 I'm going to read from a script now, so please bear with me. So as a preliminary matter, this is Jenny Rae, the Director of Planning and Community Development for the town of Arlington. Permit me to confirm that all members are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Dianne Mahon, you might need to change your volume. Dan Dunn. Yep. Christopher Potter. Tony Stacco. When I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chaptaline. Here, and you need to hit record, Jenny. Oh, this meeting is being recorded. We got that. And Erin's work out. Hi. Good morning everybody. This open meeting of the CBBG subcommittee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's Executive Order of March 12, 2020 due to the current state of the emergency in the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, 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 open 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 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 allow public comment at the start of the meeting. I will provide instructions for that portion of the agenda momentarily. For this meeting, the Town of Arlington Select Board's CBBG subcommittee is convening by video conference via Zoom app as posted on the Town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that the meeting is now being recorded and that some committee members and staff are participating by video. All supporting materials that have been provided to members of this body are available on the Town's website unless otherwise noted. The public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless I note otherwise. Now to go over some ground rules. We are now turning to the first item on the agenda. Before we do so, permit me to cover a few rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. First, I will introduce each agenda item. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps to generate accurate meeting minutes. For any response, please wait until I yield the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in conversation with other committee members, please do so through me, taking care to identify yourself. Finally, if any votes are taken today, any vote taken in this meeting would be conducted by roll call vote. We will now move to the open public forum. We received written correspondence which was emailed in advance of this meeting in accordance with the posted agenda. If any other participants would like to make comments, they can use the raise hand feature to be called on. I will call on them and they will be provided up to three minutes to provide comments. Please note that a formal public comment period will be open when the plan amendment is posted for formal public comment over the coming week. Following the open forum, I will turn to the next item. And I want to just note that Adam Chastelain is a voting member of this committee, so I noted him as a staff but of course he is also a formal voting member. And actually I am now admitting a few more people into this meeting and one of them is our another subcommittee member. Tony Sacco. Tony Sacco is president. She is a subcommittee member. So now if there are any if anybody would like to speak during open forum, please use the raise hand feature. I will call on you and give you three minutes to provide any comments. Otherwise we are we have an agenda item that needs time to be covered by this committee that we are going to focus on and then we will close the meeting. So I'm not seeing any hands raised. Okay, I've got a hand. Lynette Martin. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi. So I I'm a little bit new to the CDBG funds but I'm interested considering all this COVID stuff is happening and I tried to read a little bit about it beforehand and I wanted to understand am I correct that the funds can be used to help cover the cost of rent for low-income and our housing authority residents during this time of crisis when a lot of people are unable to work and stuff and is that something that we are looking into? That is something that we will be discussing as part of the agenda item. Yes. Okay and then there will be an opportunity to comment at the end for questions because I might have follow-up questions but I don't want to use up time now if they're answered during the session. We will not have additional time on the agenda necessarily for that but I will see where we're at in terms of getting through the main agenda item at this time. I wanted to give this time at the start of the meeting for this purpose so do you have another question or comment? I just have comments about how we might advise residents of this and if we could do that in multiple languages and if we could include a sentence if we're going out with information on this about where people could get information about voting in their language we've already translated that in multiple languages and so we have those translations available as a one sentence translation if that would be useful. We also have sentences on you know if you need help right now with groceries that sort of thing that's already been translated so I thought if if flyers were going out to people in affordable housing under their doors that we could use that opportunity to include information for getting them help because that has not happened yet at the housing authority buildings and I feel like going in on six weeks it would be really good to reach out to that community since they're our most vulnerable. I was hoping we could cross purposes there. Thank you Lynette. Jenny if it's okay I think I just want to make sure that I understand the process and I think it'll be helpful for other people. So we got notification from the federal government that we've got more money than we expected and so the planning department has made a recommendation and then the subcommittee of this subcommittee is going to listen talk about that and like and take a vote on what our recommendation is that recommendation goes to the select board and somewhere in that and I don't know whether it's between the the subcommittee and the select board or after that or during the select board but there is another formal public comment period for that is that it is my review correct part of it is accurate yes we we were planning to post the plan amendment next week and then bring it to the select board the public the plan amendment has to be posted for five days for public comment and then your select board meeting would be either in late april or in the first one in may where we would then come back to you to discuss those to discuss any comments received from the plan amendment and then be able to file with HUD so that we can proceed but the goal is to and I will get into an outline of this as well as Aaron by the way who will outline how