 We thank you all very much, that was the best rendition to Star Spangled Banner we've had yet. Not that we can't sing, but not that good. So we're going to dilly a little bit, because Gabe had a little problem getting here. So we have to wait for him to set up, but in the meantime, I'm just saying that. Are there any town meeting members who have yet to be sworn in? So please rise. All righty. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I will participate fully and fairly, evaluate all matters before town meeting, and vote in the best interest of the town. I support free speech, and will treat others with mutual respect, and will conduct myself in the civil manner that is becoming of an elected town meeting member. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties incumbent upon me. As a town meeting member of the town of Arlington, in accordance with the bylaws of the Town Manager Act, the general laws of the Commonwealth shall help me God. General laws of the Commonwealth. Thank you. Mr. Helmuth, where'd he go? Eric Helmuth, precinct 12, chair of the electronic voting study committee. We accidentally gave the wrong clicker to one person, so would you look at your clicker? And if you have number 105, would you please, there we go, please bring it to the back table so we can give it to Stephen, who's 105, and we'll get you your right one, thank you. So everybody look at your machine, make sure it's you, whoever's got 105. Sorry about that. Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Stephen Byrne, chair of the Board of Selectment. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting as set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting is not disposed of at this session, when the meeting adjourns it adjourns to Monday, May 12th, 2014, at 8 PM. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Well, he wants us to finish tonight, good man. We're going to do our test vote, and we got a question by a couple members and people who were looking at it on the website. They noticed that at the bottom, when it tallies the yes and no votes, it doesn't tally the abstains. Well, the reason for that is abstains don't count. So if we counted the abstains, the computer would count them into the total and kind of not give us a true answer of if a pastor failed. So you'll be able to see the abstains, but if you want to find out, you have to count them yourself, because we can't make the machine do it. So you ready for a test vote, Mr. Flynn? So this is just a test to make sure your handset works and make sure it functions, so go ahead. Okay, that's it. So while it scrolls through the screens, we'll just proceed on. Mr. Gilligan, you have an announcement? You have an announcement? Okay, after I'm writing them down. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steven Gilligan, Town Treasurer. I'm pleased to announce to Town, meaning that the Town of Arlington has a new deputy treasurer, deputy collector. His name is Michael Morris. He began this week. He will be here on Monday night, and I'm bringing him. He'll be in the back of the hall beginning at 7.15 so the town meeting members can meet and greet our new deputy treasurer. So I wanted to let you know that. He's very capable, very qualified, and comes to the town with a lot of experience. So I'm pleased to let you know that. Mr. Moderator, if I may take an additional 15 seconds and comment on something you said at the last meeting about voting and the clickers. It was pointed out to me, first by my lovely wife and then by many other people, that I didn't necessarily vote the right way on a couple of Warren articles. Apparently, apparently when I vote, I put it in my jacket pocket. And as I do so, my fingers strike other keys. So let the clickers beware. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Out of that, are you voting your heart? Mr. Chapter Lane? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Adam Chapter Lane, Town Manager. I just want to call to the attention of town meeting members. We've provided a memo on the back table in regards to the comprehensive compensation study. We had provided an update last year to town meeting members. The study was completed this past January. So we've provided a memo that talks a little bit about the background, how the study was performed, what the findings were, and what the recommendations were, as well as a link to the full copy of the study available on the town's website. So I'd urge you all to take a look at it. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. Thank you. Ms. Olszewski. Thank you, Mr. Chapter Lane. Angela Olszewski, Precinct 17 and Chair of the Arlington Committee on Tourism and Economic Development. An anonymous donor has given to the town a promotional video for Arlington and for ATED's use and we're going to be showing it at the visitor information booth, which is on its way. It should be up this spring and we hope at the hotel and on cable. We wanted to give you a preview. So it's going to be shown tonight at break on a continuous loop. Thank you. If you enjoy it. Kate Lucien, Precinct 20. Mr. Moderator, can I introduce Maya Ginz, who's an Arlington resident to speak quickly about her cleanup this weekend? Sure. Hi, good evening. My name is Maya Ginz. I live at 17 Newport Street in Arlington. I'm here to talk about our cleanup event, our second annual cleanup event coming up this Saturday. This event takes place. It starts at 9 o'clock and goes till noon. People can meet at the municipal parking lot where the farmer's market is and we can give people bags and gloves. And then you can just return your filled up garbage bags at the same lot. We will also be providing coffee and snacks in the morning if that will lure you there. This was a great event last year. We had over 100 volunteers. We had over 100 bags of garbage collected and it's been a long winter. And so I think even despite a few other cleanup events that have already occurred, there's still a lot of litter out there. And we would love your participation. Yes. You're always trying to get to recognize this. Oh, I don't know the way town meeting works. I thought he had a question. Anyway, thank you very much and I hope to see all of you there. Thank you. Do you want to go now, Mr. Kuro? Joseph Kuro, precinct 15, I'd request that the moderator recognize Ms. Gina Sander, a resident of the town. Yes. I wish to thank the town moderator and the town meeting members for this opportunity to speak and Mr. Kuro for guiding me through town meeting protocol. My name is Gina Sander. I am a resident of the town and the lead proponent of Article 20, Tar Sands Oil Free Arlington, which received a vote of no action on Monday night from this body following the recommendation of the Board of Selectman. On its advice, on the advice of the selectman, I did not seek a substitute motion on this issue at the time. The general feeling was that this is not a town meeting issue. Respecting that perspective, I am instead requesting that you as individuals please consider signing on to the letter and resolution that I have brought to the town hall tonight. You will find it along with associated supporting material at the back of the hall during town meeting and I'll be available in the front lobby during break tonight and plan to return on the evenings of May 12th and May 14th. In closing, I will say that from my point of view, this is a local issue, one which every city and town in the state would do well to confront sooner rather than later and be proactive rather than reactive. I encourage you to come and discuss the issue with me. Thank you very much for your consideration of this matter. Thank you, Ms. Sander. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Phil Goff, precinct 7. I just wanted to make a quick announcement. May is not only spring and the weather is beautiful. May is also bike month. This Friday is bike to work day. It's being celebrated in Arlington with a free bike commuter breakfast on the Minuteman path adjacent to Thorndike Field between 6.30 and 9.30. The morning free bagels, free coffee, t-shirts and some other things sponsored by the 128 Business Council and Bagelbill, a new bagel place up in Arlington Heights. On Sunday, May 18th is the annual bike Arlington tour sponsored by the Arlington Bike Advisory Committee, which I'm a member of. It's a family-friendly two-hour ride. It starts at 9.30 in the morning. Meet at the large parking lot in the center behind the Cutler House. Family-friendly event. It's free. Helmets are required. Thanks so much. Thank you, sir. May 17th is also the 10th annual spy pond trail day cleanup. There's a little thing in the back of the hall telling you all about that. Jane, did you want to do it? Or did I just usurp your announcement? Sorry. I think I usurped her announcement. Not quite. Thank you. Jane Howard, precinct 10. I'd just like to remind people that there's yet another opportunity to do a cleanup, but also some additional things. So, a week from Saturday on the 17th, we hope we won't have to have a rain date, but there will be a rain date unless there is a deluge, and that will be the next day. The spy pond committee will work at the trail side of a spy pond, a budding Route 2 between Pleasant Street and Lake Street for the 10th annual trail day. We will do trail maintenance, try to control invasives, prune vistas, bag litter, and generally improve this slice of public beautiful land. We will also install an additional trail to the pond, helped by the pros from the Appalachian Mountain Club. So this is an event where you should dress accordingly, wear work clothes, bring boots if necessary, but certainly sturdy shoes, rain gear, sunscreen, or whatever depending on the weather. Liability waivers will be available for everybody, and must be signed by all participants. And for those under 18, they need approval from a guardian, or they would be even better if they were accompanied by a guardian. And this is hosted by the spy pond committee, but it brings together a lot of other civic, sports, youth, and social organizations. And of course this year we'll be blessed by having several members of the Appalachian Mountain Club to help us. Hope you can join us. Thank you. It's from nine to one. Thank you. Any other announcements? Resolutions. So far I've had pretty good discussions and we've kept it pretty civil. Sir. I report. Oh, okay. You want to do that first? Go ahead. We aren't to report to committees quite yet. That's next after I say something. So, so far we've been pretty civil. One of the speakers the other night did offend a few members of the finance committee. I actually think most of them. The speaker referred to them as pretty gentlemen over there. If one of the male had said that about the female in this room, I think they would have been run out of town. Well, let's keep it civil and not point fingers at anybody or try to bolster our arguments by denigrating the personage of the opposition. Let's stick it to the argument itself and keep all of our arguments based upon your pros and cons and not get into any ad hominem attacks. That's all we're going to say about that. Any reports or committees? So we do have one. Mr. Tosti, can you take three off the table? Yes. I move article three be taken from the table. All in favor? Aye. Mr. LaBelle. Josh LaBelle precinct to eight. And I would like to ask the town meeting to have a report from the Vision 2020 committee by Brucey Molton and Mary Harrison who are just in the back of the hall, the residents of Arlington. Okay. And I would also just like to say as they as they walk up here that Vision 2020 works tirelessly for the whole year on the survey and many other projects. Mary and Brucey have kind of are the chairs of that committee and drive it forward. And this is their last year. They'll be retiring, which I'm sure they'll tell you about. So if you could thank them for their hard work, I'd appreciate that also. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Good evening. I am Brucey Molton precinct 12. And I'm Mary Harrison precinct 14. As Vision 2020 co-chairs, it is our pleasure to present our annual report to town meeting. You all should have a copy of the report. It also appears on the town's website. It includes the basic tabulation of answers to each of the 2014 survey questions, plus preliminary tables. The final report with analysis and additional tables will be out in July. This year's survey benefited from strong collaboration with the library, open space committee and DPW and elicited a record 34% response rate. The annual survey is just one part of what Vision 2020 does. Our standing committee and our task groups and their committees work year round on Arlington's behalf. Our meetings are posted on the town meetings calendar and the public is always welcome. When you see us working, you may not always know that it's Vision 2020 you're seeing. Sometimes we are visible, as in the annual town census survey, candidates night, eco-fest, art rocks, monotomy and town day. Often we are less obvious as we work behind the scenes doing research, analysis and planning. We'd like to highlight a few of our recent activities. Our environment task group includes the spy pond and reservoir committees. They are stewards of Arlington's two largest water bodies. The spy pond committee works closely with the DPW, not only to treat Eurasian water mill foil, but also to keep tabs on the algae growth in the summer. Without treatment, invasive pond weed such as Eurasian water mill foil interferes with the Arlington-Bellmont rowing program and with sailing. On spy pond trails day, May 17th, you can help the spy pond committee as Jane Howard already suggested. The reservoir committee helps to monitor and control invasive water chestnuts, nasty prickly things. They also installed and maintain the wildlife habitat garden and other plantings at the res. This committee, along with the Arlington High School Cross Country and track teams, has spread woodchips on the res trail, improving it for walkers and runners. If you enjoy our public parks and art, visit Art Rocks Monotomy, which is installed at Monotomy Rocks Park until May 26th. Our public art committee is collaborating with Arlington Parks and Recreation to develop guidelines for public art exhibits in Arlington's parks. Each April, newly elected town meeting members are invited to attend our government's task groups introduction to town meeting, led by the town moderator. Participants get an overview of town meeting rules and procedures. And this year, they got to preview the electronic voting clickers. Our diversity task group presented a series of We Are Arlington conversations to create deeper understanding of the opportunities and stresses that rich diversity creates in a community. Last fall, 45 people attended Stories of Welcome, a collaboration of the diversity task group and Arlington's true story theater improv troupe. Together, they explored audience experiences of warm inclusion and also exclusion in the Arlington community. By bringing audience stories to life, the troupe creates opportunities to share and more fully appreciate differing perspectives. Property owners may wonder how much they pay for various town services. You may have done the calculations based on your property's assessed value using the town website's My Tax Dollar spreadsheet. Our fiscal resources task group worked with the town to create that tool, which the town has greatly enhanced and posted as the Arlington visual budget. The revitalized education task group had its first meeting this past January and over 30 people attended. This group is identifying project initiatives that will support the Arlington Public Schools. Our third environment committee, Sustainable Arlington, cosponsors the food recovery project with the Minuteman Parents Association and Massachusetts Climate Action Network. In just over two years, a million dollars worth of food has been collected and redistributed, reducing local hunger and stretching limited resources. We also want you to know that Vision 2020 is an organization in transition. We are examining our purposes and operations. We want to make participation easier for volunteers. We also want to attract younger members of the community to bring their fresh ideas and stay to implement them. We have served as interim leaders for two years and now seek new co-chairs who will bring new perspectives, new connections and new energy to Vision 2020. We believe that Vision 2020 will continue to create valuable new ways to support town goals. Thank you. Thank you and we just want to say that a job description for our job is on the back of our report. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you for your service to the town. Any other reports, committees? Molly Fluckeger, precinct 4. I serve as the chair of the Arlington's Commission on Disability. This is the first report this commission has delivered to town meeting in a while and I'm pleased to have an opportunity to tell you more about the commission. We're not nearly as productive as Vision 2020, but we do work hard to benefit the community. I encourage you to read the Disability Commission's annual report in the town's annual report. I didn't publish an additional copy because you already have one. I'd like to take an opportunity to thank Michael Rademacher, director of Department of Public Works for his service on the Disability Commission. Working with Commissioner John Thompson, Mike oversees the commission's curb cut program that installed nearly 65 sidewalk curb cuts last year. Funded in part by CDBG grants, these curb cuts improve safety and expand independence for Arlington residents with disabilities. The curb cuts also bring Arlington closer to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. We are finalizing our list of curb cuts for fiscal year 2015, so please see me or Mike if you know of a location where a new sidewalk curb cut will benefit a resident or a visitor with disability. The Disability Commission spends a lot of time talking about sidewalks. In the winter, we discuss how improper snow removal keeps some residents homebound and requires others to travel dangerously in our streets. In the summer, we talk about how the increase in alfresco sidewalk dining can create new problems for pedestrians if the furniture configuration isn't managed carefully. And all year long, we talk about bricks. Many years ago when the ADA was passed, Arlington was a leader in ADA compliance. In the 1990s, Arlington won an award for renovations that improved the accessibility of Town Hall. However, recently, Arlington has had a reactive, not proactive approach in regards to the accessibility of our built environment and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and other state and federal civil rights laws. Let me share a few examples of how this strategy impacts our community. The Massachusetts Office of Disability determined that the newly constructed Thorndike off-leash recreational area, which is also called the dog park, does not comply with state and federal accessibility guidelines. The building that houses our senior center and disability office is not in compliance with state and federal regulations for disabled parking spaces. This is a known problem that has gone unresolved for years. A library patron was told that her ADA accommodation request would not be considered because she did not have a physical disability. This is a misunderstanding. The ADA covers individuals with all types of disabilities. And a disability commissioner who uses a wheelchair got stuck in the parking lot at the Pierce School because the disabled parking space has a steep grade, and the lift in his wheelchair accessible van could not function properly. I think we should expect more, and I know we can do better. The good news, and there is good news, is that this year the town has made some important steps towards proactive ADA compliance. The recreation department and Parks and Recreation Commission are conducting an ADA assessment of Arlington's recreation facilities. The town manager has been very responsive to concerns about Arlington's ADA compliance, and he is working on a plan to cost effectively assess compliance and help the town plan and budget for necessary improvements. Some neighboring towns wait until they are sued to address ADA compliance, Delmont and Winchester. However, other neighbors, Cambridge, Medford, Lexington and recently Somerville, have ongoing efforts to bring individuals with disabilities into full participation in the community. As we are defining our ideals in the master plan process, it's a good time to ask, how does Arlington prevent discrimination and promote community inclusion for individuals with disabilities who live in and visit our community? The Disability Commission welcomes and encourages collaboration. Please don't hesitate to contact us so we can work together to move our community towards legal compliance and respond to the needs of our residents with disabilities. Thank you. Thank you. Any other reports? Seeing none. Mr. Tosti? I move that Article 3 be laid upon the table. All in favor? All in favor? All in favor? All in favor? All opposed? That's unanimous. Good. Full-time meeting members, last week I announced to you that we'd be having the Minuteman Superintendent and some staff, business manager here, to answer any questions that you might have in regards to the two Minuteman articles. These gentlemen have to go to 16 different town meetings and I believe next week is full. Therefore, as a courtesy to him, I would like to move to table Articles 22 through 33, move to put on the table, Articles 22 through 33, so we can go to those two articles. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. They are tabled. Okay. That brings us to Article 21. Article 21 is the minutes to the Minuteman Agreement. Ladies and gentlemen, I personally think this is one of the most important articles before the town meeting this year. For 40-plus years, we have suffered through an agreement which really wasn't very conducive to the town of Arlington. We have been working over the last several years, first myself and much more successfully, Charlie Foskett, to change those agreements and I think we have some excellent amendments to make the agreement far superior to what it was before. So I'd like to introduce Charlie Foskett, who will ask for a little bit more time so he can go through those agreements with you. Mr. Foskett? Thank you, Mr. Tosti. This is just a moderate fellow members of the town meeting. First of all, I'd like to ask if we could have 12 minutes for this presentation, part of which will be turned over to Dr. Ed Boquillan, the superintendent of the Minuteman Technical and Locational High School. Okay, Mr. Foskett is requesting 12 minutes each year with his time in Dr. Boquillan. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? They have 12 minutes. Thank you very much. So as Al just mentioned, this agreement was first crafted back in 1970, about 44 years ago. And since then, especially at this town meeting and in other places, it's widely been thought of as a somewhat flawed agreement. It was amended in 1973 and again in 1980, accepting new members and some minor adjustments. Several, about three years ago, the Minuteman School District began a project to look at rebuilding or renovating the facility, which would require them to issue bonds in order to finance this effort. And in the agreement that we have had in place for the last 44 years, the only serious control that Arlington has over the activities of the Minuteman District is really through its ability to veto any bonding. And at that time, actually personally, I became somewhat active in proposing to both the town meeting and to the Board of Selectmen that we strongly resist that project without a major change in the agreement. And I guess in a way to silence me perhaps, the Board of Selectmen had the brilliant idea to ask me to work on the Minuteman Agreement Study Committee, and which I was actually honored to do and I accepted, and they succeeded also in having me keep quiet for a year or two. And I was honored to serve in that committee with Laura Morcette. The agreement, it's called the Minuteman Regional Agreement Amendment Subcommittee of the Minuteman School Committee. It met over the last year and produced an agreement, a revised agreement, which is before you tonight. And it's been going through a series of revisions actually since the committee was finished meeting in October. There are five principal areas of change that are strong interest to Arlington. And they are in the areas of weighted voting, admitting new membership, capital cost allocation, exiting from the agreement, and incurring debt. Under the current agreement, while Arlington pays for 33% or 35% of the school's operating costs and some considerable amount of its capital costs, we have one vote out of 16. And very often when the superintendent, the current superintendent or other superintendents have come to present the Minuteman Budget, you've also been told when you're voting on it that 14 other towns have already voted on it and it doesn't matter what you do. And that's quite a frustrating situation. And secondly, having only one vote on the school committee, we're dealing in an environment where all the other school committee members are not in any way, and I'm not saying this in a majority fashion, but they're not responsible to Arlington. Each school committee representative on the school committee is representing and accountable to their own town. And this is not like elected officials in our town. If we don't care for our elected officials, we can vote in new officials. And we have a tradition of vibrant elections here. So under the new agreement, there's weighted voting. 