 Since they're going, please rise. Joining us in the piano tonight, the star-spangled banner is Ms. Howard. Thank you, Mrs. Howard. This evening, we have on our agenda the first thing we're going to take up is Article 41. Then we're going to do the special town meeting. We're only doing 41 beforehand as it relates to the special. Are there any town meeting members who have yet to be sworn in? Okay, none. Good. Recognize the Board of Chairman, Mr. Greeley? All the business of the meeting is set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting. It's not disposed of at this session when the meeting adjourns at adjourns to Wednesday, May 9, 2012, at 8 p.m. Second. All in favor? Opposed? Okay. Any announcements or resolutions? Announcements. Mr. Fisher? I hope you'll find on your chairs my explanation for why I would like to move for reconsideration for Article 32. Thank you. Mr. Chapter Lane? Adam Chapter Lane, Town Manager. I would like to introduce Ryan Katowski, a citizen and member of Sustainable Arlington to make a brief announcement about a grant program that the town is eligible for. Good evening. I'm Ryan Katowski. I'm a member of Sustainable Arlington, which is part of Vision 2020. And I wanted to let you all know about a program that Arlington was just awarded by the state. It's called Solarized Mass. And this program has two parts to it. One part is it's going to offer discounts to Arlington Town residents and businesses to install solar power systems. And the second part of that is a community-led education and outreach program that's going to let as many people know about this and get as many people signed up as possible. And I'm what's known as the Arlington Solar Coach, and I do have a whistle and I will use it. And my job is to coordinate the volunteer effort and to coordinate with the town and coordinate with the Mass Clean Energy Center. And I'm very excited about it, and you'll be hearing a lot more about it in the coming days. There was a press release put out today about it. And if you want to learn more about it, the website is www.arlingtonma.gov. energy. And I have an email account you can send questions to. It's arlingtonsolarcoach at gmail.com. Thank you. Thank you. Any other announcements or resolutions? Ms. Howard? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Jane Howard of Precinct 10 and also Co-Chair of Vision 2020. Here's another Vision 2020 announcement. This time from the Spipon Committee. The eighth annual Spipon Trails Day is this coming Saturday. And you will, if you come to this between 9 and 1 o'clock, you'll be able to join with Appalachian Mountain Club volunteers and others from Arlington sprucing up the trail that goes from Pleasant Street to Lake Street, abutting the Route 2 access road. You'll control invasive plants. You can pick up trash. You can improve the trails and the pond as well for some of the detritus that's at the edge. Please bring gloves or rake, a shovel, pruning shears, wear sturdy clothing and footwear, and perhaps a hat and some sunscreen. This is a community volunteer project. Students at the high school and middle schools who have forms that can be filled out should bring them and we will counter sign. Anybody under 12 years of age has to come with an adult. And those who are 18 or under have to have parental permission. We will have snacks and if you bring your lunch after you're through with your work, you can admire it with all the other people who have come. Thank you. Thank you. Any other announcements? All right, excuse me. Precinct 7 still hasn't organized if they would meet out in the corridor next to the town garden at the break and try and organize. That'd be appreciated. That's it for that. Any reports or committees? Mr. Tosti, take three off the table, please. Moved to article three, be taken from the table. All in favor? Okay. It's all yours. Good evening. John Cole, chair of the Permanent Town Building Committee here to give our report. I believe it was distributed last Wednesday night in the back of the hall. So I'm not going to read through it. I'm going to show you some pictures of what I think are some significant accomplishments that we've made in the last year. Fire station was completed last summer. It was a complete historic restoration of the exterior. You can see in this photo new copper flashings. The dome has been redone. Even the grasshopper on top of the weather vane has been refurbished though. Doesn't quite show in that picture. Most significantly in terms of the function of the building, the front doors were dropped 18 inches, which required pushing the floor level down, regrading the front so that we can accommodate the newest equipment in the department. There you see it from the inside. These are the day rooms. The kitchen upstairs, these spaces were completely gutted and rebuilt. New exercise room, nice bunks before I get to central. The Highland Station has been submitted for LEED Silver certification. That's leadership and environmental and energy design, which was a goal of the town meeting set some number of years ago. Certification should be in hand momentarily. The reviewers are actually passed their deadline from the stated time of getting back to us. Central station is not entirely complete. We've redone the exterior to provide protection from the weather, which was our number one concern. We had a safety issue. The parapets along the top, we had some large stones that were falling off. That's all been re-secured, reflashed in a new room. The building is now tight, and we'll have to wait a few more years until we get funding for the interior. But you can see the interiors need some help. It certainly is not quite as fine as the Highland. But the two projects combined had a budget of five million. We came in about $150,000 under that. We move on now to the community safety building. Last year, we completed phase one of the project, which was a restoration of the plaza between the community safety and the Arlington Housing Authority building. The housing authority contributed funds to landscape and put some furniture out on the plaza. And it was recently dedicated to Brian Greeley, who was chairman of the Housing Authority Board and a great supporter of this project. We're currently underway with phase two, which is the most difficult piece of the work. Last fall, we spent a lot of time and money looking at the envelope of this building to determine the cause of the leaks that have been plaguing this for many years now. We hired basically a forensic engineering team to go through this building tooth and nail. Look at all the roofing conditions. We did extensive water testing. These are rigs that basically spray the facade of the building in about 20-foot square foot segments. So you can go over the whole facade and really pinpoint the areas of concern. That project cost us $85,000, and we are now ready to go with phase 2B, which is the construction work to actually do the repair. We had our bids come in in April, the low bidder, unfortunately with Drew. There was a mistake in his numbers. One of the other sub-trades was significantly higher than we had anticipated, so we actually rebid that. And given the complexity of the work, the committee decided to invest more in on-site supervision during construction. So we upped our budget considerably for that, and basically the forensic engineer will be on-site daily during construction. As they open up the building, they have to close it up as they go. So if you're not there every day, you really can't tell what you're getting. That project will be before you in the Special Town meeting under Article 6. It's about $2.9 million, and in subsequent years we will get on to the interior. Stratton School has been a major success. As you may recall, Phase 1 was completed last year. It was ADA upgrades for handicapped accessibility, a new roof, repairing some masonry. As we came to the end of that project, we were made aware through the diligence of Adam Chaptholane and the school department that there was a grant program from the state MSBA for green school repair. So we hustled to get in line for that. We had to increase our scope of work to meet some of the state requirements. We also had to increase our budget to include new students coming in from the Thompson School for this year. So the total project cost went from $2.4 million to $2.5 plus or minus. But the upside is, through the MSBA and utility reimbursements, the town has gotten back over $700,000. So the net savings to the town is $600,000 in change. I would like to, in addition to the school department and the town manager's office, I would like to thank the finance committee for their flexibility in helping us get through what was basically a cash management issue where we had to find money from other accounts to cover the overage while we waited for the reimbursements to come in. And lastly, I'll talk about the Thompson School. There is a Thompson School building committee, which includes all members of the permanent town building committee plus other appointed members from the community and other town departments. We've been working diligently for over almost two years now. As you may know, last fall the old school was demolished. Final design was completed in February. We received bids in March. The low bid was about $500,000 below our estimate. So we're feeling pretty good about that at this point because in the other school projects, the biggest unknown has been what do we find when we demolish the old building. But that's behind us now, so we're starting from a clean site, 15 months schedule, and we should have kids back in there, rare and to go, fall of 2013. In light of the... This is easy. In light of the good news on the bidding, the Thompson School committee voted no action on Article 7 of the special town meeting, which we had inserted under the possibility that the bids might come in high. Lastly, I'd like to bring you up to date on some personnel changes. Chief Jefferson has stepped down from the committee now that we're through with the initial phases of the fire stations. We will welcome him back when we pick up the central again, and I would like everybody, excuse me, everybody in this room should know what a terrific job he's done on behalf of the town. The savings that we made on this project are 100% his doing. Rob Usela has stepped off the committee this year and recently been replaced by Alan Redie, longtime town meeting member, who we look forward to working with in the coming years. And lastly, I do have a bit of sad news. A few months ago, Bill Shea, who's been the heart and soul of this committee for many years, was diagnosed with cancer. He had an operation a few months back. He's now in chemotherapy. And I'm sure he would be delighted to hear from anybody in the room who's crossed paths with him over the years. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Paul. Mr. McKinney? Like this? Tragla's out here. Maybe a better way. Should I try it once? Hey. Great. I assure you I have not brought my guitar tonight. Sorry. Okay. First of all, I would like to congratulate you all for putting up with us. And we now have a full team. I would like to introduce to you and welcome to our committee, Mike Regeri. It's Mike, you here someplace, maybe? You'll show up later. Carl Wagner. Carl Wagner. He's there so he can call the question and I have to stop talking. Andy O'Brien. Andy, he can always give us oversight. He's taller. And we need more bark to our bite. LC Fiori. Okay. I'm going to try to do a quick reprise. Four years ago, John Leone took a very big step to name me the chairman here. And that year, we actually had our first exhibition on town day. We used up most of our budget and fortunately Diane Mahan did not charge us for taking that beautiful photograph of us with Mr. Donnelly and Mr. Markey. Thank you very much. As we got into business of running a committee, we soon discovered we had a serious problem. We had done a poll. Everyone was interested but nobody knew who we should go to, what we should do, who should pay for it. And we tried to do a grant for a t-shirt contest. That went no place. We didn't have any money. But our biggest problem was simply this. Who or what was Uncle Sam? Was he a historical figure? Was he a colonial figure? Was he a meat packer? Was he a profiteer? Was he really there? Was he really there? As I said, the Schwamm Mill, the Jason Russell House, the Dalla Museum, have sites, property, programs, supporters, but they remain obscure in the popular tourist radar. Ironically, Uncle Sam is universally known. But how can an 1812 joke in Troy be added to Arlington's historic sites? In other words, we had a problem where we had nothing but, you know, reputation. Like we had a problem here. So on 210, we came and we began to work on what we thought was the best chance we have. Battle Road. This federal thing was coming up. And we figured that if we could somehow expand the, you might say the footprint of Uncle Sam, in this area we began to get him known as a colonial figure, aside from simply the following Troy in 1912. So we began to attend these. I tried to get money for a big poll, but I didn't know how to do it. And of course, they turned me down. Thank goodness you guys voted us for $500. And with that, we lurched forward with a design program for a button and really started to do something at the same time ATED was formed, as Clarissa Rowe put together a committee that was going to help unite us all. And our friend Mr. Hugh McRory became our secretary. Well, we worked on this. We went to all these different meetings. And it wasn't easy because, you see, we only had a statue. For a site, you have a place where people stand around. And if we had a site, then we'd have something we could point to as people came through. We have a site, not just a statue. And it wasn't exactly easy, but the fact was we had the perfect location. Every Battle Road tourist will be driving by the Uncle Sam site. It's our unmanned, inexpensive focal point and a great place for tourist information. So, that year we worked on it. We came back last year and we had something. We had a logo. No, we didn't win my American Idol with the Uncle Sam song, but I will say it has been copied to a couple of blogs. We are much bigger in Google these days. Another thing which was good for us is we added Mike Regeri to our committee. Mike's company had already had the contract to sort of look out for the place and he provided something we didn't have which was really hands-on knowledge and capacity. Mike's degree is in environmental science and his landscaping startup had already volunteered to take care of the site. Now, we could actually start planning to improve the general site area. Well, we came in and you saw our plans. We said, let's make something more of this. Let's make it into something bigger. Is Andy Levin here today? He said he might be here, the editor of our Fine Rag. Well, Mr. Levin, shout out to you wherever you are. We managed to get a little bit more in the papers we used to and people really got sort of excited about what we were doing. Finally, we had another town day. We were out in the right place and this time we were ready for them. We did another poll. Everybody came up and signed up. Thank you very much. We have had a lot of support here and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We had to get back to our two major areas, which was putting a light on the statue and then putting a sign up for tourists to see where they were going. At this point, Carl also joined and he became part of our team. We had to slow down, though, because there's going to be major intersection work being done