And somebody's selling cookies in the hallway. So you run out and get your cookies. And then we come back and we go from 8 o'clock to 11. Most nights we adjourn. Someone makes some motion to adjourn right about 11 o'clock. Either when a speaker's finished or if we finish discussing an article, if it's five of and we finish an article, someone moved to adjourn. Only once last year I think we went a little beyond 11 because we were just finishing the article and we wanted to finish it and vote on it and get out that night. That usually at 11 o'clock we're out of there. Because we all got a little work the next day and it's late. That's sort of how the procedural run of the meeting is. We start with the warrant. We go through. We read what the selectments say, what the FINCOM says. And then we talk about it. We vote on them. And we deal with the procedural motions. Does anyone have any questions at this point? I know I kind of jumped around and went through a lot of stuff. Yep. Where was the title? Hmm? Where was the other title? Oh. A Losers. Has to win by majority vote. So if we have a vote and it comes out to be an exact high, 50 to 50, it loses. The votes are by majority rule. So it has to be at least 50% of everybody voting. Except for, oh, I did bring that sheet. Anything having to do with bonding. Well, I'm going to float a bond. It has to be two thirds. Zoning by-law changes, two thirds. For the town to buy property. Take property by Eminem, Delmay. Take lease easements on people's property. It has to be by two thirds. For changing last year's budget. If we want to go back and change the budget from last year, it needs a four-fifths vote of how many to change the previous budget. Or if it's during a special, it needs a nine-tenths vote. Which is very hard to get. So usually, I think we've only had to change one. In the last couple of years, we had one instance where we had to go back and change a budget from the previous year. And yeah, that was when a vendor got his bill to a slave. The bill came in after the year closed. And in order to pay that bill, we had to go back, amend the budget, and pay it. It was like six or seven thousand bucks. I mean, our budget ends up being that we vote on, excuse me. This is about a hundred and eight, a hundred and nine million dollars. And by the time they finish with all the grants and the money from the state, things that we don't necessarily vote on. We are at the purse strings of the town. We decide what gets voted on. It ends up being a hundred thirty-five million dollars. This is what Arlington spends a year. So six thousand dollars, seven thousand bucks. Come on, pay the guy. We had to debate it. We had to go down and have a vote. And we had a count to make sure it was four-fifths. Unless it was unanimous. Yeah. So I believe this year, in a special time meeting, there is a vote to amend Black's year budget. Well, it depends what it was for. If it's for contract negotiations to fund police and things of that nature for previous year contract, I believe that's just by majority. I'll look that up and have a straight answer on that one. That's... Yeah. That's your appropriation for FY 2014 collective bargaining. So we're still in 2014. So whether we need a four-fifths for that or a nine-tenths, I'll figure that one out. I think that could just be a two-third vote. But that's a good call. So he's read his warrant. So we review all the budgets of all the town departments. And that's what the FINCOM does. We'll present you with a detail of, say, the fire department. So many officers. So many lieutenants, captains, corpals to do right through. Not who the people are, but what they get paid for all the town departments. And the way we handle the budget is, because it's such a big chunk of our meeting and what we're really doing, I'll go through and call out each separate budget, a library budget. And if anyone wants to talk about the library budget, they yell, hold. So we go through all the budgets, the treasurers, the select men, the police, the school department. School department, all we do is give them money. We can't tell them how to spend their money because that's a separate elected entity and we as town meeting can't tell them what to do. We can only give them the money. Public works, cemeteries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We go through each. And anyone, someone wants to talk about the yell, hold. Then we go back afterwards. And we only talk about those specific budgets. The other ones are accepted as going to, without debate, they're just going to go right through. We do that because it kind of makes people, again, think about what they want to do, what they want to talk about. Public works is always talked about because, one, how many tons of salt did we use? How much sand did we use? Last year it was trees. We had that microburst down in East Ireland and wiped out all those trees. A lot of debate about trees. We lost over 150 trees, I think. There were plenty of plants, 70. People wanted to give them more money for more trees. So the tree warden came in and told us this is the most he can plant in a year. So we really got down to the nitty-gritty of some of these budgets. In the end, we can change the budgets of any department, but at the end of the day, we still have to have a balanced budget. As a town, we can't deficit spend. So if you think you want to change your budget and add $20,000 more to public works, Al Tosti, the chairman of the finance committee, is going to get up and say, where are you going to get the money? Two schools have thought on that. One is, it's not my problem now, you figure it out. He's going to say, we balanced the budget. You've got to tell us where to get the money. Well, I don't know if you as a town meeting member really have to do that or do