50% of most of the votes that take place on the school committee and are counted according to a weighted average of the students. And 50% of the vote is based on equal representation of all the towns. This is a substantial change and it gives Arlington effectively about a 20%, 25% influence in terms of voting on significant issues. Previously admitting new membership into the committee required unanimous vote of all of the members of the district. Now it's three quarters. Under capital cost, there's a new capital cost allocation formula that is based partially on the weighted average of the student population, partially on the ability to pay and partially on a fixed amount for every town. And the result is that in a significant potentially new project such as, for example, renovation or improvement in the minimum facilities, Arlington's capital cost burden drops by several hundred thousand dollars a year. And Mr. Kevin Mahoney, who's the chief financial officer of the school system, has done a number of significant and careful analyses of different situations in the capital cost allocation method. And in all of these cases Arlington is faring better than it would fare under the current agreement. So that's also a benefit from Arlington. Now in the current agreement, if Arlington should for whatever reason have developed a different vocational educational strategy, if it were wish to leave the agreement and let's say join with another town or something like that, it would require unanimous approval of all the other 16 towns or other 15 towns I should say in order for Arlington to be able to exit the agreement. The proposed revised agreement calls for a town competition to leave, but it can be stopped if a majority of the towns actively vote to defeat that town exiting agreement. It requires a positive step. And if the towns don't do anything, then the town has the opportunity to exit, provided that the commissioner of the DESC, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, agrees. And finally, there's a two-path method for which the district can incur debt. In the first part of the path, any town in the district can veto that debt, but then that request to incur debt. But the school district can also go to a district-wide referendum to seek approval of the debt. Well, if a town such as Arlington or Belmont or Lexington or any of the 15 towns strongly objects to the capital project that would incur this debt, and it would incur a significant debt burden, the town has the right to ask to exit the agreement. And if the town has voted no for the debt and there's a referendum going ahead with that debt, and the town votes no on the referendum, and the town is not permitted by the other towns to exit the agreement, then the town is not required to finance that debt. So I realize that these are sort of complicated issues and you have fairly complicated documents, but these are the five fundamental areas of change. The Regional Amendment subcommittee worked long on these. There have been several evolutionary steps, but I think all of the members worked with a spirit of dedication, cooperation, and under the leadership of the district and superintendent, but Quillen, I think we have a really, we're in a much better place. And as an individual who was strongly opposed to moving forward on any capital project under the former agreement, I think we have a new agreement that can at least let us fairly consider all the possible options that are before us. So having said that, I'd like to turn this over to Dr. McQuillen, who will have a few comments to make and would be glad to answer any of your questions. Dr. McQuillen? Mr. Foske, can you introduce your substitute motion if you're going to? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Yes, you have received on your seats several nights ago my substitute motion. And I think you've all had the opportunity to read it, so I move that the substitute motion be before us. Second. Okay, this before us. Thank you. We have copies up front. Go ahead, Mr. Dr. McQuillen. Well, I appreciate the comments of Mr. Foske and also the incredible work that he and Laura Morrisette put forward in the process of looking at a very old agreement that was not serving our towns in a way that we needed it to serve the towns in order to move forward. One of the things I'm most hopeful about in this agreement is that it's equally disagreeable to most of the towns, but for different reasons. And as we've gone through the town meeting process of 10 or 11 towns so far, we have, I believe, seven or eight votes in the affirmative to approve it. Two have delayed it. And one has voted no. And the no vote is not as dramatic as it may sound. It doesn't expire. They would simply have to revisit it once their questions were asked and reconsider it. I'll yield my time, unless there's any specific questions to the select, but if they wanted to make any comments or I'll take questions from town meeting. Okay, yeah, let's, if town meeting members want to question, they can rise and ask them. But if you have anything further to say, say it now. And then we'll let the select and have their own time. Oh, okay. I think I've said all I want. Good. I love Arlington. I'm here. Mr. Dunn. You don't get 12 minutes. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dan Dunn, Board of Select. I think Charlie went through most of the key points that I think that we need to hear. And I'm not going to repeat them. But I just want to point out, but there are a couple of things that I do want to say that from the, that are covered in the Board report. We have a new amended regional agreement here to consider. And it's not the agreement that we would have wished for, but it is a vast improvement over the current agreement that we're operating under. And the three, particularly the changes related to the capital costs, the weighted voting and the withdrawal make a world of difference to Arlington and how we can function with that. The drawback about the timing is very important. We just have to be careful. We never make a mistake of approving something without having a way to pay for it, which seems obvious, but at the same time we could really hurt our budget if we get that timing wrong. I have a couple of notes about Wayland voting no. Wayland voted to leave the regional district. And the strategy, of course, is to get 15 towns to say yes, and then to go back to Wayland and convince them that they should change their mind. Wayland is one of a number of small communities that face a less appealing future in the district. They have smaller influence due to proportional voting, and they have a higher capital contribution, and they feel that they'd be better off out of the district than in it. The thing we need to convince them of is that the way out of the district is to approve the agreement, not to reject it. In discussions with other towns officials, it has become apparent that several of the smaller communities, in particular ones like Dover, are concerned that they will not be permitted to leave that agreement. And to soothe that concern, need them to let a movement asking boards of select to permit any town to exit in the first year after the agreement. So as a board, we approved that motion at our meeting last week. That will hopefully pave the way for Wayland and other towns to approve this agreement. I guess I should have said, I had a preface that I deleted with the other comments, and that I want to, which I'll use as a wrap up instead, which is I want to clearly state that we support vocational education, and we want every student in Arlington to have the option to receive a quality vocational education. Everything that I think we're talking about tonight is talking about how to provide a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. We're talking about how we can support this education, not if we should. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Romano? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Maria Romano, precinct seven, rise in opposition to the revised agreement for Minuteman Tech. Warren article 21 proposes a number of changes to the current agreement, as was discussed by Mr. Foskett, governing the Minuteman District. The prior impetus for this change is the desire of the Minuteman Tech Administration to rebuild the school. Arlington's town meeting is being asked to weigh the relatively minor improvements in the agreement with a significant increase in the financial risks to Arlington. The main arguments for accepting the new agreement is that it increases Arlington's voting power and that it more evenly distributes the projected capital costs for the proposed renovation of Minuteman Tech. While there is an element of truth to both these statements, there is also additional information that demonstrates Arlington's financial situation is at best the same as it is now or could be potentially worse. I would like to review the three elements of this revised agreement. One, voting power. While it is true that Arlington's voting power has improved from 6.2% to 19%, it fails to mention that the remaining 81% still resides with the other member communities who do not contribute anywhere near their fair share of students to Minuteman Tech. These communities have demonstrated over and over again that they are more than content to let Arlington's taxpayers carry the vast majority of the financial burden for Minuteman. It is very unlikely that Arlington can piece together enough of a coalition to make substantive changes to the operating and capital budgets. The original revised agreement would have given Arlington 38% of the voting power and that was changed at the last minute to allow for communities like Dover and Weston to have a higher voting percentage while they only have one and four students attended. Another element to look at is the operating and capital budgets that was raised. The operating budget formula for the current and revised agreement does not change the inequities for Arlington. Arlington will continue to pay a disproportionate amount because the in-district enrollment average averages only 55% and the remaining 45% is made up of out-of-district students whose tuition is capped. Since Arlington makes up 38% of Minuteman in-district enrollment, it is very unlikely that Arlington will see any substantial decrease in its operating budget assessment. For authorization of the new debt, the current policy is that any of the 16 community town meetings could vote no and block a capital project. This is Arlington's veto power that has been referred to by many people when discussing Minuteman's rebuild. The proposed revision would require the following steps. A two-third vote of the Minuteman School Committee, a positive vote by all 16 members. However, the proposed revision specifically authorizes Minuteman School Committee to schedule a district-wide election to overturn the previous no vote by one or more member town meetings. This district-wide election would potentially pit Arlington against 15 communities to maintain its veto power. It is also interesting and very, very important to note that the revised agreement states that 34% of the capital apportionment will be determined by taking into account certain factors used by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in calculating state aid to education. I find this vagueness troubling whether deliberate or unintended should give Arlington serious concern about what the final costs of the Minuteman rebuild will actually be. The third element provides an exit option. This is absolutely true. However, a critical question to be asked is where would Arlington send its students who desire vocational education if it left Minuteman? There is no desire by our current school administration to bring vocational education back to Arlington because it would seriously complicate the rebuild of our high school. It should be noticed that the Commissioner of Education must approve the withdrawal and associated terms before any community may leave the district. Destabilization of the Minuteman district is potentially critical factor when allowing a member to withdraw. And since Arlington has the majority of in-district students, it should be a deep concern to Arlington as to whether this exit option is of any value to us. It is time that Arlington faces the harsh reality that Minuteman Tech will never be adequately supported by the other members and we should be actively planning our departure from Minuteman. Whether Arlington uses legal, legislative or referendum means to accomplish this necessary task remains to be determined. An additional option is for the Department of Education to replace Minuteman with a new district with members who are committed to a serious vocational education. I have two rhetorical questions, no response is necessary. Why would Arlington want to remain in a regional agreement that is so badly split? Arlington is the only community that by any definition exceeds sending its fair share of students. And while all the other communities in the district are looking at this proposed revision from their own point of view, it is worthwhile for us to look at it from a standpoint of a federal and state taxpayer. Would anyone really want their tax scholars going to support rebuilding a school that the vast majority of its members do not fully support? Other than a bridge to nowhere, it is hard to find a more undeserving expenditure of federal and state taxes. It is very important for me at this point to acknowledge all the hard work of Charlie Foskett for his dedication and his service. This is not an attack on anyone and I do not want to offend anyone, but rather I speak tonight as an educator and a builder. I want the best for our students who choose to attend a vocational school. Again, I thank Mr. Foskett for trying to get Arlington that better deal. I along with many others want a common sense agreement that serves our town. It is my objective to put forth facts, show the elements of the agreement so as to start the proper debate and the proper discussion tonight at town meeting. Our goal as town meetings should always be to craft an agreement that best serves Arlington and its residents. An agreement that is most financially beneficial to those residents who ultimately pay the bill. And we as town meeting members represent those residents and I hope that we as a body remain mindful of our job. I don't know on article 21. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Mr. O'Brien. I moved over there. Andy O'Brien pre-16. So I'm kind of nervous tonight. That's probably why I'm attending Minute Man. I'm speaking to you as actually a Minute Man student and a town meeting member. Probably a rarity, maybe a first. Possessing a degree in art history and a master's in education. Formally possessing state licensure for teaching history and social studies, political science, lacking skills in self promotion and an ability to influence others. I've never been able to land a job that had that magic combination of central heating, AC, paid sick days, accommodation, vacation. Most jobs I've possessed have been a menial in nature. Fortunately, I've been able to maintain a good driving record and be cannabis free. So I've had the health card and I've had the commercial driver's license necessary to make 25% more than my co-workers. But with college expenses just around the corner and a looming retirement, I decided I needed to earn more money. Being the anti-Dale Carnegie candidate, I knew I needed to find a job that had few worthy candidates. During my search for education, during my search, plumbing kept coming up. The workforce is getting older and few people are entering the workforce and the salaries are quite high. During my search for plumbing education, I found out Minute Man was only one of two schools that offered Tier 1 plumbing education in eastern Massachusetts. And by the way, the private schools that formally offered it but decided not to because there weren't enough candidates were cheaper. So two days before school, I took the test to get Minute Man's post grad plumbing program. I got in and never looked back. With the help of great instructors, I quickly learned the basics of cutting, soldering and threading pipe. Soon we roughed model kitchens and bathrooms and thanks to our grant we assembled a real geothermal solar system. Academically, we covered middle school and high school math, physics, but different from last time, I gained a greater conceptual understanding for these abstract concepts. When February came, I was off on a co-op earning money, getting paid and being employed by one of the state's largest filtration companies. I was amazed at how proactive the school's career counselor was. Frequently asking me if I needed help negotiating for a better wage. Asking me, is there another job that you might be interested in looking at? My fellow classmates in the plumbing program are all from Arlington. They're recent immigrants and they were not sure that they had the language skills for the accelerated college pace. They're very happy to have the opportunity to pursue the American dream at Minute Man. I decided to cut out because I thought I'd be going over my time. Alright, I will cut that out. From my observation, Minute Man is really two schools. One school for traditional trades, the other for science and engineering. I know some folks feel that those who go to Minute Man for science and engineering could be better served at Arlington's recent award winning, I guess we're 22nd for STEM, science, technology, engineering and math. Well, I'm not sure Arlington could accommodate what Minute Man offers. The top STEM programs require large space and infrastructure and maintenance. Fish ponds and robotics labs are quite complex. Schools that combine both vocational and state-of-the-art STEM programs are expensive to build. Cambridge, Ringe and Latin refurbishing cost $90 million. Newton North's rebuild cost $191 million. Some may question the value of a robotics lab and fish farms. The top schools have set the bar though. Newton North spending has brought them top honors in the STEM program. I don't know why Arlington decided to drop the industrial arts and the automotive program, but I suspect it had something to do with costs. And pooling those costs for very expensive technology through the Minute Man school system, although slanted it may be and unfair to us, I think it's going to be a bigger savings. For those that, I've heard people complain that Minute Man doesn't do enough to save money from sports and things like that. All I can say is that all the materials I used this year were donated or were part of a grant. The shops are very cold in the wintertime, heated around about 55 degrees. If I have one concern for the school, I think it could be more done to try and attract girls to the STEM programs. Having an eighth-grader daughter who attended camps for robotics, computer programming and marine biology, I thought the STEM program at Minute Man would be perfect for her. I suggested that she go to the Minute Man open house. She proceeded to consult about a dozen other middle school eighth graders in her text chain. And they came to the conclusion that it was a bad idea. They thought a 68% college attendance rate was too low to impress prospective universities. Weekly transition between labs and academics could hinder academic progression. Finally, going to Minute Man open house would send the wrong message to their teachers. They would send the message that they did not care about their schoolwork and were looking for a way to get away from school. Similar logic also means my daughter who will be attending Allington High next year will not be taking the cad elective. I have often heard girls shy away from science and engineering for social image reasons. I would suggest that these programs don't appeal to girls because of their sense of priorities. Girls value success, organization and time management over personal academic interests. I believe that if Minute Man honestly emphasized the dual schools that exist there and provides separate steps for the STEM majors, I think when students and parents examine and better define statistics, students, more students, especially girls, will attend the school. That's your time, sir. Alright, thanks. Thank you. Mr. Schlickman. Paul Schlickman, Precinct 9. As a former member of the Minute Man Regional School Committee, I know that our relationship with Minute Man is a complicated mix of partnership and competition. We are partners in educating Allington students, yet we also compete for students. We need Minute Man to provide the specialized and expensive vocational programs that individual towns cannot provide on their own. In the past three years, our Minute Man assessment has increased from $2.4 million to $3.8 million, a 61% increase in just three years. This is unsustainable. The reason for this dramatic increase is our percentage of the member town enrollment increased from 27% to 38%. And our assessment is based on the percentage of member town students from Allington. Minute Man is looking to build a new school and the local costs are based on percentage of students from each member town. Our share is rapidly approaching 40%, but we cannot afford to pay 40% of the cost of building a new vocational school. The operative term here is member town. According to the state, about 40% of the students at Minute Man come from outside the district. They don't pay for the capital cost of the district. They don't pay for the new building. When you count all the students, member town and out of district, Allington sends somewhere in the neighborhood of 21 to 23% of the students. I submit to you that Allington can't afford to live in that neighborhood. We can afford to pay for 21 to 23% of the local share of a school, but we cannot afford to pay a third or 40% of the cost. That is why we need to take some steps to restore the balance between Allington, the other member communities, and the nonmember towns that send significant numbers of students to Minute Man. First, we need to support a new regional agreement which will waive votes based on the town's enrollment. Currently Dover has one student in the school, one vote on the school committee, and their one vote for $38,000 assessment is equal to our one vote for a $3.8 million assessment. The agreement before us will begin to fix this inequity, but it doesn't go far enough. Last January, the Minute Man School Committee voted to dilute the proposed waiting system for the purpose of shifting votes away from the big town and retaining more power for the tiny towns. Instead of a vote that reflects our share of the cost of the district, the agreement was changed to cut proportional voting in half. Half of the vote will be proportional, half of the vote will be allocated equally to each town. The new agreement also exempts key financial decisions from weighted voting, so little towns will still be able to combine to pass a budget that adversely impacts Arlington. Minute Man had a major discussion about how to write an unweighted supermajority into the new agreement. Would it be a two-thirds vote or a three-quarters vote? It was a big argument that didn't make a dime's worth of difference. A two-thirds unweighted vote requires 11 towns. This can be achieved with the combined votes of the 11 smallest towns that combined send 29% of the students to the school. A three-quarters unweighted vote requires just one more town and can be achieved with the combined votes of the 12 smallest towns representing 35% of the district. Arlington, remember, is 38% of the district. In reverse, the five smallest towns can block an action that requires an unweighted three-quarter vote supermajority. The five smallest towns have a combined enrollment of 31 students or 