 Please take the seats. Ready, Sarah? Okay. Joining us this evening on piano is Ms. Jane Howard. Please rise for the Star Spangled Banner. Thank you, Mr. Howard. Any town meeting members who have yet to be sworn in? Any new members? Seeing none. See, I want to announce that our representative, Sean Garverly, has introduced a bill and has had today proclaimed Massachusetts hearing loss awareness day. And in conjunction with that, he's attempting to have the legislature pass public access to hearing aids for children and he wanted us to all know that this is something he's doing and that it's a worthy cause and we should encourage him and our other representatives to do it. Basically it would aim to provide insurance coverage for children under 21 so they can get hearing aids if they don't already have them. So call up your other representatives and give them a boost for Sean. I don't have any other remarks today, so... That's the chairman of the Board of Selectments, Roe. Yes, thank you, Mr. Moderator. It is moved that if all the business of the meetings are set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting is not to Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 8 o'clock. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So moved. Any announcements or resolutions? Mr. Howard. As a member of Peter Howard Precinct 10, thank you, Mr. Moderator. As a member of the Recycling Committee, I did not hand out a resolution that we're planning to present with Article 34 when Selectman Roe takes it off the table and she's planning to do on June 8th. But it is in the back of the room in a stack and I urge you all to take a copy of it and think about it positively. Thank you. Any other announcements or resolutions? Mr. Marr. John Marr, Precinct 14. I serve on the Sims Program Fund Committee which administers about a million dollars, which is left over funds after a split with the lay clinic which provides medical services for the greater Arlington community. Please note if anybody's interested in making an application for these funds, the next round of fund request proposals are being received. There is a notice that lasts Thursday's advocate and if anybody has any questions, I'm glad to answer them. Thank you. Thank you. Any others? Seeing none. There are some reports of committees this evening. Mr. Tosti, can you take three off the table? Move that Article 3 be taken from the table. All in favor? Opposed? Okay. Any reports of committees? Okay. We're going to do them in a specific order. Mr. McKinney is going to go first and the school committee. Mr. Gilligan, you have a report as well? Okay. So maybe we'll take you before the school committee. Mr. McKinney. Mr. Trembly has one? Mr. Pollard. Yeah. Mr. Cole. I see Mr. Cole. This is Anna. Lawrence McKinney. Precinct 7. Hello. Is this working? Change hall. Yeah. Like that? Hello. Okay. Lawrence McKinney, Precinct 7, Chairman of the Young Colesam Committee. First of all, I want to thank everybody in this hall for supporting us last year. We were able to go out and find our logo and get the whole thing together. And I was going to make a facetious display of the $300 we have left before I was appointed financial director of the entire town. But that's something entirely different. Today we're going to celebrate Uncle Sam and the return of the spirit of tourism. First, our accomplishments. We want to welcome Hugh McCrory, a very, very hard worker. And we want to send a vote of thanks to Janice, who is the last, Janice Weber, who was the last member of the old Uncle Sam committee and has transcended to Stephanie's job. Thank you so much, Janice. We've done our bit to try to increase the promotion of Uncle Sam. We've been in the Arlington Advocate three times. We've been in the Boston Globe at least once. And thanks to Sean Harrington, Sean here today, he managed to tell the world that Uncle Sam was born in Arlington and thus managed to reach 2 million people in 30 seconds. Thank you, Sean. We are continuing work with Sean Garberly, also to try to get a Uncle Sam day for the Commonwealth. Okay. One of the things which we asked for last year was that we would go forward and see if we could get a better logo to how to explain the connection of Uncle Sam to Arlington. We held a contest. Some of the designs were better. Some of the designs were not quite so good. But we finally came upon a winner. We have some in the back. In fact, we have many in the back. And we hope that each of you can take home a little dividend for your support. And thank you very much again. We're not going to ask you to wave them in the air or anything. Okay. Now comes to something a little bit more serious. One of the things about Arlington is we have a lot of history. But most of the world doesn't know about it because their trust aren't big Jason Russell groups or Dallin Museum groups that have a lot of money. The only person we have in this town is Uncle Sam. The very fact that he's perhaps 95% cartoon character gives us a tremendous flexibility with what we can do with this gentleman. But the fact is, as he's there, we own him and we should publicize him. Now, as you probably know, there's going to be a massive federal project called the Scenic Byway Battle Road which will include federal funding for advertising, for transportation and for land management. And it's a huge tourism. It follows Massachusetts Avenue running right through Arlington. We attended every meeting after January of 2009 and we were the only independent town committee that actually sent people to these meetings over and over again. Our town had twice the representation, you might say, but tourism-wise we need it. Now, one of the things you'll notice in the next slide is that this is from the actual study. Everything goes right through Arlington and it goes right through Arlington at that spot. Broadway comes through. Mass Ab comes through. Pleasant Street comes through. The bike path comes through. It is a totally natural focal point for people coming through Arlington. So, we had a problem here because although we had a lot of people coming through Arlington, we really didn't have what amounted to a tourist attraction. Now, everyone comes by here but no one really seems to know about it too much. And we don't have any place to send tourists to other things. We don't have a sort of a signboard. So, we got thinking about it and we want to see what Lexington was doing. Well, they had a big beautiful statue up there. They had lights on the statue. You can't see Uncle Sam at night. He's completely gone. They have a big signboard up to show people where other tourist things are and have that. And we were not even going to be noted as a tourist place in the program. We had to work very hard. The reason is pretty simple. If you can see that picture, we don't have any signage. The bike path has huge signs but there's nothing for Uncle Sam. There's no information. It's completely obliterated. You can't read anything and it takes a person with a very good mind to figure out what that thing to the left-hand side of Sam is. And the landscaping certainly doesn't look like anything but my lawn. So, we had to figure out what can we do. The big thing is to get information. So, I attended five of the first six meetings of the Byway Tourism and Economic Development Committee, where I learned about how such things are done. Since I was an invited member, I didn't have to, you know, wait my turn to say things and so on, which is probably why I wasn't a member. I want to thank all of the people who ran that committee for the tremendous amount of help we got from them. I want to thank Clarissa for putting the whole thing together. Carol, if we're explaining to us exactly what Larry Koff was trying to do in his Economic Development Survey, Joey Gliszko came by to talk about how signage problems were popping up and we were able to get behind that. And Howard Winkler has been working for a long time with Jason Russell-House and of course Bob Bows is a very wise guy. What we learned is that the statue just happens to be in the center of an area singled out for development and we're working to improve that area. So, we started talking. We talked to Mike Radamaker and he said, you know, we could get lights there. We do have a thing to make better lights and we talked to some people who knew what was going on and they said, that's not hard. We've got a space there that we're not using at all. So, we thought to ourselves, hey, let's use this to draw the tourists in. Why not pave it? Imagine the brick plaza, landscaping flat bricks, real signage, a tourist information board, good lighting, create that focus for anyone biking or walking or driving past this town. A low cost tourism hub. This is what we proposed the Uncle Sam Wilson Plaza. Economic feasibility? Well, 212 happens to be the 200th anniversary of Uncle Sam. He popped up in 1812. So, we can do that. And 212 is also when this byway is supposed to open. Now, major businesses will probably be very happy to get on the bronze plaque. I know what they cost. They're less than you think, but this will be there forever. And small businesses will also be interested. We've even countered the bricks. We sold a brick for 10 bucks. We'd have $70,000. As it is, we can get this thing done for the cost of 10 Xerox machines. That's about 30,000. We have until September 13th, 212. And it's really not that expensive. And people are already stepping up to help us out. The people who were tending the mulch have already said they'd be glad to help Mike. Mike, are you there? Mike, he's already volunteered to help. We've got people already standing up to help get this together. So, it's time to start being tourism. You have, on your laps, the actual words. And all you have to do is sing Duda. Are you ready? Sam Wilson came from Marlington. Duda. He's our famous native son. Oh, Duda Day. Uncle Sam says, name. He's bound to bring us fame. He packed his pork in Troy, New York, but he came from Arlington. Sam got up early on that morning. Duda. That the USA was born. Oh, the Duda Day. He saw the troops march by. He saw men fight and die. He packed his pork in Troy, New York, but he came from Arlington. In 1912, he brought relief. Duda. To hungry soldiers with his beef. Oh, the Duda Day. He spotted him. They called him Uncle Sam. He packed his pork in Troy, New York, but he came from Arlington. The US stamped on those supplies. Duda. Duda. They all surmised. Oh, the Duda Day. So the legend grew till everybody knew. He packed his pork in Troy, New York, but he came from Arlington. Thank you very much. And now, that matters. Thank you, Mr. McKinney. Ms. Howard. That's a big act to follow. A very tough act to follow. Jane Howard, Precinct 10, co-chair of Vision 2020. And I'm very pleased to present tonight the annual Vision 2020 report to the town meeting. In the back of the hall, again, in a box are these little booklets which summarize the report. This information will be available on the town website tomorrow. Perhaps some of you have seen an earlier report of the survey, but this is what we're required to do each year. So our report comes in three sections. The first is in the community development section of the town's annual report. And that one contains our activities of the year and last year's survey. The second is included in Article 65 funding the water bodies. And the recommended vote of the finance committee will be what we consider. And the third is the summary of this survey that you all received in your homes this January or late January. And we countered the responses for six weeks. And so I'd like to tell you that where we call this survey truth and consequences, you can influence the difficult decisions. We have a little power point to go along with this so you can probably look at your books later or ask questions of us. I'm very grateful to Joshua Bell and Joey Glishko for helping us put this together and all the people who worked on the survey and indeed all the people who responded. So we received 4,000 73 surveys by March 15th. And it's the second year that we've had more than 4,000 responses. This is 21 percent not the 21, 20 percent that it says there of Arlington households if you consider that we have 19,000 households. We were asking respondents to opine about how they would solve the problems this year of the projected deficit. So in the inside cover we will have the demographics of all those who responded and you can study those there on the page 2. And then we go to the sort of service and revenue questions by department. So respondents were asked how they would deal with the deficit with and available funds. They were to choose one of four options make the full cuts use pay as you throw favor a three-year override or favor a five-year override. And they went department by department. So let's consider the fire department. The fire department people chose an override based solution by 51.9 percent. Then pay as you throw by 26 percent and full cuts by 21 percent. In general next slide of all the departments and you'll find them on pages 3 through 5 the challenges to each department brought this response. An override based solution was much larger than a pay as you throw solution was indeed much larger than full cuts. In fact no precinct voted for full cuts as a solution. Then we asked questions about the schools but we also ask people that if they favored either pay as you throw or a three five-year override what would they like to preserve in the schools. This is just a partial chart of what they said but 899 households said that they would choose all of the options that were there and the rest come in those orders. So for instance the top level would choose music and art and so forth. There were 12 options. Then we came to questions about three ways to address the deficit. The first was would you support a three-year override in general? Would you support a five-year override in general? And do you support pay as you throw? Next slide. For the override based solution and by the way this survey was available online as well as on paper 61.8% of the respondents chose either a three or a five-year override solution. Then we come to some of the details that Josh was able to extract from this survey because we asked so many questions about the demography. How many years you've lived here? Do you own and rent your house? Are you over 65? Are you over 65? Do you have children in the public schools? Do you have children in the schools? Etc. And tomorrow when you get your when this is up on the on the website you'll be able to find answers to these questions by those demographic categories. Then we came to support for pay as you throw. And indeed 64.6% of the respondents favored supporting pay as you throw in general. Not applied to any department but just in general. While 35.4% did not. And we'd just like to thank all the people who responded and if you have any questions you can ask either Josh or me. We're here. Thank you. So Mr. Gilligan. Thank you Mr. moderator. Steven Gilligan, town treasurer, town meeting member from precinct 13. Move that the treasurer's report to town meeting be received. All in favor of receiving report. It's so received. Thank you Mr. moderator. I promise I will not sing the report nor will I read it. You don't want to hear me sing. Trust me. The report is in the back of the hall on the table. The report provides information on cash flow investments income by category town debt and trust fund portfolio performance. So I trust you will find it all wonderful late