 Welcome, I'm calling the order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Monday, March 6th, 2023. I am sector chair Leonard Diggins and I will now confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond to the affirmative. Diane Mahon? Affirmative. John Hurd? Yes. Steve DeCorsi? Yes. Eric Helmuth? Yes. Staff, when I call your name, please respond to the affirmative. Sandy Poehler? Yes. Doug Hine? Yes. Ashley Maher? Yes. I am a private format consistent with Chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022, signed to the law on July 17, 2022, which further extends certain COVID-19 measures regarding remote participation until March 31st, 2023. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom, it is being recorded and it is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating via Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Novelist Agenda platform. And finally, each note tonight will be taken by roll call. So next on the agenda is the land acknowledgement. I would like to read the land acknowledgement that the board supported in the spring of 2021 and that was adopted at the 2021 annual Tom meeting. We acknowledge that the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe, the tribe and indigenous peoples from whom the colony, province and Commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories today. So next item on agenda is an update on the town manager search process. I'll turn to Mr. Hyde. Thank you Mr. Diggins. I'll keep it brief. I have transmitted a formal letter to the division of the government outlining the process, the select board engaged in to retain Mr. Lynch, appointed preliminary screening committee, and the process of preliminary screening committee engaged in to develop a list of four, well three finalists and one alternate. But the predicament the board finds itself in, in so far as of those, of the four finalists to proceed to the next stage of interview, public interviews before the board, three have withdrawn from consideration. There's not much to do at this point, but wait to see if they provide comment. I want to note for the public and everyone else's understanding that they're not required to provide comment. The way I've caged it is we'd appreciate any comment, instruction or concern that they have. And if they don't, the board is planning to proceed, you know, as soon as possible. So I put out a date within that letter to try to provide some sort of structure to it. In researching it, I will say that I feel good that the screening committee has performed its job exactly as it's supposed to under the open meeting law. The fact that there's only one candidate at this point in time for consideration is a function of those who chose to withdraw rather than the screening committee or anything else. While I feel good about it, I do want to give the Division of Open Government the opportunity to comment just because this is such an important thing and we want to give the public, you know, an understanding of how much this body respects the open meeting law and how much we all do. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them, but the update is I submitted the letter to the Division of Open Government, I'll await their response and comment if they haven't. Thank you, Ms. Ein. Turn with colleagues. Yes, Ms. Ein. Just so you know, I wanted to make sure we're respectful of their time. It's not necessary respectful to say give me an answer tomorrow, Division of Open Government, when you don't have to do anything. So I did plan it out for the Board's March 20th meeting. I understand we'd all like to move faster than that, but I just didn't want to submit a letter and say please get to us within a week. So I built it out with that time period in mind. If they respond sooner than that, I'll obviously let the chair know so we can organize any interviews that we want to conduct as soon as possible. Great. That just answered the only question I had. So all right, so it's a March 20 timeline that works, you know, I think very nicely. So okay, all right, well, we will move on to the consent agenda of the meeting for February 6, 2023, and 2023 Farmers Market A, the Farmers Market Approval, and B, the Farmers Market Arlington Eats merger with Andy Duane, Director of Arlington Eats, and Patty Kramer, Manager Arlington Farmers Market. So normally we don't have anyone for the consent agenda. Is that the case? Okay, great. All right. I mean, so. Move approval. Second. Okay. So comments, questions? All right. So on a motion to approve the consent agenda by Ms. Mahan and a second by Mr. Heard. Mr. Hein. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on. Appointments and zoning Board of Appeals, Adam LeBlanc, terms again on March 31st, 2026. Adam here. Oh, there you are. Yeah. So I want to come up to the microphone if you would. You say, do you watch or we might say no. You know. No, it's okay. Good to see you again. Yes. Good to meet you. So I just want to tell us a few words about me, why you want to be on the zoning Board. Yeah. So I am a registered architect in the state of Massachusetts. So I've been working a lot in public affordable housing throughout my career so far. I've also recently moved to Arlington in the last couple of years. And I've wanted to use my skills to get back to the town. So when I saw the Board of Appeals position open up, I decided that it would be good to toss my hat in the ring and see what happens. Thank you. So Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to move approval. It was my pleasure along with the chair to interview our applicants for this. And I was pleased at your very thoughtful answers and your awareness of the role of the ZBA and the importance of juggling both the opportunities and the constraints of the community. So I look forward to your service and appreciate you stepping up. Second. Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed interviewing you too. And your CV being with all your work with affordable housing is certainly a big plus for me. So yeah, I am very enthusiastic about seeing you join the ZBA and I think, well, we'll see how long before you're voting member, but anyways, as you, if you don't know already the role that you are going to play is really important and the more familiar you are with things and the more you can contribute not only as associate member, but as a full member. So on a motion to approve by Mr. Helmuth and second by Ms. Mahan, Mr. Heim. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Ms. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Ms. Fogh. Thank you, Adam. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Blavock. So number seven, Transportation Advisory Committee appointment. So we have James Stubbe. Hi. Hi. So, so you're moving up. I go from volunteer to being part of the actual voting team. Yeah. That's been a volunteer for years. So I bump up and pay too, right? So anyways, want to tell us a little bit about why? So I've been in Arlington now for eight and a half years after a number of years raising the family in Newton. I love it here. And I walk everywhere in Arlington. So it was a natural for me to look at the traffic committee and understand the issues with crosswalks and everything else that are in town because I go through them all the time. I put thousands of miles on since I've been here. I spent 31 years working at Raytheon and retired about four years ago now. So I have a lot of extra time to walk around. And just, I like working with TAC and doing everything we've done so far. I worked on the Victoria Summer Street crosswalk, which I don't know whether that came to all of you or not. That was piece of work that I did recently. And, you know, being involved in that makes me feel like I matter to the community. That's kind of very important to me. It's part of being part of our community. Thank you. Ms. Blavock. I'd like to first move approval and say you definitely have a leg up footing in. All those phrases are being an associate member. And you're also cognizant, aware of the fact that we send a lot of issues, areas to TAC that always gives their expertise and really exemplar opinions in terms of, you know, what we can do. And a lot of times what we send you along with the request, as you know, isn't necessarily the final product. Which is why we have. And there's opinion in one perspective and you need to understand multiple perspectives. Exactly. And since you're an associate member, I know you're aware of the most recent. I'm not sure if it's appeared before at TAC officially, but the Gray Street Churchill Gloucester Ave. So that'll be the next thing coming up that we'll certainly look to your and your colleagues expertise to maybe lend a little insight if there's something we can do there. So thank you. We're also trying to work on what about larger guideline, which I have a friend that works. She's a senior planner for Boston. So I start all up their materials on what they do for their intersections and crosswalks and everything else. They freely share to us to be able to take it and modify it for our own. We're going to be working that as part of TAC on behind the scenes. So when any one of these comes up, we at least know what the options are. And kind of ballpark and the price range because members don't want to come back and say, well, here's a $6 million answer when we've got $50,000 or $20,000 or whatever the number is. We don't want to be putting in that kind of effort. We know we don't have the budget for it. We kind of want to have a little bit more knowledge there. So I think that'll help us all. We do seem to have an awful lot of them come our way. And sort of just rotating out of the strata is the chair I think at the last meeting, something that Allington has not done, but we're starting to put out there is sort of what I'll call raised roadways. So I'm not saying that that is official, but that is just something that you can sort of keep in your toolbox just moving forward. And I don't know if that's something that's cost prohibitive. And I know it goes case in point to each area that comes before attack. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome. Mr. Helmuth. Gladly second that. And second, my colleague, Ms. Mahan's comments, not only about Gray Street and Churchill and all the other projects that we throw attack. It's a lot. We really appreciate the hard work that you do. I just wanted to mention, I think to that point of Allington, maybe at a point where we are, some of us in the leadership at least are more interested in some of the infrastructure-based traffic calming, including raised roadways and speed tables. I recently had a conversation with the DPW director, Mr. Ranamakar, about that. And he sent me a guideline from another community that was really well done. It was really a rubric, a set of rules about sort of what solutions could be in place where in their town. And I thought that was a really interesting idea. You've got plenty to do on the tack. But I noticed when you said, thinking about rules, thinking about guidelines, I think that might be a good solution for Allington so that we're not just solving each situation blindly as if it weren't, but we're in context of awareness and kind of a common analysis. Part of what you both just said, too, is what's on the table and what's not on the table, not used upon. Yeah, and the cost and all of that. So yeah, that's good. Thank you. Yes. We've worked together a lot. So I have a lot of confidence in what you bring to the board. What you've been doing, which has been great. So thank you very much, James, for being in and looking forward to working with you more. And yeah, we throw a lot of attack, maybe too much for a number of people that are there. But there's a solution to that. So we can get some more people perhaps. And so we have that conversation with the chair at some point because if we need to get results faster, there's a solution. So we can work on that. So any comments? All right, so on a motion to approve the appointment by Ms. Bahadna. Second. Mr. Helmets. Mr. Heim. Mr. Heim. Yes. Yes. Mr. Heim. Yes. Yes. Mr. Davis. Yes. Mr. Heim as well. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. So I want to warrant article hearings. So we have article number six, by-law amendment conversion of gas station dependency comes to self-service operation. And let me pull up. I think I recall from memory that's going to be in this dams. And well. This one. Hi, I'm Susan Stamps. Town meeting member precinct three 39 Grafton street. And I am the sponsor of article six because the owner of Eli's gas station who has asking for the warrant article is not a resident of the town. I voted against it last year, but I think they made the change that I was looking for this year, which was to have a full service pump as being part of the local by-law rather than someone sitting and having to press a button asking for special service that I think a lot of people are going to be uncomfortable with. So I'm very happy about it. And I'd like to introduce attorney Leone who's representing the proponents. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, John Leone. I'm attorney here in Arlington. I'm representing Eli Alcoolie and his son Richie who are the owners of Eli service station down on Broadway. They're interested in getting a ability to have self-serve station. I drafted the warrant article, which you have in front of you and which I must note that it got over 62 signatures collected within a matter of days of people who are interested in it. A lot of self-service have many benefits for Arlington. And one of them is a big change from last year is that the by-law, the way we drafted it, will require at least one of the pumps, one half of the pumps, a pump on each side, one of the two nozzles to be a attendant service. So if someone pulls up and they don't want to use self-service, they can beat the horn. Someone will come out from the station and pump the gas for them. That is the biggest change from last year. We built that right into the by-law. So the by-law, as we drafted it, is what you'll see. Another benefit would be that to do this, they would upgrade and rehabilitate the stations so it would be a more modern and inviting streetscape. Self-service is a benefit to the customers. The consumers' stations have the ability to stay open later and hopefully be able to hire more employees. Right now, Eli relies upon retirees to pump the gas. High schoolers don't want to pump gases in the old days. They just don't want to do that job. So we have older retirees out there pumping gas in all sorts of weather, the middle of the summer, the middle of the winter. And if you could get someone else, it would be better. It'll also be faster because you can pull in, quickly pump your own gas and pull out. There are 10 gas stations in Arlington. We've spoken to nine of them. And right now, only three are interested in possibly converting to self-service. To convert to self-service, it's going to take an investment of $200,000 to $300,000 because they would have to upgrade the islands, the pumps, the canopies, the point of sale system, and the fire suppression systems to meet with the current codes that the state and the federal government put down. So they just can't slap up, let self-serve, and let people go. And they have to make a substantial investment. Only those three are locally owned businesses. They own the station. The others, the other seven stations, I'm not sure about the seat go up on Park Ave. But they are all owned by the corporations, the gasoline companies, who rent them out to the owner operators. So those owner operators aren't willing to make an investment of $200,000 to $300,000 into a station they don't own. So it's really only those three locally owned stations where they own the station that would be willing to do this. There are also, if I can add this aside, there are four electric charging stations in Arlington that these are all self-serve. None of these have a requirement of having a attendant at them. So in fairness to the gas stations and to be equal with the electric fueling stations, so to speak, they should be able to allow to have self-service as well. We as a town should be encouraging these small locally owned businesses any way that we can. And this is one way we can encourage a small locally owned business to stay in business and to stay in town and to keep our economic areas vital and vibrant. Gas stations make most of their money, let's face it, on the service stations and the inspections. They only make 10 to 12 cents a gallon mark up on a gallon of gas. If they're paying their attendant $17 to $20 an hour, which is what they have to pay nowadays, they have to sell 170 to 200 gallons of gasoline per hour just to pay the attendant. So if that attendant was freed up to do service work or something else in the station, it encourages the owners to stay in business and be able to stay in business and actually make a vibrant business and a going concern. The elderly and disabled. The ADA and the Massachusetts gasoline station law require that disabled and handicapped, if you have a placard or handicapped plate, the station is obligated to have someone come out and pump the gas for that person, and those, the handicapped and the disabled would be serviced from the self-serve pump at the self-serve rate. They wouldn't be penalized and be charged the higher, if they even do a higher rate for the attendant served. So that's, you know, that's what ADA requires and that's obviously what we'll do. And this bylaw, as we've drafted, is in full compliance with the mass gasoline law and the ADA. So I don't know if you have any questions of them or not, but they're willing to answer any questions you may have. We just ask that you all vote in favor of this, that we can present to the town meeting a unified board of select men vote. Thank you. Any questions? Select board. I'm sorry, Ms. Mahan. Mr. Herd. I don't have any questions. I was in favor of this last year. I think I like self-serve. I think I said this last year. I'd rather just go and do it myself. And I think really the only objections that I heard is the relative to individuals with disabilities. And I think that's been addressed with the full service pump where you can come and you can see that this is full service. So I'll move positive action. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Just a question from historically in terms of the employee who has to be on call right now, how many people do you have pumping gas and how will that change your structure for employees? If this is if this bylaw is passed. So right now there's two attendance. There's one morning shift and there's a night shift. So basically what we're trying to do is just get them out of the cold. We're trying to get them out of the cold as well. They're pumping out there about ten hours a day and they go home to their families. They get sick and we're trying to just get them out of the cold as well. And a lot of people don't want to work that job. We're trying to create more options and working inside as well. Sure. And that person will be the person if someone pulls up to the full. They'll be more comfortable to be in helping them out. But if they have to go outside and help out a customer with the full service comp they'll be more than happy to do that. You're comfortable with that. I supported this at the select board level. I didn't support it downstairs at town meeting because frankly I felt like we should either remove the prohibition on self-service in its entirety and then the individual gas station owner can decide whether they want a full service model or self-service model. But from what Mr. Leone said and what you're saying you're comfortable with this setup having a full service pump. Okay. All right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I, you know, with that and I'm glad you came tonight to let us know and I'm happy to support it as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see you again in person this time rather than the remote area. I have some questions and some of this may actually be for town council. First of all, with the way that the text of the bylaws been drafted in the warrant article, I noticed that it does have that take any action related there too. But would we in our motion or town meeting have the any ability to modify the text of the bylaws proposed in the warrant article? Mr. Chair, may I? Yes. The next question is ultimately with an overview of the moderator. I think there would be some room to modify this proposal. It might not be something that you could add a lot of further substantive conditions to. You might be able to remove some of those conditions. So I don't know that you're necessarily wedded every single piece in, if that makes sense. Thank you, Mr. Attorney Heim. A follow-up question or a different question for Attorney Heim. You noted in your very helpful, as usual, memo that the notification clause may be preempted by, I believe it was state or federal law. Could you elaborate on that? Correct. I'm not certain whether or not I'll just be frank with the board. I'm not certain whether or not a local bylaw could add conditions with respect to certain environmental regulations that you're required to post on gasoline pump. I think that the combustion of fossil fuels carries with it certain risks. I'm not personally certain of that. There's a wide cadre of state and federal laws that could impact something like that. It'd be somewhat analogous to adding an additional warning on a pack of cigarettes. So I'm not 100% sure whether or not be preempted. Usually we have clauses in our bylaws that would allow you to excise a portion of it without invalidating the entire thing. So it's not a huge deal. It's a lot of work to make sure the board was aware of it. Thank you. If I may, Mr. Helmut. Of course. A lot of that language is already on the pumps regarding the carcinogenic properties of gasoline. And this language that we put forth was lifted from the city of Cambridge and thereby laws. That's very helpful. Thank you. Mr. Helmut. This is for the public. It's Mr. Lowney who is well researched this obviously. I just want to let everybody know that city ordinances not go to the Attorney General's office for review. So oftentimes we get great ideas from Cambridge, Somerville, Boston, but nobody looks at their things until somebody objects, so I just want to set the table that a lot of times they have great ideas and it's something that may or may not be as easy for us just as a heads up. Yes, thank you, and it's wisdom the law requires more adult supervision of talents when it comes to law making. So should the AGO, the Attorney General, have a problem with that, would that affect the viability and can they just invalidate that part of the bylaw with the rest of it stand? Mr. Chairman, correct, that's right. I'm not worried about it from the perspective I think it would invalidate the rest of the action. It's just something that we've seen recently with some unfortunate outcomes, for example, the rodenticide bylaw that we tried to pass. That was the whole sort of kit and caboodle. This would only be a tiny piece of it. Okay, and finally, I'm just looking at the proposed text of the bylaw, I do support this by the way, unquestionably as I did last year. So it talks about there being at least one full service attendant employee dispensing system. And I think Mr. Hyman, your memo, you kind of interpret that to mean that there would be a full-time employee there all the time, but this refers to more hardware or hardware plus the employee, I wonder if the proponents could at least elaborate on the intent. The intent was that as you pull up to a gas pump, it's two-sided and there's a nozzle on each side. One of those two nozzles will be for the attendant-serviced side. So if you have six, three pumps, three pumps, six nozzles, one of the five nozzles, one of the six nozzles will be attendant. Usually the front one is the closest to the door. So the attendant can walk out. So we'll have an attendant there while the station's open to service that nozzle. Okay, yeah. We're trying to think a little better word than nozzle and pump and I found that language in the other bylaws. Yeah, yeah, no, it's one of you. Trying to describe what we're talking about. Yeah, okay, and finally, I think it's helpful that you surveyed the stations in town. Did you serve them with this particular proposal or just the idea of self-serve gas in general? The idea, Eli talked to all of them. I talked to one or two of myself and just the idea of a self-serve if they were interested or not. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so three of the 10, well three of the nine, I haven't spoke to the new Citgo owners but I don't know if they're a renter or not. That's good, thank you. And I think, I appreciate that this is minimalist. I think that last year at town meeting maybe things got a little bit complex but it's been useful to me in my own education to understand that the existing ADA law already puts out the requirements. The existing state law has the safety requirements so I think it's good that this is clean. I'm glad to see this back again. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Same here, same here. So you asked all the questions I was gonna ask. And then some, so nothing more for me to add other than I support it. So this is a hearing and so does anyone in the room or in Zoom land have anything you wanna say? Ms. Stamps. Hi, Susan Stamps, town meeting member, precinct three, 39 Grafton Street. Just one thought, I wanted to say I think this would be an awesome thing for town meeting to pass because it's consistent with our towns in recent years really trying to be fair, inclusive, have it be a welcoming place for everyone. Across from the Starbucks and Concord there's a gas station with four pumps, one of them is full serve. But I don't know if they're doing it because it says full serve with a different price. I don't know if they're doing that because there's a town by law or if that's just what the gas station owner wants to do. I would suspect that most cities and towns who have self-served gas stations, they're all that way. And so I think this makes Arlington once again stand out as a place that really wants to make everyone feel comfortable. So I appreciate the select board supporting this. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. I'm not seeing any hands. I don't see any in Zoom, no? All right, well, sometimes it takes more than one try, I mean, that happened with the Resent-A-Tut through a dent-to-site article, I mean, and so good luck in town meeting this time, but first we need to take a vote here. So on a vote positive action by a motion by Mr. Hurd and a second by Mr. Mohan, Mr. Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Thank you. Thank you, board. See you. Let's see. See you in the spring. All right, so on to Article 7 and the Bylaw Amendment Parking Disclosure Requirement. And so, hi. Hi, I'm Steve Bertschluck. I live in Precinct 3 on Teal Street. I don't know if you read the attachment I sent, but I propose this bylaw because I hear a lot of conversations about overnight parking, but then I also hear people want overnight parking because they didn't realize they couldn't park on the street. So I guess the goal of this bylaw is to set a standard so people are at least informed when they come here. So if we talk about overnight parking or pilot programs or change the rules, it's not a reaction to while I already live here, I'm in trouble. It's more like I knew what I came in. So, and I was actually kind of curious, a lot of anecdotes. I did a very unscientific poll on the Arlington List Facebook group. You know, like 500 people, 30% said they had no idea about the restrictions. So the idea is just that if somebody were to, and my neighbor actually bought their house and they didn't know about the overnight parking rules. So they did a major renovation, didn't have space for one of their tenants' cars. You know, fortunately we live on a private way. We're good neighbors, we let them park there, but like if you can buy a house or rent a house and not know, I mean, a million people could ask, but apparently people don't. So this is just a way of maybe setting a baseline of expectation. I actually could go through more, but I'm assuming you, no, it's fine. I mean, you've read this stuff. Short, it's fine. We generally, I won't say generally, we always read all the stuff that we get. So we're all set there. So I'll turn to my colleagues. I'm gonna see if anyone wants to speak to it. I'm still deciding. All right. So it's us. Yes, no one has anything to say at this point. Then we'll turn to, I have a question. Yes, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Are you aware of any other communities that have done anything like this for guidance on precedent? I did ask people, I asked some people who are formerly in town government or aren't town government, apparently not. So this could be new. Town council seems to think it's nothing, preventing it from happening, but. I'm seeing a nod from returning home. Correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, thank you. So we'll turn to the audience here and in Zoomland to see if there are any statements anyone wants to make. I see no hands raised at this time. Mr. Herd. Thank you for your effort on this. And I know it's no small task to put together one article and get signatures. I applaud what you're trying to accomplish here. And I think we've been dealing with the overnight parking issue for a couple of years. And part of that discussion has always been, I moved to the property and didn't know that there was parking infrastructure. I guess this is a real estate attorney. It's like, I come from this is, I am very hesitant to pick up one town by law and say, all right, owners that are leasing a property or I don't know who would have the obligation whether it's a seller. Sellers don't talk to buyers, a realtor. Could this out of town realtor? Is this out of town attorneys that handle transactions? I'd be very hesitant to pick up one town by law and say that when you're representing somebody that's buying a house or selling a house or leasing a property, you have to know this one time by law. And I get that it's relative to what you're talking about. It's an important one, but there could be others. And I think there's others bylaws that someone could argue, well, they should tell this one too. It becomes a slide scale. And we as attorneys, realtors, if you're someone that just leases property, which are much less likely to be aware of both bylaws and state laws, but we're all generally schooled on state law because that's who would affect certain types of transactions like this. So I'm gonna move into action. Again, I definitely understand where you're coming from with this, but I am just again hesitant to put an obligation on someone that conflict, like attorney, we talked about the last one is there are state-required disclosures, like paint, the seller has to know. And I would be hesitant to start adding to the list of town bylaws that someone has to disclose. So again, yep. So yeah, what I imagine would happen is the requirement would be very minimalistic, minimal of saying, look at the town new residence page on the website, there are important rules that you need to know and parking was the impetus. I mean, you could, I could imagine this being there. Anything that becomes important, we could put there, but maybe that becomes too broad, but I do see your point. Did I move no action? Yes, okay. Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second Mr. Herd's motion. And I do want to thank you for bringing this up. I'm particularly concerned about renters who don't really control the parking spot, maybe told because we've heard some stories about that too. In terms of buyers, I think Mr. Herd makes a good point in terms of what can be in there. I'm also concerned about enforcement and who's going to undertake the enforcement and how that would work. And I think in a purchase and sale situation, it's probably that the buyer probably has a higher responsibility to know what the parking is as opposed to a renter, but it does concern me to pick this out. As I said, the enforcement, but I do think the more we can get the message out to realtors in town that that is something that people should be aware of and not so much through a bylaw that reward them off. But I think it's an important issue. I just, for me, it doesn't quite rise to the level of putting it in the bylaw. And honestly, I just, yeah, I think the conversation is important. So if the results of me coming here is the town does a bit of a push of making this information more prominent on the website and communicates to sellers. And I think that would be a win too. Having said that, apparently that hasn't worked to date. So. Yes, Mr. Helms. Thank you. I will pile on in both ways. I genuinely appreciate your constructive spirit in this. And I know I think the reasons for it are really good. The problem is really important. And I am also worried about the president. I think we have snow removal bylaws and leaf blower and all kinds of things. And I'm also concerned about pulling one thing out, particularly with the fine attached to it. And I think, however, the timing is good. And I think you may succeed in the goal of awareness in that this body, if you stick around later tonight, that may learn more about it too. And I think you're aware that we're ever thinking about how to solve more people's problems with overnight parking. And I hope that that, if we are able to launch a new provision in some way, that that can be part of a new community conversation and continue to raise awareness about it. So that's where I meant too. So you think more signage would help? I think the trade-off is more signs would be... If you put them on every street, that would probably create a lot of visual clutter and would make people unhappy. This question is, do you think it would work? Pardon? Do you think it would work? I think if there were more signs, probably that would be part of it. I mean, I think part of me resists having signs on every 10 feet on the career. I just wanted to know if you think that sign more signs would work. Yeah, I think some signage could help because I think a lot of people are saying a little like, welcome to Arlington. It's overnight parking prohibited. I mean, I think I noticed it when I first came, moved here, but that's because there was actually probably less stuff going on because there was less going on in the town 20 years ago. So the sign stood out more. All right, so $100 for a fine, do you think a higher fine would be an incentive? And I actually, I think there was a limit based on what a bylaw fund would be. Councilor Heim mentioned. So I couldn't remember the exact number, but it's around $100. Yes. $300, Mr. Chair, is a match. Oh, sir. Yes, all right, all right. I mean, to quite honestly, I believe that, this is a weird situation that if suddenly you're like, they never told me, oh, I have this, you're stuck, you live here, you have a lease. So I think it's more of a setting a baseline behavior, like there's someone saying, oh, look, there's a bylaw about this, this must be important. I can ask my realtor, or realtors will know, or like I said, if this raises transparency, if this conversation raises transparency awareness, I think it's a win. So. Well, I think I'd like to go for, like putting up more signs, you know? We may not have to have them on every street, you know, but maybe on more streets, more prominent streets, means so that it increases chances that when someone comes to town, they realize that, you know, and I think the more people that know it, then the more it just becomes common knowledge. I know that's a little circular and total logical, but anyways, you know, I'm gonna make this an animus, in terms of the no action. So, any other comments, questions? All right, so on a motion of no action by Mr. Heard and a second by Mr. Corsi. Mr. Heim. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. She's an animus. All right, thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Okay, take care. So, moving on, you know, the next article is legal notices. You know, special legislation allows digital legal notices. Yes, Mr. Mr. Chair, I need to recuse myself from this because it is special legislation and I employed by the state legislature due to the conflict of interest law. All right, all right, all righty. So, it's a special legislation allows digital legal notices. Mr. Slotnick. Yes. Hello. What are you doing? Good, and I'm, you know, I'm sorry I'm not there in person. I probably could have made it. I feel like, I don't know, an outcast. You look great, you know, by the way, you know, and you know what I'm saying. Do I look relaxed here? Should I start? Yeah, please. All right, well, this is brought about for a few reasons. One, I'll just start by saying we've probably all heard about the diminishing local, locally owned print news coverage in Massachusetts and around the country. It's affected Arlington with, you know, the merger of the advocate with the Winchester Star and we're just about celebrating the first anniversary of Gannett, which is the owner of, which is Gatehouse Media slash Wicked Local. That's when they announced that they were taking 19 Massachusetts local newspapers out of print. So we're one year beyond when that happened. Now, I became aware of this particular issue about legal notices a little more acutely when I learned, you know, that when the Bedford Minuteman, which was one of Gannett's papers, was taken out of circulation, they were required, you know, still required according to Commonwealth and Massachusetts statute to publish legal notices that would be published, say, by their zoning, you know, planning department by their town clerk, DPW perhaps, they then had to start using the Lowell Sun for their legal notice printing at a significantly higher cost than what the Bedford Minuteman was charging. So to bring it, you know, local to Arlington, I happen to be in the same place, the same space one evening with both Julie Brazil and Bob Sprague, you know, Bob publishes your Arlington, you know, news website. And we were talking about this issue about legal notices. And Julie, who puts in a bunch of town, of the town's notices, I circulated three documents to you to the select board. One of them was a small spreadsheet that showed legal notice advertising in fiscal year 2022. The planning department was the largest, probably followed by the select board actually, DPW had some, et cetera. Julie told me that she would have to place legal notices in the Boston Globe if the advocate slash star, you know, Winchester star stopped print publication, unless we somehow got permission from the state to publish legal notices digitally. So in thinking about that, you know, I think we're all aware that the town upgraded its own website, you know, over the past, it was like, seemed like it was a pandemic era project that was taken on and completed, you know, I think does a lot better at getting information out there. It's not the flashiest. I don't know how many town residents use it or rely on it for information. But the, you know, the basic idea is that seeing how more and more people are getting their local news either through, you know, Arlington MA.gov, the town's website, or a local digital paper like yourarlington.com, which is now operates as a nonprofit after about 14 to 15 years being run as a for-profit. That this sort of thing was a reasonable, this, the idea behind this article was reasonable and it was backed up by the fact that the town of Bedford is gonna be voting on a similar article at their town meeting this spring. I circulated, included two other documents in that group of three that I shared with the select board. And one of them came from my own experience of being the facilities manager at FoodLink where when I am putting projects through for which we've been granted funds through community development block grant, which is federal money, I've had to take out legal notices to advertise projects. And one of them was one I included, which was for a backup emergency generator. About a year and a half ago is when we started that project. The estimated cost was in the 10 to $12,000 range. I placed two ads in the Advocate Star. Each posting had a price of $190. That was last year's price. And I even thought that was a little pricey, but whatever, so we did it. We completed that project. That's all good. Just about a week or two weeks ago, I went onto the Boston Globes website and they have a Nifty tool. It's kind of