 Good evening. We're going to order the joint meeting of the Arlington redevelopment board and the Arlington Select Board for Monday, September 21st, 2020. As a preliminary matter, this is John Hurd, Select Board Chair. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahan. Here, thank you. Yep. Joseph Carl. Here. Stephen DeCorsi. Here. And Len Diggins. Here. And staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Cap Delaney and Tom Manger. Yes. Douglas Heim, Tom Kahnsel. Here. And Ashley Maher, Board Administrator, is participating remotely. So, Rachel, if you want to just confirm. Sure. I'm going to run through the names of the members of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. Please answer here. Kim Lau. Here. David Watson. Here. Eugene Benson. Here. And Katie Levine-Einstein. Here. And I'm Rachel Zembery and I'm here as well. Thank you. Let me also have our Director of Planning, Jennifer Rae. All right. Good evening. This open meeting of the Arlington Select Board and Arlington Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's Executive Order of March 12, 2020 due to the state of emergency in the Commonwealth given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and reduce risk of COVID-19 illness. We have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment. Even members of the public do not provide comment. Participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. For this meeting, the Select Board and Arlington Redevelopment Board is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also take care to adjust your screen's name if you would like to speak. In order for us to recognize speakers properly and develop accurate minutes, it is helpful for participants to see your full first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. All of the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on Nova's Agenda Dashboard. We recommend the members in the public follow the agenda as posted on Nova's unless the chairs note otherwise. We're now turning to the first item on our agenda before we do so. Permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate minutes. We'll introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks. The chair will go down the line of members inviting each to speak or to provide comments, questions, or motions. Please hold until your name is called. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquy with other members, please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. This meeting will feature opportunities for public comment on certain agenda items. After members have spoken, we as the chairs will afford public comment opportunities as follows. We'll first ask members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only. Once we have a list of public commentators, we will call on each by name and afford three minutes for any comments. Please keep in mind that all participants and members of the public must be recognized by the chair before speaking. Any vote tonight will be taken by roll call vote. As we open it up, that brings us to welcome in, so we did our introductions. Do we want to run down the members again? We have on the agenda introductions, but I think, Rachel, if you agree, we can just jump, you know, we already went through. I agree. We'll jump to number three, presentation and discussion. And so for this, we're going to turn to town manager down chapter lean to take the reins. All right. Thank you, Mr. Heard. I'll very briefly say a few words and then further hand the reins to director of planning community development, Jenny rate, who's going to walk through the bulk of the agenda. I'd like to start by saying thank you to all of you both boards for carving out the time to come back and meet jointly tonight. I know it seems like seems like a very long time ago that these boards came together to meet and obviously COVID-19 happened in the intervening period and subsequent meetings and actions that were talked about at the last meeting. Some, some have happened or some have made progress and some have not. But again, I appreciate that we're all here tonight because the conversations that these two boards can have together, I think are very important to the town they're very important to the present of the town and very important to the future of the town. So though I don't, I don't actually foresee there being any actions taken by either board tonight or at least I'm not planning on requesting any actions. But I think as we enter a cycle where we're looking at a special town meeting in November, and certainly a time period where a warrant will will be opening for an annual town meeting next spring. Not in the all too distant future that the time, the time is ripe for these two boards to pick up their dialogue, have a discussion around the issues that will be highlighted tonight and continue to talk about the path forward. So with that, Jenny, if, if you're ready, I'd ask you to start providing some of the updates that you prepared as part of the agenda. Thank you, Adam, and thank you to all of you for joining us tonight, including the people who are participating with us remotely. We'll look forward to hearing your comments. So I'm going to review a number of different items. This is all verbal presentation. I'm happy to stop at any point in time if you feel like you need me to pause and clarify anything but I'll move through the content as it's listed on the agenda. So the first item was just a review of what happened on January 13 when we last met as a group, which was sort of an historic evening for us. We hadn't met as two boards from my understanding in a very long time. So it was a very remarkable evening. We were in the senior center. A lot has changed there too, by the way. It's completely under construction in that room. And we had an excellent presentation actually that evening by Adam who talked about the status of housing in Arlington. He outlined current housing needs and projected demand for all types of housing, both in Arlington as well as introducing us to what's going on in Metro Boston and how that relates back to Arlington. He also emphasized the affordability crisis that's going on, not just in Arlington, but also with beyond our borders. I also then discussed plans that are in progress, sort of select plans. We do a lot of long range planning in the planning department, obviously, but focused on a few plans and I'm going to revisit that a little bit later as well. We also agreed upon a process by which we would consider and review zoning warrant articles together. I think that's what Adam was talking about. And that process involves both the chair of each one of these boards as well as myself, Adam and Doug Heim. And being able to meet and discuss those articles and talk about a process by which we would review them and also either the select board having a role in them and of course the redevelopment board having a role with any zoning warrant article. But we also talked about town bylaw amendments as well. We also held a briefing on proposed articles that were going to the annual town meeting back in the spring, which of course was stunted, but at that time we were talking about two articles one was the affordable housing trust fund, and the other one was the transfer fee. We had some excellent presentations we even talked about the potential for how much revenue we might receive from a transfer fee. Then we talked about an outreach strategy for a community dialogue around housing and we gained a little bit of agreement around what to do with that. I also agreed that we would come back and finalize things with each board, and then it would be sort of the work that we would agree to do together and carried out by my department and team. Then we held an open forum, which of course yielded a number of very interesting remarks and comments both about affordability about concerns in the community about density about taxes and sort of themes that actually played out when we ended up launching that question campaign. So following the meeting we solidified the town meeting warrant and review process as I mentioned as well as the community engagement strategy. My team launched the question campaign. That's what we ended up calling it. That was the beginning of the engagement process. It actually was launched in March and went through July stayed open. We also allowed for online comments emails and we also set up a phone line so that people could actually call and leave us voicemail messages with questions. Nobody did that, but I still like the idea. I'm hoping somebody calls me tonight with a question but we don't have that line open anymore so we did actually yield 55 questions on 65 different topics. We wanted to take a look at those results. We took those results and we combined them with 27 open ended questions that came out of the Envision Arlington Town Survey, which had a number of questions about housing in it and had sort of an open ended question at the end so we actually had a number of questions that came from that. And then we also coupled it with 39 questions that came out of the community conversation about race and housing, which we'll talk about in a second. That was on July 7. So we took all of those questions together and noted a number of themes as follows diversity and diverse housing types and the need for both issues around affordability and broad agreement about the need to develop affordable housing and preserve housing that is affordable issues around density and affordable housing, both in support of greater density and people questioning how far we would go. A lot of questions about economic development, discussion around taxes, and then people who raised questions about regional issues and concerns. We're still really sorting through the data and I would say it's inconclusive. We did receive a lot of questions. There's a lot of interest there, but I think a lot more needs to be done and that's hopefully you know what's this conversation with both boards helps us to kind of get a better sense of the traction that we might gain again to either reopen a campaign or pivot and do something different. So, so that's what we we yielded out of that conversation back in January as well as the question campaign. In terms of various plan updates we've been some of you know this of course that we're doing a transportation plan for Arlington it's called connect Arlington. We're doing the fact book on that soon, and we'll hold a second forum we had a first forum that was somewhat well attended, a lot of engagement individually in the community on a survey, and a lot of individual comments on the transportation plan itself. We hope to wrap that up by year's end. We're also doing a net zero plan. Some of you also know about that which is with the Clean Energy Future Committee. We've established greenhouse gas emission measures and sort of thresholds to watch for and track and have created a draft action plan which is currently under review. And that'll help us to achieve net zero by 2050 per the select board's directive around hopefully getting gaining net zero. So there's a couple of things that we've been studying one is the economic analysis of industrial districts which is meant industrial zoning districts, which is meant to help us to create zoning that would do a number of different things first one is to support an increase in size and variety of spaces for light manufacturing and office basis. Second is establishing parking requirements to support these uses and minimize the environmental impact of impervious surfaces. And then leverage the connection to the Minuteman bikeway which relates to pretty much all of our industrial zones, require sustainable and resilient urban design, and then support economic development. We're also developing design guidelines for single and two family structures in the lower density residential districts which are the majority of the town. For that we have draft guidelines as well as a draft review process that we're going to be sharing both these guidelines as well as the industrial zoning information at the October 5 Arlington redevelopment board meeting. So that'll be forthcoming and I'm glad to share that information with the select board as well. We are also in the process of looking at updating the housing production plan I'll come back to that one in a moment. You know, I think everything this year has been about, you know, unfortunately we've pivoted pretty much everything to focusing on the pandemic. And with that, we were able to create a Arlington Economic Development Recovery Recovery Task Force which includes Rachel John Hurd participating as well as Adam participating in those meetings which have happened mostly weekly. Some of the reports have been coming back to the select board with updates as well as various initiatives that have been approved during the time that that group has been meeting. I would say that a number of things have happened as a result of that. One of the biggest things is utilizing community development block grant money through the CARES Act. We've received first very large pot of money and then we just received a second pot of money, as well as leveraged funding through the Community Preservation Act. And in all told so far we've assisted 23 businesses with $10,000 each range of different types of businesses to keep on their feet and keep going during the pandemic. And then we've also been able to assist 38 households with rental assistance about $1,175 a month for over a period of three months. And we're hoping to release new funds soon for that, including a new round of funding that just was announced in I think last week. The task force itself though has focused mostly on how to assist and keep business in business, and that's meant a number of things it's really focused on marketing and technical assistance business promotion, providing pro bono assistance where needed, and leveraging opportunities as possible to keep people coming to our business community to shop and dine and everything else, as well as finding opportunities for people to do their conduct business in some of our parks. And that has also allowed us to, you know, maintain some institutions like people who have specialized classes to be able to maintain their business in our parks, which has been very successful. We've also leveraged funding through MassDOT for shared streets and spaces grant opportunities, which is again sort of repurposing outdoor spaces for outdoor activities instead of vehicles and then lastly, application modernization, which is a long sounding description of trying to expedite our internal as well as our external review processes for all of our different types of businesses that we permit licenses applications they come to the select board some of them come to the redevelopment board, and trying to end to many other boards and committees and trying to really expedite that through an online application process and we're hoping that that can move ahead as well. So we're looking at, you know, putting towards additional assistance the long term for recovery as well as supporting the business community for through the winter, which I think is going to be very challenging and we're very, very much aware of that, including looking at arts and cultural events and activities and how to sustain that part of our community which is very critical to the economic development component in our community. So that's the task force. And that's that's of course the high level overview of everything. The housing production plan just to go back to that because that's the last in my list of items. That plan as all of you, many of you know, it's a plan that's adopted by the technically the planning board which is the redevelopment board and the select board, or a council depending upon what kind of community charter you have, adopted by both boards. It's a five