they have to go back and do it. Or the other school of thought is, well, they have been working on it since January. And if you had an idea of the budget, you should have been visiting the Fincon for the last four months and raised your issues with them. It's a public meeting. They meet twice a week, every week for eight or 10 weeks. You should have been working with them. They'll entertain anybody who shows up and they'll hear you. They'll hear you out. And so it's really a toss-up, which is that they're all volunteer committees. As you'll find out, most of the towns are run, a lot of the towns are run by volunteers. Finance committees, all volunteers. Zoning Board of Appeals, all volunteers. Redevelopment Board, all volunteers, except for the staff that works in the planning department. So a lot of it is just volunteers doing stuff. You're all volunteering for town meeting. We're going to decide what laws get changed, what bylaws get changed, what zoning bylaws get changed, how we spend our money. We're all there volunteering our time. So courteousness is a big, big factor here. I encourage everyone to listen to the debate, be civil. You can get up and disagree with someone, but you can't get up and call me a jerk. And say, hey, he's a jerk thinking that. That's, I'll say something to you. Because if the meeting starts evolving, evolving down into name calling, it's going to go nowhere quick. It's just going to deteriorate. We won't get anything accomplished. So that's another one of my pet pieces moderator. I just don't want to rule over name calling session. And I'll call you out on it. I'll just say something right away and do it. Yep. You have a question? Yeah. What if we feel like we want more information about something like what went into a budget line? Then why something costs what it's budgeted? When we come to an article, I'll call an article. Example, the budgets. I don't know. I'm in the mid-30s this year. Article 34, budgets. FINCOM gets to go first because they're the ones who do it. So they get up and they say, here's our budgets. We worked really hard. Don't you dare change anything. You raise your hand as soon as I call 34. I'll see you. It's definitely Luke Reilly, the town clerk. He sits right next to me. The two of us will see everybody who raises their hands. We know most people's names. So we'll write them down. I write down a list. I don't recognize you because you're new. So I'm going to, in my mind, I'll write down. And again, the third row, write green shirt. And after a couple of people, it's going to get to the third row. I'll say, sir, I'll call you. You get five, seven minutes. Everybody in their first time to the microphone gets seven minutes, second time to five minutes. So you can get up, walk to the front, introduce yourself. What's your name? David Watts. David Watts precinct five. David Watts precinct five. You've got to identify yourself. So the court reporter, who also sits with us, who takes a transcript of everything we say, of her posterity, knows who you are. Then you can just ask, how did the Fincom come up with $38,602 for a new cruiser? And I'll say, good question, Mr. Watts. Mr. Tosti? Or because it's a capital item, I'll ask Charlie Foskett because he's the capital budget guy. So how did you come up with that number? And they'll give you the information. How come there are 14 captains on the police force and only six patrol officers? A lot of brass. Where's all the workers? You can ask it. Chief Ryan, how come? So you ask a question. I pick out who's going to best answer it for you. So all the questions are directed to the moderator, the moderator, then directs it to the proper person. So I'm really like the crowd control between people asking the questions and who gets the answer. Some of the questions I'll have an answer to. It's just easier and quicker if I just give you the answer. Other times I may ask someone who you think is not the right person, but I know they really have the answer. But if you have a question that you don't think they're going to have an answer to, I encourage you to call the department head beforehand. Call the town manager's office. David Watts, preaching five, just elected. I'm going to ask this question. Who can I ask it to now so that they can prepare? Because I don't like gotcha questions. It's just, you know, it's just not fair to set someone up and make them look like a doofus. They don't know their work. They're all very smart folks who work for us and they're all very dedicated and diligent. And if we ask them a question, they'll get the information. And it could be a question all of us have and don't realize it until you ask it. And if we're going to vote on it tonight and Chief Ryan doesn't have the answer tonight and he said, ah, I have it on Monday of next week for you, what goods are going to do us? We're going to have to postpone that article and come back to it later and then start at the beginning again. So if you really do have a question, call who you think the right department head is and just ask for them. They'll get on the phone with you. There's not that many employees really anymore since two and a half. So they'll get right on the phone with you or leave a message, email them. All their emails are listed on the town website. Every department head named phone number, email. And ask them before again. I really encourage that. Or even if it's the same night, go up before the meeting. So you guys are all going to sit in the chairs, up front, there's three podiums. The Selecman are going to sit as you're looking at them to the left behind the podiums. To the right is the head, the chairman, Steven Byrne this year. Next to him is Marie Cappelka, who is the head runs the Selecman's office. So Marie's like the mayor of the town. You want something done? You want to find out information, ask Marie. She'll get you the answer. Next to her is town council. And then other department heads. And then way over to the right is the redevelopment board and Carol Kowalski, the planning department. To the left behind usually Bobby Jefferson, the fire chief, Freddie Ryan, police chief. Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank on her name. The head of the Christine Conley, yeah, head of public health sits there. And then on the side tables you have Dave Good, who's our IT guy. He's going to run the computer with the clicker guy. And Ed Malenga, the worker's comp lawyer. And there are a couple other department chiefs. They're all up there. You got a question? Go up and ask them. They can maybe even make a phone call for the meeting and get your answer. So it's important to get your questions out beforehand so we can get answers. Anyone else have a question at this point? So when are we going to use our clickers? We're going to use them on initially, just to kind of test them out. We're not going to use them on every question. If it's a no action vote, which I've already told you is no action, it's a select who don't have a recommended vote and nobody else has a recommended vote, we're just going to take a voice vote because it's too quick. It's a recommended vote and no action. All in favor, yes. All opposed, no. Boom, move on. To use the clickers it would take 20 seconds and we have to look at the screen and see what the numbers are. We'll just take our voice votes. On the little procedural questions, like are we going to get 500 bucks for the parade and the flags up and down the avenue on Veterans Day? We'll just do that by voice because you always vote them. There's a lot of things, year to year, they're the housekeeping articles that we have to vote every single year. All those housekeeping ones we'll just do with the voice vote for speed. Anything having to do with changing the bylaws, I think we're going to try with the clicker this year. Any zoning articles, we're definitely going to do the clickers because remember it's two thirds and it will instantly give us the tally and whether a pass or fail. So that's going to show up on the big screen. Behind the model of me and Stephanie is a big screen with a rear projection that will show what the article is and it's going to show us on that screen the tally and the pass fail. If the vote is within six votes between the pass and the fail, so it's 51 to 49. Usually when it's that close a vote on a voice vote, people doubted the moderator, five people would stand up. We're going to show the names. How did everybody vote? So all we have to do to that is advance the PowerPoint presentation and it's going to have three precincts at a time. Everybody listed in those precincts, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. We'll just scroll through the seven screens. I think they said it'll take two and a half minutes. I got 30 seconds of screen, no, can't be 30 seconds, 10 seconds of screen or 20 seconds of screen, whatever it's going to be. Enough time to look and see if your vote's up there and make sure that you are recorded and how everybody else voted. There won't be a second vote. We're going to press the clicker once and that's going to be our standing vote. If 30 members then arise, to make a roll call vote, all that's going to do now instead of doing an actual roll call and a second vote is it's going to memorialize that screen. It'll be marked in the clerk's records as a roll call vote and the clerk will probably just print it out and put it in her official records that she has to maintain. So we're not going to have two votes. We're not going to have three votes. On one of the articles last year during the special was it, we did have a roll call. Three votes. First it was the vote's voice vote. They doubted it. We did a standing vote. They doubted that. 30 people stood up. We had a roll call. And then the clerk and I had to like count and the whole process between the initial voice vote and the end of the roll call took about 45 minutes. Now it's going to take us two and a half, three minutes to have the effect of the roll call. So it's going to change how we vote. It's going to change the time limits and it's going to change the culture of the meeting. So you guys are all new, but for the older town meeting members it's going to be a difference for them because we're not going to be yelling out yes, no anymore. We're not going to be standing up and having people walk up and down the aisles counting and going, I think I gotcha. It's going to be just tally. Boom. We're going to be done. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We'll all In the classroom. Record of who voted how would that be the next little cast of the meeting? Yep. We haven't quite figured out how quickly they're going to get it. We'll get the stick that night with the data. They'll be pushed out as a PowerPoint. The voting software display sits on a PowerPoint presentation somehow. We'll get that data that night. It'll go to Dave Good. Between him and Joan Roben, who runs our web, it will be posted figuring by the end of the next business day all the articles and how everybody voted on each of those articles. It's going to be a PDF format so no one can go online and change it, but if you wanted to get the background data so you can do graphs or spreadsheets or do whatever you want to do with it, you'll make a request to Joan and she'll get you that data within, I think she said three or four days because it's really not a top priority for her, but she'll get you the data, all the background data. So it will be available on the website. I want them to put a link. If you go to the town's website right now on the side, it says Government. You click that, it says