a self-service, legal advertising placement tool where you put your own tech copy in there. You can adjust some different features for how it's presented. One column, two column, different kind of headers and so forth, pretty much the same language, same number of words that I did for the Advocate Star which again, which is connected with Wicked Locals. And they tell you the price, and that price as shown in that file I sent to you guys is $960 for each placement for the same ad. So that is astonishing to me. I don't know if the town could negotiate special rates with the Boston Globe if it ended up having to place all its legal notices in the Globe, but at least their retail price is about four times or more than four times higher than Wicked Local. The other piece is that more and more people are getting, getting news from the town's website and an online publication like your Arlington, I mean, this is where Arlington residents are more and more getting their information and less and less subscribing to the Advocate or going online and reading Wicked Local.com because honestly their coverage of Arlington happenings is just diminishing. That paper actually is much more highly focused on Winchester for some reason than it is Arlington. So the idea of this article is just to create a level playing field where anyone who's say at whatever director level or anyone who's charged, whether it's planning, select board office, the clerk, possibly the health department, DPW, it would give them a choice of whether the notice that they want to publish, that they have to publish, will achieve the results that they want better if it's printed in the Advocate star. They could choose that if they feel they'd really think it would do better in a hyper-local publication, such as the town's own website or a local news site, they can make that choice. And in the process, probably save a little money now while the Advocate star is still in print and possibly a lot of money if that paper goes out of print. All right, I think we got it. All right, so anything else you want to add as you wrap it up? No, I just hope you folks will consider and support. Okay, great. So Mr. Hard? I just want to clarify, I guess, Attorney Hyam. Right now, does the town place ads in digital form? Are we able to put legal notices on your Allington? Or is this authorizing us to do so? Exactly, Mr. Hard. The law does not allow us to solely advertise digitally. We would have to get permission from the state to locally be able to advertise digitally only. So, okay. I just want to step back and rephrase. So, I guess we're where I'm going. I don't think, as long as we have an advocate in print, I think there's some people that use it and some people that might look in the print advocate in order to get their legal notices. And if all of us in the town stops, then they're not going to get their legal notices. But I also think it's important for the town to have an avenue to simultaneously advertise in say, your Allington. Are we able to do both right now? So, not just exclusively digitally, but would we be able to advertise in both places? Right now, the town is required to advertise in a newspaper of general circulation. We can advertise more heartily and put it more online. We tend to put most of our legal notices on our website already, for example, or a form of them. What I think Mr. Slotnik's article is getting to is that we do not have the choice to not run a print ad. So, if the advocate goes out of, stops circulating in Arlington, our only, not our only, but our most likely next choice is the Boston Globe or the Herald. I understand that. So, I think what you're, I'm sorry, Mr. Hurley. Yeah, I understand what you're asking. So, I just think I'm, and I'll wait to hear from my colleagues, I'm still hesitant while the advocate is in circulation to remove that requirement. And I think we will probably have a little bit of notice if the advocate was, and that's not guaranteed, but if we had to advertise in the Boston Globe for eight months until the next town meeting, and we could then take on this article at that time, I'd be more comfortable with that. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Through the chair. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I'm sorry. I want to make clear one thing. Right now, if you run an article, you run an ad and a print new publication, which you're required to do, they have to run it in their online version. We don't, that's a relatively recent addition. So, by doing one, you sort of have to do the other. Yeah. But I think Mr. Slotnik's article is suggesting that we still could continue these practices, but we would have the discretion not to run it and print if we didn't want to. Right. If I understand correctly, Mr. Slotnik. And so, Mr. Slotnik? Yeah, can I chime in? Yes. Mr. Herd, your comment was echoed by one of the select board members who was a signer of the petition, who's also an attorney. And I think attorneys are more, they just live in more of the genre of legal notices. They're called legal notices. So, I think the tendency would be, so you won't see like a mortgagee's sale of real estate, legal notice on the town's website for sure, or probably not in the advocate either. That would still stay, whoever is behind that, an attorney, a law office, a real estate attorney would place that in the print publication of record, as is the current law. But this article is geared towards the types of notices that are really oriented towards town resident readership, election related things, zoning, you could say zoning does have interest from entities outside of Arlington, but I just wanted to, I'm not gonna talk further about it, I think I'm getting the point across the kind of articles you tend to see online. Thank you. Mr. Herd. I'll just follow up briefly and just say it. I understand that aspect of it, but again, I just think there's a certain, still as we all transition to the digital world, I think there is still a certain portion of the town that still gets legal notices, including information on elections and zoning board of appeals hearings and whatnot through the print version of the advocate. And I'm not against the idea, I think a lot of Arlington residents do get most of their information online, so it would be good to have a practice where the town is posting in both, if your Arlington has legal notices section, the town should be posting in both. And if it costs us a few extra bucks, it does, but I still think as long as we have a paper, we should use it. So that's a statement, no. I'm not gonna make a motion right now. Okay, that's fine. I'll see what my colleagues. That's fine, you know. Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Slotney, for bringing this issue up because I think we're getting to that point where we clearly are going to need alternatives. You didn't send us any proposed language. I see the Warren article, there wasn't a proposed home rule petition that you sent to us. I saw what you forwarded to us, but is that right? Sorry, that is correct. I did not, did not. Because I don't know maybe there's a way to parse this out a little bit too because I'm aware of at least one community that is trying to do this, and that's the town of Franklin. And what they did is they're doing it just for public notices that require a hearing as opposed to all legal notices. And so in that situation, butters are gonna be served anyway by certified mail, so they're gonna receive notice. I see we have a visitor there. Sorry. And I don't know, you mentioned public hearings, but the language in the Warren article is much broader than that. And I wonder if there's a way to maybe take a smaller subset of the notices because public hearing type notices, I could be more comfortable with that because I know people who are affected directly are gonna get noticed anyway, as opposed to some of the other legal notices. And just wondering what your thoughts are on that, making a smaller subset. Yeah. Well, I'd have to think that over a little. Let me add one thing I didn't get a chance to say was when I presented the idea of this article and then the two files that talk about the costs of advocate posting and a potential Boston Globe posting. So I emailed that information to Julie Brazil, Mike Rademacher, Claire Ricker, Natasha at Health Department. Julie and Mike, who have seen the language that you're looking at, both replied positively that they'd be in favor of it. They didn't share a lot of thoughts beyond those words, but I didn't hear back from Claire and her department probably, as I said before, it does publish the largest number of notices and I was anxious to chat with her, but we just weren't able to do it before tonight. So I'm up for having that conversation with her and as you said, try to parse through what could be a more acceptable form of language for this, I don't know where that would be for tonight. Mr. Slotnick, what you're referring to that they reacted favorably to is the language in the warrant article itself. That's correct. That was both Julie and Mike Rademacher and I just didn't get a response from Claire or from the, I guess, Ashley at the select board. Right, okay, all right. Well, I mean, tonight's the night of the hearing, we don't have this, but I'd be willing, depending on what the other members think, I mean, if there's something that you feel that you could bring back to the board, if the board's so inclined, people may just want to vote this evening, that's more narrowly tailored and it actually has specific language that you've heard, Mr. Heard's concern about language and still being in the newspaper. I mean, I'd be willing to table this or make a motion to table this, but if the three other members are already there in terms of where they are in this, I won't stand in the way of that. I appreciate that. Can I say a quick thing? So yeah, Larry, briefly, all right. Yeah, well, just for Mr. Heard. So if the concern is that if it were to pass town meeting and then the select board follow what's stated in the article to petition the state, your concern is that the overarching thing would be to save money by not doing the print advocate publishing and instead use the town's website or say your Arlington and not have it print published. So if the language were simply changed to make it worded a little differently around that idea, do you think that would improve the article in your opinion instead of parsing at which types of articles? I would say this generally isn't a question and answer of the select board situation. I'm sorry. We ask questions and I'm not sure that completely followed my concern. My concern is that I think as long as we have a paper, there's people that get a benefit of getting notices in the paper. And I just, it just seems to me not overly burdensome for the town departments to have to post, do something we've endured for years and years. But again, whatever my colleagues, I guess if I can make, and I don't want to take Ms. Mahan's time if she has a question, but Attorney Heim, this is a shot in the dark, which I think probably this will be too confusing, but can we write an article that says that we're obligated to post in print media as long as there's a local paper? But that obligation expires if there's no local paper? Yes, Chair. And the answer can just be no. I think we can submit special legislation on whatever we want. And we could define a local paper with some specificity and have a sort of triggering event. So I think that that is possible. I think it's likely possible the way this article is constructed, which, and I understand it's the select board's trying to speak, so Mr. Slade, can I correct me if I misapprehend his one article? I believe that the point is to offer us the option not to necessarily require us to take a specific course of action. So I think, yes, Mr. Hearn, you could do something along those lines as what the legislation's response to that would be. I don't know, but yes, I think you could. And I get that, what's the, what we're asking here? That's the option. And I would envision that if given the option that some town departments would exercise that option. I guess what I'm uncomfortable is taking away that requirement on them. And I'd be comfortable if you're telling me that we can essentially write whatever we want, just calling out the Arlington Advocate or some sort of lineal affiliate. Yes. Yes, yes. As we've had a previous discussion, sometimes special legislation can be very, very specific within 75 feet of Arlington Catholic comes to mind. So. 75 yards. 