this is an expedited process because the goal is to get the money out as soon as possible and so we can talk about that further but that is in terms of the public process that's the process okay I just think it's I just think it's really helped to be really clear about where in the process the public comment is because I think that that's I since I definitely get a you know there are questions about that and I think it's helpful to understand that the goal of that would be when we actually draft the formal plan amendment we would post it for public comment for a period of five days and ideally that would start next week but we'll see where we're at at the end of this call and our ability to do that and file it accordingly um so thank you to Lynette I'm going to move on to the next hand that was raised which was Lynette Culverhouse and I've unmuted you in three minutes available to provide any comments um thank you for including the public and inviting us to ask questions I'm also new to this but one of the things this pandemic has done has sort of woken up in me an awareness of um our lower income residents and the low paid workers in town and our service workers who are all struggling right now and um I just had a question about um whether you have representation on this board of people in that community who can actually directly um express what their needs are and if not how are you actually inviting them to have some input regarding their needs and since the funds the grant money is earmarked for low and moderate income households I'm just uh really wanting to be sure that they're having input and how that money is being used we we will talk about the public comment period and how we intend to reach out I don't have information about the subcommittee members and their low or moderate income background unless they wish to self report I am going to move on to the next person who has a comment and that is Joanne Preston oh actually I just lost you wait a minute where'd you go there you go okay Joanne somehow my my picture disappeared but I'm here okay where are you just some quick history I've been talking with um our new police chief since February about the dangerous intersection at Chestnut Street and Medford Street as many of you know a senior citizen was killed at that intersection and the outcome of our discussions is we thought that some structural changes as proposed in traffic calming would be the most effective way to make that safe for the especially for the 100 plus senior citizens in Chestnut Manor for whom this is their only way to their church the stores the park um so on Monday night and one of the things I was thinking of having actually attended one of these meetings before is to apply for a block grant um only on Monday night at the select board did I realize that and I'm sure you were only recently notified of these additional monies at which point I talked to chief Flaherty yesterday and I wrote up very quickly a proposal um and I was wondering if that was going to be discussed the subcommittee is in receipt of your proposal via email Joanne and um we um I will pass the committee of their desire to discuss that after we consider the topics that are outlined in the memo okay thank you you're welcome anything else no hard to hear you I think is there something on your phone or something Diane because it's really muffled Jenny if you could unmute the number that ends in 338 that's Diane's cell phone oh is that better yes no this is why we thought it was a select board meeting um we had to find a way or whatever of which I have I forgot to say at the thank you for everyone for being here I forgot to say at the beginning of the meeting I have three family members that are on various medication schedules so I have to step away at 10 30 and if I step away any other time it's just one of one of those three uh definitely need me and um I just say briefly and hopefully you won't hear much from me at this meeting except remarks at the end I'm just there's a matter of information I'm going to work with um our planning director Jenny Raitt and um our town manager Adam Chatelain whether this appears in April or in May but Jenny am I correct that it has to happen by May 15th or has that been extended May 15th is our program here is our next program year that has to happen by May 15th um this actually has to happen as soon as possible it's an it's an expedited funding program because it is coming through the CARES Act and the intention is to get the money out as soon as possible to help those most in need as soon as possible given the fact that many people are already experiencing the effects and the implications of the shutdown and other related concerns we want to get the money out as soon as we can okay thank you you can mute me again okay all right then I am going to close the open forum and I am going to move on to the main agenda item which is as posted to discuss oops sorry a lot of a lot of the things have to be open on one desktop here the main agenda item is uh was outlined in greater detail in a memo provided to the subcommittee by myself and Aaron which is outlining the process and the timeline to program the CDBG it's known as CDBG-CV related to the CARES Act funding as well as other CDBG funding which will lead to a an amendment to an existing program year's annual action plan I am sorry that I am speaking CDBG speak I am glad to explain any of these terms or acronyms at any point in time people have a question but for the purpose of this I think most of the members know what I'm talking about but I will first also let you poke me if you have a question because I might speak a little bit quickly the CARES Act funding yes we were notified very recently of the amount of the allocation that we were going to receive and then we've also been it's sort of been a slowly unfolding process with HUD representatives based in the Boston office as to how we can utilize the funds the waiver requirements that are involved which are different than when we operate our regular CDBG program which is an annual allocation as you know so there are waivers to the process there's prioritization of how to utilize the funds and particularly in on specific activities and then there's a an expedited process for getting to be able to get to get the money to people as soon as possible so we received that notification we provided it to the select board it was provided directly to Diana as the chair of the select board and we have yet to receive the contract from HUD as to you know actually spending money but this is the process that we have to go through before we get that contract regardless which is what we do every year so the CARES Act funding what we've identified and what we're going to talk about in the memo is the opportunity