night reading. Just as a highlight I'd like to let town meeting members know that the investment portfolio had a net gain of 12.57% in the last calendar year. Thank you Mr. moderator. Thank you Mr. Gilligan. Mr. Trembly, did you have a report? Mr. Trembly, precinct 19. Mr. moderator, could I ask if we could have a town resident, the chairman of the tree committee come and speak before town meeting? Okay, so are you pointing for the tree committee? Yes. Okay, sure. He or she can come on up. Who is she? Sally Nays chair of the tree committee. I have a brief report for town meeting on the activities of the committee over the last six and nine months since June. So with the help of Clarissa Roe, Jim Dodge and various other individuals the tree committee was brought from dormancy in June of last year. Since then the new committee has established a presence at community events such as Town Day and EcoFest and has redeveloped the original tree committee website into a resource for a broad range of tree related information. We've supported the town's efforts to halt instars unsightly and damaging trimming of the town trees and most recently with the help of the DPW's tree division we've organized a pilot program for volunteer based planting of the town trees. In the absence of funds in the town budget, 40 trees were purchased and funded by the trees please committee sorry, account. About 40% of these trees were planted by the homeowners who had requested them and the remainder were planted by volunteers. In future years the committee aims to increase the number of trees planted to at least equal the two to last each year. And to this end we plan to initiate a precinct based volunteer tree planting effort and to actively raise funds for the trees please account. We will continue to support a negotiated end to instars destructive practices and to expand the website's content and interface with the tree division. Special thanks go to Jim Dodge and the tree division with less. Our first tree planting day was a success thanks to John Deutschman's excellent planting demonstration and the many volunteers including homeowners, members of the Cub Scout Troop 306 and the Boy Scout Troop 313 and Peter Lundstrom and the workplace program at Arlington High School. The committee would also like to thank Jim Dodge and Clarissa Rowe for their ongoing support and guidance and a full report of the committee has been posted on the committee's website ArlingtonTrees.org and for information about the precinct based volunteer tree planting effort please talk to the town members who also serve on the tree committee namely Andrew Fisher, Walter Phillips, Clarissa Rowe, Ed Trumbly and Greg Watt. Thank you very much. Thank you Mrs. Nash. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I stand to abolish the original tree committee. As you know the members of the original tree committee are now part of this committee so I'm asking you to abolish the original tree committee. Do you have a second on the motion to abolish that committee? All in favor? Opposed? Second. I thought someone said she had a report. Mrs. Starks. Good evening. Cindy Starks precinct 8 chair of the Arlington school committee. Town meeting members have already received the Arlington public schools town meeting report. It was on your chairs on Monday April 25th. But because town meeting will not be addressing town budgets I wanted to address it briefly before town meeting recesses. First I want you to know that our town has a wonderful school system with students achieving at ever higher levels where students are challenged and supported to the best of their abilities from kindergarten through graduation. This year Arlington high school won a second silver medal award from US news division world report as well as a highly competitive award from the college board for increasing the number of students taking AP exams while also improving AP test scores. And for those of you without students at the high school AP stands for advanced placement and those are classes that high school seniors and juniors can take and they actually depending on their grade on the school. We are going to read this. We all can read. Can you give us the highlights? Yeah, okay. Stratton elementary school was given the designation of a blue ribbon school from the US department of education. And these are but a few of the many ways in which our schools and students have been recognized this year. Our students are motivated, and they make excellent use of all the resources that we give them. They make us proud whether they are in the classroom, the playing fields, the art studio, raising funds for earthquake victims, or for the relay for life. Our students bring credit to the town and the school committee hopes that our town will continue to support our students and our schools to the best possible. This high performance continues due to the hard work of our teachers and our students, even though our schools have had to make service reductions in each of the past six years. It is important that you understand that any further cuts will negatively impact classroom environments putting academic progress at risk. At this point, there is simply no way to protect class students during funding. The report you received outlines the budget the school committee approved on March 8th, 2011, which reflected a budget without an override, as those were the funds available when the budget was approved and the report was created. If you have looked at the report or seen the full report posted on the website, you have seen the large cuts in personnel that are required to balance the school budget. With additional losses, we urge the select men to approve an override, and as you know, they have done just that. On June 7th, this town will vote on an override that will provide much needed funding for the schools in fiscal year 12. That is $3.2 million more than what was approved in the March 8th budget. The additional funds will from the override allow the school service as well as to provide the district with an additional $600,000. This will be used to get us closer to what we believe are the services that our students need as well as reduce our currently high athletic fees. As chair of the school committee, I wanted to alert town meeting to the stark difference that a successful override would make to our school system. Without the override, the teachers in the high school, 12 fewer classroom teachers in the middle school, and 17 fewer classroom teachers in the elementary schools. That's a total reduction of 40 classroom teachers, or over 10 percent of our current teaching staff. The impact on our class sizes is enormous. Without the override, we will have classes ranging from 30 to 40 in the high school, and as of 31 in the middle school, and 27 in the elementary schools with some class sizes as large as 33. More important than those numbers are what these do to the students and their learning in those classrooms. At the elementary level, these teacher losses reduce the amount of time students get to spend in physical education as well as increase class sizes to the point of negatively impacting students. One second. What is your point? She's also reading the report word for word. I understand your point, Mr. Cacavaro. I understand your point. But Ms. Starks, we all can read. We can read your report word for word. You're just reading it to us. Can you summarize for us? I'm going to get into an override debate on town meeting floor. Mr. Deist, I understand that. I'm letting her give her report, but we have asked people right along not to read reports word for word to us because we can read if she can hit the highlights for us. This is the highlights. The report is what was on the chairs on Monday. Let Mr. Starks have the floor. Please continue. Mr. Deist, I understand that the report is the most sad because getting rid of the team teaching at the middle school in the 7th and 8th grades means that middle school teachers do not get a chance to get to know one student as well as they should. And that can very negatively affect their learning. Without an override, the system will suffer reductions in areas ranging from physical and administrative positions to elimination of all traffic supervisors. Altogether, the override budget allows us to keep almost 70 more positions than the non-override budget. If the school system had not already had to make service reductions totaling over $7 million in the last six years, these cuts might not be so hard to bear. But as it is, they push an impact on the economy. It was only 11 short years ago that my oldest child entered the Arlington Public Schools. At that time, it cost $1,000 to send her to kindergarten. She was in a class of 17 students. There were full-time librarians. She had art and music both twice a week and PE three times a week. She also had a Spanish class twice a week, and we had to make sure that she was safe on those days she walked to school, and when she didn't, the bus she rode to get to Bishop was free. I'm sad to say that none of these things are true in our schools today. Today it cost $3,000 to send your child to kindergarten, over $250 to ride the bus, and you know what our athletic fees are like. Our class sizes continue to grow, and our education for our students will continue to decrease. I urge you to continue to compare the Arlington Public Schools with and without an override in your conversations with friends and neighbors. I urge you to attend many of the forums and coffees being held on the override and for more information on our schools and their financial needs. I thank you for this opportunity. Our schools, our students, and our town is in your hands. Thank you. Mr. Cole. If you're handing it out, you're not going to read it to us. Bullet points. That's what we do. We all can read. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Cole, chairman of the permanent town building committee. I'd be happy to meet and talk with anybody during the break and I believe there are other representatives here as well. Our most visible projects are the two fire stations, Highland and Central. The Highland Station is a complete renovation, exterior and interior. We expect it to be complete middle of July. I think anybody who goes by there sees it as a very tight site we are restoring this building to its full historic character and also pursuing lead silver certification as part of the town's interest in improving the sustainability of our properties. Central Station at this point we are only repairing the building envelope. This was done on an emergency basis to stop water infiltration and also as a safety measure to repair some cornices which we were afraid might topple and do damage to people or property. The two projects combined are about $5.4 million. I expect at the end of the day we will return between $350,000 and $400,000 to the town for other purposes. The community safety building is the second project we've been working on this year. Phase 1 was repair of the plaza between the community safety building and QSAC Terrace. It involved ripping up about football fields worth of deck over a parking structure and replacing the waterproofing membrane adding new landscaping and other amenities on the top. There's a lovely photo of that in the lobby. The community safety building authority for their contribution to that project of about $110,000. Total project cost was $1.6 million and I believe we have just voted to return $100,000 in contingency back to the town for other purposes. Lastly is the Stratton School where the Capital Planning Committee has provided funding over a two-year period to make improvements. Phase 1 which replaced the roof increased the amount of insulation and some minor repairs to the envelope was completed last summer under budget of $125,000 excess was rolled over to Phase 2 which started on April 16th during the recent school vacation. We will be replacing windows putting in a new boiler and improving technology throughout the classroom ring. We learned about midway through the project that we might be eligible for state reimbursement under a green schools program. Through the cooperation of the school department the finance committee and others we were able to put together the application for that and are currently negotiating with the state for reimbursement. I can't tell you how much it will be but I do believe it will be a substantial amount. Members of the building committee also serve on the Thompson School Committee but that report will be covered by others so I will skip over it here tonight. Lastly if you will indulge me a moment I'd like to give you a little editorial comment about why I think this town is doing a good job in hard times. We know budgets are tight we're trying to squeeze every penny and I want you to know you got people who are working hard to accomplish that. I'd like to single out a few. On the fire station projects the work of the fire chief has been exemplary. By my calculations he saved us over 300,000 dollars. Number one by figuring out a clever solution to housing the displaced company from the Highlands station on other town property so we didn't have to rent trailers as we did at Park Circle. And secondly he's been amazingly resourceful in getting other town departments to help us complete work that might have been done through change order with the general contractor. By doing this he saved us at least 50,000 dollars. I'd also like to salute the school department CFO Diane Johnson who I think very cleverly figured out that we could fold the green schools repair program into the Stratton renovations. As I say the reimbursement amount is under negotiation but the town will be receiving a substantial amount back. It's allowed us to increase the scope of the project and reduce the net cost to the citizens. And lastly I'd like to thank the Capital Planning Committee over the past few years we've had more interchanges and I think it has allowed us as a building committee to have more flexibility in sequencing projects in ways that save operational funds and also helped us with some cash flow issues on the Stratton school to make it eligible for this reimbursement. Thank you. I'll be in the hall at the break. Thank you Mr. Cole. Any other reports of committees? Seeing none Mr. Tosti. I move that article 3 be laid upon the table. All in favor? Opposed? Article 3 is on the table. Okay and Mr. moderator ask the town meeting for a little indulgence here. I would like to move to table articles 24 through 56 so that we could take up the capital budget. When we finish the capital budget for the special town meeting take care of the Stratton and the Thompson schools and then once that finished dissolve the special and return to the annual. This way we can deal with them all at the same time. So again I move to table articles 24 through 56. All in favor of tabling please say yes. Opposed? They are tabled. That brings us to article 57 the capital budget. Thank you Mr. moderator. Charles Foskett precinct 8 chairman of the capital planning committee. And for the report on the capital budget we'll need only 10 minutes but we will ask the indulgence of the meeting to give us more time when we get into the special town meeting and discuss the Thompson project. Thank you all. If we go to the next slide please. It's just introduced the capital planning committee. Steve Andrew is a citizen appointee. John Fitz Morris who is a town meeting member. John are you here? John is not here. Okay. Is a member of the