 Good evening. I'm calling to order the meeting of the Allington Select Board for Monday, September 20th, 2021. This is Select Board Chair Steve D'Corsi. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mohan? Yes. John Hurd? Yes. Len Diggins? Yes. Eric Helmuth? Yes. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chapter Lane? Yes. Doug Heim? And Board Administrator Ashley Maher is participating remotely. Tonight's meeting of the Allington Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with an act signed into law on June 16, 2021, that extends certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency. The act includes an extension until April 1, 2022 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12, 2020, executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting line. The governor's order, which is referenced with agenda materials on the town's website for this meeting, allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely, so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Before we begin, permit me to offer a few notes. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom, is being recorded, and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. The participants participating by Zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. All participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment, and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Novus agenda platform. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. We have a short but important agenda this evening, so let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. I will turn to the next item on the agenda item two, our funding presentation. Before I turn it over to the town manager, we put the acronym in there for the funding for the agenda item. The upper, of course, is the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. It was signed into law back in March. As part of that act, there is about $350 billion that was granted to state and local governments, and as the town manager will explain, of that $350 billion, Collington will be receiving $35.2 million, subject to audit and subject to identifying uses that are consistent with the act and the rules. So with that, I will turn it over to the town manager. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I'd like to do is walk through a presentation that I provided at a virtual town forum several weeks ago, and then take the presentation down and answer any questions and certainly receive any feedback that the board has if that's okay with the board. So let me just share my screen. Okay. Whoops. All right, can everybody see that on the board. All right, thank you very much. So that was a great introduction, Mr. Chairman, to the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA as we call it to try to save some, save some syllables for the acronym. And as you put it, really an incredible funding source for municipalities across the country, and certainly a very meaningful funding source for Arlington, as it looks to recover from the pandemic. And within the allowable uses that are laid out in ARPA and then subsequent rules issued by the Department of Treasury at the federal level. We really do feel like we can have both the meaningful and lasting impact on Arlington and the community through the allocation of these funds. So what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about the timeline as, as we've laid it out, walk through the the actual areas from the statute that ARPA funds are eligible to be expended upon. Walk through the specific framework that we have developed, and then again, very interested in hearing your questions and feedback tonight. So I think as the board knows we opened up a comment period in early August for members of the public to submit comments on the framework that you will comment on tonight. On September 9, we conducted a virtual forum to be able to present again much of what you're going to hear tonight, as well as take comments and questions from the public. So that night we extended the comment period to September 19. So the public comment period actually closed yesterday. We had been planning on presenting to the board a week ago today on September 13. And you'll note I amended the date from what had been presented at the virtual town forum. And we're now here tonight presenting on September 20. I had proposed coming back to the select board for endorsement of something that was approaching a final framework on September 27. But given that today is September 20, 20th. I certainly wanted the opportunity to have the time to make updates based on what the board with the board's feedback comments and questions are tonight, and more time to incorporate feedback we've received from the public with the public comment period closing yesterday. So I'm proposing that instead of coming back a week from today that I come back at the board's next meeting, which is actually Wednesday, October 13 for what will be a request for select board endorsement. And I think right now is actually a good time to mention that, and I said this at the virtual town forum, because of the fact that we're still operating under what's called an interim final rule. We're still updates coming from Treasury. And frankly, we're not really even clear when a final rule on what on eligibility criteria or rules around ARPA will be issued. I think it's important that we can agree to an allocation methodology with some details as we'll talk about tonight for certain programming, but also understanding. It is almost a guarantee that we will make changes to those allocations through more public discussion. As we learn more about eligibility criteria as we learn more about the programs and what they might actually cost that are being proposed. I think we should all go into this understanding. This is a big sum of money, and we will likely not have something cemented in stone on October 13, but rather a framework that we in large agree to, and we can move forward and starting to actually develop some details around those programming while we gain a better understanding on eligibility as it comes from the federal government. So with that, I'll go through these pretty quickly. These are again directly from ARPA. These are the expenditure categories. And I have found it helpful to just, I hate to read slides but to read through these so we can get a common understanding of what the intention with the legislative intent of ARPA was. Which makes great sense given its nexus from the pandemic is supporting public health expenditures by among other uses funding COVID-19 mitigation efforts, medical expenses, behavioral health care, mental health and substance misuse treatment. And certain public health and safety personnel responding to the crisis. And I think you'll see when we get into the framework there are expenditures directly related to this section of the statute. The next section addressing negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including by rehiring public sector workers providing aid to households facing food, housing or other financial insecurity, offering small business assistance and extending support for industries hardest hit by the crisis. Again, makes a lot of sense based on the economic impacts of the pandemic. And again, I think you'll directly see areas of the framework that stem from this section of the statute. Next, aid the communities and populations hardest hit by the crisis, supporting an equitable recovery by addressing not only the immediate harms of the pandemic, but it's exacerbation of long standing public health, economic and educational disparities. Again, this one starts to be more of a forward looking aim of the statute. And I think you'll also see that within the framework we have several recommendations aimed at this portion of the statute. Next, providing premium pay for essential workers offering additional support to those who have born and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service during the pandemic. Again within the framework of very specific line item dedicated to premium pay stemming right from this section of the statute. And then finally, investing in water sewer and broadband infrastructure, improving access to clean drinking water, supporting vital wastewater and stormwater infrastructure and expanding access to broadband internet. Once again, you'll directly see as we get a dive into the framework are proposed investments stemming from this section of the statute. So with that, I'm feeling like Mr. Chair will pause for any questions the board might have about some of the baseline information before we dive in. Sure. Yeah, why don't we do that. And I'll just if there's a do it by show of hand rather than going right down the line if there's any questions on the framework if any members have if you could signal me. Otherwise we'll move on and it will be time for questions later. Okay. Oh, okay. I think everybody is okay. Is that a question. This is my hand or door. Okay. Sorry, I'm trying to do unmute and all that stuff. I do have comments regarding the premium pay. Is this the appropriate time to speak to that or should I wait. I think I would wait. I think this is more the time you're laid out the various categories if there's questions about those categories that will get into the specifics of the line items I think we can return to that. And when we get to that, I definitely have comments on the 1.5 million drastically low for premium pay. Okay. Mr. Helmeth. I have a question about the overall timeline. I apologize if this was covered, but could the town major clarify what the rules are the expected rules will be for how what the period of time is the town has to actually expend these funds and to what extent if any, but regardless of the category, can we reserve them for the purposes or do they have to be spent and if so when what period of time do we think that'll be. Thank you. Thank you for that. Mr. Helmeth and thank you, Mr. Chair. There's really two timeliness tests laid out in the statute. One is regarding allocation and the next is regarding actual expenditure of the funds. So you see actually laid here on the screen years one, two, three and four, your four stretches into calendar year 24, which I believe we have to allocate by July 31, 24, but can expend up until December 31, 26. So we have a fairly lengthy period of time to be able to spend the funds, but we need to make our allocation decisions and a slightly quicker fashion than the actual expenditures. Thank you. Of course. Thank you, Mr. Helmeth. Anybody else with questions, just on the framework. Okay. I can, why don't you go ahead Mr. Chaplin. Okay, thank you, Mr. Corsi. All right, so I'll walk through line by line. I won't dive in in too great a detail because I know the board has seen the memorandums that are available for some not all of these expenditure categories and if there isn't any backup information provided I'll explain why briefly. So the first category you see is designated as revenue loss general fund. This is a section that's a this is a recommended allocation source or allocation category here based on an allowance within ARPA within the statute for calculating revenue losses by the town and being able to use ARPA funds to recover from those revenue losses. And internal calculations are self, as well as hiring our outside audit firm that annually provides the town's financial audit to run calculations for our actual revenue loss with the base year being calendar year 2019. The first year allowed for comparison being 2020. You can then look at 21 and then 22. Now we are not our calculations do not demonstrate that we'll be able to claim revenue loss. The main reason for that is that the debt exclusion for the high school began in calendar year 2020. So we had a significant increase in tax revenue based on the high school project, but those monies can only be expended on the debt service or the borrowing associated with the high school. So we've been advocating with the Mass Municipal Association and the National League of Cities, our legislative delegation in Washington to try to get Treasury to issue an updated rule that will allow us to claim revenue loss. So this will be an area where there'll be more discussion in regards to whether or not we actually can allocate the funds to this line item. But I did want to keep this here for now, given the possibility that we would be able to use it to offset revenue losses in the future and provide some benefit to the town's general fund. Next, very clear category taken from the statute and the items I mentioned earlier, public health. There are investments being recommended by Director of Health and Human Services, Christine Borgiorno, and as enumerated in the memorandum provided to the board as well as made publicly available on the town's website. Next, we have premium pay. Again, that's very directly taken from the statute. And this is an allocation that would be focused on providing those town workers that had to perform their work in person, and therefore put themselves in harm way harms because of the virus to be able to be allocated premium pay for that service of those services that they delivered. Next, you see a category of mental health support with three categories. We have crisis intervention support, which is directly focused on assisting the Arlington Police Department with their social work response model. Next, we have the DC subsidy program helping the Arlington Youth Counseling Center, which is operated by the town within the Department of Health and Human Services in providing more mental health services to the youth of the community. And we have built in a mental health reserve. We heard before the virtual town forum, definitely during the virtual town forum and in comments that have continued to come in about the need to invest in mental health in the community. We heard in a reserve, though there isn't a detailed plan on how we would expend those funds available today, so that we could continue to study and analyze how we could best help using these funds to meet mental health and behavioral health needs in the community. All leading up to this, you can see the mental health support total in each individual year and carried out over the life of the framework. Low income broadband support. Again, directly tied to one of the categories or one of the allowances or eligibility areas within the statute. I've recently learned that a rule has been issued by, by the Treasury, that is saying that only places that do not currently have broadband can utilize ARPA funds for broadband. That is a long advocacy effort underway from cities across the country to change that rule. If that rule stands, we wouldn't be able to use those funds because almost every corner of Arlington has existing broadband. I'm hopeful that it will change so that we can partner with community partners, maybe specifically the Arlington Housing Authority on providing low income broadband support, but we'll keep watching that to see whether or not the eligibility changes. You see two corresponding categories, small business assistance and tenant assistance, once again directly related to eligibility criteria made, made possible by the statute. These are two areas where there are detailed number randoms provided by the Department of Planning and Community Development on how both of these programs would operate. I think as the board knows, the town was able to offer small business assistance and tenant assistance throughout a great portion of the pandemic through community development block grant or CDBG funds that I know several members of the board were part of those discussions. These funds would continue that but also expand the eligibility for both businesses and tenants that could benefit from these funds. And from the applications we received from the prior community development block grant monies, we have a strong sense that there is a lot of need in the community for these funds. We have heard and I haven't made any changes should have actually said I haven't made any changes to this save one I'll mention at the end sense the virtual town forum, because I really wanted to hear from the board before I started making edits after the public comment period. But I will say we have heard loud and clear from the arts community about a desire to be able to be eligible for small