to make to utilize about $650,000 towards business activities as well as housing activities we also have some funding that we would like to reprogram prior year to address a couple of other things that that could also be something to that would also help during this time and then we want to also talk about so I think that I'm going to now turn it to Erin who will talk about actually I want to pause for a second do any subcommittee members have questions about the memo anything that I just said to clarify I guess I have some questions about like and you can defer them for later but like what's the what's the implementation look like on the actual on the disbursements do you mean disbursements like so like so say say we've approved the memo just basically like you know as written like how are the application is going to come in and how are the payments going to go out and how are there how are we going to prioritize and like all that's is that stuff that you're about to explain or is that stuff we should talk about now I will explain that as part of all right then I'll wait yeah there were that it would not mirror the same process that we typically use I also have a question of like a technical one related to anything that I've said Adam do you want to add anything I would like to turn it over to Erin to talk about the memo and start to walk through what we have outlined for the subcommittee to then discuss Erin hi so as the memo that we provided to the subcommittee and posted as part of the agenda outlines there are three funding sources that are under consideration right now the first one is the funding known as cdbgcv which is the cares act funding there's the cancellation of hca the housing corporation of arlington solar project and then the third piece of funding is old money from previous years that we would like to reprogram so I'll start off with the first piece of money which is the cdbgcv we will be receiving six hundred fifty nine thousand nine hundred and three dollars from the federal government which is about half of our entitlement that we get each year this is the first half of the cares act funding so there could be additional funding that arrives to arlington in the future but this is what we've been given at this time so our proposal from the staff is to use it in three ways to provide business assistance to micro enterprise micro enterprises are small businesses of five or fewer employees where the owner makes a low to moderate income we're also recommending it to be used towards rental assistance and then we finally would recommend to use it towards public services one of the things that was granted through the cares act is a lifting of our public service cap so as the subcommittee is well aware is that we have a specific amount of funding that we're allowed to use towards public services each year the great thing about the cares act is that it's lifted that cap so we can fund more of our public service agencies with additional funds particularly if they're being responsive to the pandemic crisis so the amounts that we are recommending is two hundred thousand to business assistance what that would sort of break down to is a grant of up to ten thousand dollars per business so approximately 20 businesses could be supported for rental assistance the requirement of the cdbg funding still stands that rental assistance cannot be provided for more than three months so if we take a conservative number for rent at four thousand dollars we thought that that would be a grant of up to twelve thousand dollars and with that we could fund approximately 33 low to moderate income households that need assistance making and paying for rent for for their home and then the finally the balance is fifty nine thousand nine hundred and three which we would recommend using to fund our public services not for housing costs but for other household expenses food security mental health counseling child care transportation and senior services the process to program this funding is what jenny had laid out it's a substantial or major amendment to our current program year's annual action plan so that's the july 1st 2019 to june 30th 2020 program year so once we are able to put together the documents so we would take advantage of the waiver that was granted by HUD where the public comment period would be no less than five days it would have to be noticed in the newspaper as typical and we would have to make that document publicly available in the environment that we're working within it would it would likely be available online so once that substantial amendment is posted and the public comment period is open we will receive comments and then close the public comment period at that time we have to respond to any comments that we've received and incorporate that into a document that then gets forwarded to the select board for their approval within a public hearing setting the way that we would disperse the funding which was a question that came up just prior to me starting to talk is the department would actually run the business assistance program we would be able to accommodate that through our department for the rental assistance we would consider looking at existing programs that already fund people for rental assistance and for the public services I think that would be more towards our traditional application process where we would put out an open call to our typical sub recipients but other other agencies that operate in Arlington that might be stepping up to the call to respond to the pandemic that could use additional funding and we would go through the traditional process there so that's the first piece of money which is the CDBGCB funds I'm happy to take questions about that or I can move on to the next two pieces of money if it makes sense to take questions at the end I left some at Adam's hand up so Aaron let me let Adam ask a question yep Adam thank you Jenny thank you Aaron Aaron could you just talk a little bit about the existing agencies that currently provide rental assistance are you thinking about the housing corporation and the Arlington Housing Authority or other groups or all of the above all of the above including our Health and Human Services Department which has an emergency fund that provides assistance even beyond housing costs thank you you're welcome I also see Tony raising her physical hand as well oh I'm sorry I need to stretch out my camera sorry about that Tony so my question was about so I read just in you know in the same memo packet we got a note from Pam Hallett and but in off and she mentions off hand that our rental assistance is off in 1500 a month where what made us what made the recommendation 4 000 and and how does that compare to Pam's thoughts around 1500 so we made the recommendation of four