committee. Adam chapter lane the deputy town manager. Steve Gilligan is the vice chairman of the capital planning committee. And I would just like to note the hard work and the effort that they put in. Today the top thank you. Topics I'd like to review with you are just a little bit about our history of spending and the capital budget. I would just like to note the hard work and the effort that they put in. About our history of spending and the capital budget and how it's different this year. Some details of the vote and the financial impact that it will have on this year's budget and future years. How our debt profile appears and what our past program progresses progress in our past programs and some new initiatives. I'd like to point out that we have a budget report at the first night of town meeting and when I refer to some charts you can find those charts and that data in this yellow book. It's yellow front cover, white back cover. The first table I'd like to draw your attention to is figure two which is the five year history by funding source. And you'll notice that on this chart 2012 is substantially lower in all respects than prior years. And there are two reasons for that. The overall budget squeeze that we're in this year has forced us to lower our overall expenses. And secondly, because we are anticipating funding the Thompson project partially out of the non-exempt capital budget we've had to further squeeze down our capital expenditures within the normal capital plan. The next chart that I'd like to draw your attention to is table one which is shows the difference between this year and last year and just very explicitly the cash expenditures that is the money that you vote to be directly spent without borrowing money is down 32 percent this year. The new debt service is down 64 percent and our application of reserves are down 74 percent. So the capital budget from a total financial viewpoint is somewhat more conservative than last year. The next slide is table two on your in your capital report and this is the reconciliation of the tax impact. Now I want to mention that what you're being asked to vote is in the the formal vote is in the report of the finance committee under article 57. It's also contained in the report of the capital planning committee but the formal official vote is in the finance committee report. And this table just reconciles the exempt and non-exempt budgets and the bottom line number there that $8,444,825 which includes cash expenditures includes both exempt and non-exempt debt is what you'll see in the bottom line of section one of article 57 of the recommended vote. Now table four in the capital report describes the way we do our planning. Now the first let me mention that the detailed expenditures in the capital report are contained for the budget year for fiscal year 2012 are contained on exhibit one which is right after the written section of the report. Those are the specific items that are in thanks IT department provides a lot of services. Appreciate it. So the specific items which you can feel free to ask any questions are in exhibit one in the capital report and then exhibit two is the five year plan. And table four which you see behind me here on the screen shows the summary of the individual budget categories for fiscal year 2012 that's the capital budget that you're being asked to vote this year and then our forecast of future expenses over the next five years. Now the reason we put together the five year forecast is because we are asking you to borrow money that has to be paid back in future years. And that happens every year in the capital budget. So if you look and you see there's a line that says prior non-exempt debt that's where we're paying for past transgressions. That's the money we borrowed in the past it's a debt service that we're paying down over time. The cash expenditures the next line are the 633,400 that's what we're asking you to vote this year and then we're forecasting in future years the cash numbers that you see to the right. And then the line the new non-exempt debt service. This is our forecast of what the debt service is going to look like in the future. So the sum of that is the total non-exempt debt. Now we have an agreement that the Federal Planning Committee at the request of the Finance Committee has agreed to keep its proposed budgets within 5% of the annual budget. And that's what we reconcile in this table. So there's a line that says pro forma budget. And what that is is that's the budget that the town has adjusted by taking out taking out of the budget the water and sewer items which are the water and sewer I'm looking at this yellow light flashing distracting the water and sewer items which are paid for by fees. So this table basically shows you that we stay within 5% of the budget. On the next slide we see the total debt estimates and the this is different than figure 4 in your book is different than you've seen in past years because even though we haven't gotten into the special town meeting yet we've anticipated that the town meeting might support the Thompson project and if you do vote for it you can see that the estimated new exempt debt for Thompson is included in figure 4. Even with that new exempt debt the total debt for Arlington is still a range of 17 to 19% of the total debt that the Department of Revenue would allow Arlington based on its total equalized valuation and that statutory limit is $346 million and our debt runs around $60 million. So we're well within the total amount of debt permitted by state law in a relatively conservative position. In the spirit of the moderator I won't take you through all the details of the program progress that we have but you can see those enumerated behind me and they're also listed in the capital report. I have a quick summary here of potential Stratton Green Grant impact and I guess listening to John Cole I'm not supposed to mention the impact so we'll flash that in front of you and we'll get to that. We're going to get to that. Well the negotiations with the state are going on but let me say that we hope that the town is going to save a substantial amount of money and it's basically due to the creative work of the school department and the permanent town building committee. We are asking you in article 57 to move a $200,000 bond that we had previously forecast for to finish this year so that the town can qualify for this Green Grant which hopefully will be a substantial and unspecified amount of money. Finally just a couple of points on new initiatives the capital planning committee is working on creating a maintenance committee not part of the capital planning committee but a separate committee will come back to you with a proposal on that next year Barbara Thornton is working pretty aggressively hopefully the efforts of the maintenance committee will lower some of the overall capital outlays that we have to make and secondly this year we met with the disability committee and for the first time we've explicitly included some improvements associated with the disability program. Wrapping up we have also cut the amount of money spent on copy machines and copiers this year $57,000 and that's basically by not funding any new copiers or any replacement copiers so people whose leases are run out they have to continue to use the old machine. The town management has committed to come up with a document management strategy next year which hopefully will include some clever approaches to saving money such as using perhaps Adobe Acrobat more often and things like that that would reduce some of the paper that's being used in the town and some of the impact that it has on requiring expensive copiers. So in summary and also let me mention that we'll discuss completely the Thompson project under the special town meeting Article 5. If you vote the Article 57 capital plan we will move no action on Article 4 in the special town meeting so we respectfully ask for your favorable vote on Article 57 and we'll be pleased to answer any specific questions. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Foskett. Mr. Leonard. Thank you Mr. moderator John Leonard precinct 17 with your approval going through the capital planning committee budget I came across what appears to be a typographical error which I'd like to bring to your attention if people would be kind enough to notice that an exhibit 5 page 3 of 3 of the capital planning report again I suggest that it's just a typographical error about the 5th to 6th lying down money has been allowed in 2011 for the Wellington Park playground tennis court but then if you were to turn so many pages before that to exhibit 2 page 4 of 5 in the 5 year plan for 2016 more money has been allowed for the Wellington playground after I had a conversation with Mr. Connolly of Parks and Recreation it was decided that there wasn't a typographical error and he informed me that the money that is set aside for 2011 is only to go for the tennis courts not the playground and the playground will be taken care of in the 2016 budget so I would like if possible to bring that to everybody's attention to make that correction thank you do you agree with that Mr. Foskett I do so we can just eliminate tennis court from the 2011 line item on the page no tennis court stays in so playground goes away playground comes back in 2016 so we can make that administratively we'll strike the word playground and on exhibit 3 of 3 page 3 of 3 exhibit 5 that's okay with you Mr. Foskett sorry for me thank you Mr. Leonard Mr. Jamison Gordon Jamison thank you Mr. moderator first I want to thank the capital planning committee Mr. Foskett has been traveling and we welcome him home and for the hard work and is also to the permanent town building committee I had a question about the comments made by the permanent town building committee in reference to the capital plan when they return funds how are they disposed to be applied into other projects or does Mr. Gilligan move to have as we send our activity how do you plan to do that if you read the vote in article 57 we can unused funds are retained in the vote until otherwise disposed of so if it's cash not bonded the town manager and the capital planning committee can apply those to other capital projects in general if it's money that's borrowed it's borrowed under a specific section of state law those are noted in the vote and if they're applied to other uses can only be applied to uses within those categories so if it's something for fire stations we could use it for the additional work on the next stage of central but not on a school I believe the category is town building so you could use it for virtually anything but you can't use it for a fire truck I know we're using these very appropriately and the permanent town building committee each and every time they come up here I think that's how they've saved us money which is quite impressive Mr. Foskett you talked about exempt versus non-exempt debt and I recall the terminology exempt means things that we voted for outside of the normal property tax revenues these would be debt exclusions is that correct? yes and I note that it is the general policy at least I understand it of the capital planning committee to include as many things in the non-exempt debt that's the regular property taxes is possible is that correct? well in other words we try to pay for as many things as possible out of the property taxes without going to voters for debt exclusions in that sense yes and I note that we do have a large amount of debt not that we should go out and spend it all and run up our credit card debt but in the future I hope we will balance the use of near and dear property tax revenues with the ability to go out and talk to the voters about debt exclusions of course after any override exclusion period so to speak would be over I note the seven million dollars that we put in that sticks up as that large in figure two or three I think that we did last year I'm saddened again just as general comment that the parks in these times of dire straits don't get very much spent on them the parks and fields in exhibit two and as a a butter to the robins farm as I understand it only portion of the cost of replacing the slide there which is I believe a townwide asset was funded by the capital planning committee I would have hoped that that would have been fully funded given the cost also in exhibit three there's an item 268,000 in change for LED street lights perhaps you or the manager could speak to the fact that any of that is reimbursable or that's being leveraged through the green communities Adam chapterling deputy town manager that amount referencing the LED street lights is from the green communities grant the capital planning committee this year decided to begin reporting all grant amounts in the capital plan so what you see there is attributable to the so that would fall into the category of other as far as funding sources correct okay thank you very much and I applaud that that measure that moved to report those in the planning committee I also note that the town PC program for example is scheduled at $60,000 for the coming year now I just help the friend look up the cost of a PC she could get a really nice one for about $329 $329 what are we doing with $60,000 of PCs or microcomputer program for the town well I guess I'd like to ask Mr. Good to respond to that but I would say that $329 PC probably doesn't have any expensive software in it typically the cost of PCs when it's equipped with the tools that the people need to work with substantially more than $329 okay Mr. Good was to add anything to that Mr. Good do you want to add anything to that good David Good chief technology officer included in that line item is not just PCs it is a network switching gear service wiring closet hardware printers and multi-purpose devices which includes scanner facts and other equipment the network gear outfits 27 buildings there is over 225 switches across the town there's over 150 switches within the schools that are being titled for that line item and thank you Mr. Good that's very illustrative of what needs to be done there and very helpful I have only one last question actually one question and one suggestion while you were overseas Mr. Tosti tried to attempt to answer my question about the use of antenna funds this year we established that no time in the past has any funds and that you're using $110,000 this year but again on the actual this may be a minor technicality on the actual budget this year I only saw $40,000 at park and rec expenditures the antenna funds are specifically set aside for parks and recreation funding that came out in the meeting earlier okay so we have debt service for example over the last several years we've put approximately $400,000 $500,000 a year into various parks and playgrounds and that's been borrowed so we apply the antenna funds to the payment of the debt service on those projects when you borrow the money in the specific fiscal year only one half percent sorry one half of the first year's interest shows up in the capital budget in the debt service in the ensuing years I mentioned that line prior debt service contains significant funds that are being paid for prior parks and recreation expenditures that's what we apply the antenna funds to okay and I apologize for giving you the blinking light by being over here and my last suggestion was when I first joined the meeting seven or eight years ago there was another type of project in the back I know it's a very difficult report to do you have a