75 yards, thank you Mr. D'Corsi. So yes, could you have special legislation that said specifically the Arlington Advocate or its legacy businesses or institutions? Yes, you could. We'd have to take some pretty, have to take great care to make sure that we articulate that very clearly. Because I mean, I don't envision that if the Arlington Advocate goes out of print, anyone's going to go and say, wow, that seems like a good market to open up a new newspaper. So I mean, again, I think I've stated my concerns and I don't want to be laborless. I just, I think as long as we have a newspaper, we should use it. And I think people, it seems crazy to some of us that people read the print paper, but I actually like reading the paper like that. So I think we should keep the requirement as long as we have a local paper. I agree with Mr. Heard regarding, right now we do have the Arlington Advocate. I also agree that more is more and that's the way to go, which is what I think Mr. Heard is saying. I will certainly second Mr. DeCorsi's motion to table to A, see if there's a subset language that can be presented and B, and I mean no sarcasm or anything by this to Mr. Schlotnik or anyone else, but I really, I understand that you've had communications with a couple of department heads. I don't know if it would be appropriate for Ms. Greco to try to tell her five bosses how to vote or what to do. So I don't know if that's part of the reason not to respond to that, but when you're presenting something to me, you can read an email from me and then give your interpretation of it. God bless you, it may not be what I feel I said in the email. So I guess what I would say to that is for me quoting, you know, any town employee, including the department head, unless it's before me, I have to take that as the official record and opinion because I've seen in the past where I posed a question to a town employee, but it was concerning Pile A, not concerning Pile B, and then it gets presented as an argument for Pile B and they say that's not that. So I would just say moving forward unless you, unless we have something from a department head or they're here, that she or he really needs to speak for themselves. And again, I don't mean that sarcastically, I just, so I guess going forward, I don't know if maybe, I'm not trying to create any work, but if the town manager was so inclined that he feels he needs to get a quick sense of how any department head actually would weigh down on this particular issue, but right now I would not be inclined to support it. I've seconded, of course, these motions to table it to see if some subset language can come up and moving forward either if the manager can give us a sense from the other department heads or Mr. Slotnick, if you want to encourage them to somehow communicate with the board, that's really the best way to go. Because I can say, I spoke to all the department heads and they think that Jane Doe is the best person who ever walked the face of the earth, but then come to find out, that's not what they said. Anyways, so I've seconded motion to table and it's Mr. Diggins, the chair, said it is a public hearing, but that's where I would go. Yeah, it's fine. So yeah, I'll go along with the table. I was interested in seeing more specifics on the proposed legislation. Probably come as no surprise that I am fine with going the digital route. It's mean, and I certainly, I get me holding your paper too. Although I gotta tell you as my vision gets worse, it is nice to be able to expand that font size, and it's nice to be able to move the pad anyway. But I think this whole thing is gonna resolve itself in a decade or two anyways, I mean, so it's clear where we had it, and it's just a matter of how fast we get there, but so yeah, I'm fine with that. So this is a hearing, so if any comments from Ms. Stamps, and then Zoomland, raise your hand electronically. Ms. Stamps? Hi, Susan Stamps, 39 Grafton Street. Larry and I talked when he was, hi Larry, when he was drafting this. It occurs to me listening to the conversation that it does make sense to file the home rule petition asking for this to go into effect when we lose our local newspaper, which we will, as we all know, but in the meantime, it would be nice to make part of the motion that legal notices will be printed on the town website and in your Arlington. So that would be my suggestion as long as we're dealing with legal notices, let's make them electronic and accessible to everyone. There's no reason not to wait that I can think of, so thank you. Stamps, anyone else? Okay, you know. The pipes want to say something. Yeah, really? No, you're going to go to Zoom, sorry. No, no, no, I was just looking to see. Don't even trace it. Okay, so I think we're all set here. So Mr. Fuller. I would just say that following Ms. Mahaja Quest, I will pull the department heads and report back to the board. Thank you. You're not raising a hand, are you? It's not a hand. I thought I saw you raise your hand, you're all set. All right, so on a motion to table by Mr. D'Corsi, and second by Business Mahaja, Mr. Sorry to interrupt, there is one hand raised to come in late, but do you want me to? Yeah, please. My name is Susan Weber, precinct 17, one water made place, town meeting member. I just wanted to say that I, like everybody I know, has canceled their subscription that we had for 10 or 15 or 20 years to the Arlington Advocate because they were, it was disappointing. And sorry about this. And so I'm hoping, I read your Arlington every week and I'm hoping that there's another way to see the notices since for people like me, that's the only way we're gonna see them. So I hope that you can make some kind of a decision that will ensure that those of us who wanna know what's going on in town and look digitally will have the opportunity to find what we need to find. Thank you. Thank you very much. So getting back to keep raising, so that's not a hand raise, all right? So, okay, no problem. All right, so on a motion to table, I'm Mr. Corsi and a second by Ms. Mahan, Mr. Heim. And if the board just doesn't have to vote on this, I'll maybe have a conversation with Mr. Slotnick to try to see if we can get this into a form that the board can sort of decide, this is something we wanna move forward with. Is that a fair? Yeah. Mr. Heard? Yes. Mr. Corsi? Yes. This is Mahan? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Heim with recourse himself, it's a 4-0 vote. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. You're welcome, Mr. Slotnick. Take care. Okay. So moving on to article number 63, a resolution to file and accept gifts with and from EOEA for land and water conversion fund grant program. And... Let's see who that's by. Mr. Diggins, man? Yes, Mr. Hamlin. Go ahead. Okay, no, I guess not. I'm sorry, I have the wrong name there, but. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. The long and short of it is that this is a requirement of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to do something we think we're already authorized to do. We think the Town Manager Act already authorizes the Town Manager to basically engage in this, but with the Board's positive action, I'll essentially draw something up that just confirms this general idea that, yes, we already have what we have. So I'm just looking for a vote so that I can draw this up and get it through Town Meeting so they have what they need for us to accept certain grants. Right. Mr. Hearn. Move positive action. Second. Any comments, questions? I know, technically, I mean, we have to, you know, hear from folks, you know, so I'll just look to see if there are any comments, questions from the audience here in Zoom. Seeing no hands raised. I wonder. All right, I mean, so on a motion to vote positive action and a second by Ms. Mohan, you know. Mr. Hearn. Yes. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. This is Mohan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Thank you. So moving on to article number 60. All right. I guess we're in. Seven. Okay. I already feel 67. Resolution or affordable housing overlay. Mr. Hamlin. Yep. Present. My name is Guillermo Hamlin. I'm a Precinct 14 Town Meeting member. This is my first time presenting to you in person, so this is pretty surreal. I'd like to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present to you this resolution affirming affordable housing overlays. What inspired me to seek this out was perhaps if you remember, I had sought to study these about maybe two years earlier, a year earlier. It was voted no action due to a commissioned housing production plan. And I concur that that was the right move. The housing production plan actually did, went far beyond what I expected it was going to do. Provide a factual basis. It was very data driven. It saw public input. Initially, I thought to just comprise a study committee that kind of was a little more narrower. And I found in hindsight that that wasn't the right course of action. Now, in terms of this resolution, I drew inspiration from Brookline Town Meeting. They decided to do kind of a weird hybrid of what I initially wanted to do and what I'm presenting now, which is a series of affirmative statements and then a direction to comprise a study committee. Instead, what I have here is a hybrid of what Brookline Town Meeting did with the affirmative statements without the request for a study committee, seeing that we had already commissioned a housing production plan prior. I'm very passionate about this subject. I think it's a good way forward. And I provided some resources. I provided the language as well as the link to the housing production plan, which I drew language from, as well as the link to the Brookline Town Meeting. It's a massive document dump, so I apologize in advance. I'm confident it was like, you know, to search through it. And in summation, just to wrap it up, I'm very passionate about it. I think it's a good way forward, given recent moves with MBTA communities. I think it's also mentioned in the housing production plan as a very, as a proper vehicle to consider. Didn't outright recommend that it should be the only policy goal, but it was mentioned amongst many others. And with that, I ask that you swiftly adopt it for the Select Board Report. And I welcome any of your questions. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. Mr. Hurd. Thank you. It's good to see you in person. Likewise. This is a sort of a funky situation where you came to us with a zoning article. And usually when we hear zoning, we're like, oh, stay away from me. Because we refer that off to our colleagues on the Redevelopment Board. I think it's certainly a worthwhile cause. And I think we've done with some of these resolutions in the past few years is where it's not something that really falls within our jurisdiction, that we just sort of pass them along to top meeting to have a discussion about in a vote. So based on that, I'll move positive action. Second. All right. Question. Mr. Helmuth. Yeah, I also support this. I'm a supporter of the overlay districts. I think I've been encouraged by the evidence. I've seen that the communities have used them and I'm long been curious about them as a tool, as applied to Arlington with appropriate study. And I would say with regard to resolutions, I think that it's within town meetings purview to decide what it wants to make a corporate statement about whether or not that has a binding result. And my personal view is that town meeting is best served when it's specific to Arlington. I think this is a good example of a resolution that is. And so I'm therefore happy on governance grounds to support it as well as my personal interest on the policy itself. But ultimately, respectable town meeting. And I agree with my colleague, Mr. Herg, that this is really something for town meeting to weigh in on more so on the substance than the select board. So, Amy, well, I guess I'll make my statement, you know. So, you know, I like where we're going here with the, you know, the applies to Arlington. I mean, it's not, you know, because as you may know, trying to kind of figure out the resolution thing. You know, if it had a study group with it, you know, a study committee, it'd be an easy one for me. You know, because that's some action that we're actually going to take out of this. Well, yeah, I'm for it, you know, I'm for better MBTA service too. It is different though, as my colleague said, and it's our specific meetup. And it seems like we are working our way towards this. So what comes next? Let's say, you know, it passes. What comes next? Is that a question directed at me? Yes, yes. What comes next? I can only imagine what could come next. I don't want to speculate. I think that if this is adopted by town meeting, as is or with an amendment, it would demonstrate similar to Brookline town meeting an affirmation of values based off of existing work done by their town as to mitigate the worst of the housing crisis. Again, I don't want to speculate beyond that, but I think that drawing from the housing production plan with their suggested strategies and providing policy goals, I think it's appropriate for town meeting to chime in on this, drawing from the housing production plan, reading this resolution, scrutinizing it, amending it to their liking. I'm just happy to enable this conversation because it's something I've been trying to have a discussion on for some time. All right, I hear you. Now, I don't know how the moderator's going to handle resolutions, you know, just go around. I mean, the past has been, I mean, one side speaks and the other side speaks, and there's really no conversation in town meeting, just me, one pro, one con meeting. And so to the extent there's any conversation that happens, me, when we're doing precinct meetings or people are promoting their articles. And so I see the utility there because the town meetings at least is focused on it at that point in time. I have to wonder though, if it isn't better to try to have an extended conversation with the town through some other mechanism in order to get the result that we want. So my concern with these is that we don't really think beyond what we're going to do. That was a very lawyerly like response. It didn't really tell me what you really want to do next or what you'd like to see happen next. And that helps me think about how do we get from here to the destination. Because I'm really about trying to get us to the destination and not make a statement. So that's where I'm on it. But I like where you're going with the local thing. So with that, let's see if there are any comments in Zoomland. Seeing no hands raised in Zoom. Okay. So any other comments, questions? All right. So on a motion to positive action by Mr. Heard and a second by Mr. Mahan. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. This is Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Okay. It's a 4-0-1 vote. All right. Excuse me. So article 68, resolution in state tuition. Once again, Mr. Hamlin. Thank you. So this is where it gets a little broader and I am genuinely seeking your guidance on this. And I apologize in advance for any facetious delivery I give here. What led me to pursue this is that I genuinely want to see the state of Massachusetts become as progressive on this issue as the state of Texas. I genuinely think that when it comes to in-state tuition for high school students that happen to be either a mixed status or themselves undocumented or of lab status, meaning they have a family member that has a green card. They themselves have a green card but it's expired and there's that gray area in between where they genuinely send you a sticker to put on the back of your green card to give you a little bit more breathing room that shouldn't disqualify you from pursuing higher education. As I've submitted in my resolution, as well as the supporting documents, I think that there is enough interest from local agencies in the state of Massachusetts, nonprofit groups, as well as I think it's very clear that there have been many state legislators who have been wanting to tackle this for some time. The reason why I pursued a resolution because I believe that town meeting can, as I said, scrutinize, amend and advocate for this so we can enable the state legislature to act in an affirmative fashion rather than compelling them to demonstrate our values. The way I see it is I imagine, although I don't want to speculate too much, I imagine if there is an Arlington High School graduate or even the Minutemen, it doesn't make sense to me to invest in them with public dollars just to cut that off. The residency isn't in question. Their academic achievement isn't in question. For me, it just seems immoral, unethical, and my bias is that having been an immigrant myself or a naturalized citizen, I didn't have to deal with this issue, but if I had to rely, being a public school high school graduate here and wanting to pursue community college and pursue the UMass system, it would have really disturbed me if these sort of laps, any question of status could be a roadblock to that. And with that, I ask that you adopt that in your Select Board Report, and I'm open to any questions, and hopefully I'll be more blunt in my responses moving forward. Thank you. I'll turn to my colleagues. And I'll try to be succinct in my questions. Nice to see you in person. Thank you. My colleague in precinct 14, of course. I saw the links that you provided, but I guess I'm just not a student enough to actually glean what it is I'm looking for. The question would come to me exactly what would be the financial impact in Arlington, you know, for Arlington to extend in-state tuition to Arlington student residents. I didn't see that in any of the links. Is that a number you can guesstimate for us? No. I know that previously I said I don't want to speculate for that because I think this is part of a broader conversation I was trying to have. While the previous resolution was very within scope about Arlington, this one seems to be a little broader. It was more about an affirmative statement for all high school graduates to be able to achieve in-state tuition similar to their other high school students, alumni. So if you're looking for something specific to Arlington in that respect, I insufficiently cannot answer that. Sorry, I sufficiently cannot answer that. Okay, and I get that word, legalese. I'm a court reporter over 30 years, so. But I understand you're saying, you know, you don't want to put a number on it. You don't have a number on it. That isn't really what you want to do with this. You want to have the bigger conversation, but that's what you put before us. And I understand you're saying that, you know, you want the state to have this conversation, which I think they are having this conversation. It's the outcome of those conversations that you dispute. So I'm really not in a position to make a motion to support this resolution, even though it should go to town meeting to talk about, just because the language that's here, you're telling us don't pay attention to that language. I want to have a different conversation. I think that's kind of confusing, so. But I guess I'll look to my colleagues who I hope I haven't sufficiently confused even more in terms of my conversation, and I'm not going to get into an impending override and a report from the Long Range Planning Committee and where we stand on that, but that's what's before us. So I'd be interested what my colleagues have to say. Mr. Hurd. I say I agree with the tenor of the statement. I think, and not to put words in my colleagues' mouth, what Mr. Diggins has sort of said with some of these resolutions is what do we accomplish? What's the roadmap? If we have a resolution, we send a resolution to the state supporting the ban on redinocides, because as a board, there's in process this discussion at the state legislature and the specific legislation that's in process, and we want to support that. So we can do, we're trying to do something, we're prevented by something the state's doing. And I think we, there's just been a trend in town meeting over the past couple of years to just have to burn a warrant article and not to come down on, this is not specifically talking about yours, but to have a warrant article to say we think that this is important and it really just goes out into the air and town meeting agrees that this is important and we put it to bed. And I think what we really would need to focus on resolutions that are going to the state legislature or going to whatever the entity is, the federal government, and saying we want you, we're pushing you to pass this specific legislation that's in process. And this is certainly something that is, would quite obviously be done at the state level. We have no authority to do anything relative to this subject. So, I mean, I would be inclined to support Mrs. well, Mrs. Mahan hasn't made a motion. I'll make a motion of no action. Again, just, I think we need to start to, town meeting is a robust being right now. And I think to some extent we need to kind of pare down some of the resolutions to focus. And sometimes it might be 20 resolutions that can't come out of town meeting and these resolutions that are more impactful are one of 20. Whereas, you know, if there are three resolutions town meeting, these are the three things that we really want to make a dent in and are really important to us. And again, I keep saying this, not to take away from what you're saying. I agree with you that every graduate regardless of immigrant status in Massachusetts should qualify for financial aid in state institutions. I just, I mean, that's a whole different discussion with figures and that's beyond our pay grade. And I just don't see this one statement kind of pushing the need on it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I think that less is more with resolution sometimes and focus is a good thing. I also have a little bit of a technical concern with just the wording of the warrant article because I think that it may lead to some confusion and the warrant article is the one that can't change. The town can't extend in state tuition, so we can't pay for it, we can't do it, we know the power to do that. So I think that I think it's helpful to have seen the copy of the resolution because the intent is more clear of supporting a policy which I very much support. I think it's very much the right thing to do. I don't think that this is a particularly productive use for town meaning just because the statement on that could be confusing and be so far removed from what Arlington would do that if, again, it's not in our prior view either, town meaning can kind of say what it wants, but if our job here is to say should town meaning weigh in on this, I guess my answer is no. But thank you for thinking of it. Thank you for caring about the community. And by the way, I wouldn't have known that this was your first time coming before as a person. I appreciate that. Thank you. So that was a second? I guess that was a very wordy second, Mr. Chair. Just making sure. Very well worded wordy second. Thank you. No problem. So so so and I thought that I was going to have to say I'm going to be inconsistent on this one because I mean this one I feel this one and I agree with my colleagues it's not anything that we can do as a as a town on this but I really do want to see what I as a resident can do with you in order to try to make something change here you know I'm not really that aware of what's going on on the state level the point of ignorance I'd like to learn more about what's going on in the state level and work with you on it in order to try to figure out what can be done you know I mean it will cost the state more to educate the kids but it costs us a whole lot more not to you know as a state and as a society so I think we need to figure out how to do this and so I feel better about putting no action on this making a commitment to you to work on this not make community board anything just me as a person to learning more about this and seeing what we can do on the state level because I like I gotta say this I have no ambitions state level but I like working with the folks on the state level and finding out what senator is focused on this what chief of staff is working on this there are a lot of good people on the state level who are really trying to make real change so I'm going to go along with it but once again I'm really committed because this is something that I know a little about but learning about it I'm sure will come in handy not only for this but other things so at this point I'll open up to the audience here I guess there's James and zoom on it oh handsome zoom any other questions? so on motion of no action by Mr. Hurd and second by Mr. Helmuth Mr. Hurd yes Mr. Dacourcy Mr. Helmuth yes this is Mahan yes Mr. Dacourcy she's in a misspoke thank you good to see you so moving on possible update expansion of overnight permit parking pilot by myself and Mr. Dacourcy so should I turn to you Mr. Dacourcy or I think I was going to defer to you on this because I appreciated your outreach to me in terms of what happened since our last meeting so since our last meeting we have this idea that we want to run past you all to see if we should pursue it further so the idea is that we would limit the number of permits to the number of spaces that are available in the municipal lots we don't have an exact number on that now we know that the floor is 300 but we're not sure what the ceiling is and so what would happen is someone would apply for a permit ask for a permit we would ask them why we're probably not going to reject but they would get a spot in a municipal lot and they could either use that spot or a spot near hopefully in front of their place one side of the street so what that does is we have permits in the pilot and secondly it gives people a place to go when they have to get their cars off the road be it for snow or even street cleaning or whatever D.W. needs to do with the street and the rate would be $365 in a year as it currently is with the same process for getting on it and what it does too is we can take a pause at whatever point we want as we approach winter but since now they have a place to put their cars it would allow us to push through if we wanted to extend the pilot so right now we have about 50 persons in the pilot so if we were to expand it up to 300 it gives quite a bit a headroom so if it ends up being oversubscribed that tells us some information but we would at least initially keep it at whatever number a car is in a lot and one more statement and so they would be assigned a lot so it's not like we'd say there are 300 spaces and all the lots you pick when there's an emergency when you apply you would then be assigned a lot so you would know where to go so so Mr. Eric I guess you answered my question by saying 300 but do we cap the number of permits that we give for people to park in our lots is capped at 300 is that the most that we'll give out for people to park in municipal lots overnight I don't think we're close to that number so it's not really a cap on it the actual use right now is far lower right so I don't think there was a decision made we're going to cap it I guess I'm concerned it depends so I'll back up to my question when you said 50 people using the pilot who are you referring to if I said pilot I misspoke I said there are 50 people who are using the so 50 is I was like did I miss this pilot sorry about that the subcommittee was very active you don't remember you gave a great speech before that vote I think my concerns could be much about nothing if not that many people are going to use it I guess my concern capping the number of if all of a sudden we say alright anybody that wants overnight parking can go and do it and a swath of people come in and they get in the heights or places where really don't need it apply for permits and then there's nothing left then people that come in that say oh I just rented a place on Grafton street and I'm in a two family and I don't have parking and we say oh sorry we're out of overnight permits it's just concerning to me the people that need it I guess a tough economist in me