Town Meeting, and it brings you to Town Meeting webpage. I'm trying to get them to just put a link right on the webpage to the voting data. So instead of trying to give everybody a URL that long, they'll just be able to click right through to it. So we'll work that out in the next week or two. We're going to have the first night. Well, you're all going to get that sheet. I don't know if you're sorry, but it says Guide to Electronic Voting. Yeah, let me just hold yours up. So on this, it's got all the questions and answers. The committee, we spent a good amount of time working this out, getting all the questions and answers worked out so that this will give you most of the answers, but the system itself is extremely simple to use. Like I said, I'll call voting open. I press the button 20 seconds. All we, as the users have to do is press yes or no. It's going to be more, I think, the question of when we use it and what manner our name is going to be displayed. And frankly, as I even say on that sheet, we're all new to this. It's going to be a trial and error. Do we want to use it all the time? Do we want to use it once in a while? And the town of Brookline, with data cited, they were going to do was everyone's sitting down. He called all the yes voters rise and pressed their clicker. Okay, all the no voters rise and pressed no. And after two votes, the moderator kind of looked around and said, it's kind of dumb. Do you want to keep doing that? No, we don't want to stand up anymore. So, you know, it's a learning process. We're all going to be kind of learning, but the use of the system, if you can run your phone, you can run your TV, you can run this thing. My whole goal, one of our older town meeting members, Elsie Fiori spent 34 years, I think, during the whole process, my thing I kept saying is, can Elsie use this? Is Elsie going to be able to figure this out? And if it always came back, yes, then I was fine with that. Because the last thing I wanted is some longtime town meeting member to get all mad that we're using this new fangled device and they can't do it. So it's got to be simple and it's simple. So we're going to know what the vote is. Yes. Are we going to know how particular people voted on ours? If it's within six, we're going to show how everybody voted. If five members rise, just like for a counted vote, if we do a voice vote, five members rise, we do a counted vote. If we do an electronic vote and five members rise, we'll pull the screen back and we'll see how everybody voted. But again, that data will be online the next day, even if we don't do it that night. I would, excuse me, I would prefer not to do it on every vote strictly because it'll add three minutes to each article. And 150 articles throughout three minutes, that's another four and a half hours of time. So as a committee, and my preference was just tallies unless we really want to know. And then you want to really see five people stand up. Hey, stand up, stand up, stand up. You can always have five people arise. It's not an issue. Some people on the other side of the room, I'm going to stand up too. It's jumping jacks. Some people want to rise up on every article. So it's not a big deal to see the screen. Or if it's a really close vote. And I kind of say, well, you know what, I think everyone wants to show it. Well, I think it's interesting that people tell you just to vote in your article, but then you really don't know if they didn't. We'll know the next. It may not be that night. Or it may be that night, but you don't get the information until the next day. Well, we hope that you vote in the best interest of the town. And you're conscious not on whether or not your buddy voted for something or not. But your point is taken. It'd be nice to see how everybody voted, but say for the majority of the votes, you'd have to wait until the next day until it gets up. But they're, you know, let's face it, 90% of the warrant is procedural stuff that goes year to year to year to year. It's the citizen articles. There's about 10 of them this year. Where a citizen can bring a warrant article by filing a request and get 10 signatures. You can get your warrant, you can get a warrant article on it for especially need 100 signatures. So it's really not hard to get something on the warrant, but you have to do it in December and January. To get it onto the warrant. Now we're going to talk about it. Good, bad, or ugly, we'll talk about it. And sometimes it might be the first thing you rise is to move the question. A lot of people are overwhelmed their first year, first two years. They'll never say a word. Other people jump right in. They want to be heard. They want to get their questions out the first year. And on any night, if you have any questions, I usually get there about 7.30. So if you get there a few minutes early, just come up and ask me the question, even if it's totally silly, where do I put my recycling? Big green bin. I'll take the time to talk to you. I'll take the time to point out how you can do something. Or if you have a, if you've brought a substitute motion and it's on everybody's chair and it's been there, please see me the night we're going to talk about it because I want to recognize you first. Because there's no use, you doing a substitute motion and then never getting a chance to address the crowd and introduce it. Just because you put it in the chairs doesn't mean it's before. So you've got to get up. Got your first names. What? David Watts. David Watts substitute motion. It's no good if you don't get up first or second and introduce that. Make a substitute. Someone will second it. Everything has to be seconded. Someone will second it. Then we can talk about it. But if you never get up, you just wasted 300 pieces of paper. So see me beforehand. I'll put you on the top