projection of future debt service additions and the amounts we'd be paying in one of your charts I think it's exhibit six as I recall we used to have an exhibit that showed what we were paying for from the past town meetings backwards so you have the forward looking one you have the history of actually what we did in the last years but there used to be a very nice table that would provide you an example I believe the library was done in 1992 or 1994 we're still paying for the library so I think as a town meeting member it's very illustrative of the depth and breadth of the impact of the committee's work over the years to understand which parks and which schools and which buildings we're still paying for the treasurer you might be able to reinstate that at some day in the future I know it's a lot of work to ask and if you can't do it that's fine as well well just to answer the question I don't think we ever did that and the it's not the bonds are sold in aggregate instruments and it's not possible to unravel that and especially for example about two years ago the treasurer refinanced a whole bunch of bonds because the interest rates are very low and you just lose all that specificity when you do that they're lumped into one bucket and the treasurer did a good job there in saving us the money excellent work thank you very much Mr. Baskett Mr. Chappett Mr. Gilligan Thank you Mr. Moderator Steven Gilligan, Town Treasurer Vice Chairman of the Capital Planning Committee if Town Meeting members would like a breakdown of debt project by project I'll be happy to put that together for you Thank you Mr. Warden Thank you Mr. Moderator John Warden Precinct 8 I noticed that despite the smaller amount being appropriated for the numerous photocopiers we buy every year it's just a question about one some years ago at the instance of a retired Town Meeting Member Jacqueline Harrington a photocopier here in the Annex was made available for Town Meeting members and this year we're looking for it and it was informed by the Town Clerk that that machine has been taken away so I just wondered if there was going to be any replacement for Town Meeting members to be able to make copies for this meeting Thank you It's not in the Capital Plan I think the manager originally had made that available Mr. Sullivan is there Machine Town Meeting members can use if they want to make and distribute proposed motions They should just contact Mr. Sullivan's office Okay Any other questions? Comments? Seeing none Okay we have before us the recommended vote of the Finance Committee which is the same as the Capital Plan Committee I have a report to spend a whole ton of money First we're going to take a voice vote I'm going to take it as one big vote even though there are three parts to it because we're going to vote on the whole thing All in favor please say yes Opposed say no It is unanimous vote and I so declare Ms. Randville do declare to 85 members of President's voting Yes she does Oh you're not Ms. Randville anymore She's right She's not Because that was vote bonding we have unanimous vote we don't have to take a standing vote Okay Mr. Tosti do you want to put everything else on the table and take up the special Yes I move that we recess the annual town meeting and take up article four in the special town meeting We have a second All in favor Okay that brings us to article four of the special town meeting Mr. Fawcett Recommended vote of the FINCOM is no actions that's still true Yes All in favor no action on article four please say yes Opposed unanimous vote That brings us to article five of the special Mr. moderator I'd like to ask the permission of the town meeting to have up to an hour to present article five this is a 20 million dollar expenditure for the Thompson school project and we'd like to open with a presentation by Jeff Thielman on the on behalf of the Thompson school building committee There's been a I have you Mr. Leonard there's been a request for one hour of time for the presentation is that seconded all in favor Opposed let's try that again All in favor please say yes Opposed say no Okay my opinion is an affirmative vote Thank you Mr. Thielman Mr. Thielman Thank you Mr. moderator Thank you members of town meeting My name is Jeff Doesn't work Yeah that middle mic doesn't work too well You got to get the volume up or something Can you hear me now? Okay good Jeff Thielman Precinct 12 the member of the school committee Yes sir Let's make it a quick recess because we have a whole bunch of kids up here So let's take a seven minute recess Thank you The high school girls are selling cookies and stuff go out and support their endeavor We're going to come back Mr. Thielman Mr. Thielman has the floor Please sit down Mr. Thielman has the floor Mr. Thielman Thank you Mr. moderator Jeff Thielman precinct 12 a member of the school committee and a member of the Thompson school building committee I'm honored to present the report of the Thompson school committee to you tonight I'm going to talk about why we want to build a new school and what it will look like Mr. Foskey is going to follow and talk about the finances of the project In the hall to answer your questions tonight are George Metzger from HMFH Architects and our owner's project manager Kevin Nigro So both men are here there are technical questions they can take your questions The Thompson school building committee includes Dr. Kathleen Bode John Cole the chairman of the permanent town Sherry Donovan the principal of the Thompson school Diane Fisk Johnson our chief financial officer Toby Jackson the Thompson parent Rob Giusola a member of the permanent town building committee Dominic Lenzalotti the town purchasing manager Anthony Lionetta a member of the capital planning committee Mark Miano the facilities manager of the town Suzanne Robinson who was here a bit ago she's a member of the permanent town building committee Bill Shea a member of the permanent town building committee Brian Solomon and myself I want to recognize two members of the Thompson school building committee I'm not even sure if they're in the hall but they've done outstanding work over the past 13 years of the rebuild project and that's John Cole and Bill Shea the Thompson school building committee advises the superintendent who is responsible under the law for the management of any building project funded by the Massachusetts school building authority MSBA the Thompson school building committee has the responsibility of ensuring that the school is built within the budget approved by town meeting and the MSBA and that the district adheres to all MSBA requirements in town-wide referenda in 1998 and 2000 Arlington's voters approve the rebuilding and or renovation of the town's seven elementary schools between 2000 and 2005 five elementary schools were rebuilt with the majority of the cost being paid with funds from the former school building assistance bureau known as the SBAB the SBAB was replaced in 2004 by the MSBA the Massachusetts school building authority there were many changes under the new MSBA including an increased role in the management of construction projects by the authority and state authority and a change in the reimbursement rate of the town of Arlington from 63% to 47% approximately 47% the last two of the seven schools to be repaired or rebuilt in Arlington are the Thompson which was built in the 1950s and the Stratton which was built in 1962 and added to in 1968 the district completed statements of interest to the NBA for both the Stratton and the Thompson and the Thompson was accepted because it was older and needed more repairs as John Cole told you this evening we are making improvements to the Stratton from the town's capital budget as well as from the MSBA green repair funds the school that was approved for rebuild is the Thompson which as of October 1st 2010 had 336 students and is the most racially and economically diverse school in our town 32% of Thompson students are young people of color and 27% of the school population qualifies for the federal free reduced lunch program meaning their family income is at 185% or less of the federal poverty level 16% of the students at the Thompson received English as a second language services 14% received Title I services and for 26% that the Thompson school English is not their first language it is a wonderful school community with outstanding teaching excellent leadership and devoted parents grandparents and guardians who give an enormous amount of time and effort to the school those of us who have spent time in the school know that it needs serious repairs all of the major building systems need to be replaced and accessible to disabled students the existing mechanical system is well beyond its predicted useful life the roofs and windows need to be replaced special education spaces are inadequate the toilet facilities are subpar there is a poor security and technology system in the building the building does not have a sprinkler system and there is an inefficient layout for parking and drop off by beginning the Thompson project during the 2011 12 school year we eliminate the need for potential costly repairs to the facility and its systems slide 8 in the presentation lists the sizes and October first enrollments of each of our elementary schools this is something to refer to as our discussion proceeds this evening for a point of reference the new Thompson school will be close to the sizes of the bracket and the Hardy schools over the past several months our committee has worked closely with the capital planning committee the finance committee, the Board of Selectment the school committee and the MSBA to design a school that fits within a $20 million total project budget in February of 2011 the MSBA voted to move our project to schematic design phase meaning the MSBA Board of Directors believes a new school is needed and should be built as long as the town can provide its share of funds and the architects design a building that adheres to all MSBA standards the schematic design will be submitted to the MSBA this summer and we expect that our architects and owners project manager will make sure that we meet all requirements to secure a favorable vote of the MSBA in July of 2011 our expected reimbursement rate from the MSBA is 47.2% upon a two-thirds vote of this body this evening and an affirmative vote from the MSBA Board in July the MSBA and the superintendent will sign a project funding agreement this summer demolition of the existing Thompson school will take place this fall and then design development and construction bidding takes place with the goal of beginning the project in the spring of 2012 our goal is to complete the project by August of 2013 and the MSBA has indicated to us this is a realistic time paper as you saw on page 8 of the slide presentation enrollment in our elementary schools is not evenly balanced the MSBA has required the school committee to redistrict by the time the Thompson school opens next year and during the 2012-13 school year there will be many conversations between the community and the school committee about redistricting in the fall of 2011 we will be moving students to the Stratton and Hardy schools with the possibility of some students moving to the Bishop principals Deb D'Amico of the Hardy Alan Brown of the Stratton and Sherri Dunderman of the Thompson are meeting regularly to work out the details the plans for the move are not yet final and there will be many more meetings with parents from all schools impacted in the coming weeks the new Thompson school will be a three-story structure with 56,348 square feet and the capacity to hold 380 students the building will have 15 classrooms for grades one through five kindergarten rooms and art, music, reading, occupational therapy speech and language rooms as well as a gymitorium and an auditorium and a cafeteria the central kitchen the place for food is prepared for all elementary schools and stored for the entire district will continue to be located at the new Thompson the central kitchen saves the school district about $120,000 per year in our operating budget slide 14 details the estimated project cost the current estimate of the amount of the project that is reimbursable at the rate of 47.2% is $18.2 million the Thompson school building committee, HMFH and our owner's project manager will work aggressively to reduce cost and maximize the MSBA reimbursement I want to take a few minutes Dave to talk about the supplemental report that was placed in the hall tonight and that we sent to the listserv over the weekend it's entitled Thompson school building committee report May 16, 2011 supplemental information in the supplemental report we attempt to answer questions that have been raised about the increase in the cost of MSBA sponsored projects the presentation contains a comparison to the Dallas school the most recent school built in Arlington the whole 10 page report kind of boils down to four main reasons why costs have increased since 2004 when we last built the new school in the town first the producer price index the price of producing goods has risen twice as much as the consumer price index second the Thompson site the actual site where the building is going to take place is larger than the Dallas site third the Thompson has a central kitchen which on a square foot basis is one and a half to two times more costly than typical spaces because of the concentration of equipment and plumbing infrastructure to support it and fourth and probably most importantly the MSBA has more control and involvement in our project today than the old SBAV the reason is to better manage costs and to ensure that projects are completed on time when they agreed upon budget there was a lot of publicity in recent years about high schools and other projects that went over budget and the MSBA put in requirements to make sure that doesn't happen again as you can see in slide 7 of the supplemental report we are required to have an owner's project manager all general and sub bidders have to be pre-qualified and the MSBA closely monitors and manages the project by playing a role in the selection of the owner's project manager an architectural firm as well as approving and overseeing the feasibility study and schematic design, project scope and budget agreement, instruction design instruction administration and project closeout a benefit of increased MSBA involvement there are many many benefits by the way is that towns and cities receive funding from the state upfront as the project is progressing some of you have raised asked me about what are we going to do about cost overruns and I thought I would address it in this presentation I tried to address it in a supplemental report first the MSBA process of control is very tight and designed to prevent surprises so there shouldn't be any surprises at the end of the project secondly we have an owner's project manager whose job is to secure the lowest cost bids we can find third we have an experienced building committee and as you heard from John Cole tonight a member of our committee the projects being overseen by the permanent town building committee have been to date on time and under budget and we expect and will work hard to emulate that success with Thompson the bottom line in terms of the cost can be found on slide 10 of the supplemental report as you can see the total estimated cost per square foot of the Thompson project is comparable to a lower than other MSBA sponsored school construction projects at this time so we're right in the market