calls it an inefficient distribution of resources when people don't need it get something and then other people are blocked out of it so yeah welcome to hear other comments on it it just makes me a little bit concerned and if that's just for the pilot and then we know that there's more of a demand and we have to address that post pilot then I could probably go along with that I think it's one of these things we really don't know right now we're kind of talking hypothetical numbers based on the people that have been involved in the conversation and I think if you charge $365 a year that's probably going to put the request under $300 because that in itself is going to limit this to the people that really need it so yeah I mean I like the idea of the permit simultaneously allowing people to park in municipal lots although if there's a snow emergency are people allowed to park in municipal lots or do they have to clear out there as well they have to clear out they have to clear out they have to go over to Al White for some really I thought because they need to clear the lots for schools we direct them to the Al White parking garage see I thought I thought that so maybe we have to flush this out a little bit since this is a possible update this possibly could be relevant but as we're going further on down the road Potomy feels like we're shying away from the original model in place which is what the town policy is and on a case by case basis people coming in and asking for some relief from that so I guess the further down the road question is then that particular avenue should be gotten eliminated if we have the pilot and adopted going forward so I sometimes feel like we're doing this because you know those are tough decisions and I'll leave that on the table but the other thing that I just want to make clear for myself and I'm just one vote is someone whose family rented never owned a home lived on Acreton Road big huge driveway we couldn't afford one anyways but even if we did and the rent was adjusted and then again certain things and also keeping in mind we're also pushing people not pushing we're encouraging people to think of different ways moving forward whether it's electric cars whether it's alternative vehicle transport to me this seems like it's opening but I would be very firm in my stance if I were it got to that point to take a vote on a pilot and or anything moving forward that I do not think we should turn the public streets into a public parking parking garage I would like to see if we do have a pilot program and or anything permanent after that we do adopt one of the rules that we have which is you could only park overnight in front of your residence because I can see other people saying I wasn't in favor of this I let my neighbor across the street I just saw this on Grey and Fountain I was talking to someone park their child's vehicle over here I don't want someone in front of my street in front of my house I didn't avail myself of the opportunity to go into the pilot program they never moved their car so when it comes to a street sweeping snow plowing they're not mindful of the fact that you parked in such a way that I really can't even make my swing into my driveway anymore because you don't live here so and what I'm afraid of is that and I do know someone who grew up in the renters world that sometimes you get an apartment and because there's no parking included and if you are in the position that you can afford a vehicle and you did it until I was in high school one vehicle that's reflective in the rent but I don't want this to turn into that at 23 Egerton Road which is where I rented that there's a pilot program and a landlord goes out and says listen you all can have four or five cars each floor because you can basically park myself on this but I just want to maybe as you're having future discussions pose that question if other people fail that way I would not be in favor of a pilot parking program that says well you can get two, three, four cars and just park them wherever I would like it to mirror what we have when we hear individual parking requests that if there's one spot and sometimes there's two in the house there's no more than that because I don't want to see it and I can tell you someone who's grown up in the renting world you really look for an apartment you can afford an apartment that meets your needs and you also really look for an apartment that you can say listen you don't really have parking here so can you come down on the rent a little bit and that really does happen I'm not just making that up and then pulling it out of there but I'm just hearing and I may just be speculating this Mr. Himmel would say on something that isn't the case but I'm hoping if there is a pilot program that you could only get whatever it is your frontage is on the public street in front of your house so that you can't come in and say well I need four or five of them 12 Agaton Road all the way down to 26 Agaton Road because I got five cars so I just want to put that out and I don't know if in the forums that's come up but I would be interested but I anticipated the forums you have people that are either strong pro or strong con but I think moving forward that if this board got into a pilot program if it were 300 spaces but we got one or two residents on the street that asked for more than their frontage I think that's just a whole a can of worms are opening that's just going to make this it could be the doom side of the pilot program so I'll stop there I mean it's certainly one element too it could be one car per address and so and yeah in regards to the snow thing it's funny because every time I talked to a few people every time I talked the snow thing was like one of the points yeah the street street that was the secondary one we would have a place when they wanted the cars off the road they had a place to go so it was still a whole street sweeping it just won't hold for snow and so because we're really trying to that was kind of what kind of sparked the idea of like well they'll have a place to take their cars and when we need to get them off the road for snow but I guess as long as they can find some place I guess I wouldn't want to not do that because of the snow argument so they'll have to get them off and we'll have a way to communicate with them but I think limiting to one car per household either has to be like right in front on the other side of the street right in front that gives us a rationale for limiting it to one as opposed to trying to create an economic disincentive by charging more for the second car yeah I hear that well the whole reason for bringing these things up is thank you for allowing me to digress it wasn't a digression at all it's relevant yeah no it's all helpful because I appreciate the chair this is in response to the last forum there was a number of comments in terms of concern about the number of people that would participate in this program and I think what you heard tonight was maybe that's a way to limit what we do for the pilot but Chair and I spoke about it and I thought it was good to get it out to the board for feedback and we're still going through a process here there was a number of different comments and concerns that we heard that we're still processing from the forum and will continue to work yeah okay cause I might forget I'll just go ahead so now that you said we did hear about guest parking and we might want to explore making that allowing more days for that this is of course it comes at a cost at some point it might be worth it for them to get in a spot so I think we can certainly explore that as part of either the pilot or just an adjustment in our parking policy thank you I appreciate creative thinking here it's intriguing another thing I really like is that this is more responsive to not only the public forums but I think trying to get back to the original problem we're trying to solve which might be a smaller scale that we need so I'm really interested in not trying to over solve for that problem whatever that is and I think we heard that a lot of people in the community are a little concerned about that too I would be I have some questions about this and I think as you go along I'd like to hear more about it basically as you continue working on it I encourage you to do so one of those would be what does happen in the winter so before us would we tell people in this program this is a pilot through the fall but our intention would be to return these cars off the street in the winter because we talked about if we did a larger townwide pilot that we think that could stop in the winter we might be one of those towns like other municipalities that just don't have winter overnight parking so I think we would want to know what would be the case with this group of permits if it's different, if we would say yeah this is probably not going to be a winter street permit how is that different, we would need to know how is that different from the current waivers the case by case waivers that we have now because I think they're allowed to stay on in the winter so we have to think that through and I don't know the answer I'm just bringing that up as a refinement I if there is a way to make it need-based I'd be interested in that so that again we're responsive to the original problem we're trying to solve which is people coming to us in saying that the current waiver program isn't I wasn't eligible for this but I still have a hardship because of multiple jobs or the composition of the household those are the people I've wanted to help through this process I'm less interested in a big change in the town so we were to do a lot more systematic study higher professional planner or having our own planning department really to walk us through the options for a larger scale wholesale change so I love the surgical nature of this and if a need-based approach to that committee to that permit would be legal and possible and fair I'd be interested in knowing what that is as well I think it's an interesting concept to tie it to the town lots and assign someone to a lot as a place they can go I also didn't know that we couldn't send people to the town lots because during snow emergencies that's a little bit of a wrinkle but I think really what that accomplishes is this limited number of permits even if the town lot doesn't end up working out I'm pretty interested in keeping the number of permits small so that if our intent is to help a more circumscribed universe of people who have a need rather than saying this is now a place you can partner with or not in general I'd be interested thank you I'll make her comment it just occurred to me it's just food for thought with no response needed that I wonder it almost we complicate this so much like the select board has these certain check the box type things that we said that oh if you have parking you can't come and you wonder if ultimately you just get to the point where we don't change much and you make the process still that you have to apply to the select board you have to come here and you have to say to us I need it because this is this and we say okay and we don't have some pre-prescribed I'm sure it's right we can't the certain things we can't differentiate if somebody has the same type of application but if you make the process you have to pay the fee you have to come to the board that's going to weed out a certain amount of people and if some I think most of the requests are going to be ones that will approve or if it's a guy with big driveway up in you know in the stratton area who just doesn't feel like parking in his driveway or just wants to be able to park in the street we say this isn't really what we're what we're doing here and give the board discretion as opposed to some I think this is one of those things you start pulling at the string it's like well this comes up well this comes up it gets so overly complicated it's just we relax the rules that we take we still require people to come pay a fee and that naturally it's going to weed out the superfluous applications so I'll add that to the discussion and no response to require it again thanks actually that was one of the things I was talking to the chair after the last forum that we just relax the standards and that's one of the things that was really helpful about that last forum because as we've said every time we go through a round of talking as a group or talking to the public and having a forum it gets more and more complicated and so I think we still work and we try to find a solution here but that's something that did occur I think to both of us after the last forum but because at the end of the day you can't answer every question but you do want to solve a problem because I still maintain there are equity issues out there that we need to address related to parking and that's why we primary reason really why we want to do this well this proposal relaxed the standards in that account eliminated them and said you're going to get it tell us why you want it hopefully because they know they're going to get it they tell us really why they want it and if a lot of them are not need based they just kind of want based it'd be good to know that because it would help us if we decided to do the pilot again because we would say we're ending the pilot at excellent amount of time we get to assess what happened and you know pilot is a pilot you get a limited amount of information from it but at least that would help you decide how to move forward with understanding that there are limitations so that's where we are whether they come here or not I