thousand dollars per month to capture as many rental price points as there could be in Arlington even if you're making a little moderate income I think that of the funding of up to twelve thousand dollars would be the maximum the applicant would would have to document what their rental costs are and we would support them for three months the cdbg regulations is very strict about three months of rental costs so we could not exceed what their actual rental costs are yeah I don't it's not the three month I understand the three month restriction the four thousand was just it was surprisingly high to me it is it is on the higher end we just wanted to make sure that we are inclusive of all those households that might qualify and to your second question about HCA's 1500 allowance that is their existing program they I spoke with Pam Hallett earlier this week and last week about what the requirements are for cdbg funding for rental assistance she limits it to 1500 dollars because she has a limited fund so if she is is to receive additional funding she would consider raising that so that she is supporting households at their actual rental costs okay I'll say that my I'll shut up now Tony after this my my thought is is I would my instinct is to pick a smaller number and then and make you know partial support of people who where it's appropriate I'm unmuting you Dan I have a follow-up questions about just so I understand um when you say a partial what did you mean by that a partial I mean so if someone actually has a cost of four thousand dollars a month and the end or five or whatever and they would met the requirements uh and like I would be more inclined like that we would and we set our limit at like two or three thousand or something like that then we would pay them the two like we'd pay for part we'd subsidize we'd pay for part of their rent is what I meant so it's like if you if you say your income is you know low to moderate and your rental is four thousand a month and our we write our program limit to be two grand then I'd say okay we'll pay half thank you um Tony thank you I just have two quick questions the first one is um how does the rental and business supports support other services that are available and so that we were being careful about not duplicating services but working in partnership with other services that are have become available during these times and second what are we doing in terms of rehab rental but what about low income and moderate income folks who either are struggling to make mortgage payments or who like may own their home but are struggling to pay their taxes for this year because of some more issues Aaron do you want to so I can start and Jenny if you have something to add please jump in um for uh the first question um about duplication of benefits the uh the CDBG regulations are are very clear that we cannot um duplicate benefits so we have to have a very clear agreement um with a sub-recipient and they likewise with the actual household um that indicates if there is evidence that there is a duplication of benefits such as um through a private foundation or um if if uh disaster other disaster funds become available to the town of Arlington and that uh that um household that has benefited from this uses basically double um you know double counts to the benefit they um would be required to pay it back um but that is uh also partially a self-reporting um or uh it it's not there isn't a strong enforcement requirement it's if if it does become self-reported then we have to um figure out a way to request the funds back um for the second question um to households um and particular to ownership households that's not necessarily something that we've envisioned here um in the um Massachusetts legislature the um they are uh considering a moratorium on evictions and um mortgage payments um so that is one way that homeowners are going to be supported um and actually the rental assistance um in the CBBG uh there there isn't necessarily a homeowner equivalent um of an eligible activity so um the this was what we can do within the confines of the regulations um I hope that answers the questions was there anything else that I should refer to Jenny no that that last part covered it it's not a it's not an eligible activity and we also can't pay for taxes or other types of expenses it's just directly for housing and miscage tenant-based rental assistance is the activity yep are there other questions from the committee about this or should we move on okay Diane I'm sorry 371 I think it's the 338 338 Diane thank you sorry I thought I get a clap or away but I guess it's not working how to think that out um just on the last question um from phony um regarding property taxes and the like um we did uh Dan and I I usually say mr or ms I'm not gonna drop that here um with our colleagues on the select board the other night um we discussed which we will continue to discuss at every regular schedule board meetings the different kinds of relief um that came out from the legislation and concerning property taxes um I think it's chapter 59 section 57 um the board took a vote to um delay property taxes and I didn't print it out I want to say till June 30th the fourth quarter property taxes and when I finish maybe if I misquartered anything if Dan um you know has a better memory and then concerning water and sewer um what we did was we said water and sewer bills that were due March 10th so if you didn't stop paying a much 10th you would incur penalties and interest so what we did was again chapter again chapter 59 I think section 59 we also extended that we waived all water and sewer penalties and interest to June 90th so somebody asked me a question does that mean I don't have to pay till then and the legislature and government being the way that it is the correct answer is your your penalties are in interest are waived until June 30th and what it says to someone like me the block of cheese kid um as long as you know if you can't pay it on March 10th or any day after if you get it in there by June 30th you in effect have been given it the way but that's not what they say they you know that's just my interpretation of it on the four thousand dollar rental that really like blew me away um in terms of I where I live there's three and four bedroom homes and my neighbors who charge going market rate are like 26 to 3300 um I would be in favor of if we can I know we're saying low to moderate income uh I'd like to say uh low income and then look at um and this may have already been done if there's any sort of study what a low income average rent is what a low to middle income average rent is um I don't think it's my thing is I'd like to you know capture the people um if we can just say it's for low income um if we can't that's okay uh the the