we're right where we should be in terms of the plans for this project I want to conclude by talking about article 5 the passage by a two thirds vote of this meeting of article 5 guarantees local funding for the project and it empowers the school district to sign a project funding agreement immediately upon an affirmative vote of the MSBA this summer article 5 enjoys the unanimous support of the school committee the board of selectmen the finance committee and the capital planning committee and now it's your turn as town meeting to weigh in of all the votes you take this town meeting the one that will be remembered is this one the last vote is about equity it's about giving the Thompson neighborhood the same high quality facility as other districts in our town your vote will finance a project that will serve the town for at least 50 years most of us will meet very few of the thousands and thousands of young lives that will be changed by tonight's decision inside the new school young people of multiple backgrounds will learn the skills and habits of mind they need to be good students and good citizens of our community so tonight let us stand up and vote yes for the young people of the Thompson school and tomorrow let our students enter Thompson knowing that all of Arlington is behind them their younger siblings and future students because we are committed to making the dream of a new Thompson school a reality it's now my pleasure to introduce Charlie Foskitt the chairman of the capital planning committee who like John Cole and Bill Shea has been involved in the rebuild effort since the inception thank you Jeff Charlie Foskitt precinct 8 chairman of the capital planning committee fellow town meeting members I'd like to talk to you a little bit tonight about how we're going to pay for the school and let me start if I may with a slide that shows where we were in 2000 at the last debt exclusion campaign for the second four schools that were to be completed and David sorry we'll catch up they would catch up this looks a little small to read up there so maybe you could refer to your handout there is a handout in your seats that says rebuilding Thompson financing the project so I'm referring to page three and those two snapshots there are actually from presentation that the rebuild campaign committee gave back in 2000 and you can see that we were anticipating doing the pierce down in Thompson and Stratton this was as Jeff described under the old SBAB committee not the new MSBA and the total vote at the time was 34.5 million dollars we're going to refer that was the amount that the citizens of the town voted as a debt exclusion and when the the presentations were proposed to the voters you can see in the left hand slide there that we were anticipating in the first several schools 63 percent reimbursement we had the idea that that number was going to be reduced to around 50 percent for the later schools on the next slide just as a graphic here school reconstruction cost and it just I'm presenting that to give you the sense of the total investment program that Arlington has made in its school infrastructure and I think this is extremely commendable actually awe inspiring position of the voters of the town to take that over a period of 10 or 12 years we've rebuilt the entire elementary we hopefully will be rebuilding the entire elementary school structure and this graph doesn't show but we did rebuild the oddison in the late 1990s I won't dwell on this subject of the change from the SBAB to the MSBA because Jeff has explained it quite adequately but there are two important points here and they are to reflect on that previous slide because no doubt you've noticed that the the amount of money being requested for the Thompson is substantially higher than the amount that has been requested for prior schools and there are two reasons for that one is that the original in the original program we anticipated that these schools were going to be rebuilt by 2004 maybe 2005 at the latest and as you know during the around the administration there was a recession the budget shortfall and there was a freeze put on rebuilding schools and that lasted for two or three years then the MSBA came around so before you know it here we are in 2012 2012 soon it will be 12 years from when the first thought of this rebuild campaign took place thinking about rebuilding the Thompson during that time on the one hand we've had a tremendous escalation in commodity costs and labor costs and and other costs associated with building these facilities but we've also had as Jeff explained a new regime by the MSBA where the MSBA has imposed new standards and also a new rigor in building and controlling a building process which has added to the cost in addition the MSBA is no longer reimbursing at a 63% rate but rather as Jeff described at a 47% rate now if you look at slide 6 page 6 I mentioned what the MSBA requirements are first of all the MSBA has asked the town to present a schematics drawings to the MSBA by the end of July and there is in existence an agreement between the MSBA and the town that if these schematics are approved the town will qualify for the 47.2% reimbursement but the MSBA wants a full unrestricted $20 million authorization vote which is what we're asking from you tonight that means that the town if we vote this in this project goes ahead the town is on the hook for $20 million now if you look on page 7 of the presentation that's in your seats the title of that page is the you see that the original debt exclusion was $34.5 million and $9.9 million was spent on the pierce $11.8 million on the down total $21.8 million meaning that there's unused debt exclusion of $12.7 million dollars against that we're applying $6 million that's in the morata of the reimbursement from the MSBA and that means that we are eventually going to be putting on the tax rate we're asking the Board of Select to be putting on the tax rate and exempt additional exempt debt of $6.7 million and by the way these numbers are a little bit approximate because and what the MSBA actually will qualify for reimbursement we'll move a little bit here and there but these are pretty close so of the remainder $6 million will be funded by a portion of the MSBA reimbursement and the $6.7 million is the new exempt debt as I mentioned so I've summarized this on page 6 where does the $20 million come from some of it is going to come from new exempt bonds that were authorized by that April 1st 2000 debt solution some of it will come from the capital budget that we just spoke about in article 57 in the future in the exhibit I think it's the last exhibit or next to the last exhibit in the capital report where we report on anticipated debt service in the future we've included the debt service for the Thompson project we're talking about here in future non-exempt debt service we also town meeting has previously voted non-exempt capital funds approximately $800,000 to be dedicated to the Thompson school and these funds are existing right now and if you remember many years ago perhaps as many as years ago Jackie Harrington introduced an article in town meeting that said that any interest in the school accounts that's earned by funds from the school project sitting in bank accounts be set aside and used for the school building projects and we're collecting those interest funds for this project and in addition we are anticipating that there will be some disposition for the parminter or crowsbee facilities and the capital funds from the sale at a long-term lease of these assets will be contributing towards the payment of the $20 million so quantitatively this is shown on page 9 of the presentation this is similar to the table that's in the back of the capital report except it has been modified slightly because the department of revenue gave us a recent number that adjusted the amount of the debt exclusion referendum balance to $12,704,107 and you see that at the top of the page so if we say that the project is $20 million and there's a $1 million reserve and there's an estimated non-reimbursable cost of $2 million in total then this reimbursable project portion is approximately $18 million this is slightly more conservative than the number that Jeff just mentioned to you so that means that the allowed reimbursement amount is approximately well shown here is $8.8 million $497,800 so the sources of paying for this amount as I mentioned $6.7 million will be added to the tax rate about $1.2 million will come from the non-exempt capital project we discussed that under article 57 and I mentioned it a few minutes ago approximately we're anticipating somewhere in the order $3 million from the disposition of the Parmenter and Crosby assets that's subject to negotiation subject to your vote and other articles here in town meeting the school capital balances that's the $800,000 that we've previously voted and have set in the use of the Thompson school the $20,000 is the interest amount that I mentioned from the Jackie Harrington article of many years ago and then the MSBA participation of $8,497,000 so that leaves us with $20 million plus a small surplus of $249,446 and that's that surplus is in this multi-year joint out project is essentially a comma on the accounts and can easily be absorbed by small changes in the anticipated interest rates so basically that reserve is appropriate and if anything it might be a little bit short the next slide in your package on page 10 describes the incremental tax impact and this is based on data that was generated by the treasurer's office and by the town's investment banker First Southwest and on the top left-hand corner of this page there's a table that shows the funding source these are the numbers that we just went through a second ago and where they come from and as you can see the singular number that's going to hit the tax rate is that $7 million and the average incremental household impact based on 15,000 parcels is about $29 a year the total impact of this project over 17 years and a typical household is going to be the total aggregate impact is going to be around $2,000 so the chart that's on the bottom has three lines the it's probably not in color in your package but if you look at the screen the green line on the top is the I'm sorry let's say the blue line the upper blue line is the existing non-exempt debt that has been borrowed based on the prior school projects and the Sims project the red line at the bottom which is under that $50 bar is the exempt debt impact per parcel of the Thompson project which on the average is going to be about $30 as I mentioned a couple seconds ago and then the green line if you look at this slide behind me the green line on the top is the per parcel total amount and you can see that this exempt debt rolls off it's smaller and smaller over time as the debt service pays off the outstanding debt and the reason why it falls off sort of sharply in a couple of places is because some of the earlier school projects that were started back in the early 2000s or in the 1998 period are being paid off and no longer required debt payments the next slide is a sheet that I put together called fact sheet frequently asked questions so Jeff actually asked this question what happens if the project overruns beyond the reserves that we've shown you which is a million dollars reserve inside the project and the $250,000 of financing reserve well if it overruns the project it will likely impact the non-exempt capital budget that means that some of the things that are in that five year plan that we have projected in the future would have to be postponed in any event whatever happens it will require approval from town meeting another question might be what happens if Parmenter and Crosby are not leased out or sold as forecast perhaps town meeting won't allow it perhaps town meeting votes for it and the Board of Selectment and the town manager can't achieve the ideal that people are looking for well then again this is going to impact the non-exempt capital budget will likely delay other plan projects like maybe the fire station or the community safety building or it actually might overflow the capital budget and impact the operating budget and then the final question what happens if the MSBA does not approve the schematics in July and keep in mind when you vote on this project if you vote in favor you've authorized the town to spend that 20 million dollars so what happens if the MSBA doesn't approve it and we don't get any reimbursement my observation then is it's unlikely that the treasure and the Board of Selectment would authorize the bonds we hope I say it's unlikely with a great deal of confidence I can't predict what the Board of Selectment or the Treasurer would do but I don't believe that they would undertake a 20 million dollar project that the town didn't have the reasonable means to pay for so there probably are other important questions but those are the three I think that loomed most heavily in our minds when we were thinking about how to finance this project so on page 10 there's a little summary here just to remind you of where we were 10 years ago the town voted 34 4.5 million dollars to be excluded with reimbursement for the repair, the renovation or the rebuilding of the pierce, the Dowan the Stratton and the Thompson the MSBA declined to finance the rebuilding of the Stratton so the town has undertaken to improve that infrastructure on its own you the town meeting have been voting those funds for the last two town meetings and you voted it again tonight under article 57 the pierce and the Dowan have been completed that leaves the Thompson the town voted by a 72% to 28% majority to support the rebuilding of these schools I think today it's appropriate and I ask that the town meeting support the will of the arming taxpayers and vote to rebuild the Thompson the Thompson school building committee has described to you the school and the plan the capital planning committee has just described to you the way this can be funded so we respectfully ask for your favor we will vote on article 5 for the support of the $20 million project that's described in the report of the finance committee thank you very much thank you is that in your presentation yeah okay Mr. Leonard sir oh yeah you can't hang your sign over the edge there thank you Mr. Leonard Mr. Lest thank you Mr. moderator John Leonard precinct 17 I wonder if somebody can answer a question for me in the Warren article itself I mean I know everybody in the hall knows that we rebuild rebuilding the Thompson and the Warren article itself is calling for remodel renovate construct construct an addition to etc does the Warren article have to be worded that particular way where everybody knows we're rebuilding the school why wouldn't the Warren article just say rebuild Mr. Foskett can you answer this question yes that language was specifically provided by the MSBA to the town council and if we're going to get the reimbursement that's the way we have to have word the article does the wording of it also allow for us to salvage anything if there is anything out of the Thompson school to be salvaged you mean like sell the old stuff no I'm just basically saying I'm wondering if there's something there that possibly can be kept to go along with the new building itself are as basically just saying everything in the school's got to go well the project that I think Mr. Thielman explained that the project design that we've gone through for the past 18 months or so has been under the close supervision