year plan, and it is approved once it's adopted locally it's approved by the Department of Housing and Community Development and in effect for five years. We actually did that process in 2015, it was adopted in 2016, and it is set to expire in October of next year. So we're already on the lookout for doing a plan update, which will be another comprehensive housing needs and demand assessment, which is based on various trends and regional growth factors. We'll also look at the regulatory and non regulatory constraints on development, why are there issues where we can't redevelop or get the type of development that we would like to see. For example, we'll review what happened in 2016 and develop new strategies, and then we'll also integrate some of the information and policy outcomes that we are gaining as a result of participating in the Metro mayors coalition. And we'll also include the housing task force because that group is also now pivoting to the second phase of their work, which includes setting housing goals. There will be a lot of public meetings and outreach but it will be remotely as a result of the pandemic, or until such time as we can gather together again in a room. And we hope to conclude that in time for so that by the time the next one expires we have a new plan in place. Okay, I'm finished all of the things that I would like to tell you for now, and I'll open it up to see if there are questions I'll turn it back to john. That's right. So, I actually have everyone up on my screen. So, as opposed to going through everyone. If we have questions or comments if someone can just raise your hand. Mr. Diggins. Jenny. So it seems like the time is pretty good with respect to the housing production plan to engage MAPC with respect to Metro future. Any thoughts about that. Yeah, that's a good point. The Metro common 2050 plan which is the next long range plan for the region, the greater Boston region is going on right now. So that's the process of actually updating those regional growth targets that I mentioned. So I don't have an update on that specifically right now but the housing production plan would be aligned with that process so that we are aligned with other similar communities as Arlington, and to reach those targets. Thank you. This is behind. Both chairs, as well as our planning director, I guess I'll I have five points I'll just put them out. If they can be addressed tonight that's fine if they can be addressed in the future. That's also good to regarding the October 4 redevelopment board meeting that our planning director spoke to of course any information we can get, as well as any input or help that the select board can provide. I'll leave it to a planning director and our chair to coordinate that but I'm definitely interested in that. Regarding the pandemic economic development group that our chair and our planning director a pot of. First, I want to say, thank you so much for, you know, really working with them changing conditions and safety and health conditions, having this committee and having it go forward. So, as recently as today, I emailed regarding some questions I have gotten about helping outdoor dining businesses sort of sustained through the cold weather, and through Mr heart and Ms rate. I understand with Ali Carter that we're addressing that I don't know. Maybe Jenny if you could just talk about that a little bit and I had three more points after that, but that that question came up a lot on like four or five different Facebook and email lists. If you could just talk about that process and if I can get it back after that. So the, the October 5 meeting will be happy to coordinate with through Adam and get any feedback or comments from the select board on that as well on both the design guidelines as well as the economic analysis of industrial districts. In terms of the outdoor heating, if you will, that is something any current business that has a license and outdoor dining license the temporary licenses that we've been issuing. They can contact Ali Carter directly, or the health department, if they need to, to update and have a review by the fire department for any addition of any outdoor heater or heaters that they would like to include in their outdoor space. But it would be reviewed and then approved by the fire department as a separate and add on to our current permitting process. We are going to be amending the permit process to make it clear that any new outdoor licenses would include a review by the fire department, which is not currently part of the setup, but anything that is existing can contact the town for a follow up with the fire department to review and approve any heaters before installing them, please. Thank you so much. And I do want to say regarding. Regarding the CDBG CARES Act outreach, the planning department sort of not sort of oversaw our coordinated effort where their employees and some other people who were volunteers, including myself and members of the committee that got news out to the businesses so I thought that was a lot of Tory and wanted to note my thanks for that because I know we're all doing zoom meetings and trying to do what we can do from home but I really feel the planning department kind of took to the streets and to the businesses that we want to keep an eye on who really didn't know about the CDBG CARES Act. And I anticipate, hopefully, if they can get their act together down in Washington DC and have a second allocation that will replicate that So, Ms. Ray, the planning director about getting any further outreach because the planning department staff. It's not that voluminous. And it's hard to get that word out. So, the other thing is one, two, three. I have a special town meeting coming up. I would ask through the redevelopment board chairman and the planning director that if there is and if there is not that's okay. But if there are any ARB articles that as we discussed previously that select board should join you on. As we can get that information, that's great. And the converse is true if there are any select board articles, but right now from where the select board is going. We have 18 citizen articles that were carried over from the spring. So, as far as we know, there's nothing new there. The second last point is when the my colleagues on the redevelopment board and planning director, they get appropriate and I kind of feel like it may have been put on hold because of COVID-19, the Goldschirm industrial zone study. Any updates we can get on that. I know that that's something I've long languished for under two previous town managers and town planning directors, but it's our current town manager and planning director that put that out for bid to look at our only industrial zone and have that as a study but I anticipate that sort of, you know, been put on hold. I wanted to throw that in there. And then the other thing is I was talking to our colleague. Clarissa row earlier in the day and we were talking about CPA and open spaces and how to best plan for that and what projects are going to be submitted. So I'd like to ask both the town manager and the planning director, an idea that Clarissa and I sort of bandied about that could or would be beneficial and not be a high ticket cost item Clarissa estimated be 10,000 or less. Because it's been a lot of talk around the subject so we were talking about, could the town, either through the town manager or the planning director call for sort of 3D schematic imaging in terms of open spaces that we have here in Allington and we saw all different ways that it might be useful. Some have been from Allington residents talking about projects proposed in open spaces and what the effects they feel would be. And Clarissa and I were saying if you know we have this 3D schematic imaging available, it would either agree with that. Probably more times and not might show the actual mechanics that while their exercises they went through weren't actually what was going to happen. So the pure intent in that is finding not only the best way we know where the open spaces are but in terms of projects that could be proposed that some initial lack of support could be backed up by this 3D schematic imaging. So I don't know if that's an Adam Jenny question both or someone else. And that's my last thing. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. That's that's something we've been discussing for quite some time. And I totally 100% agree with you that this sketch up model along Mass Ave would be a great tool for the citizens of Allington just to understand where the massing of the buildings are existing and proposed where the open spaces are and where they may remain or be changed a little bit. And also it's a great economic tool that we can use to encourage development in town because it's a tool that you can say okay, I can here's where I can build or here's here's what my here's what I like the massing I can build or which shows us shadow studies it shows how how interacts and it might bring back to also circle around to zoning and you can see how all all the properties along Mass Ave are cut up in these little small pieces and it may be hard to actually go forward with any development and maybe there's some maybe just some talk about maybe combining or rezoning certain areas where we can encourage some growth plan growth that is that would address housing, it would address industrial, it would it would address business makes use all that stuff. And I think this would be a great tool. And I would 100% encourage I would help anywhere I can to make this come through. I think this is a great tool we talked about this a while back. And I'm glad you brought it up. I'm glad you know I would, I would be willing to answer any questions where if we can do we can't do but I really encourage that we do this. Thank you. Mr Chaplain. So I want to answer both Miss Mahan and Mr allows a point but another member just let me know that people watching on cable. Don't seem to be able to hear us so Sean Keane from ACMI I don't know if you could check any of the settings and see if there's something that can be toggled to help those watching on on television be able to hear the speakers. Can I ask the manager is trouble shooting, but you should be fixed shortly. Okay, thank you. You just answered my question when you mean speakers you mean anybody not just the people that have that spoke recently. Thank you. So back back to the points you both just raised. Miss rate and I had spoken about that several weeks ago now where we left it off at was getting some prices for doing the work and then determining where we might be able to access the funding. We, we were talking about it in the context of what can had mentioned a long mass of we hadn't been looking at it from the open space perspective that you spoke about this Mahan but we can. We can take a look at what that expanded scope would look like and as you, as you suggested, I don't know offhand how it would fare but the CPA application could certainly help with that so will Jenny and I can follow up, see how far she's gotten with some prices and see what it would cost to add on open spaces. That's right. Thank you for your time. And thank you for the honor and thank you miss Mahan and Mr. Low. So, we have been investigating the prices for how much it would cost to have somebody's services to do what you're talking about. We can also expand upon that as Mr chapter lane has just did. I will say though that we do have in hand a sketch up that we can utilize and be able to do some of the things that you're talking about so perhaps we'll take a look at more closely and may need to follow up with you more directly to understand a little bit more about what you might be looking for and also investigate the possibilities of a CPA application. I just want to say quickly thank you also for complimenting my team and the work of my team which I did not specifically call out but it without that team I couldn't be providing you with that very long update about various different activities that I just suggested, including Aaron's work go Ali Carter Kelly line and Dan Amstutz Ken Pruitt and Emily Sullivan the rest of the group. We have a new hire actually who's doing community development block grant Mallory Mallory Sullivan. So, it's finally a full team again and looking forward to continuing up this work so thank you for the compliment. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you to the director is right for the presentation. First I want to say that I know that our at our last meeting last week we did receive the correspondence regarding the automation of applications and I was really happy to see that that they had been a small working group that included Ms Carter Mr Kuroski. This is Sullivan it used to be in our office. Mr Heim and I think Mr Feeney and I may be missing some folks who had looked at that and I think that the workflow very helpful workflow around permits and applications was one of the outputs of that so I'm glad to see that being taken to the next step. And I think we have potentially some things that we could do as well to try to help with looking at what we asked for and permits and applications just to streamline the process for new businesses as we try desperately to hold on to the ones that we have. I had two questions on the housing so on the housing production plan. As we ramp up one of my questions is, is part of the process going to be taking a look at what we approved. The housing production plan. The last go around and kind of benchmarking see how we did against that within this period before we undertake the next step. Yes, we will be benchmarking to determine what we've achieved and also getting a better sense of what we couldn't achieve and why. And I think that's one of the things that we've been working on. And I think that's one of the things that we've been working on. And I think that's one of the things that we've been working on, which was outlined in the 2016 plan. We've already got a good sense of that because we work directly with the housing plan implementation committee. And as well as the master plan implementation committee to get a sense of how much we've achieved and progress on implementation. In other instances where we were able to produce new units or preserve existing affordable housing. So we'll, we'll definitely be doing that in more detail in the update. Great. Thank you very much. And then lastly, you know, I'm glad to hear the work to distribute the rent support for folks who who are struggling during this time. One of the things I lose sleepovers is when I read stories about the potential of an impending eviction wave in the country. And I don't know if you're getting any signals on the basis of inquiries around that support or not around that being a real and present danger for Arlington. I haven't directly received any notifications to that effect, but I'm certain that Aaron's work go has received people contacting us asking for assistance, looking for various kinds of assistance, sometimes confusing us with the Arlington housing authority, or the housing corporation, but generally just the challenge of navigating the process and needing help right away. So I think it's very important for the town to be finding as many ways as possible to assist the can. So the funding that we have and the new funding that we received from CDBG, the most recent amount that might be used to provide additional assistance and support to tenants to stay in place. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. This is a question. Thank you, Mr. Hurd and then straight. I want to start by echoing my colleagues comments thanking your team. We receive a number of presentations throughout the year from members of your staff and that it's, it's, it's enlightening and it's also just helpful for to keep us abreast of what's going on in town so thank you for that. Just a question on sustaining businesses. This is Mahan brought this up earlier but I, it is getting colder out and I had an experience at a restaurant in town of the weekend and just really concerned me because the opportunities for outdoor dining are going to become more limited and I'm wondering within the aid that is provided to businesses. Is there potentially CDBG funds that could be available to help purchase like hard goods to help businesses with outdoor seating or is this more or less related to just keeping the operations going and payroll type functions. We're exploring what we can utilize with the latest amount of funding and we do actually have a small amount remaining from the first pool of funding that I mentioned. So we made awards to actually not as many businesses as we could have. So we're going to go back to businesses that had requested funds but didn't end up completing the application originally to see if they're interested but then I think trying to figure out a way that we can build in the supports that you're talking about to sustain businesses through the winter. Because yes I think they will need assistance. Great. Thank you. And just a comment too. You talked about the housing production plan and about the industrial zone study that was just being completed and we just went through this process on the MIRAC site at 1165 Mass Ave. And one of the things that we were confronted with was frankly some inconsistencies between the housing production plan and its call for perhaps overlay zoning districts that would allow for residential in the industrial zone and the economic analysis which basically said no residential in industrial zones. And I know that study is just about complete but it seems to me that to the extent that we have studies going forward in different parts of town unless the consultant feels that that recommendation may not be valid and it should be changed. It feels like that's going to be incorporated into the analysis because you're with some inconsistencies and you try to work your way through them. But that one was glaring as I was going through that study. I will just note the earlier comment by Ms. Mahan about Gold's GEM that's incorporated within the economic analysis of industrial districts. So we will be talking about that district, that zone as well as all the other zones. So that's related to the October 5th presentation. And then to Mr. Decorsi's point, yes, there are definitely some things that might present some inconsistencies. I think partially it's because we're looking at trying to support as many options as possible. So I think at one point with the housing production plan we had hoped and we still hope that a 40R zoning overlay district could be something that we might explore in town either led by the town or in partnership with somebody in the community. And I still see that as being an opportunity. It's actually something that's come up as part of the net zero planning process. The master plan talked about perhaps allowing residential with mixed use, but we subsequently when we adopted mixed use in 2016, which was after the master plan, we did not allow residential as part of mixed use. So the economic analysis of the industrial districts will talk about how if at all, we might be able to incorporate residential. So we are trying to, there is still that conversation, but there's also many people in the community who believe there shouldn't be residential in those zones. So I think, you know, we're trying to balance it but also keep those opportunities open. I don't know if that helps address the. Thank you. Welcome. Any additional comments questions at this time. Mr Watson. Thank you, Mr heard. Jenny talked about the outreach plan that was in place around housing and housing affordability and commercial development. Prior to the pandemic starting and I'm glad that the planning department was able to move forward with the question campaign and has has gotten a fair amount of input from that. But I think with the pandemic. It has perhaps accelerated the urgency of addressing housing development and affordability as well as commercial development in Arlington, and I'd like to see us redouble our efforts to, to engage the community on those issues. And using zoom and other technologies that we have available to us to, to get the kind of input that we had hoped to do in person prior to the pandemic. So I, I hope we can all agree on moving forward with, with that kind of a plan sooner rather than later. Thank you. So, Mr. Did you have additional comments to go through. I didn't have anything else to go through I'm glad to answer any other questions or take any comments some. I think we have a question that was made by Mr Watson just to say that I think the question is whether or not we keep that a separate campaign, or if we incorporate it into the housing production plan process with, which will have its own outreach and engagement, but it would be tied to the development of an actual plan. I think we need to continue either the question campaign or figure out other ways to have engagement on the topic of housing and economic development as well but I'd want it to be tied to probably the housing production plan since that's going to be a focal point for the coming year. But that would be my own preference. I agree with is right that that that probably makes sense at this point to tie it to the revision of the housing production plan, since we have been delayed in doing other outreach. So, Well, that's, that's really all I wanted to say. Do you have anything additional at this point. No, no, I had nothing further to share tonight. No. Cheers, Emory. Do you have anything? Mr. Yeah, I like this. The relevan board has gone through quite a bit of change this year and also reviewed quite a few projects. That has quite a bit of a comments from a few town residents. And I'm just would like to reach out to you guys on the select board and say, What are your feelings? How we've been doing this we've been trying our best to follow what we feel it is right. But I would like to see some maybe some comments, some support, some criticism of how we are looking at development and then we can talk about it. As you know, what we've done and then what you guys may think of as us going forward. I think that is a good thing to come out of this joint meeting. Sure. To any of the support members. Have any specific comments to address the army. Mrs. Diane, we're having some trouble with your Select board and a relationship I can say. How about now or should you want to come back to me. Now I can. I want to I was sorry. I am still breaking up. 1999. You know what, I'll jump in later. See one of my colleagues. All right. No news is good news. Right. No, I mean, you know, we As a board, you try all the The reason was that we point to operate independently and you know, from what I could see, I think you guys think everything very I think it's our analysis of each matter that gets put before you and you know, I have nothing but good things and no criticisms. That's for sure. Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah, I just unmuted myself. Sorry about that. Can I answer your question a bit later? I really do intend to get a lot more involved in housing. And I've been reading a lot lately. I'm very excited about getting more involved. I am hoping to get a lot more involved with the housing, the HPIC data housing planning implementation committee. And I asked a question in this rate about Metro Common. That's my signal me that I want to get a sense of how we can come at this problem in a more comprehensive way. Cause as you know me, this is a regional issue and I not only want to get at the housing production aspect of it, but also the housing affordability aspect of the issue. And that not only deals with the cost of the housing itself, but also income that people are making. So we're going to do more of these and then when you ask that question, next time I'll have more of an answer. But thanks for asking that question. Ms. Snot, do you want to take out the crack? Oh, I'm also afraid. I would echo Mr. Diggins comments. Since I got on the board, this is something I've always strived to have a partnership with the redevelopment board and basically hit brick walls. And I want to thank Mr. Hurd, Ms. Zemsbury for coordinating this. I think we should definitely do more in the future, especially around whether we have a regular town meeting or a special town meeting things that maybe not necessarily we need support from either board, but sort of a heads up education because in terms of what goes on in Arlington, the redevelopment board and select board, it's sort of a pretty vast universe of what comes before town meeting. It's not the total. And I think if we can both educate ourselves and have both chairs currently through Chairman Hurd and Chairwoman Zemsbury, just give us all the best knowledge that we need to have. That's the best way we're going to be able to put forth the positive agenda of Arlington and ensure that maybe it might not necessarily be what each board independently proposes, but after we have that conversation, we come to the ultimate best decision for the town of Arlington around affordable housing around business, retaining businesses as well as open spaces and things like that. And I will leave it with Chairman Hurd and Chairwoman Zemsbury to follow up with the town manager and Jenny Rait regarding the previous thing I spoke to the 3D schematic imaging on open spaces along Massav, if my colleagues on the redevelopment board feel it's beneficial and should be expanded beyond that, I'd be guided by their input. Thank you to both chairs. Thank you very much. I appreciate that the questions allow. I think my philosophy is generally that as regards the regulatory role of other boards, I don't think it's really appropriate for us to specifically weigh in as far as that goes. I think where you do have matters that come before you might be helpful. I think it might be helpful for us to potentially might have some impacts for us, might have parking or traffic implications or whatnot. I think it might be helpful for us to have advisories at some point just to understand what went into a decision because we might feel the downstream of that. I think that there's a lot of benefit with this forum, though, and trying to align on policy prerogatives. I think that's what brought these joint meetings into being. I think as we agreed at our last joint meeting, I think that having us weigh in on certain policy proposals to Tom meeting makes a lot of sense. I think maybe the next iteration of the housing production plan, I know that I believe both boards had to approve that and adopt it, but it might make sense for us to meet jointly when we're approaching that milestone as well. I think that's pretty much the way that I would respond. Keep us in mind if any of your decisions potentially have downstream impacts on our regulatory authorities over parking or traffic or whatnot. I think having advisories would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the question. I agree as it relates to the comments on the regulatory aspects of the redevelopment board. I look at the redevelopment board as one of the most challenging boards to be on the town. I have tremendous respect for the work that each and every one of you are doing. It's been a long time. I know each and every one of you are looking to act in the best interests of the town and to make projects better that come before you. Beyond that, I don't feel it's appropriate to comment on individual things, but I appreciate the service that each of you is doing. I know from talking to people who formerly were on the board that it was very technical and detailed work. We appreciate it. Yes. I'll jump in. I didn't want to speak over anybody. I want to thank you all. Every member of the select board for your comments. I also just wanted to make an observation that I know that over the past couple of months we've had a lot of positive comments. We've had a lot of positive comments. We've had a lot of positive comments. Remotely. And for all of the things that we're all facing, but there are certainly some positives that have come out of it. I've certainly noticed that the participation in our, in our meetings has, has gone up from. People sitting in who normally wouldn't attempt to be able to attend. Attend meeting. So I'm not sure if that's what we're all going to be doing. I don't know if that's what we're going to be doing. But I think as the past via zoom. Still exists. It seems like there's been more engagement, which has been wonderful to see. I'd be interested to, to hear your thoughts. On the select board. If you've observed. Anything similar. And, you know, I also appreciate the having had the opportunity to work. On the. Arlington economic recovery task force with chairman heard. It's, it's been great to bring both of our perspectives together with the businesses in town. And to, to see where there are opportunities for the select board to, to assist as well as those of us from the redevelopment board to, to really bolster the, the. Businesses in town when they, when they need it the most. And I'm really encouraged by things moving forward. Out of necessity, but really, really pushing us as forward as the town with things such as the. Automation of applications and the streamlining of approvals processes. So. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge some of the, the things that I think are actually going to help us significantly as a town that we've had to do out of necessity during these times. Thank you. Any additional comments? All right. Mr. Diggins had his hand up. Mr. Diggins. Well, well, thanks. Thanks. So, Mr. Cura, I mean, I was going to let it go, but I was just going to answer. Ms. She asked about how things are going with the select board with respect to the zoom meetings. And yes. We, we see an increase in participation also. And we did our goals. And I think that's a big part of what we're trying to do. And I think that's, that's a big part of what we're trying to do is to. Think about how to incorporate. This technology into our meetings. Once we are able to meet in person again. And, and I'll just add that. I have a lot of thoughts. Adam will tell you that I have a lot of thoughts to me, but I'm holding back now because I'm really interested in open forum. I think we have a lot of thoughts. I think that it's just, I think that's a good question. Not so much as me, us as select board members. The. Stepping on the toes for lack of a better phrase, me of those of the R.B. But more so as individual residents, me, how did we feel? Things are going in. And I'll certainly be making a lot of input as a resident. About, about things. Thank you. Remiss if I didn't say as part of our discussions on our goal setting meeting that we credit our former colleague Kevin Greeley for being way ahead of his time for remote technology, he's been pushing it for years for to have remote technology in our meeting. So we finally were able to get it for him. All right, so without any additional hands that will turn us to our open forum. So at this point, if you can use the raise hand function on your Zoom application, if you want to speak with the open forum, it will generate a list. Except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board, the boards shall neither be acted upon nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established. It should be noted that there is a three minute time limit to present a concern or request. We'll generate a list. There is no limit on what to be spoken about, but I just know that we anticipate a long open forum. And if anybody is reiterating a comment that's previously been made, please try to limit that. And so with this, I will turn to Tom Ancher to generate the list. So Mr. Chairman, we have about 20 