of the list and I'll get you right in first because I want the debate to be when everything is in front of us. I don't want anything coming up at the end. It's kind of silly. Incineration process. You have these folks where it's something loses by five votes. Right. Everyone's folks are shown the next day. You may have an opportunity to go out and do a little bit of a... Our bylaws provide for reconsideration. State law provides for reconsideration. Our bylaws provide specifically that if you want to reconsider an article, you have to give notice of it the night we voted on it. So Monday night we're going to vote on articles one through eight. Guessing. You don't like the way article seven ended. The results in article seven. You get up and say... I know your name, but I can't remember. Steve? Yeah, I know you from somewhere. No, I do. Steve McElka, Precinct Seven, whatever. Motion to reconsider article seven. And I'm going to ask, did you vote on the prevailing side? So you have to technically vote on the side that wins to file for reconsideration. Now I ask that. I don't know if you're lying to me unless we use the clicker. And then I can go back and check before I could never. So in the moderator association there's always a little saying it's a lion-hearted moderator who really presses because you're going to get into a bait and the clicker's... We can know. So now you've made a motion to reconsider. I make a note of that. Marika Pelka makes a note of that. And you can bring that reconsideration up anytime before the meeting dissolves. So as long as we're there, three nights later you can say I move for reconsideration of article seven. And I'll say, oh, oh yeah. Steve, you did. Okay, you can bring that. What new information do you have that's going to sway us? And you can't just get up and say, well the new information, I got all my buddies in the hall. That's not new information. You've got to be able to present to us something that's going to change our mind. Some set of facts. We didn't understand that you can really buy a release cruiser for 25,000 bucks if you go to this dealer as opposed to 36,000 if you buy it through the state program. Okay, that sounds like a good thing to me. That's new information. We usually ask for that new information because we still want to keep debating the same thing over and over and over. Once it's done, it's done. So you make your motion for reconsideration. You answer yes when I asked if you voted on the prevailing side. Then it's up to you to bring it up again. When you bring it up, whether or not we're going to vote to reconsider is debatable. We have a whole debate whether or not we want to reconsider. Then the motion to reconsider has to pass by a two-thirds vote. Then we debate the article. So it could be a long process. Usually the debate on the motion to reconsider would be, well, what's new information? Well, I got this new information. Oh, okay. Someone's going to get up and say, no, that's not new. That's not what it wants. So you'll notice that Al Tosti moves reconsideration on every single finance article after the night's done. The reason he's doing that is if the state's you all know what the cherry sheet is, right? The cherry sheet's the state, how much money we're going to get from the state. If the cherry sheet comes out late and we get more money, he wants to rejigger the numbers. So he moves reconsideration on every single finance article. That's what he's doing it for. If he moved reconsideration and you didn't and you got new information, you could maybe try and convince him to move to open his motion for reconsideration. But if you want to do it yourself and it's usually right before we move to adjourn, I'll ask that question and you got to really stand up and yell because at that point people are shuffling about making noise and heading out the door. So really get my attention, get my ear. And I listen for that. Any other questions? Yep. So I notice that each precinct collects leadership. A clerk and a chair. So I wanted to ask what that's about and I also notice some of the precincts are having public meetings beforehand and why are some doing it and others involved in doing that? We'll start with the first part first. Each precinct has to get organized. The clerk will think she sends everybody a separate notice saying your precinct is going to get organized on the 28th, the 30th. You're going to meet in the front hall left or out in the side corridor. You'll elect a clerk and a chairman. The reason you do that is if you have a vacancy, precincts 1, precinct 6 and I believe 21 have vacancies this year. You as the town meeting members in those three precincts elect a town meeting member to fill that vacancy. So the chair would open the meeting. We've got any nominations. Oh yeah, my neighbor wants to be. What's his name? Joe Smith. Okay. Anybody else? Nope. All in favor of Joe Smith? Joe's elected. The clerk writes it down. Gives it to Stephanie Luccarelli. That's their the function of those. But it also has a, I believe in the old days a more practical function that had to be distributed before we used the mails or maybe we can use internet someday. We can step into the 21st century. But those meetings, the precinct meetings, they're organized by the town meeting members. That's not something that this building does or I do. The town meeting members in your precinct will get on the phone, call each other. Let's have a meeting. We're going to do what at the old age center. We're going to do with the Dowling School, the Bishop School Sunday afternoon and they get the word out. At those meetings you'll do a little bit of looking at the warrant to have come up with any questions, but also the citizens of your precinct will come. You don't get a huge turnout, but you'll get some people