other thing I would say is if we could do a two from range I'm afraid that somebody that's barely making it and is paying maybe you know 17 25 a month these four thousand you know not understanding how things go they might misinterpret that that's oh I'm not in that range so I'm not even going to apply if there could be sort of a a two from range and then my only other preference and this is for the planning department for um Jenny and Aaron to iron out my personal feeling is um I would like these monies to go to people that is paying that that are paying their rent not to an AHA H that your housing core um that um director or any nonprofit might say well if I can get some more money to help you know I'm already making it and I'm you know I'm barely keeping things together but I'm getting it covered for everyone but if you're telling me that money's available then give it to me what I'm trying to say is those people in those units um that they pretty much it's been worked out how their rent gets collected from what sources whether it's section eight whether it's assistance from the HCA um so I don't know if we can and I don't know how the rest of the subcommittee feel as well as onto the select board um that these money go to um people who maybe aren't really getting any assistance at all and you know what I'm saying I don't want it to go to you know um a particular housing core says we could be getting three thousand for this we're only getting two thousand but now this is program so give us that thousand they've already figured out where the thousand comes from so thank you and I'll listen for two minutes and I'm gonna step away and do meds real quick um just to quickly respond the HCA program their homelessness prevention program is available to any Arlington resident um as is the health and human services program so I um I would agree with you that it shouldn't be limited to the residents that live in those properties and the points are well taken about the the range of the rental and also thinking about limiting it to a certain income the lower and lower side of the income categories so with that I'll move on to the second item for discussion in the memo and attached to the memo was is a letter from Pam Hallett from HCA um in for this current year this current program year this CDBG subcommittee um and the select board funded a solar project uh in which Pam um had planned to install solar panels on the roofs of the buildings in at Capitol Square um so around 252 Mass Ave unfortunately due to the ownership um as a way to reduce the costs of her the utility costs of her tenants um unfortunately due to the ownership model of those buildings um they have been unable to negotiate with the um with their partners uh a reasonable um model and agreement for how the solar panels be owned and operated as such um and being responsive to the pandemic Pam has requested that the CDBG subcommittee consider um reallocating those funds um towards her capital improvement program um in an amount of 50,000 and 100,000 to support her existing homelessness prevention program um which again would have to follow some of the criteria that I outlined um in the the first piece of my presentation um as it relates to the CDBG requirements um so this is uh this is a separate uh funding from the CDBGCB money so this is a decision that the CDBG subcommittee could um uh decide separately from that funding um I and also the amounts that would be allocated one way or the other um this because of the amount of money and actually the cancellation of this project the solar project this does trigger a substantial amendment um and we would plan to bundle this change into the substantial amendment that we would have to prepare for the CDBGCB funds um because it affects the same program year um so uh with that um uh I will leave it to questions from the subcommittee um attach the memo again was Pam's request are there any questions from subcommittee members do we know what part of our do you have any sense of what what part of our capital budget she'll use it for um so I understand that the additional $50,000 will fund siting at her property at 27 Acton Street and um uh a new boiler system at um 2 Smith Road I believe is the other address 27 Acton Street is included in this in the capital um her capital improvement plan for this current year so it was when she was assessing the building with her contractors she noticed that the siting um was in uh not great shape anything else Pam nope thanks I see Diane's waving all right yeah Diane um sorry yes um can you see I don't need to keep physically waving am I hitting the feature that you can see it on the screen or no no I see it the hand raised function is not happening I do see you waving at me though oh okay that works as well and I apologize because I weren't at the beginning of the explanation so it if you already covered it just give me the extremely short answer um am I correct that the allocation um is 200,000 and we're only and I don't mean to say only and we're anticipating spending 150,000 of it and if that is correct why not spend the whole 200 the solar project was funded at 150,000 um the capital improvement project was funded at 200,000 so the capital improvement program as a result would be increased to 250,000 okay thank you you're welcome Tony did you want to say something yeah I had a quick question and please forgive my ignorance the rental assistance 100k that would be earmarked for the homelessness prevention program does that money help pay rents for people that are living at hca units it is for any Arlington resident to apply okay so it's not restricted to people that could be or are living in hca units that's correct the the eligibility requirements of low to moderate income households would apply but it's not it's not limited to only hca residents so with the 100,000 that would be administered through the homelessness prevention program through hca that would be in addition to the 400,000 from the cdgcd funds that could be administered to other agencies that's correct are you all set Tony okay are there other questions about this because we have one one more section to get through all right Aaron you want to all right funding from prior program years that we need to repro i just had a lot of programs but you get it anyway reprogramming funding um so uh from previous program years so years that um occurred before the start of this current program year which it started on july 1st 2019 there is approximately 457,437 dollars available to reprogram we would recommend using this funding to assist two projects that did not receive funding for the upcoming program year so starting on july 1st 2020 and that is the fit out of Arlington Eats the local food pantry and the DPW curb cut of course Arlington