hands raised. Do you want me to just read them to you one by one? Would you like me to give them to you as they're raised now? How would you like to handle that? You can give them one by one. Okay, so the first name, first hand raises is Kevin Heaton. Promote him. Okay. Mr. Heaton, can you hear us? Mr. Heaton, can you unmute yourself on the list? What's the second name? Sorry, Patricia Warden. Promote Ms. Warden. Mrs. Warden, can you hear us? Can you hear me? Yes, we can now. If you can just say your name and address. My name is Patricia Warden and I live at 27 Jason Street. Thank you for the opportunity to say something. I do want to emphasize that as a member of the Housing Policy Implementation Committee, we have done very little this year. We have encouraged movement towards the time meeting articles on the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the transfer fee. But otherwise, there has been almost no progress and disappointingly so since some members of that committee, these two of us have suggested repeatedly that we should move towards purchasing existing buildings and renovating them and renting them at affordable rates to needy people. That has not been followed despite the large staff of planning and their fairly well paid. So that has been disappointing. I would like to also point out that we are losing a tremendous amount of businesses and probably affordable housing. We have already lost some due to speculation because there is so much permission of the Redevelopment Board for violation of the zoning bylaws that developers now feel they can get anything they want by just demolishing things and removing restaurants, businesses, houses that could have been renovated for affordability and leaving a hole in the ground so that it can get whatever they want for a permit by threatening to just leave the hole in the ground if they don't get what they want in their permit. And that is not a rule, a community that has rule of law. It's a rule of extortionist actually. And as regards to Ms. Mahon's mention of 3D exhibits for open space and Mr. Law's comments in that regard, I should say that our open space and attractive amenities are also being endangered by the actions of the Redevelopment Board and would be greatly endangered by the planning director's idea of about 40 or enactment and adoption Arlington which would be disastrous. Just take for example, the recent situation of 1500 Massachusetts Avenue where there was a very attractive set of huge trees and a house that had three units in it is going to be destroyed because the developer hopes to get an illegal apartment in there with a commercial unit so that he can call it mixed use but it isn't really proper mixed use because one of the uses is not allowed in that district. Also, that is a very attractive area. Across the street is one of the loveliest areas in town which is the start of the mystery of the- This is Wayne. You're just over three minutes if you can just wrap up that thought. So I would hope that there will be a great change in the Redevelopment Board approach to this town and I hope you can do more work on the causing policy implementation machine. Thanks, Peter. Thank you. All right, I'll move on to our next speaker. Next speaker is Donna Kelly Williams. Mrs. Kelly Williams, are you with us? I am. Thank you so much for taking my comments again tonight. My name is Donna Kelly Williams. I live at 110 Mary Street in Arlington. I was very happy to have addressed both the Redevelopment Board as well as the Select Board last week as well as reaching out to the town manager, to Daniel Amstross and let me see if I missed anyone. The Redevelopment Board, the Select Board, all about my concerns about the number of Mary Street residents that had asked and requested for a reconsideration of the proposed plans for the shared Mary Street, which I did hear that, I did not hear from any of the people I reached out to and I'd like to address that to Mr. Lau who was looking for how we were doing with communication. Well, clearly there hasn't been any. My request was on behalf of the majority of the Mary Street residents that were in opposition of what was proposed, that despite having reached out to all of you that we learned of the grant being received by the town in the patch, no communication with us directly. So that is my concern going forward. I had asked for the reconsideration and I continue to ask for reconsideration for inclusion of the majority of the Mary Street residents that are in opposition to the plan as proposed. We're certainly looking forward to having an opportunity to discuss this further. So that's my point on the shared Mary Street incident and I surely hope that I will hear from somebody on that. My second concern is my reaching out to the Board of Health both today as well as a couple of weeks ago with the increased rodent activity in the town. As a registered nurse, I'm very, very concerned with the increased activity and really the lack of response that I'm seeing from the town. So I hope that all of the members that are on the call tonight will look into this and look at ways of not only responding to residents that are raising the alarm on the increased rodent activity, but also what is the response of the town given this is not a private property issue. This is a town-wide issue. As I see rodents running down the middle of the street at all hours of the days and nights. So I hope that you can help me with this. It is not limited just to my area of the town as I have many family members scattered about the town that are also reporting the same activity. So I will now yield my time and I look forward to hearing from most, if not all of you with the concerns raised as a member of this community and a very proud member of the Ellington community for over 40 years. So thank you all very much for your time. Thank you Ms. Kelly-Williams. All right, and we'll bring us to number four. Mark Kaepeline. All right, Mr. Kaepeline, can you hear us? Mr. Kaepeline, if you can just unmute yourself. Yep, done. We can hear you now. Can you just say your name and address for the record? Okay. I'm Mark Kaepeline, 11 Palmer Street. Yeah, I don't see myself. Okay, we can hear you though. All right, thank you. I'm Mark Kaepeline, 11 Palmer Street, Arlington. I was deeply offended that the town made false and unsubstantiated claims against residents supporting police on the eve of the 9-11 anniversary. Did he really need to demoralize police further and disparage the good people of Arlington for supporting our police? All on town letterhead and to the media. The week in Yowendo was surely sourced from the hateful group calling itself Arlington Fights Racism, which he then spread across the media, collaborating with AFR to intimidate residents from exercising their rights to free speech and assembly is unforgivable. His actions fueled AFR's campaign to draw outside agitators to Arlington and harass police supporters. While America backs the blue has only been associated with peaceful support for our public safety professionals, ELM events are associated with rioting, burning, looting and murder, costing an estimated billion dollar losses. The ELM signage represents lawlessness and has no place in Arlington and certainly not on public buildings, schools, in the face of Arlington residents and not as an affront to our police. All these banners need to be removed from public property and signed bylaws enforced. Flagrant violations at churches make them eyesores. Only after Black Lives Matter changes their name and clench fist logo should signs be reconsidered. Why would the town manager do such irresponsible things as put out false claims and remove the sticker honoring a fallen police officer in the line of duty? Why work for AFR and not the people of Arlington? Did he need another progressive feather in his resume to continue his exit from Arlington? Giving his resignation instead of Lieutenant Padrini's head would satisfy AFR's blood thirst if not for their inexhaustible demands. Mr. Chaplin's next progressive destination will be no escape from these sorts of people. But I've concluded that indulging the blood thirsty and hateful Arlington fights racism brats at all was the biggest mistake by the select board. There is no making these miserable wingers happy. Most seem to have enjoyed a life of privilege. Mr. Chaplin, you're right at three minutes if you can just wrap up what you thought was. Almost done. They have most seem to have enjoyed a life of privilege and only become more petulant when told no. COVID interrupting their weekly service. Only exacerbated their behavior. Nobody called President Obama for turning back illegal alien invaders and Lieutenant Padrini is not one. Again, Mr. Chaplin, if you can wrap up your thought, we have 20 people at all. Imagine supporting the law order and safety as an act of hate to them. Thank you. All right, and number five on the list. Carl Wagner. All right, we can promote Mr. Wagner. I'm recorded. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. You can just say your name and address for the record. Yeah, this is Carl Wagner. I live at 30 Edge Hill Road in Arlington, Mass. I wanted to thank everybody on both boards, the Select Board and the ARB for the job that you've been doing. This has been an incredibly difficult time, not just because of Zoom meetings, but because of everything that the coronavirus and the terrible raging of the pandemic has brought to us. Notwithstanding Mr. Capiline's relatively offensive comments, there is also the huge issue of BLM and all the other stuff going on, which people care a lot, and the town is also having to deal with. So thank you to you folks who are our civil servants who are working through that. I did have several points I wanted to make. And this is really important, this meeting. I thank you for doing this and including the public and including us visually. I think I'm gonna address some points about ARB meetings in the future, where visual meeting attendance by the public is not allowed. Anyway, I think the Select Board really has to indicate to the ARB that it should follow the rules and the bylaws that are set by the people, the voters, the residents of Arlington. Recently, we have seen those of us that attend through the Zoom meetings, that the ARB decisions at least, not to speak of individuals on the ARB, but the ARB decisions have been creating really dangerous situations where the laws are just being overlooked or disregarded as if they're reference points rather than actual things that have to be maintained. This is concerning and it sets a dangerous precedent for a lot of small parcels where a lot of small businesses are currently just barely making ends meet. And if those properties turn over, and I'm talking about Geriah as number one and other areas can be thought of in the East Arlington and center of town, those small businesses will be lost, the density will come in, the new apartments will be much more expensive. So it's very important to ARB follow the rules and laws. Secondly, I'd like to ask that there are only five of you who should recognize what the policy that benefits the people, the residents, the taxpayers in town is. And you should direct with your energy what the ARB does and the town employees, such as the planning department and the time manager to make the first and most important stakeholder, us, the people who live and work here. Those are general items. Specifically, there are three things I wanted to point out. Specifically, it's been a real problem in very, very recent ARB meetings that the public's input has been limited during coronavirus. Time limits were imposed, video has been taken away from the public and materials are posted later than required. This is a problem, it really should change. Number two, board decisions, as I mentioned, are really not keeping with laws and rules in Arlington. This is very dangerous and it's probably illegal. Number three, the town has held several racism community conversations. Unfortunately, two of these untruthfully attempted to say that housing zoning or building zoning is racist or is equated with racist. It's just totally wrong. And I've got to call out the town manager, unfortunately, even though I support what he's doing, normally with coronavirus and to try and fix the Padrini situation. In one of these meetings, the first one, the town manager said- Mr. Wagner, if I can just say, because you're only three minutes, if you can just wrap up your thoughts. The town manager said that people who are opposing his urbanization, density and removing of zoning laws are guilty of dog whistle racism. And while I don't support what Mark Capiline said in its entirety, I am completely offended that I am a dog whistle racist because I want to make Arlington affordable and diverse for all. Thank you. All right. Next speaker. Anna Hinken. Ms. Hinken. Yeah. All right, we can hear you. If you could just say your name and address for the record. Hi, Anna Hinken, 11 Marion Road. I want to comment on the board's decision to remove the Black Lives Matter banner from the Hound Hall. I am strongly against the removal of the banner, but more urgently, I want to address the board's unacceptable rhetoric that was used to justify its removal. The language the board used was disgraceful, bigoted and terrifying. I feel unsafe in an Arlington that is represented by the remarks made in the September 14th meeting in reference to the town's commitment to equity and in reference to Black Lives Matter as a movement. The board has stated that they wanted to take down the Black Lives Matter banner to allow bigots to feel welcome in town government. I do not want bigots to ever feel welcome in town government. When you do not directly and explicitly reject discrimination and hate, you are telling those of us who are queer and disabled and minorities that our personhood is not worth protecting, that we do not belong here, that our existence, our safety is not worth hurting the feelings of bigots. How dare you look us in the eyes and tell us our personhood is not worth defending and then pat yourselves on the back like you're somehow the good guys here. You are supporting hatred and you're letting bigots bully our town government. The board stated that they felt that the Black Lives Matter movement and banner was an insult to police. And specifically, Diane Mahon said that Black Lives Matter is a socialist political organization that encourages disobedience against the police and violence, which is woefully misinformed at best and a known racist dog whistle. And this insinuation, of course, leads to the conclusion that the board thinks the police are racist and should have been offended by the banner, which is not a good look for you guys. The board called the Black Lives Matter affiliated protesters belligerent and violent, which contrast sharply with my experience being one of them and with witness statements from other members of the counter protest. What were the backs of blue chanting while they protested because we were chanting the names of the dead? We were mourning. We have been threatened. We have been intimidated. We have had slurs hurled at us every day at vigils. Those vigils are every day. Arlington residents gather every day to make our commitment to racial justice known. And we had hoped the town government stood in solidarity with us. We were wrong. Removing this banner is clearly not a move to represent the community or show that we value justice and equity in Arlington. This is a move that capitulates to loud, angry bigots. The rhetoric surrounding the removal of the banner shows that the select board only sought to appear committed to justice when it was a good PR move and not when it was hard work. The board should not remove the banner and should apologize for the harmful and dangerous rhetoric espoused last week. I yield my time. Thank you. And next speaker is Rebecca Gruber. My name is Gruber. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. All right, if you can just say your name and address for the record. My name is Rebecca Gruber and I live at 215 Pleasant Street, Arlington. I am speaking about the decision made last week by you, the board and the town manager to remove the Black Lives Banner from our town hall. I understand that you planned to hang a different sign espousing our town's beliefs about respect for all, but in my opinion, hanging such a sign is not the same as what the Black Lives Matter sign represents, which is that in a country and a community in which systemic racism exists, as I believe you all acknowledge during your comments about the decision you made, it is critical that we espouse our special recognition that Black Lives Matter. Almost all of you in your comments about your decision mentioned the anti-police mood in our town. I am not anti-police in any way, although I do think the town's handling of the Lieutenant Padrini case has cast a very negative and unfortunate Paul on our police department. And while you did not explicitly make this connection, by your comments, you implied that you believe that removing the Black Lives Matter banner will in some way diminish these tensions in our town. In fact, I think the result will be the opposite. I call to your attention the words in your recent overview report on the Lieutenant Padrini incident and subsequent town and police actions in which you wrote, therefore, the work now before the town, the community and Lieutenant Padrini relative to his actions is to translate the input from the CBI report and other venues of public feedback to cultivate trust, healing, and a pathway forward in the wake of that repudiation and many as a individual in community harms. Continuing to hang the Black Lives Matter from our town hall is one way to cultivate that stated desire for trust, healing, and a pathway forward. I hope that you, our town leaders, will do the right thing and reconsider your decision and keep the Black Lives Matter banner hanging. Thank you for your consideration. I'm done. Mr. Heard, you're muted. That's why I never mute myself. Next speaker? Next speaker is Don Seltzer. Yep, Mr. Seltzer, can you hear us? Yes, thank you. Before I begin, could I have my slides brought up on the screen? With the chair as a scent, I can put those. Yes. Yep. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you to both boards, Don Seltzer, Irving Street. For a change of pace, I'd like to talk about our commercial base. Next slide, please. Here are all the communities in Massachusetts that collect more than $100 million in property taxes ranked by the percentage that comes from their local businesses. Arlington is on the far right. We're dead last. Next slide, please. Here's another comparison, looking at the Metro Mayors Coalition, a group of 15 cities and towns that have joined together to pursue common interests. The other 14 cities have nearly half of their property tax revenue coming from business. Arlington is completely out of place in this group with only 5.6%. People live and work within those other communities. Not so in Arlington. 93% of our residents have to commute elsewhere. Our needs are different. Our goals should be different than these communities. We always talk about walkability as being one of Arlington's best features. But walkability only matters if there is something to walk to. Arlington's vibrancy comes in part from having neighborhood shops, restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies, laundromats, medical offices, and similar services that we can walk or bite to. Lose those and the whole character of the town changes. Next slide, please, Jenny. Back in 2016, we thought we had a solution, the mixed-use bylaw. It was supposed to strengthen our commercial districts and discourage landlords from converting businesses into apartments. It just hasn't worked out that way. There is even more incentive than ever to convert. Next slide, please. This is a TREA block with five valued businesses and their employees. Half a dozen zoning bylaws were either bent or broken so that it could be converted into an apartment building with a single token storefront, too small and narrow to really be of much use. We have set an unfortunate precedent here, one that will be exploited and repeated elsewhere. Next slide, please. Will the heart of Capital Square be next? The same landlord owns the block at Lake Street of Mass Ave and has been clearing out the businesses there. Next slide. After that, it could be Arlington Center, again the same owner from Medford Street and Mass Ave. We need some balance to be viable as a community. We need to be more than just a bedroom for Boston and Cambridge. Thank you for your attention. Yep. All right. And Chaplain. The next hand raised is Makaya Healy. Hi, Miss Healy. Can you hear us? Hello, I can hear you. Can you hear me? We can. All right. Let me start my video so you can see me. OK. So I live on Howard Street. I'm a precinct 14 town meeting member. I'm a Black, Indigenous person of color, a leader in this community. And I will shorten my remarks so it gives other people opportunity to speak tonight. But I rise tonight to talk to you about the decision to have the Black Lives Matter sign displayed on our town government building. I really wish I could have participated last week in the discussion last week, but I was chairing the Diversity Task Group meeting. And just for simplicity's sake, I wanted to speak tonight. You will hear the repeated meaning and symbolism of what this sign means throughout the night, I hope. Because symbolically, this message and the banner that it's raised communicates to me as a Black person of color and a leader in this town. It symbolizes to me that my life, it signals to me that you understand that my life matters. And even the public may not participate in any of these boards or these discussions or these community forums. There are people that are not plugged into the community the way that many of the attendees tonight are. And so the significance of the words of each word of the banner is very significant. And so the banner has always been a placeholder for me for policy, because I already know that my life matters. But it is symbolic. And so the lowering of that is symbolic. It communicates a message to me. And it communicates a message to those people who are not plugged into the community discussion. And so for those that feel unease or disruption to their way of thinking, that's the purpose is to get people to be thinking about this. The school department has through the work of many, many people, but the group that I know best, the Superintendent's Diversity Advisor Committee has worked to talk to their administrative staff about implicit bias, about unconscious beliefs that we have. And we all have implicit bias. My say, Tina Butter, you say jelly. And as a community, many of us are working on our biases. And it became a district goal. And so I really implore the leadership, the organization, the board to be doing this work, because it's clear that there is a lot of implicitness, just unconscious prejudices that I carry, that we all carry. And many of the neighbors of color that I've been talking to, they asked me, what's the rush? They asked, what's the rush in taking this down, really? And if that doesn't move you, like the conversations that I've been having that I'm sharing with you now, because I know you. I know you're good-hearted. And I wanted just to speak my mind. But if that doesn't move you, then use self-interest in our town reputation as a reason to keep up the sign. And use Cambridge and Somerville as justification. They've been having it up for a long time. We have a problem. The Suffolk Suffolk University Law Student School did this. Am I over time? I'm sorry. Just jumping over a little bit if you can just wrap up this point. OK, sorry. So I mean, we do have a systemic problem in Arlington. Suffolk University has done a study to Boston about housing discrimination. And Arlington ranked one of the highest. I heard about that study on Wednesday. It's really, really terrible. We have a housing issue. We have a school issue, the Boston Globe. And we have police and community relations that need to be healed. So as a board, I ask you to continue to support the administrative staff, like Adam and the town department. Just about in four minutes if you can just wrap up. All right, I'm sorry. Almost five, almost five. All right, so thank you. Thank you so much. Please use the potential and power that you have. Thanks. And the next person on the agenda, Daniel Bromberg. Yeah, I can promote Mr. Bromberg. Hello. Hi, Mr. Bromberg. If you could just say your name and address for the record. Oh, yes. Hi, my name is Daniel Bromberg. I live on 52 Montague Street, Arlington. So I just want to say I'm coming here from I'm a relatively new resident of Arlington and also pretty new to the political process. So come here from a place of humility and just learning and wanting to make Arlington a better place and culturally richer and more diverse. And there's so many people here who have so much more experience and exposure to these issues than I, but still develop some thoughts and kind of done some work in reading. I just want to share some of that. First, though, just in responding to Mr. Capelli, and I would say I went to a Black Lives Matter vigil. And it was a church service at the Fallen Community Church in Lexington. And to see the love and the singing, the opposition, there was just a few members from a fringe group yelling in our faces. They were not able to yell at us when the entire neighborhood was singing amazing grace, led by the church leaders. And we were all holding up Black Lives Matter signs. So I challenged those people who think about the levels of violence they were impugning on the movement that to go to a vigil or a church service like that. So as far as the banner, I had some thoughts on that as well. And just to go a little expand on the Somerville. The Somerville mayor, Joe Curtotoni, has kept up the sign since 2016. I want to read a quote from him. He said, having grown up in the city, I've seen a lot of change. I've seen a lot of good. I've seen a lot when we were divided in the past based on race, based on ethnicity, but I'm proud of how this community has evolved and grown. And what we've embraced, the value of the community, I believe the sign speaks to those community values. And so to the extent that people might tune me out after a minute or so, that's really my main point is that I think that's the model we want to follow. On the other hand, Medford in August sort of bowed out and they said, they're worried that groups could end up jockeying for space at City Hall. This seems like a very narrow and short-sighted concern. I think it is to make people uncomfortable and to think. And I would just say, consider that, while I think it's really important to keep the banner up, the proposed sign in the doorway or the placard that can talk about inclusion can actually explain the sign because there's a lot of education that needs to happen. And perhaps just a 200-word blurb that can explain why this is actually an inclusive message. For example, if I could just quickly read a few lines from this is from outfront.org, an LGBTQ organization. Mr. Bromberg, you had just said you have three minutes. If you can just wrap up your thought. Okay, I'll just read one sentence or two here and then I'll be done, thanks. We recognize that black people in America, some of whom are LGBTQ, are systematically oppressed and we stand together affirming that black lives matter. I'll just leave it there and thank you very much. And Mr. Chapellein. The next speaker would be Nick Stein. Okay. Okay, Mr. Chair, if I could just interject that we're gonna hear everyone under open forum to my colleagues on the Redevelopment Board. This is way beyond the scope of this joint meeting tonight. That's what I would anticipate the open forum would be addressing tonight. But as you probably have seen, it's going a bit of skew. So I would say to people signing up for open forum, if it's, you could speak whatever you want to speak to, but we'd definitely rise to the top comments that were actually on the agenda tonight and any other comments bring to the next select board meeting but I can't limit you to that. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you so much, Mr. Hart. Thank you. Mr. Stein, if you could say your name and address for the record. So we can't hear you, are you muted still? I think we can hear you now. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay, cool. So I'm Nick Stein. I live at 28 Clark Street. So I just wanted to read something I wrote. Black Lives Matter is not just an ask for overt racist to stop being mean. It is a demand to eliminate white supremacy. That demand obviously cannot be met with a piece of cloth and we must continue to pursue this outside of symbols but the board has chosen to define this powerful statement on the value of black lives into the liberal version of all lives matter a meaningless statement of kindness to all. White supremacy is absolutely alive and well in Arlington as we've seen with Katrina. To this day, the APD refuses to fire a man who is clearly irreparably bigoted and for whatever reason claims that they can rehabilitate his disturbing worldview. You cannot teach empathy and the dignity of all humans including those who are struggling to someone who makes public comments like he has and be a member of groups on Facebook like the ones he was in where cops were mocking videos of folks dealing with substance abuse, poverty and mental health issues. The dream saga is not an isolated flaw of the shining example but self protection of the department by design and all officers as well as all members of the town government that defended our implicit. Lastly, I would like to respond to the statements from Diane Mahan regarding solidarity against hate demonstration. Regarding out of town, first off, I'm an Arlington resident and I was proud to stand with them against fascism. It was also pretty clear that many of the folks on the other side were not from Arlington nor is the organization Arlington based as far as I can tell. Further, speaking disparagingly about an organization based in Boston is out of town. Regardless of who was from where, sounds like the old Arlington that opposed having the red line come to town for racist reasons. I implore the select board to reconsider their decision to take down the Black Lives Matter banner. A symbolic gesture is the least that the town can do. I yield my time. All right, Mr. Chaplain. The next speaker is Jennifer Seuss. My housing issues. So I thank you guys for getting together. I wanna say that I am like many residents in town in that I love the community, love the civic and the life of Arlington. And I'm also very anxious about its future. I think that many people have good will and who disagree with each other are also just anxious about our future, right? And the anxiety that I have is that I know that we can't stay in place. I know that things that are naturally affordable today will not remain so. I grew up in a house in Brooklyn, New York that was 40,000 when my parents bought it. It's still a junky house, but it's no longer 40,000. So just having old, small houses. Look at Palo Alto, California does not make something affordable, right? So the way you have affordability is by having potentially smaller units, by having more units. And so I really am excited by Arlington's involvement with Metropolitan Mayors Coalition. I think that we have a crisis on our hands and that every community has to step up and do their part. It's just not okay to say that other communities need to do something and Arlington doesn't have to do anything, right? We all have to do our part. We're in a crisis. I also think it's the right thing for Arlington, right? I think that we're losing, if you look at the trends in Arlington, we're losing age diversity. We have 44% fewer people under 34 or between the ages 20 and 34. We have 14% fewer people over age 65. We're losing economic diversity. We used to have nine, 10% in our kindering class on free and reduced lunch. And now that number is consistently under 6%. So we are not staying in place. We are getting to a community that is becoming wealthier and wealthier. And the way to counter that is to build more housing. And it's to build housing a variety of types, to build things that where Arlington can, whatever their choices be, has an option for them. Whether they be downsizers or young adults looking to put down roots in Arlington, that's what we're losing. We're losing that kind of choice. And I look forward to things being put into place that will increase that choice. And sorry, am I up out of time yet? Or? Not you. Okay. We're looking for four seconds. So just a very slight critical remark. I have tremendous respect for every single person on this call. But I do think that the select board can do more than just sort of review some of the technical aspects of the redevelopment board's plans. I think that the select board is the policy-making body in town. It has a tremendous, it's very visible in town. And I think that the select board can be a leader in advocating for more housing. And I think it's the right thing to do. Thank you. All right. And Mr. Chaplain. All right. Next speaker is Laura Kiesel. Okay, we can promote Ms. Kiesel. Hi. Hi. My name is Laura Kiesel. I live at 6-0 Mass Ave. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. So I am also here tonight because I wanted to voice my disappointment with the select board's vote last week to take down the Black Lives Matter banner. The fact that it was put on the agenda literally the day after the Back the Blue Rally makes it very clear that it's a capitulation to white supremacists in our town. And I want to be very clear about what this rally was because I feel like people are talking about outside agitators. This rally was brought by the spouse and sister-in-law of APD officers. They themselves do not live here. They're from Wuburn. And America Backs the Blue is not from Arlington. They bring these rallies to different towns. A lot of times it attracts neo-Nazis and you have to ask yourself why that is. And I just feel that Arlington has shown to me that I've lived here that it's very good at giving these grand symbolic gestures when it's popular, but as soon as there's something uncomfortable, as soon as there's pushback, they kind of just falter and fall away. And to replace this with a plaque that is basically saying something like all marginalizations matter, for me as someone who is part of many of those marginalizations, who is low income and is disabled, what it says to me is that you're willing to appropriate and exploit my marginalization as an excuse to not firmly assert that Black Lives Matter. My life as a low income disabled person cannot matter in this town and cannot be equitable. And I do not feel safe in a town that cannot firmly assert that Black Lives Matter. And I really don't really, I don't really know where we go from here, but I really would implore this Blackboard to consider the optics right now. The day before Padrini is due to set to dress the community, when you have all done everything to rally around him staying, and so many of us have marginalized identities that said we do not feel safe here, that you are now voting within a week of that to take down the one lip service gesture you were willing to do without any real work to try to make us feel somewhat like, and to say this at a housing forum too, where I speak to so many people of color who will not move here because they don't feel safe or people of color who do not feel safe living here and want to move or people who have moved from here because of this. All of this is moved about race and housing unless we make this an equitable place where people feel safe and they will not unless we're willing to do more about that. So thank you for listening and I yield by time. Mr. Tom Andrew. Judith Garber. How many more do we have raised hands? After Judith, there are 12 raised hands. Hi, can you hear me? Eric. Yes, and just to remind everyone, we have had a number of increase in the same subject. We do have a meeting coming up. This is a joint meeting with Austin, the redevelopment board meant to discuss zoning issues. There's no limit to what could be said at open forum, but we do have a meeting coming up in the next couple of weeks that people can also attend if they've comments that have already been displayed. And with that, Ms. Garber, if you could just say your name and address for the record. Hi, Judith Garber, 130 Mass Ave in Arlington. I appreciate that and I'll try and keep this as short as possible. I'm also speaking about the decision to remove the Black Lives Matter banner. Back in June when the town made the proclamation that Black Lives Matter, putting up the banner was supposed to be this beginning of a long process to tackle structural racism in Arlington. We would engage our staff boards and committees and everyone to fight systemic racism. Last month in an email exchange I had with town manager Adam Chaftaline, he wrote the board would keep the banner on town hall until a new strategy for acknowledging the value statement of Black Lives Matter is developed and approved by the board. Instead last week, the board voted to remove the banner. I don't think that the decision to put a plaque that's acknowledged that that's the entire just sort of a list of, as Laura said, marginalizations. I don't think that is the same thing as a strategy for acknowledging the value statement of Black Lives Matter. Those are very different things. I understand the town does not generally hang banners on town hall and having this banner is a little, it was something special, but why veer from the original plan? The way the banner was removed with no plan and no plan for what we're doing to fight systemic racism in the long run. And when it was directly after these protests and the counter protests, this does not inspire my trust in town leadership. When the town declared Black Lives Matter Day in June and denounced systemic racism, they had no problem putting up this banner and it made us look progressive. But now that it means taking real action on issues of police accountability, which as we know with the issue of Rick Padrini, we have real issues of police accountability to struggle with. But now that we, it takes some real metal to do this, we don't want to declare it anymore. So I hope this is not the case. I hope that our town is really dedicated to doing what it said it would do, even if it's not the easy thing to do, especially if it's not the easy thing to do. I believe it's our responsibility as residents to express what we want our government to do and hold you to your promises, which is why I'm speaking about this now. And I yield my time. Thank you. Yeah. Mr. Chaplin. Okay, Mr. Hart, if I could just jump in here and do one last plea, that this is a joint meeting between the Redevelopment Board and the Select Board. I apologize to my colleagues on the Redevelopment Board that we, what I would say to people, I understand AFR has encouraged people to speak under Citizens Open Forum, which is their right to do. But this is not a Select Board meeting. We have one coming up. Please, everyone sign up for that. I'd like to, you know, if we can, and I don't think this is gonna happen, but if we could have the Citizens Open Forum be regarding the work between the Redevelopment Board and Select Board, and as long as you wanna keep the Select Board and Citizens Open Forum in our next regularly scheduled meeting, you can go two, three, four hours. I'm just putting that out there for our colleagues on the Redevelopment Board. It may not succumb to, and you may have to listen to more of this, which has nothing to do with the Redevelopment Board and Select Board joint meeting, but I'm just putting that plea out there. I understand AFR has encouraged people to do this, but if you could respect what the meeting is, and we'll go on from there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chaplin. Name is Ayesha Cruz. Hi, Ayesha, can you hear us? I can, just trying to make sure that I get everything all set. Yep. Great. And if you could say your name and address for the record. Sure, my name is Ayesha. I live at 144 Lake Street. A few days ago, after I found out the Select Board had voted unanimously to take down the BLM banner from Town Hall on September 30th, I called the Board Chair, John Hurd, and asked him why they made that decision so soon after the rally by ProCOP and ProFascist Organization Back to Blue. John said he and other members of the Board wanted to make a point that one can support the police and also BLM. At this point, I cut him off and said, oh, so you're a white supremacist. Thank you so much for telling me. I'm not going to apologize for that. And I'd like to take a moment to make some things perfectly clear. You cannot support the movement for black lives and also support the police because the police do not support the movement for black lives. This has been made clear in Minneapolis, Ferguson, Chicago, Charlottesville, New York, Columbus, Louisville, Denver, San Jose, Los Angeles, Houston, the list goes on. You cannot support the police and also support BLM because the police in every state, city and town assault and murder black and brown people with absolute impunity. You cannot support the police and black lives matter at the same time because the police are heavily armed agents of a system that upholds white supremacy. You cannot support BLM and the police at the same time because white supremacy is fundamentally incompatible with black lives. You cannot support BLM and the police because supporting a white supremacist power structure makes you a white supremacist, full stop. The recording of the vote to remove the BLM banner from town hall revealed the select board to be at best, cowardly and at worst, actively upholding white supremacy in Arlington. Perhaps they are still unaware of the optics of removing a prominent symbol of an international libertarian movement in order to show support for local law enforcement. If so, allow me to enlighten them. The select board have effectively announced to the world that they will silence any resistance to white authority. The moment it is no longer politically convenient to uphold it. They have done the 2020 equivalent of declaring Arlington a white's only town. They have drawn back the curtain on their own pearl clutching racist paranoia and shown the rest of us exactly who they are. If the representatives of the town government do not wish for Arlington to become known as a town full of bigoted racist white people, they, and by they, I mean you, have at least three actions you can take to mitigate this catastrophic blunder. One, you can return the BLM banner to town hall in perpetuity until all of us are free. Two, you can fire disgraced Lieutenant Rick Padrini who advocated and print for violence against protesters and allowed a man to die while in his custody and was formally reprimanded for the same by the APD. Three, you can defund the Arlington police department so we can collectively create a more just and equitable community. I would like to thank my fellow town residents for standing up for racial justice and to the select board. If you think your racism will go unnoticed, you are very, very wrong. Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chaplain. Erin Thera, I will promote her. Hello, are you able to hear me? Hi, Mrs. Thera, if you can say your name and address for the record. Hi, I'm Erin Thera. I live in Quincy Heights in Arlington. I'm also wanting to speak about the taking down of the Black Lives Matter sign. Diane, I understand that you don't want to have this discussion right now. I guess I would recommend not having made this decision a week ago and then recommending that people speak about it after you plan to take it down. Nope, that doesn't make sense to anyone who really cares about this issue, so that's not gonna happen. The discussion about having taken it down, sandwiched right around the back of the blue rally, where Pedrini is having some sort of coming to Jesus moment in front of people, and our town is being plagued by literal KKK stickers being stuck to BLM signs on people's lawns. BLM sign just went up in flames in next door Medford. Church signs have been defaced and we're taking down our Black Lives Matter sign. This sounds a pretty clear sign to the residents of Arlington that we are not a supportive town of all of our residents and that we are not a welcoming town to Black and Brown people. It's not a town that I want to be a part of, it's a town that I'm a little shamed that I'm part of at this point and I would like to see that turned around. I'm a citizen who cares about everyone. I'm a citizen who does my part to care about my fellow neighbors. And frankly, just watching Diane at this meeting roll her eyes and unmute herself so that she can hem during people's very thoughtful comments about caring about Black and Brown people is frankly offensive and unprofessional and shows me how little care there is for our Black and Brown residents in this town. So I would implore the group to rethink that decision about taking down the Black Lives Matter sign. I think it's a very least that we can do, it's a symbolic gesture and it's only the beginning of a process that we need to undertake as a town to rethink how we deal with systemic racism in this town and beyond. And so without a yield of my time. Thank you. Mr. Chaplain. Mr. Davidson. Mr. Davidson. If we can see any address for the record. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Tom Davidson is 64 Stilcroft Road. I would like to speak about housing and economic development. I'm speaking tonight as a commissioner for the Huntington Commission on Arts and Culture. Want to say that the DCAC want to say we support the good work of the select board and the redevelopment board and the Department of Community Development in pursuing strategies to develop affordable housing and our commercial business districts appreciate the outreach of the Department of Community Development to engage the community for feedback and to ask for ideas. So for the ACAC, part of our mission is to advocate for artists and to advise on policies that use arts and culture as tools to create cultural equity that reflects a diverse and dynamic community. As many of you know, Arlington lost a number of artists work in studio spaces with a move of the Arlington Center of the Arts from the Gibbs School to its current location. And we also understand that there'll be some artists spaces coming offline with the redevelopment of the building at 1165 Mass South. And we want to acknowledge that we understand that the Myrick family who owns this property have been significant one-term supporters of the arts and cultural institutions in Arlington. So as we continue to cultivate and affordable housing and commercial redevelopment opportunities and amend our zoning bylaws, the ACAC encourages integrating the principles of creative place-making into the processes of community planning and development with the goals of supporting artists and attracting and anchoring diverse culturally rich communities to our town. Equity focused cultural policies and strategies and tools have proven in numerous communities to achieve communities of opportunity. So specifically we'd like that considerations come into these processes to integrate creative place-making into Arlington's long-term, short-term and project implementation plans when looking at affordable housing, commercial redevelopment and in changing changes to our zoning bylaws. We'd also encourage development of opportunities for affordable work and or live work spaces for artists that encourage and attract diverse communities. We would like to advocate for live work artists spaces that encourages cultural equity and diversity when considering proposals for new housing and for the redevelopment of existing properties. And as appropriate to the project, evaluate opportunities to take advantage of flow income, housing or historic tax credits or rental subsidies that could create affordable studio live work spaces for artists and people of color. And as we go through these processes to determine desired outcomes that we consider- If you can just wrap up your point and just a little over the three minutes. Sure, thank you. Last point was if we can consider cultural equity as a measure for success and a guide for course correction as we continue on these processes. That's it, thank you for your time. Thank you. Mr. Chaplain. Jonathan Washer. Right, Mr. Washer, can you hear us? Nope, no you can't. Hi, how's it going? Hi. Hello, hi. I just- Yep, Jonathan Washer, 7 Thomas Street, Narlington. So I understand Ms. Mann who would like to do something better with her night and so would we all. But this is an important message to send and despite her attempts to undermine it I want to voice my support of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was disgusted to see the results of the vote by this board to remove the Black Lives Matter banner from the town hall shortly after rolling out the red carpet for white nationalism masquerading as the back the blue protest on your doorstep. I stood as part of the counter protest to this hate group weathering physical intimidation from bikers and disgusting hate speech. I was proud of the town however for having that sign hanging out front. It felt supportive of the cause and letting us know that these hate groups trying to sink their claws in this community would be met with opposition. But then shortly after the protest I heard you voted to remove it and that is shameful. You were sending the message that Arlington's efforts to support a diverse community are performative at best. In reality, you support the hate speech ingrained in the Arlington Police Department every single day that Officer Padrini remains employed by the town. This is a continuing disgrace leaving a Black Lives Matter banner on city hall does nothing to fix that stain on justice but it is a small and harmless message of support for the rest of the town. How am I doing on time? You're at a minute and 40 seconds. All right, cool. I just wanna wait for Diane to come back so I can make sure she understands that her vote was directly the cause of her night now being ruined as she's showing endless disrespect for every single member of this community that's taking time out of their lives to come voice their opinions of support for people that you all voted apparently to leave behind. That's despicable at best. So I'm just gonna stay here and keep talking I guess for my time unless this man doesn't wanna come back but Black Lives Matter, fire Padrini, defund the police and refund Arlington with funds that can actually do something other than cause further divides within this community. Oh, she's back, good. Thank you, I yield my time. Mr. Chatelain, how many we have left on the list at this point? There's now 11 hands remaining. All right, so at this point, let's shut down the list. So, okay. Okay. Next name is John Sanbon Matsu. Yeah, Mr. Sanbon Matsu, can you hear us? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. You know, I just wanna make clear, I heard about this meeting. I'm not a member of AFR, but I support their efforts. And I wanna say that I also was gonna say, I just find it shocking that Chair Mahon has been rolling her eyes, shaking her head, groaning, getting up and down. I've never seen such unprofessional behavior an elected representative. So, what I wanted to say was indeed about Black Lives Matter, you know, it's clear from Mr. Kaplan's earlier comments tonight that Lieutenant Padrini, this whole case and the sympathy for him, it's become a lightning rod for racists in our community and in the state. It's not an anomaly. There are a lot of people who have these sentiments, including some, unfortunately, within our own police department. I've spoken to some of the officers in our department, some of them are wonderful men and women. Some of them are very much in sympathy with what Padrini said. And so tomorrow night, we're gonna have a kumbaya theater where this town once again has, you know, kicked the problem down the can down the road and wants things to kind of get, you know, wants everyone to get along without showing its true commitment to social justice and to the people of this community. You know, I apologize for interrupting a meeting that's supposed to be about redevelopment, but these issues matter to many people in our community, particularly the most vulnerable. And somehow incredibly, after two years or more of good faith activism by other people in this community, people in our community, I just feel like the town manager, I'm sorry, and the select board is bungling this. And I don't understand how in the wake of a rally that was intended as pushback against this civil rights movement, which is what Black Lives Matter is. It's a civil rights movement. How the town select board could possibly have taken this vote without community input clearly as to direct reaction to in response to the Back the Blue rally. This issue is not going to go away. I urge people watching this call to look at this letter which I saw from Arlington Fights Racism that asks, makes eight requests to the town manager, including to create a police civilian review board and calling upon the Arlington police chief to publish a statement announcing Lieutenant Padrini's writings for their racism and their advocacy of violence. It is incredible that after years of this, years now Arlington police department has not published such a statement, denounced Lieutenant Padrini's writings for their racism and advocacy violence. So yes, I wanna agree with the other people on this call that banner should be restored. And to not, I'm telling you, if you do not restore this issue, it's not gonna go away by you're trying to placate racists in our town. Thank you for your time. All right, Mrs. Joplin. Todd, you're soon. Can I just jump in here? Cause I've been sort of maligned. I have not been rolling my eyes when I dare anyone to back that up as well as anyone who knows me, my family circumstances, when I've stepped away because we've had close to two hours of the citizens open forum that has nothing to do with select board and Arlington redevelopment board conversations regarding joint articles regarding economic development regarding the CDBG CARES Act. So I've had to step away and I would say to not the people who are critical of me and who are a bit hypocritical because anyone who knows my family and knows in terms of people of color that are my immediate family, I'm not gonna take your negative comments on that but I wanna say to again, not only to my colleagues on the board but my colleagues on the redevelopment board, I apologize that you've been dragged into this because this citizens open forum has been publicized in a respect that it shouldn't be which is the joint articles and concerns between the select board, redevelopment board and making sure our businesses can thrive as well as zoning and affordable housing issues which most of the remarks on the citizens open forum have nothing to do with that. And honest to goodness, I would appreciate if somehow that that was just addressed with me and didn't involve all of you but I apologize, you're gonna have to continue to bear through this and I see a lot of hypocrisy here. So I'll yield my jumping into our chairman Mr. Heard and our town manager Mr. Chaplain to see who's next on the list. Mr. Beerson, if you can say your name and address for the record please. Sure, my name is Todd Beerson and I'm 79 Harlow Street and I wanna thank Diane for illustrating the problem better than I could possibly do with the seats that I wrote so I'm gonna throw out what I said and I'm just gonna point out Diane, it's not gonna be me that makes the super cut of you rolling your eyes at every compassionate and important statement that was made by people here to show up on YouTube or something like that. You were very much rolling your eyes, you were very much clearing your throat. I'm not trying to attack you, I like you, I think you're a good person Diane but I think you're really in the wrong here and you owe a lot of people an apology to the rest of you who are here to work on the redevelopment issues. I think those are important but I think you guys are making the same mistake that gets made over and over again for not recognizing what's in front of you and what's important. I haven't been sent by AFR or Antifa or the Bolshevik Revolution. I don't even know when or where AFR meets or really who they are. I'm just here as a person who sees what's going on in this town, in terms of the racism and people trying to point at possible solutions and people trying to fight that by saying that it's either black or blue, it's one or the other, creating these false dichotomies. Well, I was at one of those protests, the counter-process. It was actually pretty peaceful except for the people coming by and harassing us. And I'm not sure everybody in the select board was there because I think you would have seen something different and voted differently had you done that. So think about the optics, that's all I'm gonna say. Think about the optics, you're pulling down the sign, the dream is about to go in front of the town and have this Kumbaya moment as was mentioned earlier. The rally came and bullied you into pulling it down. And you're not showing the police any support by doing any of this. If that's what you're intended to show them that they have support of the town, you're creating a bigger issue. And I really recommend you deal with it. I yield my time, I hope you get a chance to talk about the redevelopment stuff because that's important, but nowhere near as important as this stuff. Thank you. All right, Ms. Chaplain. Steve Ravillac. Yep, Mr. Ravillac. Hello, Mr. Heard. Hello, Mr. Chaplain. This is Steve Ravillac. I live at 111 Sonny's Ida Avenue. My comments tonight relate to the community conversations, particularly the one on race and housing. Namely, I wanted to show my appreciation to all the folks who were involved in putting that together. I mean, housing in the 20th century, I mean, it really boils down to exclusion. And this is not an easy thing to talk about. Single family zoning grew out of a Supreme Court decision that made race-based zoning illegal. Two of Arlington's big farms that got subdivided into residential neighborhoods, Kelwyn Farm and Allen Farm, they were originally deeded with racial covenants, which basically is a deed for whites only. Arlington's red line map had no red on it because in 1940, the black population of Arlington was 35 people. This only rose to 39 in 1960 and a little over 100 by 1970. In 1973, our town meeting passed a bylaw to a moratorium banning the construction of apartments for two years, followed by downzoning the town, reducing housing options, apartments especially, and then voting to reject the red line. So, I mean, we've done this as much as any other municipality in the United States and our built environment reflects that. I'm hoping this is something we could address going forward. I would like to show some support for Ms. Seuss's comments in that more housing, more variety of housing, and it's not something that we shouldn't be concentrating just on some narrow corridors. We should be really looking at the effects, looking at doing this throughout the town's neighborhood. But again, I think that was the, I got a lot out of the community conversations on race and housing, and I'd like to say thanks to, thank you guys for putting that together. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I won't go to Brown. Hi, Mr. Brown, can you hear us? Oh, how do I, oh, start the video. Hi, my name's Michael Jacoby Brown. I live at 10 Brattle Terrace in Arlington. I'm a town meeting member from Precinct 17. And I just want to say I felt really sad to learn just yesterday that the Black Lives Matter banner at Town Hall was voted to be taken down. I only learned about it last night. It wasn't even in the paper three days later. And I would hope that the board of, though a select board would wait until we can listen to the impact on the Black residents of the town of taking the banner down. Thank you. All right, and Mr. Champlain. Brad Adams. Hey, good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Can you just say your name and address for the record? Yes, thank you. This is Brad Adams. I'm a 27 mile street. So I want to speak in the removal of the BLM banner. There's a grassroots social justice movement that's been going on for over a hundred days. While standing vigil, I've seen hate being streamed at us. I've seen accusations of being murderers and pedophiles. I've faced threats of sexual violence and I've had white power yell at me and then the police called on me because, I don't know, we've seen clan stickers showing up across our town. So do I feel like it's time for the banner to come down? No, I don't think we've solved it yet. But I've also seen a wave of encouragement and support from local people standing with us, people driving by, honking their horns, cheering along. Also from neighboring towns and residents of those kind of struck down and thinking, whoa, Arlington? Arlington's out here? Yeah, we're out here on the street. And then there was a rally that showed up that had organizational roots with the largest anti-Muslim hate group in the US. I was also assisted in an organization by family members of local police and that event itself generated a cost that was paid out to the police, which strikes me as fraught to say the least and a conflict of interest to say the most. It's over 100 days of a grassroots local movement here in the streets of Arlington. An activist said something to me a while ago that kind of struck me. She said, if you ever wondered what you would have done during the civil rights movement, it's whatever you're doing right now. And I like to think that taking down our only banner and statement isn't what we're doing right now. There isn't a face of local government that this issue doesn't touch. Black lives matter. And I think I have just a bit of time left. So I just want to say to Raya, we miss you very much. Best sushi around. Hope we can welcome you back. I yield my time. Thank you. Thank you. And this is a chat plan. Robin Harney. And where are we on the list? After this next speaker, there are six hands raised. Though one of them is already spoken. So I would imagine you wouldn't allow that. Nope. All right. Hi. Hi. Can you just say your name and address for the record? Okay, yeah. I am Robin Harney, 57 Lake Street. Okay. So I was originally not going to speak tonight because of the targeted harassment and threats I've been receiving on an ongoing basis from Brightwing Vigilantes, both local and non-local for speaking out on this issue. But it's too important to keep silent. So I have decided that I will speak out. Last week, John Hurd said that he thinks that protesters naming fascism as fascism is beyond the pale, but fascism itself is what is beyond the pale. This is what Elizabeth Padrini, sister-in-law of Lieutenant Rick Padrini and wife of APD officer Rob Padrini and the hate group America Backs the Blue brought to