business assistance. The current, we currently contemplate that they would be eligible for small business assistance. But based on what we've heard from the public and depending on board feedback tonight, we very well may come back in October with a specific line item for assisting the arts community. For small business assistance intended assistance. We move into addressing food insecurity. Again, directly addressed within the sections of the statute that I referenced earlier. I've reached out to both the leadership of food link and Arlington eats and the figures that you see in the spreadsheet before you are based on proposals that they have submitted to me. Over the course of the next four year period. We believe both would be eligible, but we're going to continue to work with both programs to learn a little bit more about what their needs are and make sure that we're maximizing what they need to be successful in serving and reducing food security or providing food security within Arlington. We're going to go to the next half of the spreadsheet. So the next line you see our HVAC improvements, heating ventilation air conditioning improvements. This is not necessarily something that seems clear from the HVAC excuse me from the stat statutory criteria that I mentioned earlier, but certainly within the interim final rule investments in HVAC systems in public facilities is an allowable expenditure. We have many HVAC improvement needs, some of which that are already contained in the capital plan of the town some are have not made it into the capital plan yet. And we're launching this fall of building electrification study to help with our net zero goals. And our hope is that we'd be able to allocate some are all of these funds towards making improvements across really our entire building fleet. Next, you see investment and the spelling of investment investment in parks and open spaces. This one again, not clearly mentioned in the statutory criteria, but through a Q&A or an FAQ issued by Treasury, we learned that almost certainly updates or maintenance and upkeep of playgrounds and parks will be allowable expenditure, as well as possibly reconstruction or maintenance of playground structures. So I have put a pretty significant amount of money in here for that investment. I think as this board knows every year within our capital plan and within the Community Preservation Act. We invest a significant amount of money in our parks and open spaces and playgrounds, but because of how many we have in town and the use of them which is all which are all good things. I think we're going to be able to move up being able to make this investment would really have a tremendous impact not only on the quality of life of people in town, but also on the town's capital plan which would provide either relief and or more flexibility for the town's general fund budget. Next, I should say that that's this is another category that we're going to continue to work and analyze and really try to get a final determination and whether or not it will be eligible. So we're in sewer spending, again clearly tied to the last criteria within the statute. This is the singular biggest category you see in this framework. It is certainly backed up by the needs, the need to invest in the infrastructure. Mike Rademacher provided a pretty detailed memo of all of the areas that he would like to see investments made. Simply water main and sewer pipe reconstruction or replacement. Some relates to pump stations. Some of these investments would relate to water meter replacements, some would relate to landline, let service line removal. Some would relate to inflow and infiltration, really trying to get at all of the needs within our water sewer water and sewer system. So we could have a really impactful, really big impact I should say on ratepayers in town. I can't sit here tonight and say it could reduce water and sewer rates. But I think I could confidently say it would go a long way to mitigating future rate increases not eliminating but mitigating future future rate increases. So we think this is a very important investment to consider as we go forward. Next, another big category, affordable housing with we have five subcategories under affordable housing directly tied to reducing historical inequities. As mentioned in reference in the statute. We have a capital request from the Arlington Housing Authority for replacement of windows at monotony manner, and that makes up the cumulative $2.5 million in years one and two in this plan. We have a request from the Arlington Housing Authority for the purchase of a new van to bring residents to medical appointments and grocery trips and other needs they need to have met. That's that $35,000 amount. The Arlington Housing Authority is requesting support for funding a resident support services program or staff position and you can see that $46,000 amount carried over the life of the plant. Next, moving away from the housing authority, you can see we have projected or put a placeholder in for funds for affordable unit housing production affordable housing unit production excuse me, totaling $3 million over the life of the plan. What we would likely go to is either potentially grant awards to a group like the housing corporation of Arlington, or potentially take the shape of a deposit into our affordable housing trust fund that's recently been created. I think there's still timeliness concerns that we need to work through that will determine whether or not we could make a deposit into the affordable housing trust one. But if timeliness concerns could be could be dealt with I think that would be a potentially great source for where some of these ARPA funds could go to be able to address affordable housing needs. And the final category under affordable housing is labeled as deepening affordability of units in the pipeline. What I mean by that is looking at affordable units that are already permitted to be constructed and determine whether or not through a cash payment. We could reduce some of those units from, let's say 80% AMI eligibility down to 60% AMI eligibility, or lower, lower basically the income thresholds of who would access those units, which would be, again, deepening the affordability of the units in the pipeline. Much work still to be done to determine whether or not this is a viable or feasible area, but internally we believe this could have a big impact on improving access to affordable units in Arlington. Next, a line item directly labeled homelessness. I think as this board knows, we've done great work as a town over the past several years with the Arlington Police Department, Arlington Health and Human Services, partnering with the Arlington Coalition, support also from the Department of Planning and Community Development to really work with homeless populations in Arlington. Unfortunately, we've struggled and the whole region has struggled to come up with a real coherent regional approach to dealing with homelessness. And what we're hoping is that we can be part of a regional effort and we've started to already make some inroads and conducted outreach to our neighboring communities to determine what type of regional approach to homelessness might be able to be put together through these ARPA funds, knowing that many of our neighbors who also struggle with homelessness have significant ARPA funds that they might be able to contribute towards this effort as well. This is administration and oversight. What you see here is funding for what would be ultimately a temporary staff position to manage the administration and oversight of these funds, as well as putting aside just a little bit of extra money for potential consultancy with our outside auditors who would need to audit these funds in a year in and year out basis. We could have put aside more money than the remaining years because we wanted to make sure we had enough for any initial audit engagements that we would need to establish our expenditure planning. And then in the out years, we've put in a sum of money that would certainly cover both salary benefits and any outside auditing costs we might incur for administration and oversight. And then finally, the reserve line is the only change that I've made to this since the virtual town forum. We learned as was pointed out to us by one of the attendees at the virtual town forum that the county allocation that the town is receiving via ARPA had actually been changed. So we had been using a rough an approximate $34 million figure. And as chair decorcy mentioned at the start of this, our actual figure is $35,247,893. So we set aside the balance between the $34 million and the actual $35.2 million in a reserve for discussion about where that could be allocated in the future. So with that, just to recap, as the board knows we opened a comment period in August. Close that in September 19 conducted a virtual forum on September 9. We're here tonight on September 20 for the sled boards review comments and feedback. And then the plan would be to come back before the board on October 13 to seek endorsement of this framework of a path forward for the expenditure of these ARPA funds. So with that, I think, I think I'll stop sharing that sound right to you Mr chair and then answer questions as appropriate. Yeah, and I think what it may be helpful as we go along, I'll wait till members questions come up, maybe to put the table that has the amounts in it, just so we can go back and forth but let's let's wait and see what members have for questions. So I'll turn to the board now. We will offer public comments. After board questions tonight on this or public questions or comments. And I will start with Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some comments, but first I have a question through the chair to the town manager. I know you've held these forums. Have you met with any of the unions as you said you would do back in August. I have met in discussed with one union in particular. And I've had, I wouldn't say they were meetings but discussions with another union, and there's more meetings that we will need to have with unions on these on these matters. Okay, so you haven't gotten really feedback from the, or solicited it. Well, I, all of them know, so I would say some of them yes some of them I think I've heard their feedback loud and clear in regards to these expenditures. Okay, I'm just noting you said you have spoken with one union. Can you share with me who that is. Yes, I'll be asked me. I'm sorry. Ask me. Okay. I just want to say, and I'm hoping I can get enough of my colleagues to support this. One of the main tenants of opera funds has been to compensate our essential workers who worked in 2019. 2020. Now 2021. Basically being, you know, people on the street that can't do work from home. You know, and I had conversations with the manager and a meeting with Karen Malloy about hybrid work, working from home, which I'm in support of, because it can be done, because I've been doing it, it can be tracked. So what I said to the manager and Karen Malloy is I would hope that the ease of working from home, the hybrid model model. I mean that basically went in. It's available to everyone. You can't sit in your driveway in a bucket truck and provide services to the town. You can't sit in your living room and provide police response to the town or EMS or fire services. So my personal feeling is, if that was a benefit that we very easily transitioned into non union workers, if it was available to union workers that probably would have been more pushback. And my only thing has been to the manager and Karen Malloy that we treat our union workers the same as we do our non union workers, whatever we can do, especially in light of what they've been through. I know we've had union workers that were concerned about their loved ones that asked the town if they could pay for housing, because they didn't feel safe going home in the town said no. And I understand that because they didn't have the money. I know union workers that pitch 10 in the yard and pay for hotel arrangements so they didn't have to go home and affect their newborns. Their loved ones with cancer or immunos pressed and part of the opera money is to address that sacrifice that they gave. And I know that, you know, the board voted to put a banner across Mass Ave. We got two pieces of wood from Home Depot allows and got decals from like Paw Patrol I don't even understand what it is. But my thing is now with opera money, after a money. This is where we can say, we're going to back up that we support essential workers and I'm very insulted that there's only 1.5 million in there. And if we did the math under the US Treasury guidelines, which I have reviewed and I've discussed with the manager and others. Just one of my colleagues because I didn't want to violate the form rule. If we gave them the math. If I look at the money as proposed by the town manager is just one year of 1.5 million and nothing else after that. To me that's an insult. We gave our union essential workers that we've all been going on and on about, oh, you're so great and we, you know, wish we could, you know, do something for you and so invaluable. This is how we can do it. If we if we gave them the math. It would be about 14 to 15% of these money. For 2019 2020 and 2021, about 6,000 to 6500 a year. We give our town manager a $24,000 a year housing allowance to live in. I think the union workers are really being treated unfairly. And to me, kind of an insult and not backing up what we say that one of the three tenants that the president when he talks about these funding, this funding, this 10 categories, but the top three. The first and second thing he speaks to is providing compensation to our essential worker. This is our opportunity to do it. To give them the match. I know I've had conversations with the manager talking about maximizing the most we can give to them to me 1.5 million one year allocation only is such an insult. And I would not support anything that the manager poses, if that's what's in there. So what I would say to my colleagues is one of the first things we should do. These monies were set out for not for reserve funds, not for administrative. Can I get that $150,000 a year job. I would like to get it only get 3,000 a year. You know, we need to. This is our opportunity to give back to our essential workers who are putting their lives. And I don't mean to sound like a mellow dramatic, but I really believe that they're putting their lives and their families live on the line. When our other employees who can work from home and get additional stipends and receive that money. Why are we not giving it back to them. So I'm really upset. I'm not going to go into any of the other categories. I could say where, you know, where money could come from. I understand this. You know, 150 to $200,000 a year for homelessness. I've worked with. I like to please and the sum of the homeless coalition. They need 30 to 50,000 a year. But we're giving them 150. I mean, I could find places where we could be able to give as close to, in my opinion, the max to essential workers. I think that needs to be something we need to address offhand. And I'm really upset with the managers put before us. In my opinion, a pittance 1.5 million 1 year only every other category as beyond 1 year. If you look at it, and I know my colleagues have look at the spreadsheet before it. And that's an insult. And my last thing I would say, which is what I said to the manager and when I met with Karen Malloy. Why can't we treat our union workers of police hire public works with the same compassion and expediency as we do with our non union employees. As we do with stipends that we give them as we do with. You can work from home. But we can track it. So I'm hoping that I can get at least two of my colleagues to agree with me that the pittance of 1.5 million in 1 year for all of our union employees. That went out and risks. Honestly, most of them don't care about their lives, but they care about their loved ones lives, which they did risk, which they did incur money for not going back to the homes for fear of when colon first came out, nobody really knew anything about it. So they rented hotel rooms, they slept in tents in the odds. The town said, see you later, we can't help you. I'm hoping at least two of my colleagues agree with me to ask the manager to go back and look at that as well as direct the manager. I know he's been hesitant to talk about compensation for essential workers because of the noise that he anticipate people here. But just like I do with my colleagues do, we need to stand up for all of our town workers. And I just don't see here and I'm very upset. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And I will say I'm not going to address that specifically. Well, Mr. chapter one, would you like to. I simply wanted to acknowledge hearing everything that Mrs. Mahan just shared. I would I do want to point out though, it's only contained in the first year because the statute only allows for the expenditures in the first year. If there were opportunities for extension of those benefits I'd certainly be open to that but no certainly no insult was intended it's just following the rules as they've been laid out by the federal government. Thank you, Mr. chapter line and I'm going to turn it to other members one thing I will say and I think for all of these line items from from what I heard from the manager at the beginning is is this is the initial framework, all of the amounts of subject to and revision as we move forward and I will say that we're in an environment right now where back in May, May 17 to be exact the Treasury issued an interim final rule on guidance for how these funds should be spent and there's a lot of requirements in there and I think it's it's we're still in a stage where we're seeking clarification on the manager and town council are seeking clarification and we'd like to hear back from them but for each of the what I would call the four overall categories and I'll get into this a little bit later when we talk about the that the various categories of expense but there there's guidance that is not finally yet. That puts limitations in terms of what can be done how it can be spent and what subject to audit, and I'd look to the town manager and town council to go through that carefully, come back to us in terms of what can be applied within those constraints but let's turn it over to other members and we can have a further discussion on this as we go forward. I'll turn now to Mr. heard. Thank you. You're with me for a minute so my questions are all written all over my page here. So I do want to address premium pays well. And I think Mrs. Han was well said and just, you know, not on the same page on the, the number and the desire to maximize the benefit for our town workers. I had, I thank Mrs. Han for her research. I had a question as to where that number came from, whether or not it was the maximum allowable expense what the maximum allowable would be. And where we came up with the 1.5 million. So the maximum allowable for any premium pay for any essential worker whether it be town or private is not to exceed $25,000. So that if we multiplied what we estimate would be eligible workers for town workers for the max the $25,000 payment. That would be probably between five and $7 million. What we did with that $1.5 million figure is, is I don't know if Ms. Hans raising her hand sheet. Why don't you finish and then we can go around later on that Mr. chapter going. Okay, thank you. What we did was estimate what a one time premium pay bonus payment might be for those we deem eligible or we think would be eligible under the statute. It's partially eligible to some employees who worked in person, some of the time and not entirely in person and multiplied it by the amount of people that we think would be eligible. Right now we just, again, reiterate that for those listening and for this board and Tom Andrew that, you know, during the whole pandemic if we look back and we seem now we're back out and above but during the high of the pandemic I did have a lot of conversations with our firefighters, our police department, dpw workers, and there was one that stuck out to me pretty clearly in the office won't use names but it was a firefighter whose wife was pregnant at the time, and was really. He was just he didn't know what he should do he wanted to be there for his wife, but he also had to work. Because the call well not not only were they working in person, this was since no one else was on on the road. No one there wasn't stores weren't open. The call outs were responses to people that had code. So, there would be five firefighters and three police officers had to go into somebody's house that had code, and you know, give them medical assistance and facilitate that transfer to the medical facilities so it was want was worth it so I just think to illustrate that is this isn't just a bonus this is a bonus for people that were out facing this incredible disease is incredible virus, while we were all home in locked in our doors and getting our food delivered groceries with Clorox bleach they were out face to face with the virus so it's certainly warranted. So I would like to have just and you know I know again this is a framework for discussion needs these figures being laid up before us. So we can get our feedback, but I certainly will be interested in in looking at increasing that premium pay for our essential workers into the amount that in. Again, I'm not going to say what that amount is, but I think it is certainly a worthy cause and it's worth. And that's one expenditure that's really important is to repay our workers for what they did during this incredible it continues today it's not over like they're still face to face with COVID patients and even though we're all vaccinated we know that not it that this breakthrough cases and there's still risks out there and we're all taking a risk and I think that needs to be a real consideration. And you did answer my other question about so by statute as of right now we can only do it in the first year that's why it's only listed in the first year. Yes, that's my understanding and I, I think you know that could partially be because the statute passed at a time and we thought the pandemic was ending. And you know where we are today I don't think was necessarily projected back in March April May of this year. So I don't know whether updates will be made but certainly, you know, see whether or not there's any movement on the federal level in that regard. And I had moving on if a comment about the revenue loss which is just, I really hope that we can get that change but it seems insanity that we have this catch 22 where we can't recover revenue. We have specific revenue loss that we can attribute to the pandemic and we can't because we had a debt exclusion which is just absurd. So, you know, I, so I know there's better men and women than me that are advocating for that change but I certainly offer any services I can have to contact any state or local officials that we need to, because that is really essential we've been ever since we've seen these funds and we are impending override in the next few years it's something that we need to take a look at and if we can't fill that gap it's going to be huge hits at the time. And so, specifically on that item in the event that we can't do, we can't use that for revenue loss. We have, I assume we'll have $5 million that we can reallocate amongst these categories. Yeah, that is accurate. Okay. Let me see those. Then on the HVAC, quite, I know that's broadly across our town buildings. Can that be used for schools since town technically owns. I know that's something I think most of the schools are now equipped with HVAC but I believe there's still a few schools that are left over and I do hear a lot of complaints from school check parents about HVAC and you know with the climate crisis right now. School in June and September is uncomfortable so that I certainly would like to first allocate any HVAC funds that we have to make sure that all the schools have sufficient air conditioning so the kids don't have to sit in the heat in those warmer months so just put I know it will go across the whole fleet of buildings but I just did want to say that. And again I'm happy to hear the open space plan is specifically geared towards the playgrounds. I've gotten a few calls in the past weeks, as I'm sure others have about playgrounds that were suddenly shut down and decommissioned do the state audit so I think we have plenty of plenty of opportunities to invest in our playgrounds for our school children so I wouldn't prioritize that in that particular category. And then, if we just regarding the reserves. So we have an amount that's listed for reserves. What happens if we put money in reserve and we don't end up using it. Do we have a way to expand that. I think what I would say is we would want to reallocate it before the end of the allocation period. Yeah, so we should we shouldn't keep it in reserve forever. Yeah, so this is a rolling process where we can for the four year period we can out we can change how we allocate the funds as long as it falls within the guidance that's provided to us. And with that, I would just say generally, it's, you know, I think we have some a little work to do to rework some of these figures but it's good to finally see some hard numbers and see what we can spend the money on. Because before this 35 million was sort of an arbitrary number they almost felt imaginary like oh they're just going to tell us we have 35 and then they're going to give us these guidelines that you can only spend 22 of it. And just to make the federal government seem like they they're trying to help us out more than they actually are but the fact I want to thank everyone's put work into this to go through the guidelines to allocate the funds and to try to make this reality. It's an exciting time and I think we can really do some good to recuperate some of the losses that people have had during COVID but it also transition to some of the major goals that we've had in this town for a long time particularly and affordable housing, but at the back end of this four years, as far as affordable housing, we're going to be a much better position than we were four years ago, and that's an exciting time for our LinkedIn. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I'm all about the questions, more than statements. And so my question first question you, Mr. Chair is a, I have a bunch of questions. But I would be happy to ask some of them later on so after we hear from our residents me will we will ask more questions. Okay. Yeah, I mean if you want to ask if you now go right ahead and we can. Yeah, I'll ask half of them now and then I'll save the other half later on. So, my consideration to coming up with a scoring mechanism for applications be so that maybe I make, I know for the first year it might be a little difficult to do that in a timely way, but for me the subsequent years me so that we based on our goals which we as a board can discuss and in conjunction with input from our residents we have a way of as objectively as possible scoring the applications that come in so that it isn't a matter of the loudest voices in getting what they want me that because we do that at the MPO the Metropolitan Planning Organization, and it's a complex scheme we spent a lot of time working on it but it really helps in evaluating projects that come in especially those that we have some synergies I mean so if we haven't thought about that I'll suggest that we do. And like I said, it may not be something we can do in this first year, but it's something that we could maybe implement in the second and third years. So, that was, I guess, a question in the for a statement of the formal question. So, has there any consideration that Mr. manager need three Mr chair. So we have had some internal thought about that and we have the model that we use for community development block grant funding that has a scoring system that was initiated two or three budget seasons ago. I think we have to talk through what exactly how we would apply the scoring. Given the disparate categories, you know just thinking out loud, you know, would we score water and sewer how would you know how do you score water and sewer as compared to homelessness prevention or how do you score water HVAC improvements as opposed to investments in affordable housing so we'd have to think about how to modify it in a section that has cross cutting eligibility, you know across various like pretty again disparate categories, but I think we can, if the boards well as such that we develop something like that I think it's something that we could Yeah, and sometimes what you have to do to lead is just score within categories to so if you have multiple applications in a product is in a category that it gives you an objective way of choosing amongst them instead of it being a situation where we either be someone we like me is advocating for it or people that we know me versus someone that we don't know me I think it's just a way of being a little more objective being in terms of how we select the project so I'm glad to hear that there's been a little bit of on that. So, second respect to supporting artists being this is where the story might come into play because we can support artists, we can support housing, but if there were a plan that supported housing artists and housing it'd be like well, almost a bingo. And so I think we'd like to encourage me. Applications or ideas that that would do both help artists who need housing, you know, so. And so along those lines I was. Yeah, I just put that out I guess that's once again more of a statement but I guess more of a suggestion that we tried to find some synergies and when it comes to helping artists which I'm all for it'd be really great if we could help artists with respect to housing. You know, and so that's the second point. So, respect to food insecurity with within Arlington. That's some. That's an interesting one, because I really support the work done by food link being and and Arlington eats being and I guess to a certain extent we're not really clear how much more insecurity there is but we do know there is, we know there is being in the region. And I think there's a lot of potential there, but for us to be helped with insecurity the cross the region while also making sure that we increase the. I think I might have spoken that we take care of the food needs across the region being and also find. Make sure that there is less insecurity here because I think sometimes it's hard to really find that insecurity because people are often I think reluctant to reveal that so I like to see with the monies that we give to those who entities effort on a greater effort on that. And so the last of mine for now. Water rate, the, the sewer and water and sewer. Yeah, I really appreciate the fact that it can help reduce water rates. And so I have one, a couple of questions one is is. I imagine that lower income people are more affected by the, the water rates then, then higher income people there's no like discount program, anything for low income people with respect to housing, I mean with respect to water. The board did adopt a year and a half ago two years ago a senior low income water rate programs so it doesn't wouldn't benefit all low income people in the community but seniors would qualify. Right. So, it might be possible for us to also do a water conservation program being in this context to I mean like still do the water sewer but also come up with a program to help people conserve water. Would that fit into this. I would imagine it would. And I think that's something I can bring back to to DPW and see what they might look like. I, that's it for now I might have three more later on thank you. Thank you Mr Diggins and before I turn it to Mr helmet just one thing you would asked about food insecurity and this might be more. I'm not going to call it anecdotal but in the island can each had sent us a letter and in their request for funding and they did say that they're serving a third of the number of residents who are at risk of being food insecure and I think they had increased the number of families from 165 families pre pandemic to 250 families per week and then they went on to say that that's serving only about a third of the number that were at risk of being food insecure and again it's not all of the data that isn't precise in terms of what that that that number is but it wasn't in that letter. Um, before again, before I turn it this time with Mr heard you would put your hand up in the middle of Mr. Diggins is question I