of the MSBA and our project manager and architect so anything that is of value and usable for the next 50 years I think has been incorporated into the plan and I don't know Jeff if you wanted to add anything to that Jeff Mr. Thielman can you help him out we looked at a number of different plans John and what made the most sense was to knock the building down and start over I can if you want I can if John the moderator wants I can bring up the architect of the owner's project manager answer more specific questions do you want I think he's in the post of the building itself you're referring to the stuff inside of it anything at all Mr. moderator from soup to Nazi air conditioning anything at all that possibly could be salvaged okay I think we're going to sir yeah Charlie at that level I think the demolition contract will allow us to retain things of value okay one other question Mr. Foskey if I could is there any way that you could take a minute or two to elaborate that on anybody that is involved with this project whether it's be the design people the construction people anybody that would cause a delay let's say here we are with people turning around and giving our okay but not everything is in our hands if we find out that somebody is delaying the project through the one thing or another can you basically tell us how we can keep their feet to the fire is there any kind of finds or penalties that they would be under to keep this project moving well I think I should that actually should be answered by the Thompson school building committee we have an architect that is responsible for that as well as the what's called the owner's project manager and I don't know if you'd like to make a comment Mr. Nigro name and address for the record please sir my name is Kevin Nigro my address is 41 Biscayne Avenue in Saugus Massachusetts I am the owner's project manager I work for a company called PMA Consultants as I understand the question I think the easiest way to answer it is the architect the OPM my firm were required to sign standard MSBA contracts that all OPMs and architects throughout the Commonwealth through school jobs are required to sign we have liabilities insurance and we have defined roles and responsibilities that must be met we are measured by MSBA as well as the town administration and school administration we report monthly to the town and monthly to the MSBA and the MSBA also has a strict requirements list of checks and balances along the way we're required to provide them updates for example on the feasibility through the schematic design development to when we hire the contractor we have to meet their requirements along the way and the recourse is through our contracts and liabilities and we have to meet their requirements and balances thank you Miss Malone my name is Marie Elena Maloney alias mag precinct one Sean Garberley would have liked to have been here tonight but he is in New Bedford this evening at a redistricting meeting for the state that is not for the town I would now like to introduce Ms. Thompson PTO president and will be representing families of the Thompson Ms. Pionty is allowed to speak as she is a town resident name and address for the record please Ms. Pionty my name is Jane Bionty and I live at 50 Wyman street in precinct 7 thank you Meg and thank you Mr. Moderator why don't you use one of the other mics that one is not working Jane is that better? yes my name is Jane and I live at 50 Wyman street in precinct 7 I speak to you tonight as the parent of a fourth grader at the Thompson and a sixth grader at the oddison I ask you to support article 5 and to fund the Thompson school rebuild because it's the right thing to do for Thompson students the East Arlington community and the town of Arlington as a whole I send my daughter to school every day with a seriously compromised roof with failing heating and electrical systems I was interested in what the gentleman in the back said about reclaiming the air conditioning because there is no air conditioning the children at Thompson dress they don't dress for the outside weather they dress for the unique internal weather at Thompson where it's roasting hot in January and utterly unbearable in June I once brought in several large fans for my son's fourth grade classroom his sweating teacher was very happy and although the fans cooled the room off a little bit the teacher then had to compete with the noise of all the fans struggling to teach above the racket it was just an unacceptable learning environment now given that my fourth grade daughter will never attend a new Thompson school someone recently asked me why I was advocating for a new building I advocate for a new Thompson building because I respect the hard work and dedication of Thompson teachers and staff those teachers can work around the shabby and tired conditions of the current building but cannot implement best teaching practices in a substandard building I advocate on their behalf because I see firsthand their tremendous efforts their patience and dedication to some of the most academically needy students in Arlington I advocate for the parent community that has worked for so many years with town and state officials to realize a new building a parent community that was promised a new building so many years ago I laugh now when I think back about my sixth grade son entering Thompson in kindergarten I believed he'd be in a new building long before he hit fifth grade but that didn't happen over and over again the town has come close to rebuilding the Thompson and over and over again that process has stalled but I'm here tonight mostly to advocate for the children at Thompson a school is not just a building it's a tangible representation of our commitment to our children I ask you to keep the promises made to all the children of Arlington to educate them in safe and educationally appropriate schools the Thompson community is uniquely and richly diverse but that very diversity sometimes complicates education for many of our children and the current building is failing to meet educational needs of that diverse population as the PTO president at Thompson I know that the school building serves its community far beyond the hours of 8 a.m. to 2 15 for many of our students the Thompson is the sole source of out of classroom learning and enrichment our students rely on Thompson to experience drama art and science activities to which they would otherwise have no access right now they do that in barely adequate facilities I also advocate as an Arlington parent Arlington is a small town we may have 7 elementary communities but families across town are connected through preschool and soccer and hockey church and the children's theater and all the many hours we've spent on parks and playgrounds and when our children get to the Addison like my sixth grade son and then to Arlington high school they are no longer Dallin or Pierce or Thompson students they are Arlington students and as such they all deserve comparable elementary school experiences both on the fundamental principle of equity and to support their shared futures we must teach our children through our actions that we as a town honor them all by educating them equally I fear that a no vote on article 5 tonight will have the following consequences the Thompson will remain open next year and indefinitely my daughter will spend her fifth grade year in a failing and perhaps dangerous building it's that lack of fire safety that keeps me up at night the town will be forced to pump greater and greater amounts of money into a failing building the Thompson rebuild process will come to a halt sending a message to the Thompson community and the state that the town is not committed to building a new Thompson some say we can't afford to rebuild the Thompson but I think Mr. Foskett has shown us tonight how we can keep the town's promise it's a long standing commitment to all the children of Arlington so if you believe that Thompson students deserve a safe school that serves their educational needs then vote yes tonight or maybe Wednesday night but I hope tonight if you believe that rebuilding all our schools benefits all Arlington students then vote yes and if you have a vision of our town where there is a shared commitment to educate to high standards and to educate equitably then vote yes the time to rebuild the Thompson school is now please vote yes tonight, thank you thank you Mr. Piondi Mr. Lovett has the floor please please Mr. Liggett sir in the back of the hall in the yellow sweater back of the hall in the yellow sweater quiet please you don't have the floor thank you Mr. Marauderater Steve Liggett precinct nine I'm speaking to you tonight from two perspectives that of a town meeting member and that of a concerned parent in the Thompson community I'll begin from the parent perspective which leads directly to becoming my daughter is near the end of the first grade at the Thompson and my son will be entering kindergarten in the fall of 2012 when I mentioned to Annie my daughter recently that I was hoping the Thompson would be rebuilt she was horrified what do you mean rebuilt daddy I love my school it was bedtime so I quickly changed the subject but her words have been on my mind for weeks I love my school does she love the fact that all the major building systems are in need of being replaced that it's so hot in the rooms that she's sweating and struggling to keep her eyes open during class that there is no sprinkler or fire system as Jane alluded to keep her and the other kids safe of course not those are the things that the grown-ups worry about what she loves from her perspective as an innocent child excuse me is her teachers her friends the rich diverse community the international festival the science fair participating in the Thompson drama project all the great things that go on at that school building that happens to be run down and worn out as the grown-up I will be voting yes article five to take all of that away from her for the next two years I worry about that old school the worn out building systems that could fail at any time and cost a lot to repair I understand that trying to work in hot stuffy rooms undermines the tireless efforts of the teachers and prevents our kids from getting the most out of their time at school I fear for her safety and that of all the kids in the building I ask you to vote yes as well if this article passes and the Thompson is rebuilt as planned it will be difficult and inconvenient in the short term for my family for every other Thompson family and for all of the families across the town and the affected host affected by the host schools that will be absorbing the Thompson students it is quite likely that my two kids will end up at different schools during the rebuild as would many other families that will be hard on everyone physically getting kids to and from different schools trying to become engaged members of different communities juggling schedules and logistics for multiple PTOs and school events the list goes on but even though it will be hard in the short term it's the right thing to do for the long term that's why we're the grown ups we're thinking about the long term balancing the pros and cons making the hard choices doing what is right for the Thompson and Arlington communities and that's how I ended up speaking to you tonight no offense to anyone here but becoming a town meeting member was not on my list of life goals I've been a homeowner here in Arlington for 17 years and I voted in many town elections without being deeply involved or honestly totally informed in all cases the challenges facing the town right now the Thompson rebuild being but one of the many are significant enough that I ran as a right in candidate this spring so that I can be part of trying to meet those challenges now that I am a town meeting member here are four additional reasons why I support article 5 first the plans for the rebuild Thompson are reasonable we're not talking about a state of the art showpiece we're not talking about a new car with all of the bells and whistles we're not talking about a Newton North in reality we're talking about a reliable safe serviceable school that will help the children in our community get an education rather than staying in a building that impedes that education to go back to the car analogy we're driving a rundown jalopy right now hoping none of the critical systems fail a yes vote on this article takes us one step closer to replacing that jalopy with a good middle of the road car that has the standard features one expects today without the frills that we can't afford and don't need second there's the question of equity and fairness the reality of the Thompson as stated tonight is that it is the most diverse student body of any school in Arlington with that diversity come enormous opportunities benefits and richness part of what makes the Thompson community so vibrant and fulfilling bless you also with that diversity come challenges and responsibilities we owe it to the children at the Thompson all of them to provide the infrastructure needed to support that education some of the challenges faced by members of this community are difficult to address but providing a school facility that is equitable with the others in this town isn't one of them it's easy to talk the talk about equity and fairness but we have an obligation to walk the walk third it's now or never many people have been working with the MSBA for several years to get this rebuild to actually happen we are at the front of the line and even with the tough economic climate we're about to receive eight and a half million dollars to help fund this rebuild if we don't follow through and approve this article now we lose MSBA support we go back to the end of the line I'm not sure if the town of Arlington could recover from the credibility hit of such a move I am sure I don't want to try to keep that jalopy running long enough to find out fourth we made a commitment and it's time to fulfill it in 1993 with the school facilities master plan followed by town-wide referenda in 98 and 2000 we have committed to rebuilding or renovating all seven of the elementary schools we did five of them in the five years after the 2000 referendum but have stalled since then six years later it's time to deliver on the next step in that commitment as I said earlier I never expected to be up here speaking to you it turns out some things are worth doing which is why I'm here rebuilding the Thompson is worth doing too I urge you to join me in voting yes thank you sir Miss Phelps Miss Phelps Judith Phelps, precinct 16 I have a question we have heard that the students are going to be moved to Stratton and to Hardy and possibly to Bishop what is going to happen with the kitchen though after the lunches for all of the public elementary schools in Islington Kathy Bode superintendent of schools for the next two years we will have a temporary central kitchen at the high school the elementary schools right now have only warming kitchens so the food will be distributed from the high school is there sufficient room at the high school to have this brought in there on a temporary basis we won't keep the same level of supplies that we have been we'll be having to order more frequently it's going to be a challenge but I've worked with Denise Boussays who's our director of food services and she has thought about it very carefully and has a plan for how this is going to work okay our food service program has always been a very good program here in Islington