Arlington last week. This group rallied in a town where they do not live. Citing among their grievances, the Black Lives Matter banner over Town Hall. In response, you immediately voted to remove the banner and in doing so, you validated their tactics, including their harassment, homophobia, transphobia and threats on my life. You have made all marginalized residents of Arlington less safe, literally, measurably less safe, but particularly Black residents. And for this, you are complicit in white supremacy. The select board's claims that the Black Lives Matter movement and supporting police are not in conflict and make no sense in the context in which they were presented. If that were the case, then none of your points about supporting police would have been relevant to last week's agenda item, which was the Black Lives Matter banner. The truth is police and the Black Lives Matter movement are in conflict because we have a deeply racist police department in Arlington. All residents, but especially Black residents, deserve better than the disrespect you have shown this week. The banner should stay up, but more importantly, you should start treating Black people like their lives actually matter. And that begins with acknowledging the problems in our police department. Police families invited fascists to our town. Shoving the Pedrini issue under the rug has allowed racism to spread further throughout the department and has made everyone in Arlington less safe. The APD has demonstrated zero understanding of the problems in their department as evidenced by the recent vision's report. Pedrini continues to do harm and he continues to enjoy widespread support from the department. There has been no acknowledgement of the harm of his words from any of the other officers in the department. And he is not the only problem officer. We know this based on the fact that he has received awards while he was out on leave getting disciplined. This didn't happen in a vacuum, it happened within a racist white community. Just at three minutes, if you could just wrap up your claim. So in short, we need to fire Pedrini, listen to Arlington's Black community and defund the APD. All right, Mr. Chaplain. We have Kevin Heaton, who was the first speaker was unable to connect, give him another chance. Yep, Mr. Heaton, can you hear us? Hi, my name is Kevin Heaton. I'm at 252 Mass Ave in Arlington. I also wanted to share my disappointment on the removal of the Black Lives Matter sign. I mean, especially when you voted for it a day after a racist rally was allowed in town I mean, to me that's just a slap in the face to bring all the people of color and disadvantaged people who live here and who feel unsafe because of Rick Pedrini being allowed on the force to stay on the police force and other actions that have happened in town. I mean, and just saying, well, all lives, putting something up that says all lives matter, okay, that's not the issue. I mean, that'd be like showing up at a funeral and saying, well, all deaths matter. Okay, well, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about, you know, the Black people that are being targeted. I mean, just the other day on the news there was a story about a blind Black woman in Boston who was run over with her two kids who was run over and the driver just kept going and the cops have done practically nothing about it. And obviously if she was white, it'd be a different story. So, I mean, the sign needs to stay up and Pedrini needs to go, that's the very least. And I'll yield back the rest of my time. All right, and Mr. Chaplin. Shannon G is the next man. Shannon Gires. Yes, I can hear you. Can you folks hear me? Yes, we can. If you can say your name and address for the record. Yep, my name is Shannon Gamerick. I live at 3D Lake Hill Avenue here in Arlington. I know it's late and I know a lot of folks have said more eloquently what I'm going to say. So, in the interest of the fact that Arlington has been a welcoming community to me so far and my family and the folks that I choose to call my family that might not be my blood. I just want to say that when I was a newer resident to this town, I attended a select board meeting and I was really enthused to see the unanimous signing of what is better known as a bathroom bill for transgender folks to use whatever bathroom they choose and Arlington was proudly signed by every member of the select board meeting. And as somebody who identifies as non-binary that was really meaningful to me to join a community and feel really welcomed and feel supported. And I thought at that time, wow, what a great choice I've made to be a member of this community. And so to that end, I just want to say how disappointed I am to know that a community would choose to not be as welcoming and kind and show as avid support to other members of our community by removing the Black Lives Matter banner. I think that it is really clear that there is overwhelming support of our Black community, of the people who fight for racial justice. And I just think that I hope that you will reconsider with all of these moving words that have been said tonight how we can be a more welcoming community to everybody. And in regards to making it that welcoming place for people to move and live, I think that that also addresses the other issue at hand tonight, which is just this issue of making our community more affordable for people to live, to make it more diverse, to welcome in these new voices, to grow and learn and really be a rich group of people who can learn a lot from each other and become better. And I thank you for your time. I yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Mr. Chaplin. Martha Rieland. And how many is on the list after this? After this, there's three hands. Okay. Hi, Ms. Rieland. Can you hear us? I can hear you. All right. If you can just say your name and address for the record. Sure. My name is Martha Rieland. I live at 42 Richfield Road. And I would like to respectfully speak to the BLM banner and the APD issue. And I assure you, I'm neither hateful or blood thirsty. And I apologize to the board for keeping you later than as usual, but this is the only form available to us before the banner is taken down. I would urge us not to compare the Black Lives Matter movement to the Arlington Police Department and not give them the same type of support that we're trying to give to the Black Lives Matter movement. The BLM represents a marginalized group of Americans as ancestors were stolen from their countries, used as slaves, treated as animals, prevented from buying land and homes and targeted by hate crimes by both civilians and law enforcement. Today, Black Americans are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement, which must change. APD consists of rape men and women who are paid by the town of Arlington to protect and to serve all people of Arlington. Every day they may be putting their lives on the line for us. And I cannot even imagine what it's like to do that. They deserve our support and respect when they fulfill their duty to serve all people of Arlington. However, when an officer publicly spews hate speech for any marginalized group is against police reform and promotes violence, that officer cannot be trusted to serve all people of Arlington, does not deserve our respect and does not belong in the APD. By permanently hanging the BLM banner and by taking action to remove Padrini from the APD, Arlington can show that we truly support our fellow Black Arlingtonians and all people of color. I'm not opposed to hanging additional signage in the town lobby that expands Arlington's commitment to equality for all people, but it cannot replace the Black Lives Matter banner. If it does, we will show that Arlington talks but does not act on behalf of BLM. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Chapter. Next speaker is Sharon Shalu. Hi, Ms. Shalu, can you hear us? Hi. So, it says I'm muted, but you can hear me? Okay. We can hear, can you say your name and address for the record? My name is Sharon Shalu. It's a losing battle, that pronunciation, but Shalu, I live at 8 Ravine Street. I'm a 30 year resident of Arlington. The last time I came before the select board was a year before the whole Padrini debacle started to register a complaint, a different complaint about APD, one that our town manager said he wouldn't question that two select board chairs said they couldn't get involved with and that another select board member listened to and commiserated with, but seems to have done a complete about face on positions. So, so here I am again. I really honestly thought when the Padrini thing broke that you would take action and something would change. I'm not going back there, you know, because I'm done with you guys on that one, but I'm still here on what's going on with our current crisis. And I have to say that what you guys did last week at your meeting was just what you did when you made that RJ decision. You tried to like quickly get rid of a problem rather than engaging it and to present quite a dramatic proposal and vote on it in the same meeting. Maybe your procedures allow that, but that just wasn't good policy. So I think the reason you're hearing from so many, and I do wanna say that Arlington Fights Racism has nothing to do with my presence here, but I think the reason you're hearing from so many has a lot to do with your process. And if you had had a better process where you would have proposed it and would have invited feedback, we could have had this debate and maybe we could have made a better decision. So I'd like you to all take that home to bed with you. There were some odd remarks, like we'll take the sign down because we have to make room in our town hall for bigots and racists. I mean, so we have, I guess, but you can't have a housing discussion and affirm your decision that you want a more diverse community and then do things like this at the same time. You make a diverse community, not just by building housing, but by making this a community that people want to come to. And right now, we don't look good. So I'd like you to think about, this is not divorced from housing. This is not divorced from the future of Arlington. This is not divorced from a more equitable community, a more diverse community. It's not divorced from housing. It's not divorced from anything, making sure that Black Lives Matter is at the core of everything we do as a community. And you can't run away from it. You can't placard your way out of it. And really, just at three minutes. And the other thing you just want to think about is if you put that placard inside Town Hall, who were the people who feel welcome to come in there to read it? And you put something outside, you can talk to the whole town. So I just want to say, I was really disappointed last week. And I think you've really got to take this home and think it over again. Because I think you're making a new mistake and I think we're getting into more trouble. Thank you. Mr. Chapterland. Ezra Fisher. And one more of us. Correct. Hi, Mr. Fisher. Can you hear us? Yeah, I can. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Can you just say your name and address for the record? Sure. Ezra Fisher, 32 Thorndag Street. Thanks for your time. I sent an email to the select board into the Town Manager last week. As soon as I heard about the Arlington, about the decision to take down the Black Lives Matter banner from City Hall. And I actually got a response from Adam. So thank you. And Adam's reasoning that he offered behind taking down the banner that decision. And I'm going to quote directly from the email was to refocus the work here locally on actual policy and programming that can improve racial equity in town. So I'm all in favor of focusing on policy. I actually responded to that and more or less said, great, what's the policy? And I didn't get a response. And so, you know, it seems to me the question is, what has changed since June? If you're taking it down to further some sort of anti-racist policy change, what is the policy change? That should be an easy question to answer. But that's the true reason for taking the banner down. That should have almost been like a form response to my email. These are the policy positions were changing. I'm left believing that that's not the real reason. And that's, you know, that's really disappointing as a resident. I would expect. I would expect if you're going to take down something symbolic to get something real done. I don't really agree with that decision. But if you're going to do it, I would expect you to bring it up to a certain level. I would be happy to be able to explain what the policy changes are. Thanks. Thank you. Mr. Chapter lane. Last name is Ben Ruddick. There we go. Hi. Hi, Mr. Rick. Hey. Ben Ruddick 40 web cow road. Let me end you on a bit of a positive note. and look forward to meeting the rest that I haven't gotten to know well. It's just exciting to see you guys come together and talk about housing. This is about as thorny and difficult of an issue as you could possibly imagine in terms of its complexity and all of the intersecting aspects it hits on from traffic to schools to the environment to the appearance of our neighborhoods to everything about our lives gets touched by this. And I really encourage you all to continue the select board particularly to continue to convene these broad meetings of A or B and maybe bringing the school committee, whoever you need to among our town to have the most informed thorough discussion about housing. I mean, you all are really smart, passionate people that there's a tremendous amount of expertise I see amongst you. And it's exciting to see you guys get so serious about housing. And I know there's a lot of passion in town to support the efforts you put forth. So anyway, thank you for your time. Thank you for evening. I know that especially the A or B members are probably gotten to a little bit of different discussion tonight than they may have expected. But I hope that doesn't dissuade you from continuing to joining with the select board to be part of these joint conversations. And just know there's a lot of passion in town for positive change and we can make things better here. So thank you all. Thank you. And with that, we'll bring our open forum to a close future meeting. Adam, do we have or Jenny, do we have a timeline for what we're looking for for future meetings? I know we're going to have to, are we going to table this until we see what comes in for articles? Well, I would presume that we'll want the two chairs along with Jenny and I to talk about articles that come in. And I guess we could then determine between the two chairs, again, and Jenny and I, if another meeting is necessary before the special town meeting or if we want to then maybe meet as we're talking about the annual town meeting warrant opening sometime in December or January. So I think maybe in a week's time, we could connect and then advise the two boards on whether or not another joint meeting is more short or a little more midterm. All right. And with that, we'll take a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. I'll second. Did anyone want to stay? Motion to adjourn to ARB 2. Give us a second from the ARB team. Second. David, OK. Attorney Hyde. I'm going to just walk through each one at a time and I apologize if I get the order of different boards mixed up in terms of who's who's the current. I'm sorry. I get the order of folks mixed up on the ARB. I'll take the ARB first. Mr. Benson. Yes. Mr. Watson. Yes. Miss Einstein. Einstein. Yes. Mr. Lau. Yes. Miss Denver. Yes. It's unanimous vote by the ARB. And now the select board. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Currow. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. It's unanimous vote by the select board. Thank you all. Good night, guys. Take care. Be safe. Bye, folks. Good night.