don't know if you had something I didn't know it be relevant to the question he had and then I'll turn it to Mr. Yeah, sorry, I'll be brief I was just gonna say, as far as the numbering system for, we have for community development block grant but under CBG, the very specific categories so we might get 11 requests and eight of them are all part of a very specific category so that's why we have to number them. So it is, like the manager said it's difficult in, and where these requests don't go to a general category that we have a limit. So we'll have a limit on affordable housing with CBG will have a limit on other categories. So that's why we have to number them it would be difficult to just put it out. You know, how do you, like he said, put a number on homelessness and affordable housing versus water rates, but it's a it's a it's a little more difficult I think in this framework. That's all in that I was going to address the food insecurity, but I think Mr chair took care of that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Helmuth. Yeah, thank you and no problem as far as I'm concerned the more time I have to listen to my more senior colleagues the better so I'm, I'm glad for those those additions. I have a few questions I'm really curious what the public thinks as well I do want to say I really appreciate this framework I know that it's preliminary. I know that we don't know the final rules, and that's hard. I know that there are competing worthy priorities. And, you know, I'm glad to hear my colleagues thoughts about those tonight to, but I want to thank the town manager for the thought that has gone into this. And this requires a lot of forward thinking as well and I think that's the spirit of the legislation in a lot of ways is to really think about our vulnerable community members. And, you know, and from a number of angles this this, I think has some real meaning for for those kinds of investments so you know I think that this discussion is healthy. We will fine tune it. I'm certainly open to such as to doing that I think that's what's going to happen anyway. But just just a kudos because I think that it's, it seems like a lot of money until you realize that it really isn't because the need is so big and that constraints are so so severe so you know I think that you know I appreciate the work that's gone into it so far, and then fairness that doesn't make sense. Just a few questions on that on the HVAC. To what extent of any does this contemplate making the kind of ventilation improvements that might really improve air exchanges per hour or or institute the kind of filtration that could, could they could deal with vital particles and I'm far from an expert on this but I am thinking that this is not going to be the last pandemic. And so, you know, I know that those kinds of changes are pretty expensive, but you know is that something that could be on the menu or if you look into this at all for for those kinds of improvements in town buildings. What I'm understanding is that that is the exact type of investment that the statute contemplates is is improving the indoor air quality of all types of buildings including municipal and school buildings. So I think, you know, every building will have a different strategy and solution, but I think making investments as appropriate as you've described are, you know, completely eligible under this funding source. Yeah, and of course we have a brand new high school building that will be very up to date on those standards which is which is great to protect our kids there. Have you tried to do an analysis or do you plan to do an analysis of what the potential need is for particularly some of the older buildings with, and just to evaluate, is this enough money, and to do what we have the opportunity to do. So I think the facilities department has a pretty good handle on what the need is, I haven't seen or asked for yet a number associated with various air quality improvements or ventilation improvements across the fleet. But I think from everything they learned over the course of the past 18 months in making, you know, some permanent some temporary improvements to the air quality or the HVAC units throughout the building fleet. I think they have a pretty good, pretty good sense of what those investments could be and could put together. I mean, let me say it a different way, I think we could figure out a way to spend that $2.7 million very quickly, and very effectively. And, you know, we probably will have to have discussions about whether or not any potentially excess funding, you know, goes to a category like that. Yeah, great. Yeah, I would encourage us to just keep an eye on that because just thinking about the future that we it would certainly be a benefit to be able to really safeguard the building the air quality as best we can. You know, we learned with COVID that the airborne nature of it was not known was not apparent to science at the beginning but we really learned that that's that's that's really huge with it so this will probably not be the last pathogen to which that applies. I also want to echo Mr. Heard's appreciation of the Parks and Playgrounds investment and I just want to add to that that, you know, in addition to just the out and out safety issues there that the Parks and Playgrounds are having an important public health purpose. With respect to pandemic and we saw this, you know, early on, and continue to see this that providing good safe recreation spaces in our athletic fields parks playgrounds, you know, all those the need is huge I know this from my past role with CPA money that we are just treading water there and it would be great to be able to catch up and not have to fund playgrounds when they get when they get when they stuff breaks and is no longer safe so not to wait that long would be wonderful so thank you for that. You know, likewise I think the investments in housing are really, really appealing. We often have said, I think all of us and mean it that we really care about investing in affordable housing. And it's very difficult with the affordable housing trust which is a great new vehicle. It's, it's hard to make get that ball rolling into actually spend the money it's always harder right but I think this is another opportunity so I'm really glad to see that in there and I might look at the housing category as one of those overflow places where if we have, if we are regrettably not able to do general fund relief which I very much hope we can. And thank you for those efforts. You know that might be another area where we could contemplate, you know, potentially some some increasing as well as as well as the food insecurity and I would. I think we took the words out of my mouth with food like you know their their service went through the roof during the during the pandemic and that need is not faded. And there's there's much more that we can do so, again, the theme of helping almost vulnerable. I think, you know, there's a lot to like here and a lot of opportunity there as well. I would ask and I don't want answers for this now but just to give you an idea how I'm thinking you know is that I appreciate my two colleagues comments about premium pay, and I want to know more about that. I'd like I think for me to understand this I would in another setting and this could be you know offline or another meeting I'd like to understand how we got to where we got with the current proposed amount in the framework, what that represents sort of per person. And, and, and I just need to learn more about what the statutory intent, you know, for for that is with and maybe we helpful to have an understanding of sort of per employee average you know what this looks like then versus the max. And just kind of what the thinking went into that I want to you know I want to be sure that that the town manager has a chance to explain that. And I, you know I appreciate the town manager's openness to listening as well if the board feels like we want to, we want to boost that I just feel like I need to understand more about the details and about how we got there, you know where we could get. I might be interested frankly in understanding how other municipalities are addressing premium pay. But what they do, they may not be giving enough either I don't know so that don't misunderstand my words, but I think it's always useful to see what other communities are doing so that we can learn from that and we maybe would conclude that we need to do more than they're doing. You know, we find out we are you know I again I don't know. But these are some of the questions I have I'm open to you know anything at this point open to the wisdom of the community to my colleagues but I don't know how those specifics would help me develop a position on that as well. And so I'm still listening on that issue. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Okay, and I'm going to open up to the public in just a moment just a couple of comments that I have before we get there I want to say after the public speaks but in terms of the various categories and one thing I talked about with the town manager about this earlier. There's essentially four categories or one of the categories has a party and Part B, which is respond to the health public health emergency, or it's negative economic impacts premium pay as a separate category revenue losses a separate category and infrastructure improvements actually has two parts water and sewer and broadband. And what I'd like to see from a future table from the from the town manager if it's possible is to break out these categories within each of the four so we we identify and that may help in some areas in terms of scoring things by certainly support using funds for all four. And another thing I would like to hear from the town manager not this evening but going forward is who is being identified as as an essential worker and to the extent that you've done an analysis already in terms of any limitations contained in the interim final rule. I think it would help be helpful for us and for the community to know what those limitations are if any. We know that the interim final rule came out in May 17 it's 40 pages long. It covers each one of the areas and I think we've looked at the statute the statute clearly provides for premium pay for essential workers, but there are other limitations that have come out. And I think I think it would be important to to get that out there on the table but also be important for us to know what workers you've identified as essential workers in terms of developing the amount as well. So, with that, I am through a show of hands we have some participants. Perhaps we can take some public comment and then come back for any comments for the board before I do that did you want to say anything in response to that Mr chapter later. No, no, I've just been taking taking notes. And I think all those requests are very reasonable. Okay, alright so so if, again on on our per funding American rescue plan act. If there's anybody who wishes to be heard, why don't we start on on the list there. First hand is Steve Moore. Okay. Good evening Mr more. Yes, thank you Mr chairman I'm sorry, took a while for everything to load up. Steve war people on street I'd like to thank the time manager for providing the broad framework with many many competing interests because that is what we need to do with funds that are provided to round some of the hard edges of the town's budget program I have to say though I was disheartened by by some of Ms Mahan's comments, which I will charitably called distinguishing characteristics about the various groups and towns and interests related to these funds. I have to say drawing. Distinction isn't drawing lines between essential workers and non essential union and non union highly paid and not highly paid workers in town. I don't think is helping the issues that that we have. The question is, unfortunately, rather cruel deal and one one sided I think with this unexpected funding we need to make sure that we cover a lot of interests, not just one particular narrow relatively narrow set of interests, and I just was was disheartened to hear those comments thank you Mr chairman. Thank you Mr more. My name is Beth lock. All right. Everyone I'm sorry, I hope you. I hope you can hear me. Great. I'm toggling back and I mean phone and computer so my name is Beth lock I'm the executive director of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, and joining tonight's meeting just to sort of catch up on. I'm pleased to attend earlier meetings. I'm pleased to see the allocation towards business. And, but I noticed that there hasn't been much discussion from the board on those particular on the line item allocated to business so I would like to advocate for business and say, you know as we get further down the line. I think, you know, it's important that everyone understand that this community has been very adversely affected by the pandemic, and that the quality of our businesses and the livelihood of our businesses. The quality of our main street is important to the town, as much as many of these other items that are being discussed so Wednesday morning at 10am the chamber is hosting a state of a town event. Mr. Mr chapter lane and Mr decorcy will be joining us as well as the folks from the community and planning development department. And I just, I just would like you all to keep the business community top of mind, as you as you continue to make these decisions. Thank you. Thank you Ms luck and speaking from Mr chapter lane we are looking forward to the state of the town meeting with the chamber and certainly to talk about some ideas and and receive input from the chamber members as well that day. We're looking forward to it to thank you. Thank you. Robert Dustin is next. Good evening Mr Dustin. Good evening. Thank you for having me. But those of you don't know me I'm a president of local 1297 the firefighters union. I appreciate you hearing me out tonight. So just really quickly on the essential workers pay. Everyone at the fire department has, you know, shown up. I wouldn't say no one's complained, but we've gone on done our job every day, every call. You know, as everything changed, and it was very scary in the beginning, still scary but less so now wasn't one time a guy refused to go into a house, help someone. People with COVID people unknown. As miss Mahan said, you know, we had guys who have wives who are pregnant at the time. Young children at home. I still have young unvaccinated children who are aren't eligible currently. We still go do it. We still will go to a job. And some of that money was specifically your mark for us for us by the president, and I understand you've made a line item for that. We were also told you're going to negotiate it with us. And you set the limit on the money already, which doesn't seem like you plan to negotiate with us it seems more like you plan to just give us an amount that you thought was appropriate. So we're asking today that you raise the amount of the line item, not necessarily to give it to us all, but to reflect the fact that through discussion, it's possible to get it. We just don't want to see it closed off before we have a chance to discuss it. And that's all thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Dustin. The next name is Beth Malafchik. Malafchik. Russell Street, I apologize for my dog that has COPD. I would like to thank Ms. Mahan for prioritizing the first responders and I would like to thank and applaud Mr. Dustin for speaking out on. I think what's really important issue and that is that those first responders and specifically the firemen who knew very little about this disease except that it was deadly showed up for their job and did their job and as a resident really, really thankful for that. Thankful for Ms. Mahan's continued advocacy for these essential workers and very important professions in town without which the community would find it really hard to exist. And I would like teachers in there maybe I'm missing something and I admit that I'm not that knowledgeable on ARPA maybe they're covered somewhere else. But I think that the teachers faced a lot in the very beginning. And so that perhaps some part of the reserve if you haven't already got something for teachers. I think that's essential they had to like create something at a nothing when when this whole thing