Eats did submit an application for this but at the time the subcommittee did not feel comfortable supporting it in the past week we have received some communication from our HUD field office that there will be a favorable decision coming from HUD headquarters related to funding Arlington Eats's fit out project so we would recommend helping them fund that project the second item is the DPW curb cuts historically this an application has always been submitted to the CDBG subcommittee unfortunately this past year it did not happen for a variety of reasons however this is something that has been an ongoing effort for the town of Arlington and we would recommend to the CDBG subcommittee that you consider funding that curb cut program for the upcoming fiscal year with these reprogrammed funds of course the waivers that have been provided right now from HUD for shortening some of the time periods that were required to operate in do not apply to these previous program years so we would have to undertake a traditional substantial amendment of our upcoming program year's annual action plan so again that's starting on July 1st 2020 and this substantial amendment would be required to follow our the traditional 30-day comment period so in it would likely occur later this spring after the select board approves the upcoming annual action plan if that is their determination and after we submit it to HUD on by May 15th um so I I Jenny I saw Diane waving with a little hand are you are you all set I I've um that's the presentation for this all right yes um it's not I I definitely support the recommendations on the 457 000 um the part that I'm confused about is I know for a long time when I've been on the board and this predates our town manager Adam Chatelang but it's carried over um because of the painful decisions the CDBG subcommittee has to make and and then we go through and say you know do we eliminate something or do we fairly across the board just to decrease a lot of these programs that go to low income mostly children but also families and and I know I've asked even before um under Brian Sullivan that the board just because I had anyways I've always asked for a six month report of CDBG to say are there any funds you know that haven't been spent um and don't anticipate to be spent so when we come to these tough decisions we can kind of factor that in so I'm just going to tell you my reaction when I saw that you know we saw from reprogrammed funds is just close to half a million and I think of all the pain you know I think of when I asked for those six months report and I hear oh no everything's spent and then some they don't even have enough um I'm a little frustrated that because what this says to be incorrect is that oh sorry um when I was asking are there funds that aren't being used um are reprogrammed um to see a build up of 457 that almost you know $500,000 um I want to know what I was doing wrong that what I was doing wrong that I wasn't aware every other year when in the CDBG subcommittee um that there were funds that could be reprogrammed my thing is this must have been built up not over the course of one year but some years so I'd like to move forward I'm going to interject here this is program this was money that was programmed to help restart the housing rehab program we programmed it in program year 18 and we put it into that plan we wrote it up this was the number that was used with the intention that we were going to try to infiltrate that program with funding so that they could really restart their activities due to a lot of staffing changes which have continued through this February uh we've not been able to and we don't intend to restart that program at this time um which will mean that we will likely have to think about reprogramming just not to like add more reprogram into your lives but the um we put in a weatherization type activity into the program year 20 plan and at the moment we would need to talk about how we want to how we're going to deal with that activity as well um so that that's the original source of where we put the $457,000 was to fund and restart the housing the home improvement loan program which unfortunately now we are decisively not able to continue that program okay well maybe um going forward if we could um I really would like especially a substantial amount like that um and will we make these tough decisions and when we get back to normal CDBG may start to go down more and more I'd like at a future subcommittee meeting that we have an agenda item and a brief different chair um that if we can establish a policy on a certain amount of money if you do not spend it that year of the initial start of the program so you know if you ask for $200,000 you initially spend it and then you stall out for a year then I understand that but I'd like the CDBG subcommittee that I will not be on unless I'm honored enough you know as Tim is right now just have that discussion about um you know if you don't spend that one year up to a certain amount and you haven't got pardon my language you're up together um then we are able to at that six month review or the very next meeting we're going to allocate that to someone else that's up and running and ready to go and maybe it's a certain limit of money so but that's for a future CDBG subcommittee meeting we're not going to solve that now and I don't want I want to say I'm thrilled that we're able to do this because the orange eats really less people it's such a bit of taste and I think planning you know Erin and Jenny for I don't even want to say making it H-A-P-P-E-N because I will I always wait till it happens so thank you so much you're welcome and that's a really great suggestion for future subcommittee meetings and possibly even uh thinking about how we rewrite that into some of our plans and policies um thank you yeah you're welcome um I really appreciate the comments Dan has had his hand up here yeah it was very similar my question was going to be where did we reprogram the money from and I guess you answered that I um and I was surprised that we had that much unprogrammed I thought I had a good mental map of what our unspent programmed money was because I've watched those balances in the past and this one caught me by surprise and that one so I agree that we should be we should be more aggressive about even if it's just like an annual review of saying okay these are the ones we have out there waiting it's all just to be very clear it is programmed but the currently it's programmed as being funding for the home improvement loan program that I I'm sorry that's what I'm sorry programmed but unspent I thought I knew where that all was and uh clearly I didn't I understand and um this relates back to staffing changes and uh some capacity and I I'm glad to provide