this year at the Pleasant Street Mass Avenue intersection, so we're holding back, but we are part of that. Okay, now we're coming up to this year. This year we had success. In fact, we had the expanded definition of Uncle Sam is in the federal proposal. We are a site and not a statue. Mike went forward with some very good engineering drawings to come up with a plan for the Mystic River Watershed Association's rain garden project. We nearly got the rain garden behind Uncle Sam, but we didn't quite do it. He did meet up with some great environmentalists. We did a great job. I want to thank again Wayne, who helped us with the final plans. Well, and this year we finally got on the parade. Thank you. We finally got on the parade. We went from top to bottom and we enjoyed it thoroughly. I have to admit that I think that Hugh's daughter was probably the most popular person in the parade, but we gave out a lot of buttons and we had a very good time. So we come back and we're working on, you know, just about to go. We're going to do our signage program, Andy, and then we discover we've got clashing articles. What to do? What to do? Clashing articles, us and them. Well, we sort of got together and thought about this and we realized there's ways to do this. You know, these two committees had never worked together before. We may attract different supporters for different reasons, but we share a goal of making our town more attractive and welcoming visitors, tourists, businesses and ourselves. This is where we actually share the load now. And I said, when I was 17, I had some hair, but I'll always remember one thing Mr. Frost said, freedom is moving easily in harness. And so we're actually going to team up with these guys. We're going to hitch up with age head. We're going to plan together. We're going to pull together. We're going to represent. We're going to get working with the plans. And we're finally going to pull together for this tourism project and make it work for all of us. After all, we want something that's going to be conforming to everything we want the very best. And in fact, we did pull off more or less what we were trying to do, because by now Sam Wilson is no longer a forgotten statue or an eponymous icon. He has his place among our historic attractions. We're all under the big tent. We're all pulling together. And I would like to remind you that all of those of Sam Wilson himself may have been born in 1763. Uncle Sam did not appear until 1812, of course. So this is his 200th birthday. Okay. Now I don't have a guitar, but we know the words. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Uncle Sam. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McKinney. Any other reports or committees? Seeing none. Mr. Tosti, please. I promise not to sing if we gave them the $1,500. But anyway, I move Article 3B, put back on the table. All in favor of putting 3 on the table, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? Article 3 is on the table. Article 41 is before us. Mr. Foskett. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Charlie Foskett, precinct 8. And also Chairman of the Capital Planning Committee. A couple of administrative issues. We're dealing with Article 41 before the Special Town Meeting because some of the material in Article 41 and some of the material in the Special Town Meeting are in common. So we'll only have to go through this once. And I just would like to remind you that what you're actually voting on is in the Green Finance Committee recommended vote. That's what's before you. Even the vote, even though the vote and the discussion is contained in the report of the Capital Planning Committee, which is a blue report that was distributed several weeks ago. First of all, please allow me to describe a little bit about what the Capital Planning Committee does and what the process is. Some of you who may be new to the Town Meeting might not know this, but every year in the late summer or early fall, we begin meeting and we meet until roughly January or February. And during this period, we collect and prioritize capital requests from each department in the town and eventually review and recommend and finally advocate their funding. We recommend a capital budget and a five-year capital plan to the Town Manager. This budget actually belongs, is the Town Manager's budget and ultimately recommended to you the Town Meeting. It's you who make the final decision. The five-year plan is a tool that allows the department managers to plan their needs over time and it sets and manages expectations. It also alerts Town Meeting and the citizens to major expenditures that lie ahead and where possible, reduce the surprise. It also gives Town Meeting and the public the time to reflect on the appropriate use of taxpayers' money while in advance and it demonstrates gravitas and respect for the taxpayer. I'd like to introduce members of the Capital Planning Committee. Not all of them are here tonight, but a moderator appointee, Steve Andrew, is on the committee. Adam Chapter Lane, the Town Manager, has served on the committee for the last three years. Paul Olson, who is the vice chairman, is the Town Treasurer at Designee. Ruth Lewis, a Town Comptroller. Is a very dedicated and long-serving member. Tony Lianetta is the secretary and a designee of the moderator. Diane Johnson, the school committees, the school superintendent's designee. Brian Rarig, a long-term Town Meeting member, joined the committee this year and we're delighted to have him on board. Barbara Thornton is a moderator's appointee, a citizen serving on the Capital Planning Committee. And I'd like to especially note that John Fitz Morris, who's recently retired, has been serving 19 years on the committee and we'd like to thank him for his leadership and his contribution over those years. So, just a couple of comments. Our community has long benefited from political traditions, institutions, and infrastructure that has been passed on to us by predecessors. We share in our ancestors' obligation to transfer equitably to the generations that follow or greater value that we've received. In the latter part of the 20th century, during which I've been around here and many of you've been around here, we enjoyed the schools, the town hall, public buildings, the library, roads, and highways, developed by the greatest generation of the mid-20th century and their four bearers. Last year, a favorable override vote and town management and labor's adoption, rather, of the GIC Health Insurance Program created two fiscal building blocks that allow Arlington's continuation of transferring a strong social legacy. In budgeting this year and for future years, we owe special thanks to Clarissa Rowe and her override committee and to the town management and labor leadership for implementing the GIC. We have strong tools to plan the future. The last several decades, we have passed and we have continued as town meetings to support and intact municipal fabric. The town has operated with prudence and with probity. Our bond rating is AAA. Our debt, as you will notice in the capillary report, is less than one-fifth of the state's legislative limit. We've rebuilt and expanded Robin's Library. We've renovated the town hall and the town yard facilities. We've renovated the Odyssey Middle School and with the completion of the Thompson next year, we will have renovated or completely rebuilt all seven elementary schools. The town's in the middle of a 40-year program to renew and replace its water and sewer infrastructure that was first developed 150 years ago. As John noted to you a few minutes ago, the Highland Fire Station was completely renovated from top to bottom in Stem to Stern and a few years prior, we rebuilt the Park Circle Fire Station. During this entire period, the public rolling stock from school buses to snow plows and the Fire Department's Quint Ladder Pumper have been maintained, replaced and upgraded as has the town's information technology base and other equipment. As John pointed out, more needs to be done. The Central Fire Station is scheduled for planning next year and interior reconstruction the year after that. Community safety is in the midst of a multi-year upgrade. Future efforts needed on the Stratton School and the Arlington High School, which was built in 1914 and was renovated and last upgraded in 1980 was part of the 1991 school infrastructure study, but it hasn't been addressed in 32 years. Our Minniman Regional Vocational High School is also in need of renovation and this will become a subject over the next months and years. And of equal importance, our highways and byways, our walkways, our need of intense, intensified attention. Capital Planning Committee is recommending a request by the Director of Planning and Community Development to create a comprehensive master plan that will help shape the town's future. Town meetings, careful evaluation of capital needs and its continued support of the town management's five-year capital planning process is really a critical part of our evolution as a town and is a critical element of the intergenerational transfer of our communal heritage. Now, to some degree, you've already heard about the Community Safety Building tonight, but this is one project that I want to draw to your attention. It actually spans Article 41 and Article 6 of the Special Town Meeting. And the appropriation, the actual appropriation for the funding is in Article 6 of the Special Town Meeting, but the debt service for this is carried in the five-year capital plan, which is presented to you as part of Article 41. The reason why the appropriation is in the Special Town Meeting is that the Special Town Meeting will end, hopefully tonight or maybe next night, and within 10 days after the end of the town meeting, what gets passed there becomes effective. And this allows the Permanent Town Building Committee to go out, bid the projects and get the work started immediately so that the work on this exterior envelope of the building can be completed before the bad weather comes in in the fall. So this is really a cost-saving effort on the part of the Permanent Town Building Committee. The Central Fire Station is also in between a multi-year rebuilding program, and as was pointed out earlier, the Permanent Town Building Committee completed the project for both the Highland Station and the Central Fire Station on time and under budget. And I wanted to make one point about the Central Fire Station. It is going into planning next year, but there has been new legislation, and the Permanent Town Building Committee is investigating this right now, but there may be some requirements for new internal structures that are seismic proof, essentially, for the Central Fire Station, which may force us to reconsider that expenditure. We don't have the complete knowledge right now, and at the moment the building is still planned for renovation and planning in 2014 and 2015. We proposed last year that we would bring before you a maintenance committee. The Capital Planning Committee proposed that maintenance committee. The Board of Selectment in the interim has adopted it, so there's no reason for us to continue to recommend that article. And I would especially like to thank the Town Manager and the Chief Financial Officer of the School Department and the Permanent Town Building Committee for their great work on the Stratton School and the Green Grant, which saved us all that money. So I'd like to now wrap up within my 10 minutes. Boy, it's going to be hard when it's seven minutes. And ask respectfully for your support of Article 41 in the Regular Town Meeting, which is before you now, and for Article 6 in the Special Town Meeting. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Streifeld? Mark Streifeld, Precinct 20. I have what is probably a quick question in Section 2, Item 11. It says water and sewer rehabilitation, and then Item number 13 says water system rehabilitation. What's your question, sir? How do those relate to Articles 42 and 43, which seem to be out of the authorizing, borrowing for the same thing with different mounts? Do you see what he's referring to, Mr. Foskett? Is this on page 13? Right. Okay. So on page 13, these are basically authorizations that the town meeting is being asked to make that are funded by external projects. They don't affect the tax rate or directly the non-exempt financial plan. But this authorizes sort of an endorsement by the town meeting that the town can go ahead and undertake these projects. In the case of the water and sewer, the funding is from the water and sewer system. And how does that differ from the appropriation under Article 42 and the right to borrow and 43 and the right to borrow? That's a specific authorization to borrow those funds from the MWA. Okay, one comes from the MWA, the other one comes from the town. Well, the borrowing is from the MWA, but it's paid for out of the water and sewer enterprise fund, which is considered, the water and sewer enterprise fund is considered, how do I express this? It's considered not part of the tax base. In other words, it's funded externally by water fees. And that's true of both items, both in Articles 41 and 42 and 43? Yes. So there for the total amount is on the order of 2.2 million for water system, I'm sorry, for sewer system rehabilitation? 850. Yes. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. Okay, thank you. I was wondering how they were related. I guess they're not. Seems to be separate funding. Thank you. Mr. Harrington. Jameson. Thank you, Mr. moderator Gordon Jameson, precinct 12. I have a couple of questions for Mr. Foskin. First, I want to, I think I don't know what you did last year or this year, but you added back something that had been missing for a couple of years, which is the historical perspective and the forward looking perspective. And I really appreciate that for giving us a better summary of we tried to please of where what we tried to please. I'm sorry. You sounded like Mr. Leone there for a second. On page five, we have on the top the recapitulation of the 5%. And at the bottom, there's a table that had the pro forma budget at 114 million. Is that I'm confused because the finance committee last page or next to last page has a total revenue of 124. Yes. So how did we get to 114? That's a good point. The finance committee budget includes all exempt and non-exempt funds that we have to vote. So for example, if you look on table two of the capital planning report in page four, there are some numbers in there such as the MWRA loan payments and also the exempt funding, exempt principle, exempt interest. Those are part of our total town budget on which we pay taxes, but they are not part of the non-exempt budget. And the charts that you're referring to on page the table three and four on page five are only the non-exempt budget. In other words, the budget that is subject to proposition two and a half. Okay. So you back out the exempt. Anything that's exempt or enterprise funds, that sort of thing. Okay. My next point is we've discussed this before in front of the meeting. When we have an override, our process is to take in all the revenues from the override and as everyone, most people here are aware, Mr. Fosca is eminently aware, we save some of that in the override stabilization fund. So those are revenues that we appropriate in the stabilization fund. And when it comes time to use them, we appropriate them out again. So I've expressed my concern again and I'm asking again whether now that we're in that phase again where we're putting money away, are those funds being counted now as revenue or will it be counted when we actually reappropriate them out of the