guess I know a lot of people hopefully that won't be the case because of the limit so I can argue in both ways but I think thinking now is that they just would come to the select force office or at least have a conversation with someone in the select force office so that they can tell them the rules and that they have to get the car to get information from them so that they can be contacted again I don't want to drag this conversation out but just note that with our current system they only have to come to the select force on time to get it approved after that they automatically are renewed the permit so where it's it could be that we get inundated and we have maybe we say we're going to hear all your applications in June whenever we're a little slower if that time ever comes but once you get over the initial hump you're only hearing applications really as someone that moves into town to the next chair to program where that may be so Mr. this is a really great conversation I think I do when I first joined the board my first reactions to the boys' rules for the waivers are really strict and I had a couple thoughts like what if we found a uniform and fair way to change the check boxes basically in a way that we could still I think I might be interested in the ability in a fair and equitable way to stay notice of people so that we did target this to the problems we want to help people with you know that's going to be a pilot program could help us understand that need better and see if we're if we've got the scope too wide or too narrow but and I think some of Mrs. Mahan's ideas are worth considering about limiting constraining somewhere where they could park but all that I think is in the details and I look forward to this thing maybe a refined version of this I appreciate your work Mr. Heim I think you have a sense of the conversation we're going to be having next do you want to have any of it now no thank you Mr. Chairman okay I second that since we have the benefit of our town managers presence and experience here realizing that I didn't ask you this in advance and I apologize you've been with the town for a long time you know the town departments really well both the DPW the police you're from residence do you have any advice for us at this stage on these ideas I've had many conversations with several of you about these issues and I would say that I don't because it really just comes down some policy decisions that you have to make that are thankfully in your realm and not mine that's why we get the big bucks yeah that's it it's an excellent deflection you could have said I don't want to speculate sorry yeah so okay I think we've talked ourselves out great we'll be on correspondence received cross war concerns near Jason Street Hillsdale Road Gordon sorry I'm just going to go here and number 11 need for periodic facilities department reports Barbara Thornton motion to receive in refer number 10 to attack in refer number 11 to I would say the town manager and the chair have you discussed second in a comment yes miss wahan tend to self-explanatory I agree with that I agree with both things 11 is really a bono contention pretty much as long as we set it to find a facilities department and a facilities director and it certainly is something I don't expect the current town manager to necessarily have the amount of time to move on and make this happen since we started going down the road of having a facilities department a facilities director and this all predates all my colleagues service on the board but since whatever that year was and I've kind of given up on it because there's only so many times you can bark something out and then you get the message even though you don't want to do that what I said from the very beginning and this kind of goes back to my days of when I worked it's now Verizon but in the phone company and I said how even back then all there was was Lotus 123 and D base 3 and I was just a good secretary which is now an administrative assistant 1234 depending on the level but that I made it a point for the women that I loaded their daily schedule with to go out to repair, replace perform maintenance on trunks and senders and mainframes that I was able to do that in a program that didn't really exist but definitely saw the benefits to that and also you could use that program to say if you have these five employees that work for the phone company is really good on those mainframes but nobody can seem to figure out what the problem is first and Mr. Diggins is boy he's up and down that hole and you know he's got all the equipment and he knows how to load his two belts and I've been told since we went down in this journey oh yes we can do that now because we have the facilities director we have this fantastic software program called school dog or something school dude you're going to get those if I could just get them maybe even twice a year because I know what I went through to create something like that and once it's done it's really just a click of the button to say print that report oh yeah you're going to get that never have gotten one to this day so I'm venting with the current town manager Mr. Pooler because I was told oh no no we got this school dude you just push of the button you can get that and I said and I'm not doing this one thing I don't want to do is go through an exhaustive waste of somebody's time that basically creates work that you're a brand new boss and you come in and say well I want you to Xerox everything on zoning bylaws and I'd like two copies and one and three hole punch and one not that's just make them work too but the reason why I wanted to see this was especially with the fire stations our school buildings our now community center former senior center etc as well as our rental properties like parmenter is that one of the questions I asked is is there a way and if it's too much work I don't too cumbersome I don't want this no it's a click of the button I'm told not only will I be able to see for that in school is the facility I can see the equipment that's in there I can see new purchases but can I see along with that you purchased five trunks and five mainframes I'm just using words the five trunks have recommended every five year warranty and the mainframes have ten five two bought in this year one was bought three years later and here's where you are in that cycle so I can see that some of the biggest costs we have is in criticisms that I would get is that you buy this stuff and you're not maintaining it well that's why we created a facilities department and we have a facilities director and we have this great school so I went way too long on that I'm a future town manager that is something that I'd really like to see I'm told it's very easy it can be done I've never received it so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity so thank you Mr. Helmuth I just wanted to invite the town manager did you have any information you could share to eliminate or do you understand what you're indicating I will briefly say seeing this letter I did look into that I obviously was not aware of Ms. Mahan's questions so didn't prepare that I will say that in both the annual town report and in the fiscal plan we have a lot of information about what the project department does their accomplishments from previous years with their goals and objectives are in the future and to some extent some work measures I think the issues that Board Member Mahan raised are go beyond what's in here some of them are easy it really relates to the issue of having a preventive maintenance program in place I think we've been moving in that direction and so I think that's something that I will report back to the Board on with more specificity and I do know at one point we were using school dude we stopped using it for a while for some internal reasons and I think we just tried to get it up running more all of which is to say that I'd be happy to report back to the Board with more information about some of the issues that I've heard expressed tonight I think they're important issues but I think also just having a good explanation of how we're approaching the facilities and the equipment and the maintenance of those things is the core of the issues that are important to talk about and I will get back to the Board thank you Mr. Chair anything else yeah Mr. Poole and I talked about it this morning also what Mr. Heard on item 11 had recommended was exactly what was going to happen we'll be following up on this we'll probably have an update meeting to even if it's to say we need more time for an update but I want to learn more about this I've heard it a number of times sometimes it's a little slow though a little dense so it finally penetrated this time it really did help to have that presentation that Ms. Norton sent along I had the whole history of how the facilities department came into existence or so let's find out what has been done if any information has been generated that's been disseminated to the town meeting if not let's start it if it has been let's see if we can extend from there but yeah we'll get some motion on this so on a motion Mr. Heard to send 10 to tack another issue 11 to the town manager myself and second by Ms. Mahan Mr. Heim Mr. Heard Mr. Helmuth Mr. Davis Janice Hope new business No new business, thank you No new business Mr. Heard I just want to announce that Alex McGee started in the manager's office today as a new deputy town manager I will set up a time for him to come and meet you but for those of you at home he is the deputy town manager and finance director and I've made him look at a lot of spreadsheets today so thank you Mr. Chairman just over the weekend this month that the Robbins Library has a program on LinkedIn Reads Together and this month's book this year's book was by an author named Judy Human the book was called Being Human an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist and of course tonight when we were talking about the self-service gas stations we were talking about ADA concerns she was 75 years old she was due to come to Arlington to the Robbins Library via Zoom to talk about her book and take questions unfortunately she passed away on Saturday at the age of 75 but she was a remarkable activist really let us sit in in 1977 in the federal office in San Francisco basically to enact regulations under the rehabilitation which was a predecessor to the ADA and we talk about the ADA so often and she was an activist her work led to the passage of it in 1990 I purchased the book last week and it started and it was really sorry to see her passing I encourage everybody the library is still going to have a program on March 19th well worth reading about her life and the impact that she had no no business Mr. Herd I wanted to congratulate the boys and girls hockey teams for great seasons they unfortunately met their demise on the same night and as I was thinking about every time the rinks packed it was packed like I never saw last night it always makes me wonder if speaking of the facilities one last time the bleachers had a structural engineer look at them school dude can tell you that I say that sort of facetiously but also seriously because they seemed in the new way era of how they do high school games now the first couple games of the Division 1 tournament are at Ed Burns Arena last couple years they're packed out and the kids are jumping up and down and you've seen incidents happen in that it is something that I have meant to ask initially said I have to ask Mr. Chafferlain to potentially take a look at that what I'm sure they looked at from time to time but it is something that I think would be worth taking a look at since I had the time to bleach your stress load report thank you this is a point of business for my colleagues in the board and the theme of this is better late than never a year after I said I would I have finally gone through the select board handbook and updated it to bring it up to date no substantive policy changes whatsoever but try an effort to update numbers and facts and bring things in compliance with what we're actually doing I just wanted to give you a heads up I've sent it off to Mr. Decorsi gave me an assistant a couple of points sent it off to our board administrator to put some specific requests and tasks I'm sure she was thrilled given that you have nothing else whatsoever to do right now but with the hope that I could have asked her to send it around to you for just a look over to make sure I got it and contribute any suggestions to her and that we could adopt it before the 10 election and did you and Mr. Chair you anticipate like it would be set up so it's sort of like red line in fact it is very much a red line okay or something it doesn't have to necessarily be that thank you thank you Mr. Chair does it say meetings will be a max of 45 minutes yes I did make no change when Mrs. Mahans when Mrs. Mahans finally got your name at it right well that might have been a motivation yours too I think I was there I was the last one around and I'll just add that I'll just add that it overtakes we'll get the discussion about the beautification committee on for next week I just failed to get it on for this week so I'm saying it now and asking Ms. Meyer to help me remember to get it on it was my fault I did not the agenda is the chair's responsibility and I just forgot to add it so just letting everyone know that we're still going to have that discussion so with that I'll take a motion to adjourn so moved second so on a motion adjourned by Mr. Helmut Mr. Horsie Mr. Herd Mr. Horsie Mr. Helmut Mr. D Thank you