any further answers about that if needed we are at approaching 11 a.m. I think at least one or two of you might have to drop off is that correct or can you all stay on I could stick around for a few minutes for sure just a few minutes okay we're going to drop off but I can stay for a few more minutes now okay so why don't we talk about then thank you why don't we talk about the next steps what we want to do right now moving forward because what what we intend to do was take your feedback pull together the you know focused on the cdbgcv right now which is uh the the first two sections of the memo that we um that Erin outlined we've got some great um amendments to what we've recommended and proposals would anybody like to entertain a recommendation for how to move forward and so that we can then productively use the time to prepare that amendment post it receive any public comments and come back to the select board Dan uh I move that we go forward with the recommendation with an accept with um with an amendment of a rental limit of $2,000 and ask the planning department to move forward with those plans we have a motion from Dan Dunn is there anybody who would like to second that motion um Diane are you seconding second yes I'm seconding that motion and then I'll have a question later so then okay I'm good my question would be to you Jenny and also to my colleague um Mr. Dunn Dan um why aren't we doing all three if we can I understand there's a lot of work to be done and we need to get it done but um why aren't we doing the third piece of it uh Dan do you want to I'm happy to amend it to say sorry thank you Diane for clarifying I had heard the two is urgent and the third is not waiting but you're absolutely right uh I'm uh remake my motion as um move forward on all three with the amendment I suggested second and we've got a second from Diane if you could unmute yourself and I'm going to call a roll call vote so Adam chapter lane I have some questions about the curb out the curb cuts the DPW curb cuts okay we so Dan do you have something to related to this no no I'm uh I agree let's answer the questions before we vote totally go for it so um question Tony yeah I'm just looking for some more information on that um what are they and why are we not funding in the past so they just not submit an application and it's just because we're switching we're reprogramming money that comes from housing improvements for folks who are low and moderate income and shifting that money into curb cuts so they feel like very different for them for guys Aaron I Aaron outlined that um we had every year usually it's filed it was filed in the past by the ADA coordinator um who also ran the home improvement loan program this year that that individual retired and um unfortunately we we didn't have anything filed usually we we do and unfortunately that was um not the case this particular year it has been a program that's been funded I would say for at least the last decade it's not more than that that historically CDBG funds are used for this and they supplement a town capital appropriation as well as you know probably other funding that comes in from chapter 90 and other resources so that we can comprehensively address curb cut updates we have a map that looks like we could do this for the next 10 to 20 years to continually update curb cuts um we we do need to talk about the geography of where those curb cuts might be happening um a couple years ago we focused on sunny side neighborhood um and there might be something like that proposed as well Aaron um do you want to add anything to this do you mind if I throw in some Jenny oh yes please sorry so just this stretches back even to went to for me back to when I was on finance committee which is indeed more than a decade ago and we just had this like absolutely immense list of ADA non-compliant curves and the the cost on it was like it was just more than we could fathom at any given year and so at the time we started putting in 50k a year and it was both from the capital budget and from CDBG and as funds have become available and as we've made progress we've we've ratcheted it up a little bit and indeed the prioritization comes through the disability commission and the DPW and it's just like it's one of those things where the problem is so big uh we just knock off a chunk of it every year and yeah so um we actually earlier uh worked yesterday the days blend as you know um we received an email from Joanne Preston with regard to an intersection um of concern and a suggestion about um how to utilize these funds I wanted to actually turn it to Adam quickly just to talk about that because I think that relates to the curve cut conversation and Joanne has her hand up right now I'm going to lower your hand Joanne because we are actually in the middle of a vote and clarifying something so I'm going to lower your hand and if we have time available I'll come back to you Adam thank you Jenny and I want to thank Joanne for submitting that proposal this morning for the committee to be able to take a look at that was clearly a tragic loss for the accident that occurred several months ago at that intersection so after receiving Joanne's proposal I had a conversation with both uh police chief Flaherty as well as with Jenny before today's meeting and chief Flaherty suggested to me that what she thinks the most immediate thing that could be done to begin to address concerns at that intersection uh is to have our is to have DPW restrike the crosswalks there so we will immediately work with them to to repaint those crosswalks beyond that in conformance with our normal transportation planning process what we would recommend that this committee give consideration is that we forward Joanne's concerns to the transportation advisory committee so that they can study the concerns of this intersection in coordination with the senior transportation planner working out of Jenny's office as well as with the traffic officer working out of the police department and the town engineer come up with a set of recommendations for either improvements that could be made to the intersection internally or recommend that we should be hiring a designer to do a broader redesign of the intersection based on tax recommendation we could then potentially seek either capital planning monies or cdbg monies for either consultant fees or potential implementation of design recommendations that would come from again either a consultant or attack itself uh Dan you want to ask a follow-up question or yeah no i just want to chime in and agree so when i read Joanne's email this morning i definitely agreed like my first reaction was tack the transportation advisory committee and DPW is the exact right place to tackle that we shouldn't do that kind of prioritization