stabilization fund and use them in the future or both times? They're being counted as they come out of the stabilization fund, I believe. Okay. So the pro forma budget should have also backed out any appropriations into the stabilization fund. I can't be 100% positive. Well, if not this year, maybe we can check that for an extra. Okay. We heard a report from the town manager from the DOR regarding their concern about offsets and at the top of page, I believe, five, there's, we have quite a number of offsets there. Tolling over a million dollars when we come up to the 5% calculation. I have discussed previously in front of this meeting, the odyssin. That's because we paid for that out of regular tax dollars versus tax dollars from a debt exclusion like we do for most of the schools. I note that rather than being put in the DPW budget, that the road reconstruction work has been placed as an offset here and in the capital plan. I have a question about that. Is the intention to continue that only for three to five years? So when the plan ends, does that back out or is that something in there for in perpetuity? I'm not sure how we'll deal with it after five years. Maybe I won't even be here after five years. I don't know. We all hope you will be, Mr. Foster. Thank you. Basically, when the override campaign was underway last year, the town committed that if the override was voted, and I'm usually loosely to term town here, that $400,000 of the override funds would be spent on roadways. Right. So what we've done is we've increased the capital budget for the public works department by that $400,000. And we've offset the, essentially it also increases the 5% limit by that $400,000 because that money is flowing from the, specifically from the override into the public works department capital expenditures. Okay. So for those of you who don't have an added up the numbers, in the capital plan there's $1.25 million in roadway reconstruction funds now. I'll have a question for the director of DPW regarding highway allocations when we get to that budget. So the next question is we voted or re-voted the antenna funds and allocation to the parks department to recreation and park rehabilitation. And when I first joined the meeting, there were several forward-looking capital plan budgets that had, I would say substantially more funds being spent on park rehabilitation, including the park upon which I am a director of Butter, Robins Farm Park, the second phase of that. And so I'm concerned that if you look at the capital plan there is only a marginal amount being spent on park rehabilitation compared to those past proposal, pro forma looking forward proposals. So I understand that we're under, this part of the budget is under a lot of stress because of the heavy duty building issues that we have to address appropriately. But I'm concerned that the park rehabilitation is going to be unfortunately potentially limited only by the funds available from the antenna. Can I fund, is that the intent of the capital planning committee? It's not only not the intent but it's not true. If you look at the recreation department in the capital budget at the bottom of page three of five in exhibit two, you will see that over the five years, there's approximately a total of $2.4 million being allocated to parks and recreation to various projects. Which page is this because I have recreation on page two of three in exhibit six? Well, look on page three, the five year, is this the right, yeah, five year capital plan, I'm sorry, on page, exhibit two, page three of five, exhibit two. Yes, madam. Okay, first suggestion is that they refer to which report they're looking at. We're looking at the blue report of the capital planning committee. There are a number of exhibits. We're looking at exhibit two which is the five year capital plan. And on page three of exhibit two, page three of five, at the bottom, you see recreation, parks and playgrounds and there's a list of projects. I'm sorry, Mr. Posca, I stand corrected. I was looking at page two of three of exhibit six where there's a different list of things and what that is actually is the way that I'm going to go about reclaiming my time. No, no such thing. Reclaiming my time. So, this is an important part of what we do to keep this town running. I took some time because there are many things we do beyond the not exempt portion of the budget which is what we vote on here. And just, my back of the envelope calculation is that the total budget expenditures whether the revolving grants capital loans we take in, money we borrow for the town of Arlington this is basically an all in including all the enterprise funds is about $152 million a year. And of that, all in all sources, about 22 and a half of that is capital. So, Mr. Posca is facing a daunting challenge here to try to keep all these to juggle all these balls. My comment about that is that we perhaps unnecessarily, perhaps necessarily restrict our options to some regard with regards to prop two and a half and other funds that the state might provide us. So looking for and that includes that we do not use debt exclusions for the rehabilitation of our public safety options. We do for the schools and we do not use take advantage of the community preservation act. So going forward as we as we get towards halfway through the current plan and looking to the future I hope that those things will be considered as part of the options so that we can extend our current plan even farther. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. Mr. Carmen. Thank you Mr. Moderator. Mark Kepline, precinct I just had a couple of questions on some of the items. The roadway projects that are above and beyond the Chapter 90 funds, what are they for exactly? What projects are they? Maybe the public works record can respond to that. Mr. It seems like a half million dollars a year that comes from the state and then there's almost that much from the town. It allows us to perform more roadway improvements currently, or not currently previously we had approximately $850,000 a year the additional $400,000 $850 on average got us about two miles of rehabbed roadway, two to two and a half and the additional $400,000 allows us another mile or so and what the kind of funding we need to keep our roads at a condition as good or better than we currently have. Are there any particular streets that residents might look forward to seeing improved? The list of this year's roadway improvements was placed on the website either end of last week, I believe or this week we go off of a program that's been established a study was done of all the public roadways in town ranking their condition and giving them a certain rating and we use that document to help us plan roadway improvements off the top of my head I don't know the whole list of streets I have them at my seat if anyone is interested to look at them but they are available on the website for review the town's website. I guess that's good enough thank you. Bill Kaplan Bill Kaplan precinct 6 I just sorry about that I just have a question on the comprehensive master plan what exactly are we getting with the comprehensive master plan is this consultant's fees or where is the money exactly going for the comprehensive master plan? Carol Kowalski director of planning and community development yes it's likely that consultants would be involved in this comprehensive master plan is something that Arlington hasn't undertaken since before the Beatles were known in this country I didn't think we had ever done one but I did find that we did comprehensive master plan in Arlington in 1962 and before that we did one in 1926 it's time for Arlington to do another one because the first step is to establish goals and policies to have a shared sense of where the town is going rather than reacting on an ad hoc basis to individual landed decisions and external occurrences within Arlington and on our borders I could go into greater detail so this is plan for future capital expenditures or what a lot of it has to do with land use there's usually nine elements but communities have flexibility on the elements that are included there's always an analysis of strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats for land use development economic development, transportation public facilities and infrastructure we have been reacting to opportunities for a grant here or reacting to a threat of a development there a comprehensive long range plan takes time but it's worth it because then for a period of ten years or more there's a shared sense of where we agreed we were going to go and how we were going to prepare ourselves to react to some of these external and internal occurrences so when you say where we agreed to go who's agreeing I mean is this something does this plan involve the whole community it really had better it involves a very comprehensive public participation process which we expect will kick off on October 17th so I hope all of you will mark your calendars for October 17th to plan to be in this room for facilitated structured conversation to jump start our goal and policy conversation for the master plan I guess the last question is when how long is the plan likely to take it's likely to take two years okay, thanks thanks for the opportunity thank you Michelle DeRosha, precinct 19 I have a question on item 32 in the first section a microfilm reader for the treasurer's office $20,000 can someone explain how that reader is used whether there are current data sources needed for the office that require a new reader or is this legacy data that needs to be accessed is it planned for digitization it's planned for digitization but the there's been a lot of data already put on microphiche that has to be read, it has to be eventually digitized and the whole question of archival the treatment of archival data is pretty critical for the town and candidly we're not up to speed on it we're not current with our obligations to take the appropriate care of this data so we're trying to catch up on that okay one suggestion given that it is an antiquated format and lots of organizations are getting out of the business there might be a good deal on a reader that might save us some money second question is related to an upcoming warrant article related to concussion prevention for football players in the schools and I wondered if that had come before the capital planning committee or any discussion yes it has we had some extensive discussion about it Mr. Harrington and some colleagues of his came to a capital planning committee meeting last either September or October and we spoke about it with them they described a lot of what they were considering but we didn't have a request before us and I think as I mentioned in my presentation on the capital budget we review the request from department managers it's very important that capital requests arise from departments that are going to own the equipment and manage it and use it and apply the resource appropriately so Barbara Thornton one of the members of the committee gathered together the appropriate documentation talked to Mr. Harrington and we actually created with Mr. Harrington a request for his equipment which then I think I'm not sure if it was Mr. Harrington or Barbara but somebody brought it to the school department and the school department reviewed it and this is now hearsay okay my understanding is that they determined that they had adequate plans and resources to treat this subject within the school department budget so the school department never made a request to the capital planning committee for any such equipment if they had I'm not sure that we would have approved it or even considered it capital but as a matter of fact they did not make that request my understanding is and in fact my knowledge is I've seen the budget that this is being handled by the school department the school committee has discussed the issue at length and there are new line items in the school department that address the issue thank you very much Mr. Leonard thank you Mr. moderator John Leonard precinct 17 in the capital planning committees hand out booklet six pages from the back to make it easier halfway down the page if I'm not mistaken there's a typo that I mentioned last year it covers in the recreation department that $525,000 was appropriated in 2011 for the PAC playground in the tennis court I think I may be mistaken that that might be a typo because it was just for the completion of the tennis court which I would like to point out that Mr. Joseph Connolly did a fantastic recreation did a tremendous job out there again could I have that corrected can you read the page number at the bottom for me exhibit page two of two but it's easier if you go six pages from the back of the book Wellington park and playground in the tennis court right I believe that money was only set aside for the tennis court if I'm not mistaken the playground is still get to be done right yeah you're correct so we need to take the playground out of that so administratively we're going to delete the words playground and now my second question if I may Mr. Foskett if you go one more page to the back and you go 80% of the way down the page to recreation I was under the understanding last year that the playground was going to be in the 2012 budget but as you see here money has been appropriated for the playground in 2017 is that the way it's going to fly in the future let me see so you're looking at page exhibit six page two of three yes sir down in the recreation section I believe in last year's capital planning the playground was going to be done under 2012 even though it wasn't cast in cement but now it's saying that we're appropriating $6,000 for the year 2017 to finish the playground well first of all if I can sort of redirect your attention to exhibit two and I'll check and tell you exactly um these are just projections though we're not appropriating this money at all these are just what he's planning on doing yes I'm just curious Mr. the moderator because last year's okay so you are correct if you look on exhibit two page three of five we have in the current planned forecast wellington playground improvements for $427,624 in 2017 could you give me that figure again please $427,624 it's rather precise but that must be the quote um that's scheduled for 2017 fiscal year 2017 then what is the $6,000 that's the forecast of debt service okay that's one half of one year's interest on the first to the first year okay so the year has roughly been changed from 2012 to 2017 yes okay thank you sir you're welcome we'll make that one administrative change that you referenced gentlemen next to Mr. McCory Len Carden precinct 20 um the Florence Av Totlott which is in the budget for next year is the primary playground used for the Dowling School and uh I don't know who the correct person is a question Mr. moderator but I was wondering if the construction of that can be scheduled around the school year so that the kids can still have some place to play um either Mr. Fosk it or Mr. Cole or whoever's gonna build it hi Joe Conley director of recreation um it is because it is on parkland adjacent to a school primarily the primary users will certainly be down school but it's a public playground open to the public um the schedule will be laid out the best we can so that yes the kids will get the benefit of it during the school year that won't be it won't be finished completely in the summer time that definitely will be some overlap but they we will make sure that we schedule as best we can around the school year great thank you um the other second question um IT is moving more towards a software as a service model and I see there's