which has kept expenses down for food for our children and made sure that our children got nutritious meals so I'd hate to see anything happen that that is lost has to be sent out to an outsider to come in during the reconstruction we're not sending it out what we're keeping it in district and that's actually one of the reasons why we are also committed to the central kitchen long time ago in Arlington we had this reconstruction process it's very clear that the commitment in those early schools was to having a central kitchen so there would be closer controls of costs food inspection and that's what we're fulfilling here also in this project thank you Dr. Bodie thank you Ms. Phelps Mr. Kleinman thank you Ms. Marin former Thompson parent he's so independent he now lives in Oregon I want to thank the folks that worked on this plan because I think this is a terrific plan and it was a lot of hard work and I commend you for it with that I have a couple of questions one is was there a land study that was done so that we make sure that there isn't any pollution or any problems in building was there a site plan done for the school? we currently have a geotechnical expert lined up to do that site investigation it is on hold until MCAS testing is over and then we'll conduct the site boardings to confirm what we already think that there is no problem there we used historical town records to substantiate that but we are doing a site investigation so you don't anticipate any problem? no typical lighting issues, some asbestos floor tiles things like that that will be abated before demolition alright thanks the other question is there was a mention about labor costs and the labor costs would they be subject to Davis Bacon what that means is that if it's a non-union labor that they would be paid the lowest union rate so if anybody we hire would we be paying them at that rate? I understand the question that I believe Davis Bacon is only involved if there is federal reimbursement funds we're under the prevailing wage act in Massachusetts as is any other town project we have to pay per that schedule part of that schedule that you see in your handout this date what we'll do is when the time is right and we get closer to construction we will apply to the state labor and industry tell them we're building a school and they'll issue us a rate sheet that says with the minimum wage that we will pay each trade on that job is and then we will collect certified payrolls from all the individual contractors to make sure that they comply thank you and I strongly suggest that we vote in favor thank you Mr. Mar we have a motion to terminate debate all in favor of terminating debate please say yes yes opposed say no it is a unanimous vote and I so declare hold on please quiet Ms. Luccarelli do you serve a vote we have now a force the recommended vote of the in the cap of article 5 capital budget to bond to rebuild the Thompson school $20 million this does involve bonding all in favor of doing so please say yes yes Ms. Luccarelli do you certify 85 town meeting members are present in voting yes okay thank you Mr. Tosti you're going to dissolve the meeting I just said the Fincom yes that's all it's all the business in front of the special okay fellow town meeting members having completed all business under the special town meeting I move that the special town meeting be dissolved all in favor of dissolving special town meeting please say yes opposed special town meeting is so dissolved ladies and gentlemen I move that articles 24 through 56 with the exceptions of 31 34 and 35 be taken from the table all in favor all in favor all in favor all opposed Was there a further plan for doing 38 and 9 tonight? Okay. Because of the hour, we're going to go finish article 24. We are in the middle of it. This was, Mr. LaRedi has a proposed substitute for a resolution on town records. The next person to speak was Mr. Sandrelli. Yes, Mr. Sandrelli is still here. Ms. Seroider? Snyder. Jill Snyder? Jill here? Orange, yeah. She used to have an orange jacket on. Jill Snyder, precinct six. I just want to point out, first of all, that there's a common misspelling of the word public under the seventh where as. It says where as the town is committed to providing public records at the lowest possible cost and whenever possible to waiving the fees for that word, I don't want to say. Well, we'll just make that administrative change. It's add and L, it'll be good. Okay. So I just, that's one thing. A couple of things. First off, I just want to start by saying that I am an archived and records management professional kind of in my life outside of town meetings. So my comments today come from that and I don't want to come across as being some preacher for records management. So in advance, I'm sorry. But a couple of things I have to say about this. I guess in all government and all state, local and federal government, there are laws in place that obviously state that we have a legal, what that said government has a legal responsibility to provide access to records who are requested by citizens. And in the spirit of sort of open government and transparency, I think we should continue to do so, keeping in mind that Ms. Loretty had did note here that there are certain exemptions of course, and times in which we will not supply access to those records and those things usually relate to things like privacy and sort of things involved in litigation. So again, I just, that's sort of one thing. And this is very true and this is very apparent, the Freedom of Information Act and the federal level as well as the Massachusetts Public Records Law in Massachusetts. We do records management for three reasons and I'll get to the third reason which really relates to what I'm talking about now, but the first reason obviously is so that people in government can have the records and information they need to do their jobs so they can get access to the information they need to sort of provide services to you as citizens of Arlington. The second major reason that one would sort of organize and manage and maintain the records would be to, in terms of disaster, disaster planning purposes to identify what records you need during and following a disaster to get back up and running, to get your government back up and running, to continue to provide the services again to you. And the third reason is this reason what we're talking about today is that again in all government they have a legal responsibility to provide access of those records to citizens who request it. And this is something that, I guess, this is one of those ideas that again this is one of the major selling points of why we manage organization, why we manage and maintain records and information in government and in the corporate world as well, is that we do have a legal responsibility to provide access to that information to people who request it and in sort of in accordance with, you would manage that information in a record keeping system, whether it be paper or electronic, and that you would do so according to a file plan that's based on and on our purposes based on the Massachusetts records retention schedule. Partly it's been brought up, there were some concerns the other day that were mentioned about things like people providing, people requesting things like databases and people weren't able to easily access the database because it was based on an old technology. And those are places where again I feel like it's really important that we have a migration strategy for those types of those records and information so we can provide access to them because at the end of the day those are headaches that we're going to have to continue to deal with forever, but that's really important again that we continue to maintain and manage the records and information. And I'm going to get to sort of my point now, there are sort of two major cases and times in which one would request records to the town, right? So one is, many of you mentioned it the other day, sort of simple people said I want access to some type of record information, it's kind of citizen in Arlington comes forward and says I want access to this information. And it should be a quick win for the town, again if the record keeping practices are good and sort of simple, this should be a quick win for the town, this should be able to easily give you the access to that information. There are other circumstances of course maybe in times like if there's some kind of litigation that's going on and there's a major discovery that comes out as a result and someone says I'm going to sue the town of Arlington, which never happens, right? But someone comes and says I'm going to sue Arlington and I want access to all the records relating to a particular topic. And that can be very expensive and it can also be very time consuming. And again these are two very unique situations and I know some of the concerns that I was hearing from people the other day were things like they're kind of treating all those situations in the same manner. And there are actually some corporations in the corporate world that have actually had rather settle because it's cheaper to settle and accept defeat than actually go and try to maintain and manage the record. So enough of my rambling on and my preaching about how records management is so important, I think I'm just very basically coming up to say that I do rise in support of this. And I think it's really great because it just sort of does basic things like we need to establish fees and we all need to know what they are and we should provide training to people and we should make sure that the people who are the lowest sort of being paid the lowest are the ones actually doing the work. So I guess that's it. So that's please vote in favor of Mr. Loretty's substitute motion. Thank you, Ms. Weaver. Pass. Mr. Deist. John Deist precinct. Is that okay? No. John Deist precinct 13 and member of the finance committee. As I recall, a quote of a cost per hour was made last week and I think the number was $32 an hour for someone to search records, someone knowledgeable in the town, presumably to search records. I wonder if anybody's thought about what it cost you to simply get your car repaired nowadays. It's up around 50 bucks an hour or something like that. So $32 an hour is a bargain for somebody who is knowledgeable about records. And I guess I also want to point out that too much of this can get to be a terribly slippery slope. I'm an engineer. There are enormous amounts of information, some of it very valuable. That's published hard copy, created over many, many years, all of it on book shelves and things like that. If I have to go back and look for one of those things, I go to the shelves and I look for it. I don't expect it to be an electronic form nowadays because there's way too much to ever turn into electric form, into information technology. As we view it today for modern kinds of publications. So much of what Mr. Loretty says here is reasonable, but the process has to be kept within reason as well. We all know how tight the budgets are. To do some of the kinds of things that are implied here might be terribly expensive. So I think that the manager and the town and the school should try to comply with some of these things. But certainly it can get to be a terrible burden if we're not careful and you use good judgment to do it well. Thank you very much. Mr. Loretty, for a second time. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Chris Loretty, precinct seven. Just a few comments and I'd like to address a few of the statements that were made last week. I would stand behind what I said last week and I can do that because I have the records to document what I said. As someone mentioned earlier, I think it's important that everyone realize what the different types of records we quest are. If you walk into the Selectman's office and ask for a copy of the agenda for that evening's meeting, that's a public records request. If you ask them for copies of the warrant articles that were submitted the day after the warrant closes, that's a public records request. And similarly, if you go into the clerk's office and ask to see the campaign finance reports of the Selectman, that also is a public records request. I've made dozens of such requests over the years and I'm assuming probably a lot of you have also. And most of the time there is no problem doing that but on the rare occasion there are and that's why I submitted this article. I believe last week the town manager said I had appealed a number of responses to my public records request and in fact that number is exactly two. And he also said all of them were denied. Well, one of them was. But the other one was the one I spoke of and in that case I appealed based on the fees that I was asked to pay. And through the intervention of the supervisor of records, that fee was reduced from an estimate of $1,000 to $1,500 to an amount of $200. And I considered that reasonable and agreed to pay that amount so the check in a couple of weeks ago and at this point I'm waiting to get the record. So I consider that a success even though the town manager referred to it as a denial. And that's the beauty of the public records law. You don't have to listen to how the town manager or other town officials spend information. You don't have to listen to how I spin it. You can request a document yourself and you can read it and you can spin it any which way you want. And that is really important. I would point out the information that is produced to public records request of course isn't always the things the town wants to hear. When the million and a half dollar budget over spending of the school department was made known last fall publicly, that was the result of a public records request by Stephen Harrington. And I think as much as we don't want to hear that information, we also want to be sure it's available to the public when people request it. So I'd just like to close by saying I think some of the selectmen have suggested that I have a personal agenda in putting forth this resolution. And I want to assure you and everyone else that that is absolutely correct. And I want to tell you what that agenda is. My agenda is that all town employees who handle records requests, regardless of which department they're in, have an understanding of the public records law so that they may act in accordance with the letter in the spirit of the law. And I also want public records requests to be handled consistently without regard to what types of records are being requested or who is making those requests. So that's my agenda. And I hope it's your agenda. And I hope you'll support this resolution. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Loretty. Mr. Fitzgerald. Tom Fitzgerald, precinct 11. With all due respect to some of the proponents of this, as a taxpayer, I want access to my records. But I don't want the few employees we have left in this town spending their time on ad nauseam requests for things from the same people. It seems like that is what is causing the problems. I want the town to charge an amount that will more than cover the request, but also be reasonable. Because we can't afford to spend our employees' time on whether there's agendas or not. I don't want my taxpayer dollars to be spent on someone's personal agendas. Mr. Hanner? Bill Hanna, precinct 2. I just recommend, to all the boards and everything, to put all this stuff on as soon as possible and economically, electronically. And let people just access them through the internet. They should be public records only. Things that should be held confidential wouldn't be on that. But it won't cost anybody anything once this is done. Can't happen tonight or overnight, but in the future. Take advantage of it and go forward with this. Thank you. Mr. Fisher for a second time. Andrew Fisher, precinct 6. I just wanted to say that there is a pickle here between devoting a lot of town money to digging up information that doesn't particularly help to run the town. At the same time, we strive for transparency. We can't let that mean transparency only for those who can afford it. And I know the town manager's office and other offices are often bombarded with demands. But two things. One is if this resolution does fail, I would hope that the select man would develop a policy if there isn't already one that helps to advise the manager how to deal with this. Because it is a pickle. And the second thing is how it's handled speaks kind of to the atmosphere of the town. The request I made regarding information about the contract with the Mass Municipal Association Insurance Program, the response could have been, well, you have to pay for X, Y, Z. If you'd like to simply see the contract, you could come in and sit down and read the contract, that kind of nature of thing. So that's basically what I wanted to say. I hope you vote yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Berger. You want to list? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Eric Berger, precinct 6. I support Mr. LaRae's article 24, and I urge you to support it. In responding last week to Mr. LaRae, Mr. Sullivan indicated that he takes it very seriously as does the town, the Mass Public Records Law. And I was glad to hear that. But I want you to know from my own experience, I've had some troubling experiences trying to get information in a timely manner, according to the law. I have to remind folks that might think the town has an option. They have a responsibility to meet the letter and spirit of the law. There's a Mass Public Records Law, as Mr. LaRae has said. For example, I've requested a lot of information at different times regarding the Mass Avenue Card, a project through a Freedom of Information request for documents to find out certain things. And I've requested them through my attorney. And I want to give you a couple of examples of where Mr. LaRae's article is correct in making sure that all town employees are trained and know the specifics of the law. For example, on February 26, a letter from my attorney went to Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Kowalski requesting certain information. Now, the state indicates that you have 10 days to respond as a maximum, maximum. And I didn't get a response my attorney didn't for 19 days, 19 days. Now, that breaks the law. 10 days is the thing. On June 23, we sent a letter, my attorney did, to Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Kowalski. And he got a response on July 13, 19 days later. On June 8, I made a request through my attorney. And on June 23, 13 days later, better than 19, but three past 10, we got a response that indicated the costs. That's according to the law that's perfectly legitimate. They indicated there's a cost involved. And they cited the cost. OK. Now, on June 29, my attorney, under my advisement, sent a check to the town for the amount of the documents. The costs were reasonable. Now it's July 29, 30 days later. I call my attorney. I said, have you gotten anything? I didn't get anything. He sends a letter on July 29 to Ms. Rice who Ms. Rice has been responsive, by the way. She knows the law, and she's met it, as far as my dealings with her. Anyway, he sends a letter to Ms. Rice on July 29. He brings up three matters. And one of them, he says, is we don't have any documents. You know, it's been a month. A month. We sent the check a month ago. I mean, that shouldn't be. That should not be. So what Mr. Loretty's saying here is that the training is important, that the spirit and letter of the law have to be carried out, and that the tone, I'm not Mr. Sullivan says the tone is there. Well, the tone has to be ratcheted up a little bit. So all employees know they have a responsibility to meet the public. They are being paid. Chief here? OK. Chief Scott, keep going. Thank you. They're being paid by the public. You know, I was in public ed. I served as an administrator for about 29 years, different levels, principles, and so on. And I worked for one great superintendent. And the superintendent reminded us every year that we were public employees serving the public, paid for by the public. And we were to respond. And he didn't want us ever to go home with a message on our desks that a parent called them, and we didn't respond. So it's that kind of tone that I urge you to support. Article 24, thank you. Thank you. It's looking good over there. Ms. Friedman, is Cindy Friedman here tonight? Nope, OK. Mr. Judd, you are next. Do you want to take time from your watching duties? Ms. Friedman, oh, you going to talk, Mr. Judd? Lyman Judd, precinct nine. You have just heard from Mr. Berger that occasionally there can be bureaucratic obfuscation, meaning no response. We have to remember that the government serves us, not the other way around. We want transparency in everything, especially when certain people were president. We wanted everything to be transparent. I do not like the idea that even if somebody is a professional gadfly, such as myself, would be turned down for any kind of a public record because of the fact that nobody likes him. Or, on the other hand, that a fee or charge would be so high as to make it economically very difficult for somebody who is not, shall we say, financially able, like somebody who's retired non-social security. So I think anytime you're trying to, shall we say, put a price on something, I think you heard earlier that the fact that at least a person should be able to come in and see the document. Then if there's going to be a charge for making copies, it should be a reasonable charge. For instance, the comment in the warned article, which we are supposed to, which the recommendation of the selectman was no action, said something about a $50 fee for each item requested. And I think that's getting pretty outrageous. I mean, worse comes to worse. The people in this town are supposed to be served by the government, regardless of their financial situation, whether they're good guys, bad guys, or just plain reprobate. This is the duty of the government. And I do not want us to have another case where all of a sudden a million and a half dollars doesn't seem to be where it should be. I'm not necessarily saying it was tried to be covered up, but it certainly wasn't being brought out to the open quickly. And I think that was an honest error that was made there. So I'm not accusing anybody of doing anything illegal. But I think that there are sometimes when we as town meeting members or officials or anybody who has anything to do with the town might not want everybody to know everything about what we're doing. But I think that the public interest has to come first. And if we end up having to, shall we say, pay somebody extra for it, as we pay police officers for detail work, as an example, I think that should be absorbed within the town's budget no matter how much it may hurt, because it is a public record. And that would include any minutes of a executive session or executive session of whether it's the Board of Select and the School Committee or any committee. Anything that is done in an executive session must be accounted for and recorded, even if it involves personalities, et cetera. And that, I believe, is the public records law that we cannot be keeping secrets from the public, whether they're good secrets or bad ones. Let's keep within the scope of the resolution. Well, that is the whole point of the resolution, sir, because no action recommendation by the Board of Selectment I find to be almost an insult to us. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Brodman. Janice Brodman brings 15, and just be brief. As many of you know, I work in a lot of countries that don't have the democracy we have here. I think it's absolutely crucial that we, I mean, having access to public records is just fundamental. It's not a right that we sell or that we buy. That's the role and responsibility of the local government up to the federal government. And having a warn article that says that the price to the public should be as low as it can reasonably be seems fundamental. It's amazing to me that we're even arguing about this. So I urge you to vote for this. I think it's essential and very reasonable. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Good. Hi, I'm David Good, and I'm the Chief Technology Officer. I'd like to talk a little bit about reality when we talk about public information. Now, we have talked about public service, and I'm a servant to the public. We've talked about people's rights, and I also have to guide and guide some of those people's rights. So when public records requests come to my desk for email, I have to review what's being asked for, but I have to also review what's being delivered. Because in a request looking for any and all versions or instances of a person's name, you may come up with many different names or many people with the same name. You may come up with people who have medical issues, who are board members, who take care of retirement issues. So you have to protect those people also while you're looking. So it takes time to do this. These requests, as well as being a right of the public, are also a right of the town to make sure we don't violate anybody else's rights. So to be talking about this like it's simple, then just press a button, and it pops out. Absolutely not. I said, because if in fact we have to protect everyone's rights while we're doing this, and there are some frivolous requests. People putting requests in for any and all information about a specific project 11 years ago is out of their mind. A truck is going to back up with paper and dump it in your lap. You want maps of projects from 11 years ago that we probably don't even have a copy machine to make copies of. You have to be real. The last three requests that I delivered cost $200, $77, and free. Now the ones that were in the thousands of dollars were probably because it was any and all since the beginning of time that's blue, red, or green. Now it amazes me that people don't think that there are cycles involved in looking at this data. Now yes, we have some old systems. And I've spent the last couple of years converting them. And the Lord knows that we know the sensitivity about email in this town, OK? So I spent a good portion of my time dealing with attorneys about information. It's not fun. And I spend a lot of my own project time and personal time making sure my own people aren't subpoenaed, sequestered, or brought before a judge because I should be the one taking care of them while I do this work. So it's a responsibility for me to defend both my work here and also answer your requests. But it missed already's case. He and I chatted for a good amount of time about his original request. And I said, if you can wait till I convert data, because I had an antiquated system and did not have an archiver. I said, if you can wait, the price will be lower. I have 18 to 24 months worth of data to convert, 100,000 emails a month. I'm up in the million. And you want me to search through for specific criteria. You didn't want to wait. He appealed it. So the state records office said, well, if Mr. Good converts the data, your estimate will be cheaper. It wasn't the state records office that said $200. It was Dave Good, the CTO, after he spent $1,500 of his own time doing the request. And then said, $200 is probably fair. So there's nobody looking to make any money here. I think that what we should do is look deeply into trying to understand what we're asking for, get guidance. I understand some of you feel like we're hiding things under the bed. And believe me, we're not. But I do believe I have a right to serve, but I also have a right to protect. And I think in certain instances, it takes longer. You have to put eyes on things if there are attorney-client privileged piece of document. Mr. Loretty's request pulled out 4,888 pieces of mail coupled with about 750 attachments. Do you want to read through those? How long do all of you spend on email? I spend half of my life on email. When I leave here, when I come here, while I sit here. So if you want to go through there, looking for specific information about certain people that I shouldn't divulge information to because it's not in the scope of the request, that's a lot of time. So in closing, I would say, I'm here to serve and to do a fair job and to help you get the information you need when it's electronic. But I can't support this article because it's not the reality that we live in here at the town. Thanks very much. Thank you, Mr. Good. I have the benefit of seeing through the rear windows. Mr. Marquis appears to be okay. He's got one of our EMTs out there chatting with them. Next, Mr. McCrory. Hugh McCrory, precinct 20. I think on the face of this article, it makes a lot of sense. I guess I am concerned... I am concerned... Well... First of all, a few questions from the moderator. This is a resolution. Is this a binding resolution or...? No, it's just a resolution where asking them to play by nice rules. Okay, so it's a resolution that the town would ask of, I guess, the town manager. And the resolution, there's no timeliness either, so it doesn't have to be done next year, or the year after, or 100 years from now. No, we can't order the town manager to do anything. So we're just asking him to select them to consider this and do it. I noticed that there's no limit to the cost to the town in this, in the article. I see nothing about spending. I just want to bring up a point that I believe the town manager made, previously when we talked, and correct me if I'm wrong, certain emails are more difficult to get at than others, i.e. the older emails are harder to get at. So does that mean the more recent emails should be cheaper, and therefore do we need a, an escalating scale of costs, depending on the age of the data? That's a suggestion. I think this seems like a difficult process for the town, besides allowing it to implement. I think it's difficult, but I think it will make us stronger as a town. But I don't think we should be deciding it without knowing the cost, and the effort as Mr. Good has mentioned. It would be nice if it was a revenue generator, I don't know. But in all seriousness, it's a sunshine article. We need this information. So what I would like to see is I would like to see a committee set up, and I would like to see it engage seriously with a timeliness that something can be put in place. I'll have another question to the moderator, actually props to the town manager, in fact, if that's okay. Has anyone availed of the training that has been provided by the state? Mr. Sullivan, do you have any answer? Public records law. Town council provides the training to all the town officials. Okay, thank you. So that's a yes. Okay, thanks. Yeah, so I find it a difficult article to support or to vote on. If we don't know the cost to the town and the effort, it needs to be a little bit more quantified. So I'm not urging you to vote either way. Okay, we have a motion to adjourn. All in favor? Opposed? We'll be back Wednesday night. Thank you.