from your precinct to come and they'll ask questions. What's this all about? What's that all about? You should vote this way. This is why I think you should do this. That's your chance to meet with the citizens. As a town meeting member I've received I've been a town meeting member since 94. I've received three phone calls. Each one of those times I got a phone call I voted the way that person asked me to because heck, I got a call. Someone cares. I'm going to vote the way that person does. Why not? They wanted to do it so I'll vote that way. So that's what those meetings have formed. What the chair is. So there's no real heavy lifting. So if they want to make you the chair okay. Usually it's the person that doesn't show up. So that's them. Anything else about the procedure? I have a question. I'll take those back. Yep, go ahead. When the first time you stand up for seven minutes is that within each article or the whole night? So our bylaws provide I think it's article one section one. First time you address the meeting on any article you have seven minutes. The second time you have five minutes. It used to be 15 minutes. Then it got changed down to 10. I think three years ago the time meeting procedure committee we changed it down to seven. Ten minutes is a long time. Seven minutes is a long time. If you get up and talk for seven minutes you're going to put the crowd to sleep and they're going to vote against you. Because you took seven minutes of time. If you don't can't say it in three or four minutes, refine your speech. Some people get up and they ad-lib for the seven minutes and they're just like okay well you know please wrap it up. So you should be able to get down in three, four, five minutes. If not you should have refined your speech before you got up there. The second trip to the mic the courteous thing to do, it says it's sort of in the bylaws but it doesn't really, it's not a mandate. They don't have to be called until everyone else has had a chance to speak once. So some people get up give us their seven minutes of wisdom and instantly sit down and raise their hand again. Think that they're going to get called for another five minutes. It's not going to happen. Because if there's 30 other people that want to talk I'm not going to call Mr. Jones for another five minutes and have 12 minutes of his wisdom to the exclusion of everybody else. The moderator's job is to control not stifle the debate. So I take that list but I don't necessarily follow it. Just because you were quick on the draw and got your hand up first doesn't mean you're getting a call right away. You can tell you'll be able to tell after two or three meetings what some people on propensity and leaning is on most things. He's going to get up and say this is terrible. She's going to get up and this is the best thing slice bread. I'm not going to call six terribles in a row and then sneaky and one good person. I want both sides of the debate. People get mad at me because they don't get called right away. It's like too bad. That's my choice. That's the one power the moderator has. So the only way I use it is to keep both sides of the debate going. That's sort of what the purpose of basing the hand is. Some people have advocated we should have a yes no microphone. I don't think we should because if there's 18 people in the yes mic and one no person is going to feel pretty intimidated and not want to get up there and speak against 18 or 20 other people. So you may never hear them. That's why I don't like the yes no mics. It also doesn't allow anybody to terminate the debate. If there's 18 yes people and one no person, you can get up there and terminate the debate. So it could be used as a tactic. So we don't use that. The only time we use it when we have resolutions which mixed feelings this year I don't like resolutions because some of them are we shouldn't be nuclear free. We shouldn't have national issues. One of them this year it's gone by the wayside. We shouldn't be in the wars. There was our debate articles about that. We shouldn't spank our kids. There was something about that years ago. Those aren't town issues. I don't want to debate it because there's nothing we can do about it. So resolutions have kind of fallen out of favor for that reason people finally got it. But there's one resolution on this year and I put it on. It's about the clickers. It's the next or the last article. Do we like them? Do we want to continue to use them? Do we like how they change the meeting? And this will be your time to get up and tell us. And then we're going to vote on it. Maybe with the clicker. But maybe not. I'm not sure. I haven't decided that one yet. Because that's our only chance to really debate whether or not we like the way the meetings change. We like the way the clickers work. We like what they're doing. That'll be our one chance to do it. And if we vote yes, the next article will give us the money to buy it. So that's the one resolution this year. Generally I don't like them. Why should someone tell me I can't ride my bike on the left side of the street or something like this? Silly stuff, these resolutions. One more point. If anything is put in your chair that's not signed toss it. Because if someone doesn't have the gumption to put their name on it they're not going to stand up and talk about it don't even bother reading it. If it's on the chairs it should be signed otherwise I'll tell you to disregard it. That said neither of my things are signed. But they're going to get mailed to you. But if you're going to put it on the chairs sign it, put your name in precinct so people will know who it's from. Otherwise it could just be propaganda. And why not to do something. Thank you. Alrighty. Thanks, yeah no problem. I hope you all got something and I'll see you in two weeks.