still in the out years a lot of software purchases being contemplated and I'm just wondering if the capital planning committee or the finance committee as a whole has thought about this issue with software moving out of the capital budget possibly to the operating budget um have they considered this and are there any adjustments to be made to our process Mr. Fosk or Mr. Good I think Mr. Good I think in the uh the capital David Good chief technology officer uh the uh capital line items for uh software uh mainly cover a uh normalization of some of our uh uh larger applications that are in existence uh and sort of make up licensing uh to get them uh to their uh legal state and uh some large purchases for uh add ons to student information systems now software as a service uh we are a google apps environment on the uh school side we uh do use uh a variety of other external sources and potentially in the next couple of years we will probably have some reduction there on that side and then uh just a request um for the capital planning committee the road reconstruction that was in the override I mean it was it was discussed by that very you know selective five year planning committee um that sort of came up with the override package that went before the voters and I and I certainly we committed to doing that for three years but I think beyond the three years I think the CPC should carefully balance those needs the other capital needs in the town that wasn't part of the process we just sort of they just sort of came up with 400,000 because the roads were something that you know potentially would sell well and were and were a dire need in town but I think beyond the three years that we've committed to it would be great if they took another if you could take another look at whether that should go through years four and five and beyond uh and then finally um I support the idea of the master plan um but I'm a little bit curious that that's coming out of the capital budget and maybe it's just a shell game but I would I'm just wondering of the thought behind that type of planning document um I don't know the one in the town so other types of studies whether we've had that as a capital asset or not. We have thank you Mr. Moderator um we have had um prior studies of uh for example the needs of the school department and various studies over the years come out of the capital budget and in fact in chapter um 44 section 7 of the mass general laws there's even a section for plans and analyses that can be bonded so it's legitimate. Great thank you. Thank you Mr. Moderator. Thank you Mr. Loretty. Thank you Mr. Moderator Chris Loretty precinct 7. I have just a few questions. I think I heard Mr. Fosk article 6 of the special town meeting and the capital budget. I'm curious whether there is any relationship between article 8 of the special town meeting this is the $200,000 appropriation for the energy conservation fund and the um and the capital budget. There isn't so that's to say that $200,000 is not included in this. It's not. Okay. Thank you. Just a couple other questions I'm looking at exhibit 2 because the print's big enough for me to read it um on page 105 under um about 2 thirds of the way down under health and human services there's $20,000 for the hybrid vehicle replacement. I'm wondering if anyone knows one how old that vehicle is and two how many miles it might have on it. Who drives it? Here we go from the driver. Thank you Christine Connolly director of health and human services the vehicle is assigned to an inspector in my office, a health inspector there are about 30,000 miles on that vehicle and it's a 2001 I believe. There are only 30,000 miles? Is there some reason it needs replacement with so few miles on it? The vehicle is one of the first generation Prius models costing us currently a lot of money each year to replace batteries and various pieces within the vehicle. The vehicle costs maintenance costs extremely high. Has the town already had to replace the batteries? Yes. Thank you. Just one more question Mr. moderator on the page three of five of exhibit two about halfway down there's $225,000 for the high school parking lot Culver for fiscal 13 and 14. I'm wondering if somebody could explain to me what that is. Maybe Mr. Rademaker could explain it. It's on the road going into the high school it's on the road. Is it the Millbrook Culvert? I think so. Mike Rademaker director of public works you're referring to the Culvert replacement in 2013 that's the Millbrook Culvert that is underneath the parking lot of the high school. I thought that had already been replaced once. A portion of that Culvert was replaced during the environmental work done behind the high school but they stopped that replacement at the edge of the subject site area of the limit of the environmental concern and there was a portion that was left unreplaced. Will the work be done all in one year or will some be done in each of two years? The funding is spread out of two years. The first year we would use some of those funds for design and save the rest to use the next year for complete reconstruction. Thank you. That concludes my questions. Thank you Mr. Wagner. Thank you Mr. Margarita, Carl Wagner precinct 11 I move that we terminate debate on the question and all associated matters. Motion to terminate debate. All in favor please say yes. Opposed? No. My opinion it is a two third vote. We have before us article 41 the recommended vote of the capital planning committee as contained in the green booklet. Some of this requires bonding specifically article subsection 3 I believe or 4 well it's in there. All in favor please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. My opinion it is a two third vote. Madam clerk do you certify that you're a two thirds of members present in voting in the positive? Yes. Thank you. And that brings us to the special. She said yes. I said that. Madam clerk do you certify there are two thirds members present in voting in the positive and she said yes. 85. Okay. Mr. Trosti. Where did my agenda go? Yeah, got one. I'm a little clear that the annual town meeting is in recess. We're now taking up the special town meeting. I recognize the chairman of the board of select minister Greeley. Sorry Mr. Trosti. I'm sure they'd rather hear from him. Mr. moderator, thank you sir. It is requested that the members of the board of select and elected officials of the town, town manager, department heads of the town staff, superintendent schools and staff, committees, commissions and boards of the town. Minutemen, regional vocational technical school, district committee and superintendent, members of the council. Dr. We're now able to attend the town relative to articles to be acted on by this meeting. One representative of news media be permitted to sit within the special town meeting in closure. All in favor. Opposed? Madam clerk do you have reason to believe that this meeting was properly called by the board of select minister the consp RD Yes, she does mr. Greeley Thank You mr. Moderator it is moved that if all of the business of the meeting is set forth in the warrant for the special town Meeting is not disposed of at this session when the meeting adjourns at adjourned to Wednesday, May 9th 2012 at 8 p.m. All in favor opposed So moved are there any reports of committees on the special mr. Tosti I move that the report of the finance committee that is contained in the Green Book of the annual town meeting be received All in favor receiving that report So opposed it is received Any other reports of committees? No, it's the toss you lay one upon the table. Can we put one up back on the table? We just took it off. We have took the report now. I put one back on the table. Did they have a report? Oh Do you guys have a report? Yeah, okay. Here we go. Sorry. Oh Look at a new book Sorry, thank you mr. Moderator move that the report of the board of slackmen be received I can all in favor Opposed it's the same book. All right. Oh It is received move that article one be laid upon the table Okay, that brings us to Article 2 are you one of them? Okay Yes, all in favor putting it back on the table opposed Okay Sorry, just rushing things along All right, that brings us to article 2 I'm eminent to the 2012 budget. We have the recommended vote of the Fincom To reduce the 2012 health insurance budgets mr. Tosti is gonna speak to this Now both of the articles article 2 and article 3 deal with fiscal 2012 in other words the current fiscal year They involved the negotiations that took place over the health insurance and joining the gic And the savings of it so you can see we're reducing the health insurance budget in this fiscal year by 2 million 140 and then we are allocating funds as you see a hundred and forty five To the school budget for their collective bargaining a million three eighty three six eighty one to the override stabilization fund for for future Appropriation and a hundred and thirty thousand a separate hundred and thirty thousand That will go for reimbursing the school for the stratum school renovation now that comes from a different source last year the Legislature said that if there is surplus funds left at the end of fiscal 2011 from the state budget they would give us back the money they took away from us In for this fiscal year that happened there was a surplus in the state budget Therefore we received money under chapter 142 of the acts of 2011 along with the ability to use that So that's a separate fund and we're allocating a hundred and thirty thousand there To be used to reimburse the school budget for stratum's renovation project where they forwarded some of their own money To get the stratum school renovation project going until we receive the state money and then article three Just to give you a quickly This is the voting to approve the collective bargaining agreements and also transferring monies again that from the that two million 140 into article three so again it all deals with fiscal 2012. Thank you Mr. Jamison, thank you, mr. Moderator Gordon James in 2012 so We're reducing the budget from last year by Roughly 2.1 million and In article two of the special I see were 1.675 of that We're actually the 130 you said doesn't count that came from a different source. Is that correct mr. Toskey? Okay, so it's actually more like 1.5 and change and then you it wasn't clear to me I Guess my question is so the first one reduces the budget Where did the funds come for this second one that had nine hundred thousand dollars or something you were talking about? The same source we're reducing the health insurance budget. Yes of this year. Yes by Two million one forty. Yes, we're allocating one forty five to the school a million three eighty three to the override stabilization fund Yes 100 and then under article three 179,082 to fund this collective bargaining and 290,000 for future collective bargaining for the unions that did not settle now if you add those four pieces together They do not come to two million one forty the balance will just go to free cash. Okay. Thank you. That was that's where I had my confusion. Thank you Anyone else wish to discuss this article? Seeing none all in favor of the recommended vote, please say yes opposed Was there no? I'm gonna clear it a two-third vote Excuse me. I don't think I heard a no-back. Yes. What's unanimous vote? Okay, that exposes of article two now have article three Mr. Tosti has explained This under article two does anyone wish to speak to this sir Len Carden precinct 20. I just have a question about the wording that the additional 290,000 for future collective bargaining Cannot be expended without the future vote of town meeting Are we able to delegate that to the town manager so we don't have to come back for a special town meeting? Mr. Tosti, I Yeah, my understanding is that any collective bargaining The funding of any collective bargaining must come back to town meeting. We're the appropriating authority and so You know, I think that would be delegating way too much authority to the town manager He has to come back to us to approve the contract in the funding And that would have to be at a special town meeting a special or a regular or the regular annual if it's for fiscal 2012 I think we could could probably do it at a regular town meeting Sometimes it's done at a special within the regular like we're doing now. Okay. Thank you Anyone else wish to discuss the article? Seeing none all in favor opposed unanimous vote and I so declare it That brings that closes article three brings us to article four of the special appropriation minute man Fincom has a recommended vote Mr. Tosti Last summer early effective, but I think it was in June the town of Lexington hired a new building inspector Some hot shot And I said well, let's go take a look at minute man And so they walked in a minute man now for those of you who have been there one whole area is consist of shops could be The only shop I ever what was in was in height was in junior high school But you know plumbing electrical all the different shops and they're all separated not by walls But quite partitions and these partitions included wood and immediately the building inspector I Shouldn't be sarcastic about them, but the building inspector basically said that's unacceptable All these have got to be ripped out and and put in with with metal partitions And minute man did not have this money in its budget Available so they had to get the work done they had to get the work done before the school was going to open in September Or closed down in effect So they did the work it had to get done and then allocated it and so this is our approval of our share So this is approximately 30 32 percent 128,996 And we are recommending that that money come from that same Chapter 142, which is the rebate we sort of got back from the state. So it's coming from that same source of funds So it's work that had to get done or the school literally could not reopen In and this is the only way they could pay for it within their budget is to come back to the town meetings and And ask for their permission on Thank you Anyone wish to speak to this article? Seeing none all in favor, please say yes opposed In the end of this vote and I so declare it That closes article four brings us to article five of the special town meeting appropriation stabilization fund Fincom Recommends no action all in favor of no action. Please say yes opposed No action vote that closes five and brings us to six Fincom will report my little piece of paper says Do we have a report Mr. In our book? Mr. Foskett, thank you, Mr. Moderator Charles Foskett precinct date This is the article that we refer to during the discussion of the capital planning committee's report in article 41 There's two million two hundred and forty thousand dollars to be appropriated for phase two of the community safety building Rehabilitation that was also addressed by John Cole the chairman of the permanent town building committee I don't think I think we Discussed all of the issues and you know why we have it in the special town meeting package So we recommend a favorable action. Thank you Anyone wish to discuss this up? Mrs. Tamps Susan stamps precinct three. Well, so I'm only been in town a couple of years. So I don't know all the buildings but Most of the public buildings in in Arlington are pretty nice They're all their grace. They're graceful They're really special the community safety building is a big square monolith on Mystic Street, and I'm just wondering and I'm not going to say anything more than that because I don't want to Say bad things about our buildings, but I Understand that this this is a big renovation. It was built in 1983 And of course, they're mostly safety concerns and integrity of the building But I'm just wondering if if there's any money or thought put into finding some way to beautify this building Mr. Cole, can you make it pretty? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder That building was of its time to do anything major to change the appearance I think would be certainly beyond the scope of the current project Okay, anyone else who should discuss the article Seeing none we have the recommended vote two million two hundred forty thousand dollars all in favor. Please say yes opposed Okay, it's a positive vote Okay, that's all it requires okay Does it record to third vote okay, I didn't see bonding under this so I didn't notice that all right Madam clerk to declare that there are 85 members voting in the positive. Yes. Thank you Declared to third vote All right, it's 9 30 you want to take a break now or try and go through the rest, okay? We'll take our break come back in 10 minutes seats Please take your seats We have we have before us article 7 Record we have a force to recommend a vote from no action, but a fin calm all in favor recommend no action article 7 Please say yes opposed No action exposes of article 7 article 8 We have a force to recommend to vote Of the finance committee for energy conservation funds two hundred thousand dollars mr. Chapter Lane is going to speak to this Adam chaplain town manager. Actually, I'd like to ask permission for Ryan Katovsky town resident and Sustainable Arlington member to give a presentation on this Mr. Tosti did you want to speak to it first because it's your article. No, okay, sir Gotcha Chris So good evening again. I'm gonna take off my solar coach hat and put on an energy conservation hat and Tell you a little bit about work that we've been doing in town On reducing the town's energy consumption energy bills So again, I'm Ryan Katovsky. I'm a member of sustainable Arlington and I sit on the town's energy working group and We've been doing energy efficiency in town for more than a decade now and We've done a pretty good job at it overall These are dollars that we invest in technology primarily and also energy management systems that cut energy use in town and then pay themselves back through the energy savings and These investments actually work very hard for the town In addition to the savings that that they give us the money that we spend is Leveraged by utility rebates recovery act funding green communities grant funding and block grants The projects typically pay back in under five years and often in under three years and Just my rough Conservative estimates is that since we've been doing this we've saved Over a million dollars cumulatively in these projects and as I like to say we don't We don't measure these savings in dollars. We can actually measure them in things like teacher salaries so it's that significant and some examples are the The traffic signals in town our LED we did that about a decade ago cut energy use by about 90% in traffic signals Street lights lighting in schools new boilers switching from oil to gas in various buildings and the like and We've gone from what I would call an ad hoc process to a bit of a more structured process through the energy working group which has volunteers and town staff That look at these opportunities So all that's really good what we've done so far But what we really need to do is take this up to the next level So where are we right now? We've done a lot of We've done a lot of the easy projects what we call the low-hanging fruit The town is committed to a 20% energy reduction over five years. We're about halfway through that Time frame that's one of the things that we agreed to when we became a green community under the state's green communities program And we have a lot of support for that Within the town, but we are limited by town town human resources and we've been what I would say mostly reactive to these energy savings opportunities and not Proactive in order for us to get to that 20% goal and continue to find the savings where they exist in town buildings we need to become more proactive and We need a source of funds where we can react quickly to opportunities So if the utility comes to us and and they're they're looking to spend their rebate dollars they may come to us with proposals for projects and We need to be able to address those quickly And these projects are typically quite attractive for the town So so what do we need? We need a source of readily available funds so that we can react quickly to these energy efficiency project opportunities These funds would supplement but not replace department funds or the capital planning process and we're asking for Initial amount of two hundred thousand dollars that would come from supplemental local aid This money would be administered by the town manager with advice from the energy working group and This fund would also allow for the deposit of energy rebates for reinvestment in future projects And these rebates are designed to encourage energy savings And we want to be able to use that money to basically recycle it back into more energy savings I want to give you a couple of examples of projects to show you how this fund would help us the first example Is a project that was completed in late 2010 at the high school We installed wireless lighting and sensor while lighting sensors and controls the project cost was about fifty thousand dollars after the rebate The net cost of the town was about twenty seven thousand dollars and was going to save nearly eleven thousand dollars a year in electricity So that's a two point six year what we call simple payback You also call it a screaming deal. It's a it's a very attractive project to make this project work The town had to I would say scrounge from six different budgets to find the necessary money and we were I Would say days away from not having this project happened because we were having difficulty Finding where that money was going to come from in the end We did do it and we did get it done and now we're reaping the benefits of that of that project Another project that was presented to us last year actually did not happen This was a product to install what are known as variable speed drives On hot water pumps I think it was about 10 pumps in six buildings and what these drives do is they basically control the amount of electricity being used by Motors that circulate hot water when demand for heat is low This is about a ninety thousand dollar project a $36,000 rebate so net cost to the town of a little over fifty thousand dollars And I was going to save a little over twenty five thousand dollars a year in electricity So this has a two point one year simple payback Unfortunately, we didn't have this we didn't have the money to make this project happen this fiscal year, so We were unable to do it. We're still hoping to do this project But it's not certain that we'll be able to do that Without that fifty two thousand dollars So again the idea is to have Some money available to us where we can react quickly and make these projects happen when they're presented to us a Couple things to consider in in sort of how we would decide what projects to do and not to do These are a couple of criteria that we would use and these are actually criteria that we have been using First of all we we we we only look at projects where they're being recommended through some sort of study a report an energy audit Done by third-party professionals, so we're getting good advice on the technical viability and the economics of these projects And initially we would like to target projects that have paybacks of five years or less obviously if the the measure you were putting in had a had a Had an equipment life that was less than five years. We would adjust that but most of these projects are fairly long-lived The equipment lasts Ten years or more So we think that's a good a good threshold for considering the economics of these projects and with that I Will wrap it up and to say thank you very much you Mr. Loretty Thank you Smarteria Chris Loretty precinct seven. Let me begin by saying I support energy conservation But I'll be voting against this article and I'd like to explain why If I asked mr. Fosk earlier whether this article was in or the $200,000 was included in the capital budget and he replied that it was not if you look at the capital budget, you know, there is Funding listed very specifically for various line items down to levels of a few thousand dollars Here we're being asked to appropriate $200,000, but we don't know what for and I Have a real problem with that. I think before we appropriate money particularly large sums There has to the the spending has to be properly vetted through the normal processes Now I appreciate the town manager's enthusiasm in working on these types of projects, but it seems to me that he's Perhaps in his honeymoon phase with the town and there's what we're doing is giving him if not a blank check At least a check for $200,000 to go on a shopping spree and what I would prefer is that over the next year That the town manager working with the the energy group comes back with specific Proposals and that those proposals are vetted through the normal process through the capital planning committee and town meeting votes on them Then with instead of voting on them right now without knowing exactly what we're voting on Mr. Moderator, I was wondering if if I could ask mr. Fosk it what what his opinion of this is since he said earlier these This funding has not been approved through the capital planning committee Do you have an opinion mr. Fosk it And I would note that the vote of the finance committee was 15 to 1 and I was not in favor of this article for many of the reasons that Mr.. Already has outlined here, and we had I had no prior knowledge of his Feelings about this basically, I think that There is no difference between an energy project and the project for a firetruck or a project for Police car or a new building or an improvement to a school building or or whatever they these Are general town funds all the other department managers have to compete and Participate participate in the planning process. They have to learn to Delay gratification and wait until they can get the funds to do what they want during the conversation At the finance committee when the town manager presented this idea much was made of the thought that These Energy rebate programs have a time element to them and after if the investment isn't made quickly There's no opportunity to get the utilities rebate or whatever in the future subsequent to that I looked at the state programs, and I looked at the programs of a number of utilities not only in Massachusetts, but throughout the throughout the United States and Virtually all of these programs Extended for years and years and years, so I I don't sense that this is not a process that couldn't take place Through a normal capital planning procedure. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you This moderate the other reason I'm voting against it relates to my day job I work as an environmental consultant and from time to time We'll team with other other companies and one of the companies that team with in the past is a firm that does energy management And one of the prime services that they offer is going into companies and helping them Determine how to save energy, but they but this service that they offer and they've been very successful Doing this is going in and helping companies save money after they've already spent hundreds of thousands to million Millions of dollars on energy management programs and then not realize the savings This is a really tricky area and particularly as you get as you get away from the low-hanging fruit that mr. Katowski mentioned I think we need to get this right from the beginning and I think as I said before we need to have this vetted There are a lot of really smart people in town on energy efficiency measures Including mr. Katowski, but I'd like to see the specific investments Vetted much more made public vetted much more broadly before we Appropriate these funds, so I hope you'll join me in voting No, but not because we don't think these are good ideas But because they need better review and more complete review before time town meeting gives away this money. Thank you Thank you, mr. Deist John Deist precinct 13 and a member of the finance committee I have a question. I know that for residences that That might include or as an addition to their dwelling might have a solar electric system Placed on the roof of the house That there's a pretty good deal to sell the electricity that you create back to the utility And I was wondering if the same sort of deal holds for Buildings in a town does could someone answer that question for me or a deal like that? Is it financially? Attractive to have solar facilities on the roofs mr. Chapman's chapterlings gonna tell us Adam chapterling town manager My understanding is in general terms The generally the rooftops of many municipal facilities are good locations for a power purchasing agreement Or by a third party will come in install panels leasing the space on the roof and sell the Electricity back to the town at a at a very good rate and if any surplus energy is created Sending that to the grid We've done some very initial looking at various rooftops in town to see whether or not we would be viable for that I can't tell you anything further than that right now because I don't have any further information But we are in the in the early stages of looking at whether or not Arlington would be a good fit for such a program Well, we certainly have a lot of acreage On the roofs of the town and do many of it is flat and and ideal maybe location for Solar panels, so I I guess I would strongly urge that we might look at such a method of alleviating town budgets. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Stikman Paul Schluckman precinct nine first thing I want I want to say is that the new street lights are wonderful At least from my perspective they they put them in on Mystic Street and that night all of a sudden all that orange glow That was coming off the old street lights Disappeared the quality of light is so much better the light pollution has been reduced I'm just wondering what the timeline is for the conversion of the rest of the town to the new lights It's getting a little fire field that would be under a budget He'll give you a quick answer on that Adam chapterling town manager within the capital budget There was an appropriation to retrofit the remaining parts of town with the LED lights and that should start It'd be near the beginning of the fiscal year July August September based on bidding Okay, and the second thing I want to say is I'm looking at these numbers that are before us for an expenditure of $52,000 today We save $25,000 in the first year so every day that we Don't move on something like that We're shipping money to end star that It times certain From a point of actually making the installation We're now two years away from eliminating that energy expenditure So if you've got something like this that could have a significant reduction in energy costs the town It makes sense to do this as quickly as possible and to go and say well It's a toy You know, let's let's go to the five-year capital planning process I mean it could be two or three years down the road when we actually go and install these wonderful VSD's and All we've succeeded doing is shipping more money to end star. So Given that logic, I think it makes sense to make this appropriation and let them do what they can to make us More energy efficient. I urge a yes vote One way in the back. Yeah, I can't really see who you are Janice broadman precinct 15. I think that this Article actually does something very similar. I mean, I usually I find myself usually in agreement with Chris So this is unusual that I find myself on the other side But I think it does very much what it what we do when we say, okay, we're gonna buy two fire engines I mean, we don't vote on what model and whether we're gonna get use one or not and you know We say, okay, we need fire engines Let's do it and you know, we'll leave it to them to decide which which model to get etc I think this is a good appropriation My what I would like to see what I would have liked to see and I don't know if it's too late is to know what the I are, you know, what's the internal rate of rate of return that you use as a threshold? not just the best scenarios, but what's the internal rate of return and what Opportunity cost Percentage, you know what what you assume in terms of the percentage that you use for opportunity Opportunity costs for those funds, but if we could have that I mean it seems in a bit like a no-brainer I mean if we can save $25,000 a year on something that we invest $50,000 and it certainly seems to make sense But we just don't know what your thresholds are so if we could know that that would be really helpful And if you have that now that would also be very helpful Thank you, mr. Adam chapter lane town manager I guess to reiterate that some of the points that Ryan Katowski made them the main metric We use when we've looked at projects in the past is is a simple payback analysis in terms of how many municipal fiscal years It would take to pay To pay down the cost of the project based on the energy savings projected So we haven't looked at internal rates of return or any other issues you mentioned But we do look at that payback analysis and we focused on keeping that payback as Ryan mentioned under five years But depending on the life of the of the asset or the project we're looking at Thank you, mr. Carmen Mr. Court Annie LeCourt precinct 15 I would like to inquire of either the town manager or A member of the energy working group if possible When was the last time that we spoke to any escows about seeing whether or not Any energy the escows are the things that Chris was talking about about whether or not we would be a good bet for any of them, I know we did so about five years ago and Most of the escows turned us down because they felt like we'd already done so many changes that they couldn't make any money selling us the service Adam chapter in town manager and esco is a basically an energy service company that comes in and does a what's called a Performance contracting where they'd say we'll do XYZ project And guarantee that you'll save this amount and you'll pay back You'll pay us with your savings over the course of five ten fifteen twenty years the answer to the question is yes The town went through a long RFP process as part of a regional group through the metropolitan area planning council over this past fall Into the into the winter looking at escows This regional group a 12-member group that Arlington was a part of selected amoresco as an esco to potentially work with Right now the energy working group is still has those same concerns that you just mentioned that Arlington has done quite a large amount of Of energy efficiency work and taken a lot of that low-hanging fruit that an esco would use to subsidize larger cost Pieces of a project that they would do however where we are considering moving forward into their Investment audit stage whereby they would tell us whether or not we would be a good fit. So that's something we're currently working on Thank you and Chris LeBretty mentioned that he works as an environmental consultant and I know we have several others in the audience But I just thought since I was the person who got Ryan appointed to the energy working group that you might indulge the meeting mr. Moderator and allow Ryan to very briefly run through his credentials as an energy As a as an environmental consultant. I don't think we really need to do that Well, I would just respect it. He gave us his presentation I just that this is what he does for a living was my point I appreciate so we are working with an energy in environmental consultant already and we are receiving his services as a Volunteer position with the town and I don't think we would be able to do better by paying a professional is my opinion Appreciate his work. Thank you So obviously I'm in support of this article. I would like to re-emphasize several things that have been said here. I'd like to re-emphasize Mr. Schlickman's position about the ability to move nimbly This is one of the things that's very hard for us to do in government sometimes Most of the time it's good for you the voters and the taxpayers that we can't move to nimbly Because it means that we are transparent and we have a public process and so on and so forth But I think given the amount of money here, which is less money than we spend on say a Playground project which you vote for and then it gets spent and you don't know the details of how it's spent or A tennis court renovation where the same thing happens that what we're doing is we're saying as long as they are Qualifying energy savings investment projects Here is a pot of money you can use to move quickly when an opportunity arises I'm sure there are times when we'll get another bite at the apple But I think mr. Schlickman's point is well taken we won't get another bite at the apple of the savings We will have made in the months that go by while we're processing through the capital planning process Obviously the energy working group should put into the capital planning process anything that they feel they have a length of time on and Certainly very large and expensive projects, but I don't have trouble with this particular Piece of work, so I hope you will support the article If it was a million dollars they were asking for I wouldn't be supporting it any more than mr. Fosk It is that would seem like too much to me, but given the amount of money. I think it's worth it for what we'll get back Thank you you Andy O'Brien Andy O'Brien precinct 16. I'd like to ask mr. Katovsky The on the project that we Missed out on because we couldn't get the project together in time roughly how long How long do we need to react on a project and then also in the project that we did get on time how long did that take? Sir can you answer that question? Ryan Katovsky on the Centres and controls project at the high school. I mean I think it literally sat for months While we were figuring on how we're going to do it and it came down to I Think I think we had to the end of a calendar year to get it done and it was mid December Literally that we were finishing it so that one I mean that was sort of now by the skin of our teeth as the saying goes The other project. I'm really not sure about the overall timeline. I have to say mr. Chapter Lane knows Adam chapter Lane town manager in regards to the variable speed drive project We end star reached out to us telling us that they wanted us to do the project by the end of calendar year 2011 in order to receive the rebates that were highlighted on the screen and I Want to confirm the dates of the emails, but I believe we were given about six to eight months in order to come up with The funding to execute the project So it was less than a year So we had to react and that for that particular project as end star portrayed it to us. Yes, it was less than a year All right. Thank you very much Gentlemen here behind miss Bain. Yeah, you Thank You mr. Moderator Jeremy Marin precinct 16. I know a lot of people I heard a lot of grumbling when the list was originally referred to as a shopping list a lot of people got upset with that I actually think that might be a good way to describe this Because when I think about a shopping list for the town I would like to put on that list more policemen or teachers or firefighters a lot of other things That would really be good to have as part of the shopping list I think a lot of people in this room would like to have those on their shopping list as well Well, we have here is an opportunity to put those things on the shopping list to be able to get more teachers Not in four years, but in two years get more police not in five years But in three years to by moving forward quickly We're able to get more services more staff more opportunities that much quicker. I urge you to support this Thank you Adam. Yeah Name I can't remember. I'm Debbie Edelstein from precinct nine. I have a question about money Earlier tonight. We voted on two expenditures from the rebate local aid rebate However, I never heard a number about how big that rebate was and how much might be left after the two votes We already did and whether or not there are any restrictions on that in terms of time or project About the rebate Mr. Mr. Foskett did the two several of the votes here were the supplemental rebates local aid rebates One for Stratton and one for Minimum Tech. Do you follow? She's asking Mr. Foskett the excess surplus Yeah, the surplus yeah supplemental unrestricted government aid That we that we appropriated 130,000 for to reimburse Stratton and just a hair under 129,000 for Minimum Tech It was a pool of rebated money from the state The request for this is from the same pool of money, and I was wondering how big that pool is I Believe it's about four four hundred and sixty five thousand and change. All right. We spent we spent 260,000 tonight right No, we spend the other 200 that'll be four hundred and sixty and Probably a few dollars will go into free cash. Okay. And what and was it required to be spent in 2011? I'm sorry. Is it required to be spent in the current fiscal year? Well, the money is available Right any money available any money remaining by June 30th the Controller will close out and it will be used to calculate free cash for next year. Great. Thank you very much Thank you Jamison Thank You mr. Minority Gordon Jamison prison 12 This is classified as a fund is there a reason it was not classified as a revolving fund I don't think it's gonna get reimbursed No, I think he's being firm because it's concept energy conservation fund. I don't think it's gonna Well, correct me if I'm wrong mr. Tosti or mr. Chaplain, but a revolving fund gets money back into it, right? We gonna get money back into this Yeah, that's the next article I'm sorry. I'm just doing them one at a time here. We're gonna make a fund and then what's the next one? I'm sorry Establishing account for energy rebates Your article 8 is just an appropriation to be expended under the town manager under no article 9 Establishes a fund, but we're not on 9. We're still on 8 Yes, and but the title of the article is conservation fund so this is just I'm sorry I can I must have not understood what we're doing here because I thought when with the presentation was given It sounded to me like we were gonna have a fund. This is not a fund This is what we're discussing is the vote under article 8, which is just a direct appropriation That's correct giving the energy working group 200,000 to go out and do all these Energy-saving missions through that's mr. Toss tossed Okay. Thank you mr. Toskey So the reason to do this is the alternative approach that we could take if we wanted to be timely in response Is call a special town meeting which I think a special town meeting might cost as half of any savings that of the ones that have been examined Just to call them Do we anticipate Doing this again You're gonna come back mr. Chapter Adam chapter in town manager not to jump to Article number 9 but article number 9 would establish a fund that could accept energy rebates That could then be spent on further energy Projects I would not anticipate coming back and asking for a further seeding of any energy conservation fund But with in the future with potential modeling if there was a or if state law allowed for a different way to capture energy savings Within a given fiscal year that could be real Reallocated to energy efficiency projects then potentially then I might come come back But I wouldn't imagine asking for another amount of seed money separate from any other process further to my confusion that mr. Toskey Attempted to remedy is there a report from the board of selectmen on article 9 that is positive There is and is that a revolving fun? We're gonna do an order. No, it's a special fund Special fun created created through a homeroom petition Pardon me would be created a special fund created through a homeroom petition. Oh, okay And that's required because versus because a revolving fund by law accepts fees generated by a program So you would pay a fee for a program being implemented. So it doesn't really fit revolving fund law and okay currently under Department of Revenue Policy energy rebates need to go into the general funds They couldn't go into and that's partly because these the rebates etc. Are gonna be deposited It would be accrued to this account and if article 9 was successful Well, and they could come they could come from a variety of sources. I'm just trying to be efficient here, mr. So as long as we get a report back from this I'm I'm on board with this and I assume we will get a report In regards to mr. Dice suggestions I hope we will be I believe there are solar escows Which might put the stuff out the solar panels on tops of our schools and buildings At little or no cost to us and we would gain the benefit At least I've seen those in the press And then we're talking about the savings here beyond the rebates we talked about the savings now when we have savings and street lighting We see a difference in the budget that we vote here When the recycling committee and you all out there recycle more and we reduce our solid tip fee costs You see that in the DPW budget that we pay less for tip fees at the incineration plant I would hope that the $20,000 or whatever I saw up there that we'll see changes in the budgets That are the benefits from this and if not reasons why those funds are retained by those departments So on a trial basis with the report coming forward under those caveats. I'll be voting for this. Thank you Mr. Veraklu Miss stamps, mr. Howard. Thank you, mr. Monterey of Peter Howard precinct 10 I'd like to ask the town manager if he'd be willing to get if this town meeting were to pass this article If he would be willing to consider rolling projects that Had a short timeline quick response requirement and put other ones that where there's plenty of time through the usual process Mr. Chapter Lane Adam chapter lane town manager. Yes, I would be willing to do that Seems like good idea to me Mr. Berger Thank You mr. Moderator Eric Berger precinct six I am going to vote against as I agree with mr. Loretty about article six and though I support energy conservation makes a lot of sense I Also support town meeting knowing what it is spending the money for This point was made when we got into article 37 on revolving funds and there were ellipses of expenditures But we didn't know what they were for and we we agreed that night to give mr. Chapter Lane Approval for that, but we asked him if he would please Next year to consider coming back with more specificity and he said he took that under advisement and this request for $200,000 is too vague. I Mean we have no idea what it's being spent on and I'm not saying it isn't going to be spent wisely But we should know that Now mr. LaCorte made a point about well we vote for other things other things that are vague like the playground Well, I think we should be moving in the direction to know and and It's a matter of respect