here with the cdbg we should let the transportation expert prioritize their things and then when the whatever comes to the top of the list that's what we should try to do out of cdbg and my only amendment to what Adam suggested is that i would actually really prefer that Diane and I put that on the select board agenda to refer to tack because technically all referrals to tax should really come through the select board not directly from subcommittees though in this case i'm certain that the select board is going to agree okay um so this was this spoke Adam anything more yeah i i fully agree with that i i didn't mean to suggest we could direct her for a thank you yes okay um just for the record i'm going to take the correspondence from Joanne Preston um sent to the cdbg subcommittee on wednesday april 15 2020 i'm gonna forward to the select board office um ask them to officially receive it and it will appear on our next regularly scheduled meeting which i believe is able 27 but um is that all right with you dan thank you all right thank you Diane um so i'm going to go back to tony who had the original question which prompted this conversation so um tony are you all set i'm i'm um thank you for answering my questions and i'm feel comfortable voting with an i on dance of um proposal with the amendment that he recommended i would like to continue then the roll call vote if i could which is where we stopped jenny can i suggest that you restart the roll call restart okay um so and i want to acknowledge that Joanne has her hand up but um so i so i'm going to restart the roll call vote which means i need how about we just do a new motion and a second and then move to the vote i move that we uh that we recommend approval of the three uh site re of the three segments of the memo with the adjustment of the first segment be changed to $2,000 limit and uh advice and direct the planning department to move forward with the programs and the recommendation to the select board do we have that was made by dan dunne do we have a second diane mahan is providing a second with her fingers and i'm for some reason unable to mute unmute her i'm sorry um and then i'd like to continue with the roll call vote from chris christopher potter i adam chapter lane i sarah lee hi tony sacco thank you all i think i i think yeah i all in favor it's a silent i there's there's a silent i happening okay we're good right that was a full that was an official roll call vote okay thank you very much thank you for all of the comments and questions if it's okay with uh like the two minutes of time left i'm going to acknowledge joanne scatter hand up we did discuss her her matter joanne i'm going to unmute you uh and please oh thank you um i've i've put a lot of study into this because as a town meeting member um for precinct nine that's a an intersection that many of my neighbors also use we've always thought of it as being very dangerous um then this woman was killed i went to the police chief and we've been working and talking regularly about this um and i also studied um what went on in other towns tack is a very different entity than traffic calming you will notice in belmont there are two different programs because what tack does is it looks at regulatory measures stop signs speed limits etc traffic calming looks at how to restructure an area that does not take police regulation but slows traffic and protects pedestrians i also know that tack having followed their meetings they're very busy it'll take them a very long time to get to this meanwhile we have this very dangerous intersection when i was sitting standing there at the um during the primaries right near the place where the woman was killed i tried to reassure people that the town would do something and i kept getting cries like yeah it's going to take a couple of years um so i i really would prefer that this not be put in the queue for tack which is going to take a very long they have so many people who want stop signs speed limits and so forth um and and leave it with for instance the police and dpw um and the engine of course the engineering department to look at i know the engineering department has already has a um has a uh a drawing of what they thought they might do but it doesn't include them the measures that are now used in traffic coming i'm sure they would welcome an expert to talk to them about it anyway i i just feel that this woman's life should not be in vain that we should really move on this it's more critical than curb cuts for the next year and if it takes a year two three four to do anything about that intersection it's really a tragedy the problem is the the driver was going the speed limit i'm going to ask you to i i hope respectfully if you can wrap up so we can we have to move on and i want to be able to let anybody respond if they wish to so jenny i would just add that um i agree that there is an urgency to this matter i don't dismiss that at all but i i do want to state that miss preston is inaccurate in her description of tack they are far more than a body that just makes recommendations in regards to regulatory matters regarding traffic they over the years have done really amazing work for this town they're an all volunteer body with experts who volunteer their time to try to to try to help with redesign sometimes regulatory they certainly do do their share of stop sign and yield sign and crosswalk placement work but they've also done some much more significant and larger projects in town so i i do think tack is the right body and i think with the select board taking a vote on this at their next meeting they can describe the urgency to tack and ask that they prioritize this work and and do it in a faster manner than what what some of their other work might have taken you know or how long their work might have taken in other instances i we are at 1115 which is about 15 minutes after our posted amount of time i am just looking to the group if there's anything further that you would like to discuss um we are at the close of the meeting we are going to be that's diane i'm sorry if it's appropriate can i make a motion to adjourn please do yes so move second second seconded by dan done meet me i need a roll call vote for this so adam chapterly yes sorry sarah lee hi tony sacco christopher potter hi departing the meeting hi thank you all everybody and thanks to those who participated if we could not get to your comment or you have additional things that you would like to send us um in reference to what we talked about today or anything else related to the community development block grant program please email myself or erin twerko through the planning and community development office we look forward to continuing the conversation soon and we'll be in touch thank you all chris i feel like