4% of the district, and that's one heck of a veto. Should we be bound by a financial obligation imposed by an alleged supermajority of 35%? Should we grant veto power to 4% of the district? More important, if you are a large non-member municipality, would you join a district where a collection of tiny towns can impose a multimillion-dollar assessment on your city or town? We are required by law to use one town, one vote, of each town meeting or city council to approve the budget. Shouldn't the other step at the school committee level be weighted by enrollment? Shouldn't it be like the Connecticut Compromise and our Constitution, where half the decisions were based on population and the other half were appropriately among states? The current regional agreement, when it was written in 1970, was long before Proposition 2.5 gave towns the right to rejects regional school budgets, and was long before the 1993 Education Reform Act, which reallocated Chapter 70 funding within regional school districts. Times change, circumstances change, and we must construct a new agreement that aligns with our current reality. I urge you to support this new agreement because it is better than what we have now. I cannot in the future support a new building under the terms of this agreement tonight, because it does not go far enough to align votes with the fiscal impact of the project. It does nothing to attract new cities or towns. It does not bring our costs to any new school down to a reasonable share. And I think a reasonable share is around 20 or 25%. Don't ask me to go much higher. Half the towns, eight towns combined send a total of 54 students to the school. That's 12.5% of the member town enrollment. Towns that send a half dozen students to the school shouldn't expect to have a bloated share of the decision-making power of the district. We should allow them to leave the district and cap their non-member enrollment to current levels. Particularly if the change in governance makes the district more attractive to large non-member communities. We shouldn't let one small town delay ratification, which is why Mr. Foskets' sunset provision is important. We shouldn't be afraid to insist on a price tag and a vote proportionate to our enrollment before we agree to build a new school. And we shouldn't be surprised if Minuteman Towns act together, cannot come to agreement without adult supervision from the state. We know the state can use a variety of sticks and carrots to bring some very large non-member cities like Watertown and Waltham into the district. Those chapters of the Minuteman story, however, remain to be written. They are for another time. What is before us tonight is a proposal to take one step forward. It is a small incremental step, a small incremental improvement. We should take the step. Please support Mr. Foskets' amendment and the revised regional agreement with your yes vote. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Stephen Harrington. Stephen Harrington, Precinct 13. I'm going to urge you to vote no on this. And I came to this conclusion probably completely different than some of the other people that asked you to vote no. First of all, I want to say that Minuteman's a great school. I know a lot of people who graduated in the first class from Minuteman. They have jobs right away. Minuteman is not the path that I'm going to have for my children to go, but it's an option for many people and it's a great option. And I think we all agree here that Minuteman's a good school that we want to continue to go on. But, you know, if you had been at the last few time meetings, you'd see that there's a lot of... I can't say that other than animosity towards Minuteman because of its cost. You've heard it tonight that it's $3.8 million and that's a bad thing. And this vote, if you vote yes, the implication is that the 16 members of that school committee are not doing what's best for the children of Minuteman. And I disagree with that. In any other context, everyone behind me, everyone in this room would say that members of a committee, say our own school committee, are going to do what's best for the children. These 16 people are going to do what's best for the children of Minuteman. And really, a vote of yes is that Eileenton wants more control. Why does Eileenton want more control over Minuteman? Eileenton wants more control over Minuteman to not spend as much money on it. You've heard it many times. They're worried about how much we have to spend to keep Minuteman a great school. We don't want to do that. We want to keep Minuteman a great school and a great choice for people. And so what I'm saying is that the control to have more control is not going to be in the best interests of the students of Minuteman. The previous speeches mentioned changes over the last week. So this agreement is confusing. If it had been a different order, if we had said this is how much it's going to cost to rebuild Minuteman, and this is what the plan is, and Eileenton's firmly committed to that. Oh, and by the way, when this is done, we're going to change the agreement. I'd probably be saying something different up here tonight. But we don't know. If we change this agreement, my fear is that Eileenton will actually disadvantage Minuteman as a school. So let's just do a little gedunkin, a little thought experiment. If Eileenton took 100% control of Minuteman today, then it would be a competition between Minuteman and a competition between the Eileenton Public Schools. You know who would lose in that, and it would be Minuteman. And so a vote of yes really is saying that we want to somehow stop spending as much as it really costs to educate and make a great school of Minuteman. Finally, I want to talk about one person, one vote. I like that. I know that representation by population of voters is another way to do it. But what we're really talking about here is representation by how much dollars you spend. And just to give an analogy, I don't think anyone in this room would agree that if you pay twice as much property tax, that you should have two votes at the ballot next April. So I think it's a bad idea because what it does is it forces people to have the most say money-wise to do things that's not always in the best interest of the people who have less say money-wise. And finally, I'll just say for accountability, I think that I actually like the idea of having unbiased people who are involved in sort of a local politics, making decisions that have produced great outcomes for kids. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Ruderman. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Michael Ruderman, precinct nine. And for many of the reasons that have been given to you by certain other speakers already, I too support the agreement that has been worked on to this point. You'll hear a lot. It's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than we've got right now. Let me try to illustrate a couple of ways in which the present proposed agreement is better. The admission of new members is something that hasn't been talked about. Right now I can tell you, from the perspective of a parent of a tenth grader, that a number of her classmates come from out of district. And because they come from out of the 16-member district, they are limited in the major program, the shop, as you would call it at minimum, even though that term itself is somewhat dated. Shop can mean biotech, it can mean cosmetology, it can mean culinary, it can mean robotics and engineering. But you're limited in the shop that you can choose if you come from an out-of-district town. The theory is that if your city or town belongs to another regional tech district, you have to go to that regional tech to pursue that program if it's offered. So a kid from, for instance, Walfam can't go to Minuteman for certain shops that are already part of Walfam's home district. Some day the larger cities that surround the periphery of the Minuteman district are going to look at the number of kids that would like to go and can't and say, are we being better served by staying where we are or by listening to the examples of the kids who would like to vote with the considerable time and expense, time of getting there and expense of the bus system that the school offers to all the district towns and say, this is where we want to go, this is where we figure our best education is. The present compactor charter is nearly unworkable for the admission of new member towns and it doesn't say anything about how to admit a new city and that's a distinct possibility that could come in the future. As to the capital costs arrangement, it is shared or blended or mixed depending on how you want to characterize it. With complete understanding, Mr. Moderator, let me ask the question, could we get a little bit more information of what the handout before us means when it says the remainder of the capital cost computation considers, as I quote here, certain factors used in calculating Chapter 70, State Aid. I've seen them, they are complex, I can't speak to them in as much detail as some of the folks who are here tonight. So Mr. Moderator, would you put that question to our experts? Are there deductible equivalent or your financial superintendent? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. The new capital apportionment formula is based upon three factors. One of the factors is enrollment. As it currently accounts for 100% of the capital allocation in the new district agreement, enrollment accounts for 50% of the capital cost allocation. All 16 communities pay an equal 1% share. So that's 50 plus 16% is 66%. The remaining 34% is based upon what's referred to as an ability to pay. It's already calculated by the Department of Ed. It's not anything Minuteman calculates itself. And it's used in the Chapter 70 formula for the reimbursement of towns and for setting what's known as the minimum local contribution. Does that answer your question? Sir, does that answer your question? Just to elaborate one more point here. What would happen to, let's take for example, what would happen to Dover's contribution under this plan? And that's my last question. Can you fairly answer that? What would happen to Dover's contribution under the new plan? If I might just add one more, one of the portions of your previous question were what were the factors that go into the wealth calculation? It's calculated, that component is based upon Department of Revenue figures in regards to the income of individuals from the taxes paid and the property values. Dover in the new calculation pays a significantly higher amount of capital cost per pupil. Close to $30,000 to $35,000 in some of the examples that we were using. And for Dover, that optic is very difficult for them, as you might imagine. Is that it, Mr. Uderman? Thank you. Mr. Carmen? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dean Carmen, Precinct 20 and a member of the Finance Committee. I had one prepared speech, but then I decided to change my mind and I hand wrote a whole bunch of stuff in chicken scratch, so I apologize if it becomes, well, choppier and incoherent. This is the fourth year I've stood before this town meeting to discuss Minuteman. I started doing so when my Finance Committee colleague or former Finance Committee colleague, Mr. Dunn, who previously for the four or five years would stand up and discuss Minuteman, moved to the select event. Each year when I stand before this body, I have come to you with the same speech. It doesn't change much. I mention all of the things that we've talked about before. The speakers have talked about before, about the regional agreement and the problems and the issues in the schools and things like that. But what I've said to you each and every year is this is the moment we need to draw the line in the sand and extract the changes we need in exchange for rebuilding a school in the future. And if you remember, and I probably should have brought an old Finance Committee book with me, a few years ago we sent a strongly worded letter to the superintendent of schools with our demands. And our demands were simple. We said, as Ms. Romano pointed out, the school wasn't big enough. The enrollment didn't fit. The school was twice the size for the number of kids. So before we would sign off, we would need an enrollment study. Have we done an enrollment study, Dr. McQuillan? We have. He actually takes us seriously unlike his predecessor who used to, well, tell us he had the votes and we could go to hell. We also told the superintendent that we needed a new regional agreement because the new regional agreement, the regional agreement we're operating under, doesn't work. And so, as was noted, we had lots and lots and lots of meetings and we had great volunteers from Marlington who tried to help out and tried to craft a new agreement. And people are right. The original vote said 38% of the vote based on proportionate students would go to Arlington. So what happened? All of the small communities who we require a majority to vote said, well, we're not voting for this then. We would rather live under the old agreement than the new agreement. And so, Mr. Foskett, other town leaders said, well, we can't live under a system where we send 38% of the kids, but have 6.25% of the vote. So we need to have a compromise. And so the compromise was to go to this 19% voting, which, as Mr. Harrington pointed out, it's not a good thing if you're Arlington to have 38% of the vote. The small community said that. Mr. Harrington said that. I agree. That's why it's 19. The next thing we said is that any proposed school would also require enrollment to increase. We need to get more schools into the district. We need to increase the size of Minuteman. So they've gone out. Superintendent has actively solicited new communities to come into the district. And he gets one simple answer. No, your regional agreement is terrible. It's effectively this really horrible UN General Assembly, as Mr. Schlickman said, where a small community can just hold everything up. And so we need to change this. And so I urge you to vote to support this because it moves us forward to being able to stabilize Minuteman for the long term. It does not commit us to spending. It's one of these interesting things. When we first started down this path of pushing Minuteman, Mr. Foskett made a comment at one of our finance committee meetings that he felt that the resolve of the citizens of Arlington, the town meeting might start to wane as the years went by, and we might just sort of give in to a bad agreement. The comments always bothered me. And it's part of the reason I stand up every year because I thought to myself, wow, he's right. Maybe we will give in. Maybe we'll just get stuck with another Neswick-type terrible deal or we'll get stuck with a bad regional agreement. So we're working at it. We're continuing down the process of making the school better for our children, for the children of the district, responsible for the taxpayers of Arlington. The last thing I want to say is when you talk about 19 percent, we've talked about what we have 19 percent, and you would need one-third of the vote, the proportional vote to get a veto, and you'd say, well, why is the finance committee comfortable with that? How would we get to one-third of the percent? The way you get to a third is you have Arlington, the simplest of what path is Arlington, Belmont, and Lexington. Now, as I've said in this meeting before, if you follow the road less traveled because they don't pave their streets and you move into Belmont, and you watch the way that the Belmont Warrant Committee in the Belmont Town Meeting behaved towards Dr. Buquellen, you would realize that getting them to vote no on something would be a very easy task. And then if you venture over into historic Lexington and watch their behavior, you'd say, well, at least they're not as rude, disrespectful, and crazy as Belmont, but, you know, they're not much of a step up. And so... And so that's why this sort of works, in my opinion, is because under the current agreement, in order to stop anything on a two-thirds vote, we have to go town to town. And like Mr. Schlickman said, towns decide with us that don't send any kids and don't have an interest in agreeing with this. And so I urge you again to support this. It is not perfect. It is not everything we wanted. But that's a good thing because we shouldn't control 38% of the school. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Let's take our ten-minute break. It's 9.30. Come back in ten minutes.