for town meeting and doesn't I don't think it takes a great deal of additional work to let us know What the specific proposal is for? That's all we're asking. I'm sure we probably would agree with it But right now we have no idea and several points were made here to make some suggestions About the expenditures so I I Urges to vote against this not because we're against energy conservation, but because it's town meeting. We want to know What it is you're asking us to support Thank you Thank You mr. Tosti now As you can see if you look at both Article 8 and article 9 the finance committee is split We voted 15 to one on one issue and then reversed and voted 15 to one against the other issue And I think there's several different elements here One is that agreeing with with mr. Foskett is that we want to see as much as possible work through the channels Including including the capital budget On the other hand things become available that you need to go for fairly quickly If this was a city council it'd be very big city council But if it was a city council they meet every week or every two weeks or their continuous body So if there's something comes up you can go right back to them And ask for an appropriation. We're a town meeting. We meet for several weeks in May and Occasionally, you know a special town meeting in the fall and as good as town meeting is it's not terribly flexible so often so I think And in this case, you know A conservation conservation or energy producing savings is different from a fire truck a fire truck you just pay out It costs money over a long period of time if you get the right energy Conservation project comes up and you're able to grab the funding That's something that's going to pay for itself and you know two years five years six years, whatever. It's actually going to save us money So I think the finance committee felt that the direction That the town manager wanted to go to have some money available to take advantage of things that came up Was a good idea However, and again, this is going over to the next article Which I'll probably just repeat some of the same things is that we're really not comfortable creating another fund I mentioned the same thing to you with all the revolving funds that gets set up So we're willing we wanted to give the town manager the chance to go after monies that are available After rebates and save the town money. That should be a direction. We always give him on the other hand Want to come up with a different mechanism perhaps for For being able to get the rebates again keeping them and then spending for more energy conservation projects And so we'd like him to come back Again, I'm going into nine. We'd like him to come back see how the original 200,000 and give a different solution under article nine Perhaps it involves Utilizing the capital budget committee as an approval in other words, you know before you can spend this money You're gonna get their approval something like that could be done. So it stays within the normal process It's a sort of a long answer involving two different questions, but that's how the finance committee felt Let's go ahead with this. We can save some money We're always trying to figure out ways to save some money But what's not created different fund until we see how the first 200,000 was spent? How much money it saved how much rebates came in get some more experience? And then if we need to create a separate fund That moves quicker than the capital budget committee and the town meeting then maybe we can add some other features to it To get other parts of our process involved. So I do recommend favorable action under article eight. Thank you very much Thank you. Mr. Wagner Thank you, mr. Moderator Carl Wagner precinct 11. I move that we terminate debate on the question and all associated matters Emotion to terminate debate on the article all the favor, please say yes opposed My opinion is the two-thirds vote. We have a force a recommended vote of the finance committee for $200,000 all in favor, please say yes opposed My opinion is a positive vote at disposes of article eight now. We have article nine which sir How are we mckay preaching 21? I have a substitute motion for article nine Okay, I move that we act favorably on article nine a simple motion That's what you asked for a simple motion. I move that we vote favorably on article nine And I'd appreciate a second There is a positive vote on This board of selectmen have recommended a positive vote you endorsing theirs. I'm not sure what we're voting on there whatever This Me I think the selectmen have the main motion because it's not a spending article. It's a Asking us to establish a fund Okay I'm not going to take a lot of time to repeat what I just said But it seems to me the creation of a new fund at this time is premature Let's give this a year to see how this worked out Let's get a couple of other groups within the town involved in the process be at the capital budget committee or such And I recommend a no-action vote on this on this article. Thank you Did you get on the list mr. McKay? But the mr. McKay young there is a positive vote action by the board of selectmen on this You know, mr. McKay. I'm not sure what your motion is. Is it in substitute for is it in substitute? Can I finish? Mr. McKay, is it a substitute of the selectmen's main motion which is recommending we establish a fund My motion is a substitute motion for article nine in the special town meeting That we vote favorably on article nine my understanding it was that's an endorsement of the select men's motion, sir I'm not talking about the selects motion. I'm talking about put it in writing, please a recommendation under article nine and Put it right understanding that the motion is in order. I haven't heard my cave Please put it in writing bring it up forth. So I know what you're having us vote on you said you would accept simple motions How simple can you get I have to read it? Ms. LeCourt you're next I have to read your motion mr. McCabe. I Have you mr. Paluso? Annie LeCourt precinct 15 so Again, I'm not sure who direct the question to mr. Moderator, but I would like to talk a little bit about how we might account for The rebates that we receive without actually creating this fund and whether or not it would be possible to then set a policy About what percentage of those rebates might by rule of thumb be reinvested in further energy efficiency efforts? Why don't you tell us what your thoughts are and then we'll well I guess my first question would be to the our esteemed comptroller as to whether or not We're able to tag each of these transactions as it arrives as a cash rebate as having been an energy rebate So we can add them all up at the end of the year Yeah, Ruth you have to come forward and introduce yourself Louis comptroller Chapter 44 section 53 says any revenue received by the town goes into the general fund of the town unless it's a specific law That says otherwise. Yes, but we don't have any way to further identify those transactions as having been received like well Like what their source was their source was a energy rebate It would well the energy rebate would just be local receipts unless we had the special fund But would have to be special legislation We don't we don't have like a second field on the record where we can just identify where it came from or that it's got another category Well, we would have a special revenue account, so we could account for it. Yes in the general fund Okay, that's what I'm asking you so in our chart of accounts. We could just oh, yes So we can say how much we'll be able to say this is Excellent and then to the chair of the finance committee My request is Were this seed money that we just voted to be successful and were we to be able to track the percentage of rebates We were getting would it be something the finance committee would consider in Given that you voted not to do this fund that you would consider Having a rule of thumb sort of similar to other rules of thumb that we have that says that will reinvest a certain percentage of these Rebates in energy efficiency projects that are going through the capital plan To asking what their future policy is going to be I'm asking them whether this is what he has in mind when he says We don't need another special fund Mr. Tosti I Really can't start setting policy for something that hasn't come before the full finance committee The finance committee's position is we want to wait See how that how it's created see how much rebates are coming in see how we can make this a fund Which takes in other players within it what can go to the capital budget process what can go differently, so I can't really answer if we do this we'll do that if somebody will have to put together a whole package Put it in the war come back to us and we'll consider it We're always open-minded into considering We're just getting this sort of fear in the back of our mind that more and more money Gets tracked away from the general fund That comes before you in the budgets. That's why we're not ready at this point to go in this direction. Okay, so I'm going to actually recommend that you support the finance committee's motion on this Because I think that it's possible for us to achieve What we want to achieve here, which is to have funds to reinvest in these kind of energy efficiency Projects without having a special segregated fund It's unclear to me and perhaps that's another question to either the finance committee or the town manager How we would move funds out of said specially created fund or all the rebates to go in there Should we need the money for some other purpose or want to add it to free cash or whatever? We may or may not want to reinvest all of these rebates They look like they're pretty substantial to me in future projects and I'm trying to retain flexibility here. Thank you Thank you Mr. Carmen, thank you, mr. Rotter Dean Carmen precinct 20 a member of the finance committee I Would ask everybody I would ask you to vote no action on this article. I think At least through my think I'll walk you through my thinking when I heard these Two articles at the finance committee and how it worked out for me to me Voting yes an article 15 or an article 8 and voting no one article 9 Became a reason to compromise on one side. You have you know, we'll even look at town meeting We have mr. Foskett mr. Loretty and others who spoke and said, you know, this really isn't a Good idea for the town because it Moves appropriating funds out of established policy It takes money away from the general fund and we don't really get to track it town manager's position when he came before the finance committee was that there were some, you know opportunistic Expenditures that he could make with this money like he said that would save the town money over the long term and so what Voting yes on 8 and voting no on 9 does is it gives him $200,000 in a one-time Opportunity to actually prove that whether he spends money over a year or two or three or four Here's an opportunity to prove it now look $200,000 is real money to me. I'm sure it's real money to most everyone here I'm not taking that as a light amount, but when it's $200,000 one time you can sort of sit here and say all right I can justify it in my head in the context of a large hundred-and-something million-dollar budget When it comes to establishing a fund for something that hasn't been proven And having the money sort of go into this fund and we don't know how the results were or there is no Accountability for the results to move on to a longer term project That's that's sort of where I had the the trouble buying into it So I would ask you to vote no action on this article, you know It was sort of like a lot of the speaker said before it's not voting against energy efficiency in this case It's just voting to get some more evidence and some proof that this works and then if it does Two three years from now. We can vote for it again. We can vote for it or we could not vote for it. Thank you Mr. Paluso Ted Paluso from precinct six, I guess Very interesting to listen to this discussion And I'll summarize it very simply It's a matter of trust it sounds like the Capital projects which we approve for four five nine million dollars Very few questions asked The questions that we answered Nothing changed your thing, right? So now we got a brand new town manager We're paying him $200,000 Think about it. We're paying him 175 plus some fringe benefits, etc. Right now this town manager says I would like to create a fund And you know what I think we ought to support him and The reason I think we ought to support him is very simple Why what stretch of the imagination does anybody in this room believe That The finance committee the capital projects planning committee the town meeting is Anymore qualified to determine how the money is being spent than the energy working group So To me it's a control Issue it's a trust issue and a control issue and you know, there's a hell of a lot of control in this town And if you don't trust this guy to run a $200,000 Revolving fund my god, you're giving him about $60 million to run So I urge you to trust the town manager. That's simple Mr. Oster I'm Adam Oster at precinct 3 and I don't just Live in Arlington I get to work here and I work for an energy consulting company that has been Instrumental in a lot of policy decisions over the years related to energy efficiency programs The ones that are done by utilities our clients are mostly Consumer advocates and attorneys general in in the different states and energy efficiency has a Reputation as being sort of an insanely great deal We say that it's not it's better than a free lunch it's a lunch they pay you to eat and with these kind of numbers you can see why that is and unfortunately Very often when legislators or regulators set up these programs Because they're being cautious they cap them and there is a lot of lost opportunity as a result because there is a lot of Cost-effective energy efficiency investment, which means stuff that would save you more money than it costs That has to be foregone because there's a cap on the amount that can be done my question about this article in particular is I was looking at the numbers for the rebates It looks like it's round maybe a third of the costs and so maybe between sixty and eighty thousand dollars on that $200,000 that we just voted if we don't authorize this So that these rebates are not available for this purpose In the next year is that going to cause a problem? If you had known that we wouldn't authorize it supposing that we don't would you have asked for more money? Is that chapter clear question? Adam chapter lane town manager I wouldn't have requested a larger sum of money I would just answer that if it poses a challenge when when rebates Cannot be utilized to pay for the project It creates it can create a funding problem in the example of those variable speed drives Well, I'll take a step back some vendors on larger projects are willing to Accept the rebate themselves for the implementation of the project And if a vendor was willing to do that the town would pay their share less the rebate to the vendor with whatever Existing appropriation for whatever project it was However, if the vendor on a on a smaller project or I guess any project wasn't willing to Put that sort of money on the line On their part it can create a Challenge in terms of having town funds available with that rebate going directly into the general fund and not being able to reimburse the expense account so it The amount of money that town meeting just approved will certainly allow us to do Many of the things we have in our energy reduction plan But the utilization of this energy conservation fund will remove some of the challenges of utilizing the rebates to their highest use Thank you. I I guess I would just say That my concerns I mean one of my concerns is that we not let any opportunities go by that are this good and We're starting to develop a track record and some experience with this stuff We saw some of the reports tonight I assume after a year more under our belt with this money will have a lot more opportunity to judge And I would just say that that I hope that The town will not be shy in requesting additional funds if they're needed Because Otherwise, you know we lose Thank You. Mr. Smith Scott Smith precinct five move the question I would always use and all issues. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion to terminate debate all in favor. Please say yes My opinion it's a two-thirds vote Okay Mr. McCabe did you put your motion in writing? Okay, well So you just your motion basically is you want favorable action on this? I Mean you made a motion. I have to know what you want us to vote on My motion is that we vote favorably on article 9 in the special town meeting warrant How simple can it be? It was seconded and to the best of my knowledge you did not rule it out of order. I'm about So please let's vote. I've never seen so much nitpicking in 51 years. It's terrible I'm about to rule it out of order because I think it's in Supplement to the main motion of the select men and not necessary So I've ruled mr. McCabe's motion out of order. We have a force to recommend a vote of the board of select men All in favor, please say yes Opposed say no My opinion is a negative vote Okay More than five people has arisen All in favor of the recommended vote of the board of select men, please rise same tellers Mr. Duncan you count up front five up front Mr. Schlickman 12 to my left Mr. O'Connor 14 Left center right center mr. Tremblay 17 mr. McCabe 19 all opposed, please rise Mr. Dunn five five who they cancelled each other out mr. Schlickman 19 Mr. O'Connor 25 Mr. Tremblay 25 Mr. McCabe 12 The vote isn't a negative 67486 against it's a negative vote No fund That closes article 9 of the special brings us to article 10 Bylaw amendment rubbish trash collection recommend a vote of the board of select when mr. Greeley Thank You mr. Moderator Currently there is a bylaw Related to how early you can put your trash out it is 6 p.m. The night before collection There is however no bylaw in terms of how long You can leave trash out after the day of collection number of instances this year of Trash being left out for example recycle recyclables the leaf bags for example a number of different complaints from neighbors about how long They were left out But best to speak on this through you mr. Moderator with your permission, please. I'd like to call on Our director of public works of mr. Radamaka to further explain the new trash contract and this warrant article related to this Mr. Radamaka Thank You mr. Greeley Thank You Michael Radamaka director of public works it is True that we now do not have a bylaw that allowed that Allows us enforcement for having trash removed from the curb if it's not collected and the best example there Recently was the leaf bags left after our last yard waste collection But the trash contract were about to enter into beginning July 1st is going to have some components Which also will have an impact that would require or be beneficial to have this same bylaw change There are three components that are most closely related to the Request to have this change of the bylaw and that would be enforcement of the town's mandatory recycling weekly recycling pickup and Waste limits that will be part of the new trash contract Recycling enforcement is something that the town has Wanted to do for some time But did not have staff to do so State law requires that many items of bench are banned from the waste stream these are recyclable materials construction debris automobile tires and the such and if our trash vendor brings Waste to the incinerator or the receiving facility and it is determined that there is too many of these materials in The waste stream that trash can be Rejected turned away from the facility That vendor is now in a position where they have no place to bring this this way Once they learn that lesson they then would be more diligent in looking at waste on the curb for pickup And then they have the ability to reject waste on their own If it is determined that there is an excess amount of waste ban items within the trash stream so having a recycling enforcement Gets us more proactive in this in the sense where we don't get to the point where we're being forced and trying to deal with the situation but hitting it heading ahead on Facing it head on and this new trash contract that we're about to enter into the the vendor it has offered to become our enforcement officer and The current proposal for enforcement would be to leave trash on the curb if recycling efforts aren't seen to be occurring at the household now in order to Make this a more easy transition for folks for this mandatory recycling We wanted to up recycling to weekly collection and When we put out our RFP to get bids for the waste contract We asked pricing pricing to come back both for a status quo and with the weekly recycling option and Prices we got ranged from $250,000 to upwards of $800,000 additional to have weekly recycling One vendor came with the option that if we were to impose waste limits a limit on the amount of Solid waste people could place on the curb They could lower their proposal to us and bring actually the proposed costs in line or less than the cost we currently pay To not have weekly recycling Now the thought process behind that is if the vendor knows how much waste they may pick up in a given week If they know if it's limited to a certain amount they can then program their time and their facility and To allow for additional Recycling truck to be on the street. They know what their limit is going to be on waste pickup and then they know they have the additional Workforce to pick up our recycling on a weekly basis so the enforcement for that waste limit would also be that Trash above that above that limit would also be left on the curb. So what we didn't want was a situation where Waste was left on a curb either in the case of mandatory recycling or waste ban limits and Not have the ability to enforce that waste to be brought back off the curb So that it doesn't become a public nuisance. We want it to be off the curb either brought back out the following week or disposed of properly for other with other means State has offered us to the state is now offering grants for recycling forces But they are requiring that monetary fines be placed for people who violate mandatory recycling And we felt that this policy of leaving waste Would be a little bit more Sensitive to the residents of Arlington. We hope excuse me. We also Proposing to phase this new program in over the course of one or two months and educate folks on Violations as they occur so July 1st, we're not going to just start to Enforce these violations, but instead leave Stickers or some kind of notification saying you're in violation of the town's new by-law or the and the town's new trash policies and In the coming weeks, we would not be collecting this trash I guess that's pretty much Explanation of why we're looking for this This change to the by-law. Thank you miss Phelps 16 I Have a problem with this in the sense that in the past there have been times when people have put out rubbish That was not picked up There was like a whole street that maybe was missed by the rubbish collectors People haven't told in town that if you trash isn't picked up that they were able to call either the DPWR The trash collector themselves They had a number that they could call and that they would then pick it up the next day Is this policy no longer going to be available for town people? Mr. Atamaka Mike Radamaka director of public works if trash is missed on a street due to either the fault of the town or the vendor We would not hold this new Violation in place for that location. We would send a truck back out and collect the trash So then if the people haven't removed the trash by nine o'clock, are they then in violation? No, we would not hold those locations in violation So why isn't it made that if you leave a notice of violation that it's banned material Then it has to be moved nine nine o'clock if there's no removal No notice made then the people can leave it out there and call to have it removed the next day I'm not sure I understand in other words if I put my rubbish out and it wasn't picked up because it was banned material I would expect that by nine o'clock I'd have to bring it back in go through it sort it out and leave only Stuff that wasn't being the following week However, if they miss mine, I don't want to have to pull it in at nine o'clock Call the next morning and then have to again We take take it back to the street the next day for them to come and pick it up You wouldn't have to Apologize if I wasn't clear if if that because of the fault of the town or the vendor We missed the street or a section of town We would not require the trash to be pulled in and then put back out We would simply send a trash truck out to collect that trash the following day then this by law This by law would make that person in violation of the by law The by law is written that your trash has to be pulled in the day That you're appointed for collection if we would add it if we had to delay that day once because of the fault of the town or the vendor The following day would essentially become the defective day that would be the collection day Scott Smith Scott Smith precinct five. I'm going to offer a simple amendment of mr. Goody throw that word file They basically it addresses Miss Phelps concerns I had the same concern thinking back to January a year ago when For understandably trash pickup was sometimes to lay the trucks can get down the street to the snow Had some back-and-forth with mr. Radamocker and I was convinced it was not not the intent But I will offer Scott Smith STM article 10 Doc doc file. Yeah, scroll up, please Yes, thank you. Okay But it sounds like this amendment might be might be necessary it might make people more comfortable So I offer it basically it adds the words and less it can be reasonably expected that pickup will occur on the following day I Then any uncollected rubbish must be removed by 9 p.m. This is designed to cover the case where You know the pickup doesn't happen that day for whatever reason you call them up and they say leave it out We'll get to it tomorrow. It's designed just to cover that case and I support Both the original motion and my amendment. Thank you The motion has been seconded Mr. Stryfeld Mark Stryfeld precinct 20 I Am Concerned about this article and I think I'm probably going to be voting against it. I understand the intent of it I think the intent of it is very good, but the way it is done What I know about myself is I'm very often not home by 9 o'clock on the day that trash is due to be picked up and I worry about any type of town bylaw which will routinely put people well Put people in the state where they're violating the bylaw I don't know what the correct solution is, but this is not what I Will be voting for Now Listen to the remarks from the director of public works. I got the impression there were a He mentioned that there are conditions under which trash will not be Collected if there's too much trash or it doesn't look like there's enough recycling Is that what I understood was that I think what he said is if you're not recycling They're not going to pick it up There's no recycling bins in front of your house, and it's recycling day your trash is staying on the curb Is that basically it mr. Atamaka? Yeah That's that's what he told us. Mr. Matamaka clarify if I got it wrong Mike Radamaka public works director that is correct the pot the the policy we are looking at is a Mandatory recycling enforcement and so with the weekly recycling this should be recycling Evidence of recycling on a weekly basis with the trash And if there isn't then we would we would leave the trash at the curb Is it conceivable that somebody wouldn't have any recyclables for some reason during a given period? we did consider that and we Not to say there isn't that situation and we could if there is a hardship or if there's a case by case We need to look at but we had some difficulty thinking of An instance where there would not be any recycling materials created in a one-week period junk mail milk cartons so for I see okay Mr. Chappett you want to be on the list thank you mr. Moderator roll on chap at precinct 12 There's a part of this project that Confuses me a little bit. Let me give you a story and to back up why I'll support the bylaw But I need some clarity and that has to do with leaf pickup Now if I understand it correctly right now Every week leaves are picked up correct Mike Radamaka director of public works currently during the season where yard waste is picked up It is picked up every other week to concur with the recycling pickup under this new contract We actually will have weekly yard waste pick up during that season So leaf pickup right now is the same week as recycled pickup Correct during during the season. Yes Okay, I guess I'm wrong Quick story a couple of weeks ago the Prince of Robbins farm sponsor a cleanup up on the farm We did a great job and there wasn't about 25 people up there We got a lot done in one corner back of my house They collected leaves and put them in leaf bags which we supply and I told Mike The guys came Monday morning and they didn't pick them up I thought they might not have seen them because there was a lot of other brush and so forth which they did get and So I said I'll I'll just put them out in the front of my house and when the truck comes by They'll get them turned out. There was a dozen bags not six So that was six tricks in my wheel bell to go from the back of the park up to the street. Okay, no problem accepted they're still there Now I thought and I'm wrong about this That they would be picking up leaves every single week And so when I put them out on Thursday morning, they should have been gone that afternoon I'm wrong What you're saying to me now is if this passes that would have occurred they would have picked them up every single week No, no, we're confusing what our future contract for that's what I'm saying contract is gonna be and the simple Bylaw amendment before us The waste contractor in the future, which he's gonna tell us about during the budgets may pick up every week If that's the one he contracts with what we're talking about is this bylaw amendment If you don't bring a trash and you're gonna get a fine put away and I understand that but you know I'm not going out there contract. I'm not about to go out there and we'll barrel Another dozen leaf bags back to the back in my yard just because we didn't get them picked up So my concern was Well, I ever have to worry about this problem again If we get the new contract that picks up weekly no Correct correct and I'll support this. Okay. It's 1105 Okay Do I have any any Notices of reconsideration Mr.. Tosti serve notice reconsideration of article 41 And I'm the special 2345678 and 9 All in favor of adjourning, please say yes opposed We have to adjourn the annual no Yeah, all in favor of adjourning the annual Tom meeting, please say yes opposed I will bet we're gonna finish with number 10 next week and then go back to the annual Tosti serve you want 41 Do you want it? Mr.. Harrington is serving reconsideration of 41 as well