came down and school was closed and online and there on that one. I'd like to thank Ms. Mahan for confirming that is a $24,000 benefit that the town manager receives for living in Arlington and I'd just like to add that I believe you no longer lives in Arlington. So I'd ask Ms. Molloff just on that point and I know that that issues come back before but if we can just keep the ARPA funding on your comments. Right well comments relating to comments on ARPA funding. I'd like to thank Mr. Helmeth for bringing forth the HVAC and air quality issue that's essential that should really be prioritized. Not only air conditioning. Yes, all schools need that. It's apparent from climate change but the air quality that transference I think Mr. Helmeth mentioned what the quality was. It's really essential particularly for schools all you know obviously for any workplace these days but absolutely for schools. Open space you know I'm a big advocate on open space. So I totally endorse that I think that's essential and we've learned during this pandemic how essential to mental health and well being our green spaces are. Yeah I think I hit everything and again thanks to Ms. Mahan and thanks to Mr. Dustin from the fire department for being front and center as he does every day and just I'm appreciative that community wouldn't exist without men and women like him. So thank you. Thank you Ms. Molloff talking. I'm sorry about your dog. It sounds like he's having a tough night tonight but okay. Is there anybody else Mr. Chapter Link? There are no other hands raised at this time. Okay all right so what I think I'll do is I think some board members had reserved questions or comments until after the public spoke. So I will go through the list again and then we will move forward. So I'll come back to Mrs. Mahan and any further questions or comments. Just need to, we need you to unmute your microphone. Is that working? Yes now it is. Okay I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I guess I would just stress again my main point around essential workers. The manager did say he would even though he left them out of the categories that apply and I think they're in the top three. Having met with one of the six unions and putting a number out and to me it's a really pittance kind of number. And I only brought up about the housing allowance that this board has demonstrated that we need to respect and keep important workers and reciprocate that. And I just want to continue that tradition of the housing allowance. It's a hybrid remote working for non union employees. And I know the manager quoted five to seven million five million if we did the math, which would be about 6,000 to 6,700 a year for our essential workers so I really hope that at least two, it's not three or all of my colleagues. At the end of the day, agree with me on that. And to Mr helmets point. I wish we could speak about this but I have to make sure we don't do sort of an illegal form kind of thing. And I have had conversations with the manager and the chair. So, I'll have to find another way, maybe someone else can speak with you because I don't want to violate our open meeting law form. And I just want to say, and I know some people may kind of bristle at this but I'm really insulted. If it's the one time allocation we can only give them let's give the match the one time that we can give it. And that would be about 13 to 13 to 14.75% of these monies allocated it's not seven million five million if we do the math. The manager be more truthful on that be more truthful on negotiating with the unions because you haven't met with any of them. You say ask me. That's news to me, but the six unions involved. And just as I advocate for the town manager and keeping him here because he's a professional and we need him here and advocate for our non union and schedule employees to work hybrid remote and get top baseline pay. I just want to do the same thing for our union employee. So, I know I'm very passionate about it. I know one speaker took a fence to that. I'm not going to apologize for that because I advocate for all town employees. So, I hope some of my colleagues can join me on that in the future. Thank you, Mr chair. Thank you Mrs mahan. Mr heard. Thank you Mr chair. I think most of my questions were addressed before. And, you know, I'll definitely follow up with the town manager to kind of work on some of these numbers and some areas that I had talked about before. I do want to address. I apologize to miss Locke, Mrs Locke from the Chamber of Commerce, we, I should have mentioned the businesses because that's certainly an important item and I always try to be an advocate for local businesses and I know, serving on the economic advisory task force that there were gaps in the previous funding that we received from the federal government and there's definitely a need where some of that funding has ran out for businesses. So I am very happy to see that in there and look forward to working with the businesses to allocate those funds as well. Thank you, Mr chair. Thank you Mr heard Mr diggins. Thank you Mr chair. I'm glad I held back because some of the things I was going to say have been addressed by others. So, a question to whomever can answer this. So the state has funds to spend. Yes, no. They do. They do. Do we have a sense of when we're going to get. We do have a sense we're going to find out how they allocate their funds. The sad answer is no. They've really struggled to figure out where they were going to invest their funds. So I'd be hard pressed to actually give up a real timeline. Yep, well, no, no, it was an answer. You know, so it's, it will probably find out something in the next year so that will affect maybe what we do in year two, three of our of our choices. And our request is, is can we get the, at least the text that are the guidelines that you're using for the limitations on how the funds are spent I mean I can go out and research it myself but to the extent that you're working with some set of guidelines it'd be great if we could get those so that made I know how to limit frame my thinking of things, you know, and also explain it to people when they ask me why we're making the choices that we're making so I very much appreciate that and let's see. Oh, and the affordability for housing. That's for rentals right. I would think it would end up being rentals I suppose it could apply to home ownership or rentals but I think in most instances. Yeah, affordable housing comes in the form of rental housing in this town. Yeah, just making sure I mean I thought that was the case we just wanted to make sure. And finally, I will say, to the responsive Ms. Locke talking about the state of town, I used to record those when I was working with ACMI and I've loved recording though you learn so much about what's going on, you know, not only do I have a conflict this time but also I think it might be a little I mean I'm a little concerned about open meeting laws need and so I'm not going to attend myself but I really encourage people to attend me in the business community is a really great community what's really good about the community here is that there's a lot of businesses being a lot of them or our residents in town need and you really get to it's a way to get to know the other your fellow residents who hope to make the town a better place so I encourage you to listen in and I hope ACMI is going to record it because I'll watch it. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Diggins and just on the interim final rule and we can work with the town manager and town council on that but that that we can have that distributed to all members they were also frequently asked questions of the Treasury Department and while it doesn't rise to the level of rules it does give some examples and I think that might be helpful for members as well and again I didn't really expect it to know that inside and out we're going to look to the manager and look to town council on that in terms of framing what some of the limitations are and it applies to all categories it's not just just one category but it does elaborate and as I said they haven't become final rules yet but they they have been published now for a few months. So with that, we'll turn to Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. There's one question I forgot on my list I forgot to ask earlier and this is kind of a small one. But as the select board's designate to the new newly formed remote participation study committee which was a committee to tell meeting voted to set up. I would like to commendation following the citizen petition to look at needs and opportunities for town bodies boards commissions and and in such committees to be able to employ remote meeting particularly hybrid meeting technology so that even sort of if there isn't going to be an after the pandemic when things are safer to be together that we could have an ongoing expanded capacity for remote citizen participation whether that's people with business before a board or just want to comment. So the committee will be convening this month and we're going to get right to work on that. My question is I think I saw some of this in the federal guidelines but have we as being a potentially eligible expense to kind of expand this kind of infrastructure. No wonder if the time manager could confirm that and also if we've contemplated that you know I don't think these are going to be enormous expenses on the scale some of what's on the table now on the spreadsheet now, but you know there would be some one time technology costs one time technology costs maybe some level of staffing costs to contemplate so you know is is are the ARPA funds potentially a source for that kind of investment should we be able to put together some program. Mr chairman yet to through you know Mr helmet yes I believe you are correct that those costs would be eligible. Seems like the board doesn't be desirous of it I could build that into a framework to bring back before the board and I think I agree with you that, though not insignificant I don't think they would be large in comparison to the other categories currently delineated. Thank you. And just finally and this is really optional the part of the time manager and I think at the chair discretion but you know I think anytime that there is a concern that a time manager has not been honest with us, I want to make sure that that's not an issue of just missing Miss communication misunderstanding because that can happen to between good people. So with respect to meeting with the unions to discuss this. Mr chairs or anything is an opportunity, we want to give them time manager an opportunity to kind of clarify the reason behind what he told us tonight and his understanding of kind of what what did or didn't happen. Check for me if you'd like that opportunity. Sure, I mean I can say, like, unequivocally, I've sat down with the leadership of asked me to have preliminary discussions about this. There's, that is 100% truth. It hasn't moved forward to putting pen to paper or having any agreements. I don't think I claim that, but I mean I absolutely have had conversations with that union. Thank you. Thank you and I think finally I want to say I want to appreciate the firefighter who spoke to us tonight. First of all to express my profound appreciation for for public safety workers who absolutely did without question but themselves in harm's way they do that today, but I think that Kobe really gave them a new understanding a new appreciation of the appreciations of the risk that not only they are taking but their families are taking and that matters to me. And my gratitude is real. And I thought you know those are those are really important points and I look forward to, you know, continuing those discussions. I know that my manager's good faith effort and that I know that he is a good listener. I have perceived him to be a fair person, and you know I think we can continue to have an honest discussion. We may have different priorities, we may have different needs, there's a lot of different priorities, the compete that we need to balance. But you know I hope we can move forward constructively and assuming the best intent on all sides. So thank you very much. And yeah I also want to recognize firefighter Dustin first comments because one of the things that struck me at the beginning of the pandemic and the habit at the end of each day of just taking a walk and coming down Mass Ave no one would be on Mass Ave. And one week very early on in particular, the rescue truck came down Mass Ave one night and came down the next night, no one was on the road, people, I was the only one walking and you knew what the firefighters were going to I mean it's highly likely they were going to a COVID call and it really is a memory that was really etched in my mind and they can still picture that that eerie feeling of seeing it go down and not knowing, feeling for them not knowing what they were getting, getting into so I, I want to thank the town manager for the for the presentation tonight he has laid out a timetable through October 13. I think there are a number of questions that have arisen tonight, just in terms of, I think some members probably want to do a little bit more research on, on, on different aspects I think there's an opportunity to reach out individually to the town manager to talk to him about, you know, maybe, maybe different concerns before we come back together as a group. So what I'm thinking is let's let's hold October 13 as a date, but unless you tell me otherwise Mr chapter lane I, I'm not sure we may need another night of discussion before there's an endorsement here and I think that process here is important and getting into the conversation and taking a look at things so that we're all on the same page at least as to what the, what the scope of various categories are. So I don't know if you have any comments on that if, if October 13, there's a, I know we wanted to do this by the end of September but I'm just, I think next week's meetings too soon to come back and I, and I think this gives you an opportunity to take a look at consider what was said tonight it also gives the members an opportunity to maybe take a further look at various categories because there are other categories that we didn't discuss that I think is certainly are a worthy of discussion. So in response to that. Yeah, I think that's very prudent. I think it feels to me like having another discussion whether it be for endorsement or not on 13th would likely be very beneficial. And moving to then, what is the 26th, not 25th would be the next meeting I think you know holding that for potential endorsement makes sense but I think overall your point is we'll take it that we're still in a period of time we're getting this right is more important than getting it done if that makes sense so I think we've laid out is a very wise path. Okay, and one point you touched on it a little bit earlier in the meeting on the homelessness issue about the need for maybe a regional discussion and I see that in the area of mental health support. As well, I mean we're doing a YCC is really stretched and glad to see that there are funds being provided there but I'm wondering between now and in the next meeting and maybe not part of what your framework is but what categories here. Can we look to maybe a regional approach to try to, whether it's with the state or with other communities to try to work work together in the region to improve much needed services. Are you asking me right now. Well, I'm sorry. I don't have a response to that. I mean I think you're absolutely right homelessness is certainly one of them behavioral health can certainly be one, you know, especially from a provider point of view and being able to recruit and retain behavioral health or mental health providers. You know, some of the other bigger ones HVAC parks and playgrounds water sewer not not so much because we maintain our own systems our ecosystem same with premium pay it's our own employees set revenue loss for obvious reasons. But I think, even if it's not a regional approach we can learn from others and based what they're doing. Right, someone else has a unique or innovative approach to each fact we can we can draft off that and same for water sewer same for parks and playgrounds and so on and so forth. Nothing else jumps out at me for true partnership. But I think, I think being tuned into what's happening in the region makes sense. Alright, thank you Mr chapter lane. So I think on the presentation maybe a motion to receive Mr chapter lanes report is in order I think that's the only item before the board so we have a motion by Mr heard to a second. Okay, a turning home. Mr heard. Yes, Mr deans. Yes, Mr helmet. Yes, this is my point is concerned yes. Mr decorcy. Yes, unanimous vote. So next is on the agenda is open forum, except in unusual circumstances any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor a decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established should I think that there is a three minute time limit to present a concern or request to want to point out that we have a tree hearing after this we will be taking public comment on the tree hearing so if you would like to speak about the proposed removal of trees and Broadway. You'll have the opportunity to do that during agenda item three. So with that I will open up the open forum if there's anybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to express my concern with the approaching override for $40 million and look forward to hearing at presumably at some point how the select board in town management will be addressing. So I'm curious where that information could be located. I. Yeah, those are my comments for open forum. Beth Malof check Russell street town meeting member. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, those are my comments for open forum. Beth Malof check Russell street town meeting member. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Malof check. Welcome. One other hand has been raised by Martin Conroy. Okay. Good evening Mr Conroy. Good evening. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. President Dustin's remarks. We also wanted to thank Slechman Mahan's for her words of encouragement and support as well as the rest of the select board. Again, just wanted to reiterate, just on behalf of my members, they did show up for work every day. They were prepared. They were ready and willing to do anything that they were called upon. And I think we'd be remiss just if we didn't mention it as well as our brothers and sisters on the police department. They were also, just like Mr. DeCourse, he said, you know, as the rescue was going up and down Mass App, they were also right there in the thick of things. Thank you very much tonight. We do understand that there's a lot of competing interests. We're appreciative of the fact that you all have the tough choices to make. And thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Connery. All right, well, that will conclude. I believe that concludes open forum. No one else is on the list, Mr. Chaplain. Correct, there's no other hands raised. All right, item three, propose removal of trees, Broadway Plaza project. And people will remember last week, we, this was on our agenda, but due to time constraints, what we did is we considered the three trees that were above the MWRA easement, which we approved. There are nine trees that are proposed for removal. And I will turn it over to Mr. Rademacher, the director of public works and the town manager for the presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the select board. I'm here tonight as the chairman stated, looking for approval to remove nine trees associated with the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Broadway Plaza. As you all know, we recently completed a sidewalk project in the area last summer, Broadway Plaza was originally proposed to be completed at that same time. And we then learned that the MWRA had work beneath the Plaza surface, which caused us to delay that portion of the project. Fortunately for the town, the MWRA is going to assume some of the costs in reconstructing the Plaza surface of approximately three quarters of the cost. So about $300,000. So the delay while unfortunate financially is going to help the town. But I would like to speak more about these trees, obviously. Throughout the design of this project, it was obvious that the brick surface was failing and is an impediment to pedestrians and folks with mobility difficulties. And similar to the sidewalks, we're going to replace these bricks with the concrete surface. Unfortunately, a lot of the trees out here have, their roots have the cause of why these bricks are no longer a adequate walking surface. They're heaving the roots, heaving the bricks significantly to the point where they are fairly a significant hazard. And they're right at the surface of the Plaza as well. These are roots that as soon as we take the bricks away, I feel we're going to be unearthing these roots and the construction is going to be causing some serious harm to these trees, which are already showing signs of significant stress. I spoke with a few obrists and landscape architects and the size of the canopy on these trees for the age. The fact that there was a lot of sucker growth, small branches being shot out from the tree trunks themselves. And the fact that they really haven't shown any significant growth over the past several years indicates that these trees are under stress and we're afraid that the construction isn't going to allow them to continue to be healthy trees. The proposed project will replace nine of the 12 trees at the Plaza. And the construction that we're proposing with these new trees is a more modern approach to urban tree planting where we will supplement the soil beneath the Plaza surface with what's called a structural soil. It allows for healthy root growth in an urban environment where soil compaction is a problem. We're using it in other areas along Mass Ave. We used it on the sidewalk project last year with great success so far, knock on wood. And what this will do is allow the trees we plant to have a better chance of success greater than the trees that are there today. And my concern about trying to preserve any of these trees that we have now in addition to not allowing us to build an ADA compliant walking surface is we lose the opportunity to amend the soil beneath the surface of the Plaza once it's constructed. So not planting new trees now will severely hamper our ability to plant trees in the future in a manner that will provide for their greatest success moving forward. So we have given a ton of consideration to these trees. I don't take it lightly, the request to remove them. It's not frequent that public works looks to do this kind of work with trees. We spend most of our time planting and saving and pruning trees. And it's just an unfortunate circumstance that in order to get a nicer downtown Plaza with a tree canopy that I am confident in the future will far exceed the one we have today. That's why I'm here requesting for the removal of these trees. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Rodamarka. I don't know if the members have received the proposed plans, but I don't know if Mr. Chaplain's possible to share that screen in terms of what is being proposed and what the trees that are identified for removal. Okay, great. Is that? Mike, does this show the trees identified for removal of just the new trees? These is just, this is the proposed layout. If I could share my screen, I think I could show the tree plan. Okay. Let me give you that permission. And hopefully I do this right. All right, you should be able to share your screen now, Mike. Can you all see this? Yes. Yeah, you might want to zoom in a little bit. Sure, this first plan is simply the massive corridor with Broadway Plaza showing all the trees that were either existing or planted. When we did the sidewalk project, we planted 14 new trees and lost one healthy tree for safety reasons and removed two, I believe, unhealthy dying trees. So we had a significant gain on that sidewalk project alone. So that's what this first plan is. And this next plan is a blow up of the Plaza. So the blue X's are the trees that are in question tonight. The yellow X's are the trees that were within the MWRA's utility work. I would note that- And of the trees there, I'm sorry, Mr. Ronamarka, the four Docker trees are four existing trees that you're proposing to keep at the site. That's correct. About a year, it was around December or February of last year of 2020, we had some discussions with the tree committee about this project. And at the time, the project proposed to keep two trees at the corner of Medford and Mass Ave and through discussions with members of the tree committee and others, the consultant and others. We also elected to attempt to retain the two trees along Mass Ave, closer to the Broadway intersection. And just if you could before I turn it to members, what is the proposed timing for the removal and replacement of the nine trees? They, I believe they do not need to be removed until the MWRA's contractor begins the restoration work, which would be next spring, early spring. Right, right. And with that, I will now turn it to the board for questions or comments. I'll start with Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I appreciate if we could get a little more information about the benefits of the structural soil. I just started learning about this in my research leading up to this meeting. And I know I talked to one landscape architect who said that they're designed for urban environments. They really help the tree roots behave sort of more appropriately and more healthy. Would the structural soil for the new trees that one had, would it reduce the chances of the roots coming up and buckling the brick and causing the same problems? Is that kind of what it does? Yes, the structural soil is one that is designed that can support the weight of the sidewalk or the structure above it, but still provides voids and ability for roots to grow in a more natural pattern than they would in a very dense and compacted soil. So in a dense and compacted soil, the roots often come to the surface looking for moisture. They can't find it deeper down because of the dense nature of the soil. But in a structural soil, it's just more aerated and provides for better root growth. Okay, yeah, thank you. And I should add too that we're concerned not just for our bricks to be compromised, but we want the trees to be healthy and happy too. That sounds like this as a twofer, right? It does both of those things. Can you talk about the proposed size of what new trees, if we do remove these, it's not a decision that we take lightly, but if you did, what's the size of the trees that would replace them compared to what that we have now? And then both immediately, and then also kind of when they mature, how their shade canopy and overall size of the tree would compare to what we have. Sure, the proposed replacement trees range from anywhere from a three and a half inch to a five inch caliber tree, which is a significantly larger than the streak trees we typically plant on the side streets. These, those are what's called a bare root and we get them smaller so they can fit in the grass strip. Here, we have more room to play with. So we're trying to get a bit more established tree in place without being too large where it would be shocked and not necessarily take to the new environment. So there's a little bit of a balancing act of how large of a tree we can actually plant here. The proposed trees are red maples along the storefront and they have a more of a vile shaped canopy that we're proposing so that we can stay away from the building fronts, but yet still get tall and have a bit of a broad canopy. We have some Zell Covers which are much more when growing a much more significant canopy than the honey locusts that are out there. And we are also proposing to replace a few with honey locusts similar to we have, but obviously in a setting that we hope they'll thrive. Yeah, thank you. And do you have, give us an idea of, assuming that we have the improvements of the structural soil so that the trees could be healthier and happier and grow faster, presumably. What period of time are we looking at before we, you think we might be kind of a comparable level of shade or canopy that what we have now with honey locusts? I would, I've asked this question and it's difficult for the landscapers to predict how a tree will react in an urban environment. But I've been given an indication 10, 12 years, I think they will be significant enough that it will feel more inviting. Okay, great. That's all my questions I have for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I think I just had two questions for Mr. Rademacher, but I will preface it by saying, I do know that our DPW director, Mr. Rademacher, in the Tree Warden and others are definitely sensitive to this issue. I'm getting a thing on my screen saying I have low audio, so I don't know if I'm coming through. But my question is, is it true that if we left the trees that are slated to be replaced, that the construction undoubtedly would render most, if not all of them, not viable? I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understood the question. Well, I've spoken to not chlorozoa, some landscape architect people, and spoke about this project and they said if the trees were left there, that undoubtedly the construction would probably render them not as viable and they probably would die. Correct, I would agree. I've been given the same advice and opinion from the professionals I've spoke to. Because of the levels of stress, the trees are currently showing. The stress of a construction project would likely put them over the top. And then I guess my other question would be sort of similar to Mr. Helmets' questions around the trees we're putting in. And I think I heard this from you, the soil replacement that you're proposing, similar to trees dying during the construction, trees planted after the construction would have a more better chance of taking root and growing as well as a lot of people have asked me, are you gonna replace the total brick Broadway plaza with total brick, or is it gonna be a different configuration? So your first question, yes, the trees planted with this project, yes, will all be planted in the structural soil and will have the greatest chance of thriving because of that. And I can continue on and show you a colored rendering of what the plaza proposed to look like. And the theme here is to continue what we did with the sidewalk. So a white concrete with a border of red, not bricks, but concrete stamped to look like bricks. Okay, thank you. Because a lot of people were concerned that the actual brick configuration would go back in and there's a lot of mobility, disability issues around that. So thank you for that answer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan, Mr. Heard. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One question and a few comments. And this is just, I know you went, it was quite late when you're on Mr. Rodemacher last week, but I think you asked a question at that time about the number of pleat trees total that were planted by DPW, whether it be this year to date versus the trees that were taken out. And do you have that figure in front of you or available? I do. Currently in the current calendar year, we've planted 200 and approximately 220 trees and removed 82. I expect the planting number to double. We have a fall program that we're anticipating planting another 200 plus trees. And but unfortunately I also anticipate between now and the end of the year due to health and failing conditions, we probably end up removing another 80. We're on average removed about between 150 and 180 trees a year. I did total over the past four years, public works has planted approximately 1114 trees and removed 763. And those 763 were either failing or fell in a storm or those were not trees that we, healthy trees that we elected to take down. Thank you. And I just reiterate what some of my colleagues have said that we certainly of all the things that we do on this board, one job that we do not take lightly is there whenever we're requested to approve the removal of any trees. This particular plan, this has been in the works for a few years. This was subject to the plan as a whole not just the tree aspect of it but the Broadway Plaza reconstruction plan was subject to a number of public forums back when we had public forums where people could come in and see what the plans were and comment. I know we talked about it at the parking advisory committee a number of times we went through with Ms. Rademarco what the plans were and they're approved way back when as someone that uses Allington Center quite often I was saddened that we had to wait to implement the plan because we had to wait for the MWRA work. I would like to see this go forward before but I am excited to finally move forward. We have a number of residents who often reach out to us before about the brick sidewalks but I've never in all my tenure on this board met anyone who likes the current configuration of Broadway Plaza and so I look forward to the work and I'd just like to say again that the town of Allington, DPW, this board has always had been forward thinking as far as the tree canopy and we've always invested in the tree canopy just by the numbers that we, Ms. Rademarco just provided to us and also we've had, I have and I'm sure you all have had many residents, one of the repeated requests that I get from residents is people want to take the trees out in front of their house and the tree board and we'll go out and deem the tree is healthy and because the residents want it out for other reasons because a tree limb fell, it's not always mean that the tree needs to be taken out and the trees aren't taken out unless they're unhealthy trees. So we do take that very seriously. I think the town has protected its tree canopy very well and we always continue to be forward thinking and planting more trees than we're taking down and only taking down trees were absolutely necessary. So I do look forward to this plan being implemented and I'll reserve any motions till after we hear from the public. Thank you, Mr. Hurt, Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will reserve possible questions and comments till after we hear from residents. Thank you. And before I open it up to public comment, Mr. Rademecki, you had mentioned that the proposed timetable is in the spring, I believe April and that's for the removal of the trees. What's the timetable for the planting of the new trees? Is it upon, I don't know if there's a timeframe between when they'd be removed and when the new ones would go in? It would be all within the same construction project. I would hope this is maybe a one to two month project that should start as soon as weather allows in the spring and go from there. Okay, and just a question on the four trees that are scheduled to remain at the site and the one in particular that I've noticed has some issues in terms of buckling is the one on Medford Street, furthers in the upper left-hand corner. What criteria was used to maybe establish that those trees can be saved versus the ones that are slated for removal? The one that you referenced along Medford Street is probably going to be the most challenging to retain but we felt because it was on the outskirt of the plaza and not necessarily right in the middle of a walking route, if we have to extend some of the flexible pavement a little bit or play with the grades over there, we felt we could do that at that location. It's going to be challenging. All these trees that we are proposing to retain will be challenging but because of their location we thought we would have a better chance. Okay, and any trees of those four trees that unfortunately none of them survived, they would each be replaced? They would be replaced. We won't, you probably won't know they won't survive until a year or two or some odd later. We can replace them. Unfortunately, we will be replacing them in the urban soils that exist today and not in the structural soil because we wouldn't be able to install that while the tree is in place. All right, thank you, Mr. Rackamaker. Okay, so at this point I will open it up to public comment. First hand is Joanne Preston. Good evening, Ms. Preston. Thank you. I'm left over from last time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Joanne Preston, Mystic Lake Drive, town meeting member precinct nine, which encompasses Broadway Plaza. I would like to respond to Mr. Rackamaker and I have a response to all of his comments but I can't do it in three minutes. I attended the last meeting of the tree committee in which he informed us of his plan to cut down nine healthy mature trees in Broadway Plaza. Some tree committee members asked that some alternatives to cutting them down be explored. I concur with this request because we have a lot of time till the spring and I know from other communities there are alternatives to cutting down mature trees and what are called hardscapes, which is what the Broadway Plaza will be and is what will be in the future. I have sent an article to Mr. Rackamaker over a week ago and I called several times to ask for his response. None of what's in that article has been incorporated in his remarks. I will just say that since I have so little time they include things like root barriers to avoid buckling, root paths, which Cambridge uses routinely and also ADU compliant tree grates that can be employed to ensure plant surfaces. Also that article, they talk about how to improve the soil which we've been discussing in which we're keeping the mature trees. Now, I think I only have one minute left. So why preserve these? You have about a minute and a half. So take it. Why preserve these healthy mature trees? Because already Arlington is in the midst of the effects of climate change. I don't think you'll know that this summer we had the hottest June on record and records been kept for over a hundred years and the wettest July on record. And most recently we barely averted a hurricane which now has accompanying tornadoes. The carbon removed from these mature trees on Broadway Plaza is critically important to slowing down climate change, especially in an area where there's so much carbon. Moro, these small replacement trees will not slow down climate change for two decades. I did the calculations. That's on three inch trees. In two decades, even in one decade, scientists say it'll be too late. Moreover, these mature shade trees will prevent a heat island which we already have five of in Arlington. So they'll make Broadway Plaza a heat island which is not only bad for people but businesses, especially with those with outdoor seating. As you know, in June we have one temperature 100 degrees. Nobody's gonna wanna sit out on the Plaza in the sun because these little trees will not shade them. I think certainly there are reasons enough to take time to explore some of these other methods to preserve at least some of the mature trees. And I asked the select board to consider a meeting with a tree committee, other interested people and the DPW to discuss these possibilities. And I hope- Excuse me, Mr. President, if you could wrap up. Okay, this is the part of the article that I sent to the director of DPW. I hope he gets to look at it. Thank you. Thank you. The next name is Beth Milovchik. Hello, Ms. Milovchik. Sorry. Beth Milovchik, Russell Street, town meeting member also for precinct nine. I would just hope that the town leadership, the select board and DPW will hardly acknowledge code red. The concern that the UN has expressed in their report for climate change. And I respectfully ask that the preservation of mature trees be prioritized generally so that moving forward any projects on municipal land, the starting point be the preservation of existing trees and enhancing tree cover, whatever the project is there. We have heat islands adjacent to Broadway Plaza that have not been remediated, what's it called, Russell Parking, it's a disaster. It's a heat island disaster. And so the removal of these trees as per the plan is gonna make this place even hotter than it is now. And a colleague who lives near the Mystic Lakes in a tree covered area, expressed that where she lives, it's five degrees cooler than Broadway Plaza now. So that's only gonna get worse. And waiting for the canopy to fill out, I hope you are reexamining your choice for benches because sitting on a black metal bench will presumably be impossible when the temperatures are in the 90s, 80s and 90s. So I hope that will be reexamined. I, again, wanting the preservation of trees to be the, I want town leadership to embrace the preservation of trees. So looking at Whittemore Park, I'd like to encourage the select board to query DPW as to what's being done to remediate the compaction of soil. I watched five heavy cement trucks go across Whittemore Park when they were laying that sidewalk. So are you gonna come in with air shovels and loosen up that soil or what's the protocol so that the existing trees are not adversely affected by those five ginormous cement trucks? Mr. Rodemacher very graciously gave us the numbers for the number of trees removed, number of trees planted. I respectfully ask for the DBH removed and DBH planted so that we can see whether there is a net loss of diameter of the tree canopy. Town leadership moving forward, this should be essential information because we cannot do a tree for tree. Your time and mine are about the same. So if you can just wrap up in the next few seconds. Thank you. We can't do a tree for tree equation means nothing because the loss of canopy is greater than that one tree replacement. So moving forward, please embrace tree preservation, redo your plans, get better landscape designers because we know what's coming and it's gonna be hotter and stronger storms. We need the trees. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Mofftack. Next speaker is Robin Bergman. Good evening, Ms. Bergman. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay. So I actually, Robin Bergman, Perk Avenue. I want to agree with both of the previous speakers Diane Preston and Beth Malopcic. And they've said pretty much what I was going to say plus more details and facts. I just wanted to say that we know a lot more about how important the tree canopy is and how dire the situation is with Code Red and how much we need our mature trees and just replacing tree for tree with little tiny trees is not going to do it. It's going to take too long for those trees to become mature trees. So I would also ask you to start prioritizing keeping the mature trees in town as much as possible. And thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker is Steve Revolac. Good evening, Mr. Revolac. I actually, before you start, congratulations on your appointment to the Redevelopment Board. Thank you very much, Mr. DeCorsi. So Steve Revolac, 111 Sunnyside Avenue. I don't want to diminish the myriad of benefits that trees offer, but I think the claim that preserving these trees as a, the need to preserve these trees to mitigate climate change isn't terribly realistic. I think it's more symbolic than substantive. Yes, a planted is warming and it's warming because of greenhouse gas emissions. And these greenhouse gas emissions are coming from extracting and burning fossil fuels. And that is a needle we have to move. We reduce emissions from buildings and from transportation or we live with the consequences. Given the replacement plan, I don't see replacing a few trees on Broadway as making a very consequential difference. Now, having said that, I want to take a note about something the city of Paris in France has been doing under the leadership of their mayor, Anne Hidalgo. First, they decommissioned an expressway along one side of the CN River and we replaced it with a park, several hectares of park. And they also have plans to remove roughly half of the city's on-street parking spaces. That's about 35,000 parking spaces in total with the intention of returning the space to people rather than to cars. So I mean, the actual nuts and bolts of how that's going to work will be figured out over time, but I think it's not unreasonable to expect something like green space, mobility, trails and outdoor dining. We have 100 miles of public ways and we could actually plan a lot of trees if we could just get rid of some of the parking. I think that Broadway Plaza is long overdue for improvements, like Mr. Heard. I don't know anyone who really loves a configuration as it is. And I would encourage the board to give the approval so that this work can go forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rogelach. One remaining speaker, Erin Baumgarner. Good evening, Ms. Baumgarner. Hi, good evening. I'm Erin Baumgarner. I live on Palmer Street. I don't really have many specifics to add. I think there have been a lot of good comments here. I am definitely not a tree expert, but I think I've heard the opinions of people on the tree committee who I've listened into those calls and have been really impressed by how knowledgeable that group of people are. And I imagine that other members on this call are probably more in the category, like me, of not necessarily being a tree expert, but sharing similar values in the end goal. So I guess I would just argue or suggest it's, I think Joanne suggested this earlier that there's time for more discussion and for thinking outside the box of potentially other solutions. So I would just encourage that possibility. Thank you for your comments. I believe there's one more person who may have a technical problem, but is Susan Stamps wish to be heard? Trying to raise her hands so I will promote her. Thank you so much. And that's weird. I said my hand was raised, but apparently it wasn't showing up anyway. My name is Susan Stamps. I live on Grafton Street, town meeting member precinct three and a member of the Arlington tree committee. The tree committee is appointed by the select board to promote the protection, planting and care of trees in Arlington. Mike Rademacher, our DPW superintendent who's in charge also the tree department and the tree warden is under the supervision of Mike Rademacher. And I want to take a moment to express my appreciation that Mike and to our tree warden, Tim Laquise, who have done a great job in Arlington with trees. Mr. Rademacher did come to the tree committee two weeks ago, reviewed this plan that he showed to you tonight. And we did not take a vote, but the sense of the committee was, there wasn't one person there who thought this plan was okay. There was no one there who thought it was okay to remove nine mature, healthy trees from a key public space in the center of Arlington. I do agree with all the previous speakers about in the age of climate change, our president has declared code red. And I think the tree committee has kind of declared code red too. And we really, it's going to be very difficult for us to think it's okay to remove mature trees. The plaza, as others have said, is already a very hot place. And if you can just imagine that plaza with all these little trees around, it is going to be very hot. And the businesses are going to lose business in the summertime. There's no question about that. Everyone, including the tree committee, and I personally love the idea of resurfacing that plaza. I agree, it's terrible, totally non-compliant with ADA and unfair to people with disabilities. Completely agree with that. But that doesn't mean definitely that those trees have to be removed. The tree committee asked Mr. Radamaker to go back, talk to the consultant. I don't know if there's an actual landscape architect as a consultant on the project, but we asked him to go back and he did seem open to the idea since the trees are not going to be removed until next spring. To put a pause on, try to come up with a design that at least will save some of those trees. There are probably some creative things that can be done with those trees that will mitigate the bumps. Like, well, just an idea I came up with today is that you could create little planting islands around the trees with bushes and flowers and things like that. So that would keep people away from the raised spaces around the trees. They wouldn't be tripping over them anymore and it would look beautiful. I think there's a lot of creative things that could be done if the will is there to do it. And this is not about thinking that this project doesn't need to go forward. It does need to go forward, but we think that we would like to see an extreme effort made to keep as many of those trees as possible. Let's see. The, let's see if there's anything else I needed to say. But, I do note that when Mr. Rodemacher was talking about the project, he did mention frequently that he consulted with experts. I didn't hear him talking about the tree warden. And as the board may recall, two or three years ago, the select board did adopt a policy whereby any town projects involving trees, removal, planting, anything else, there wouldn't be a consultation with the tree warden. Of course, Mr. Rodemacher has talked to the tree warden about it. And the tree warden said at the tree committee, really all he had to say, which was, you know, they're mature trees. So, you know, why would he be in favor of taking them down? But as far as things that maybe could be done to save those trees, I would like to see not just outside experts, but our own tree warden to be, you know, to see what he might have to offer in the tree committee stands ready to back up. As always, our DPW superintendent and our tree warden in trying to get these important projects done in a way that's gonna be great for the town, but will also preserve as many mature trees as possible because as someone else mentioned, we just went through the hottest June on record. According to Google, Massachusetts is among the top 10 fastest warming states in the country. This is, we can't be cutting down mature trees. We need them for the shade, the cleaning, the air, the cooling, and so I would urge the board to just put a pause on this, not approve removal of the nine trees tonight. Give Mr. Rademacher a chance to do some further work on this and come back in the spring and talk about it again. That's what the tree committee would ask. Okay, thank you, Ms. Stamps. And for those of you wondering why that was much more than three minutes, I forgot to reset my timer. So you were the benefit of that. That extra time, thank you. Okay, thank you for your comments. We appreciate the work that you're doing on the tree committee. Mr. Rademacher. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to add that since my meeting with the tree committee, I did both things that I suggested I would. I met with the designer's landscape architect on site and we reviewed tree by tree, what could possibly done or be done or any way to work around the tree. It's just an unfortunate that the stress of these trees and the root growth and the buckling of the pavement and wanting to build an ADA compliant surface did not lend itself to any new revelations on saving any of these trees. And I did the same with Tim Laquieve, the tree ward. I don't make any decisions about trees without consulting the tree ward. So that goes without saying, but we did the same thing. We walked the site and I wanna speak for him, but basically the gist was the stress level these trees are showing and the condition of the roots with the surface, it does not make it conducive to save them. Thank you, Mr. Rademacher. So I will now return to the board for any comments, questions or motions. And I will come back in the same order that I was in starting with Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. Before I ask one final question, then I have some comments and then I think I'm prepared to make a motion. With respect to timeline, what would be the impact on the project if we did delay for some period of time? And I know that there's kind of a separate question from whether we expect that we can find alternatives, but I'm just trying to get a sense for do we need to make this decision now? The contract has been awarded by the MWRA for the utility work and the restoration work. So they have funding set aside, the town has funding set aside for this project to begin in the spring. If there was any significant change, we have very little time to design and amend that contract. Okay. All right, thank you. I do not do this lightly. I have enormous appreciation for my friends on the tree committee and the new select board lays onto them. And I have listened very carefully and I've also done a fair amount of work on my own conjunction with the town manager and consult a couple of other folks. I won't move approval for this, but I wanna explain why. I think that leaving mature trees is a really good default position because of Code Red, because of shade canopy. And I think the town does that. I also think that you can't have a practical discussion unless you make those decisions in the context of a specific project. And we do that from time to time. And I don't think we should automatically prioritize leaving mature tree when they're in conditions that are causing them to be stressed, causing them to be unhealthy over the long term, especially if we're in a place now where we can permanently change the conditions by adding structural soils that will give new trees that go in a much better chance of being healthy, of growing and providing long term benefit. And I say that with an eye towards carbon sequestration. I really think that we need to think long term about this and not just short term never cut down on a mature tree. I don't like doing it, but I think that we think the long term just from a carbon point of view, the long-term picture for this plaza is I wanna have trees there that for the long term, longer than 10 years will be able to keep doing what they do to capture carbon from the air, keep doing what they do to prevent that from becoming a heat island. And this is my concern. I believe our DPW director, when he said he has consolidated landscape architects and arborists to assess the condition of the trees as stress. I am not an expert, but I went down and looked and I can't see anything to my mind that makes me disagree with them. But I leave that to the experts and I trust the experts. If they're not happy, if they haven't had significant growth and they're at high risk for damage when we attempt to do a plaza reconstruction, this is the risk that we're taking. If we leave them and they die and we have to take them out because they become even more unhealthy then new trees that go in are gonna go in the same bad conditions and they're gonna be set up for the same problems over the medium and long term with roots they're gonna crop up that make the trees unhappy, they're gonna make the surface unfriendly to humans and are not gonna have good long range potential to do the things that we need them to do for the planet. If we leave them when they die because all trees do, new trees will have to go into the same bad soil. We have an opportunity to change that substrate for the long-term future. I think the reconstruction does it right. Structural soil was invented to Cornell, it's used all over Boston and Cambridge. It's from all the experts I've talked to, very good. And I think that it will allow future trees that go in, including the new ones to thrive, to grow faster and be healthier for the long range. And finally, nothing I've heard suggests that we can really do any improvements to the health of these current trees if we don't remove them. And that's sad, but that's also, I believe, the reality. And then really finally, I think I've heard, I have some good people who have emailed us and said, these are optional trees. Let's not take these out of it, it's an option. And I'd say it depends on how you look at option. I think it's only optional. If we mean it's a good option to not have an ADA compliant surface, especially in the future if the roots continue to do what they're doing. It's an option if we think that it's all right to leave these trees in bad soil and make them continue to be unhealthy and should probably shorten their lifespan. And we think it's all right to set up a long-term situation where we just perpetuate the not good soil conditions for these trees. So I realized that because I'm not on our breast, I have to rely on the experts of those who are. I'm confident, I feel comfortable that the ABD Director has done his homework, has done what he's been asked to do. And so I don't see the delay would change much. When I just said, I'm open to my colleagues disagreeing with me, but I will move approval of the motion. Again, to be clear that I'm doing that actually out of thinking about the long-term benefit to the planet and to the plaza for all trees that will live there. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahon. I'll second that. Mr. Hurd, thank you Mrs. Mahon. Mr. Hurd. Thank you all. Support the motion. I don't want to reiterate everything that I've said and what Mr. Helmuth so eloquently said it, but just to say, we don't take this lightly. It's just in this particular situation in order to move forward with this plan. This is the right move for the board at this time. Thank you, Mr. Hurd and Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So a few questions. So through you Mr. Chair and to the director. I'm going to kind of repeat Mr. Helmuth's question about the latest that we could put off this decision. I mean, what would be the latest minus two months made of that we could hold off and make a decision? You could, we could hold off on a decision, but if that decision requires redesigning the plaza, then we can't, you know what I mean? We need, if we were going to redesign the plaza, you'd want to do it now. Right, okay. Got it, got it. All right, so I better understand the answer that you gave last time. Thank you. And so, I was winning the day for me of two things, I mean, the soil improvement, I mean, and the fact that the trees aren't healthy. And I say that with some trepidation because Ms. Stamps said that they are and she's also increasing three not too far away from me. And so I'm afraid of disagreeing with her, but I think, I mean, when I went through the plaza, I'm not an expert myself either. And I looked at the trees and I mean, I walked through it fairly frequently and I was like, well, I mean, they do look like they're in rough shape, but then you're saying that they are so that confirms at least how they look to me. But Ms. Preston had brought up the possibility of rejuvenating the soil. Is that really a possibility? The, Mr. Chair, if I may. Thank you. The details, and I apologize to Ms. Preston for not getting back to her, the details that she had sent to me were really oriented around planting new, not about trying to save existing. The root guards and the things of that nature is infrastructure you put to try to prevent root growth on new trees. And so I don't believe that we can apply that to try to save these existing. Got you. Okay, thank you very much, Mead. And one more, I'll ask you two more questions to the director, Mr. Chair. So, Mead, you might understand there's a lot of work that's been done about, and you've explored a lot of avenues Mead. Are you aware of any avenues that haven't been explored with respect to me making the soil better? Because I mean, we got to make the soil better. We can't do that than, I mean, I think we really have no option, but to proceed along the lines of this motion. So, if it was an avenue I knew of and didn't explore, that would be a shame on me. So, we have explored all avenues that I'm aware of. As far as making the soil better, you could potentially try to fertilize it, but you're not going to be able to relieve the compaction issues of the roots, nor the location of those roots right at the surface. For us to leave those trees in place and build a compliant surface that the elevation needs to be, we would be grinding and removing roots on these trees that would most definitely cause their immediate demise. Yes, and I wasn't really accusing you of being able to use mouth or non-feeze as a means. Sometimes we don't explore past because they're expensive, meaning it's like, well, that's just economically viable and so that's really kind of what I was getting at. And so, in respect to the tree-for-tree replacement, I get that argument. For the trees that we were like, let's just take one of the trees. How many small trees would replace one of those in terms of like the carbon sequestration, you know? I don't know that I've had often one rule of thumb is to try to replace the diameter of the tree. So if you have a 12 inch diameter tree, you try to replace it with enough trees to total 12 inch. So three, four inch diameter trees. I don't know if that's a one-for-one as far as carbon sequestration, but I know that's an often a formally used by conservation commissions when you're replacing trees in a resource area. Well, thank you very much, Meen. And I know that there have been some calls for us to increase the rate at which to be the town is planting trees and I support that. But even more so, I support everyone in town being trying to plant more trees being and we should do that in an intelligent way, in meeting, finding right species need. And so I, as I've mentioned to several people, I think that is a place where the new civic engagement group can play a role, meaning with viewing the tree warden and being less work on getting a lot more trees planted, meaning in public and non-public places. But I am gonna support the motion. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Yeah, and I'm also gonna support Mr. Helmets motion. I wanna thank him for the detailed reasoning behind the motion which I found compelling for the long-term effects. And of course, this has now happened a few times since I've been on the board. No one likes to approve the removal of mature trees and view it as something that if you can avoid it, you do it. But I think in this case, given the scope of the project and given the description in terms of the health of the trees and what could happen as the plaza is being rebuilt, this feels like the best option. And while we appreciate the work of the tree committee and we take the work very seriously, I think in this instance, having looked into this, having had discussions, having heard the comments of my colleagues tonight, I'm inclined to support Mr. Helmets motion as well. So on a motion by Mr. Helmets, seconded by Mrs. Mahan, and I will turn it to attorney. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Before I say yes, if I could ask our DBW director, Mr. Helmets, I'm Mr. Radamaker. Promoted Mr. Helmets. It's Mr. Radamaker. I have just a real quick briefing under new business. If you could stay on this meeting, if you can, that's okay, I'll fill you in tomorrow. But yeah. This is a course. Yes. It's an unanimous vote. Great, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Radamaker. Thank you. And thank you for the comments tonight too, for those who participated. Okay, next is new business, attorney Heim. No new business. Thank you. Mr. Chapterling. No new business. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Mr. Helmets. No new business, but I will note that if I did get promoted to DBW, this certainly pays better. Mr. Diggins. But would it really be as satisfying, Mr. Helmets? Just imagine if we attack this meeting onto the last week's meeting, we'd be here until two o'clock in the morning. No new business. Thank you. And Mr. Heard. I have no new business, but I will say that I can confirm that Mr. Radamaker was out there looking at the trees last week, because I walked through while he was doing it, and sorry. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I apologize or congratulate both Mr. Radamaker and Mr. Helmets. My three quick things. My first new business is I wanted to talk about this back in May. And because of the items and issues that have been before us, I've worked with the chair and put it off. But I really want to discuss it at the next meeting. It has to do with the DPW Grove Street construction project. And the reason I want to discuss it, it's sort of in line with myself and my colleagues' support of count employees, just because of my regular day job in terms of construction projects. And I've had conversations with the chair as well as with Jeff Bailman on the school project because of a GC and some subs that worked on the Woven Public Library that resulted in not something great. I just want to let Mr. Radamaker know that I have conversations with the chair. And I hope at the next select board meeting it will be an agenda item. I definitely agreed to put it off since May. I want to talk about the project, especially the hazardous waste component of the DPW Grove Street project around the GC, the sub in the subsubs, because that's something that really sort of, especially the sub sub issue regarding asbestos OSHA 10, OSHA 30 certified workers down there. So I just wanted, if you could, and I think you did, Mr. Radamaker, to hang around for that call. And I definitely anticipate at our next meeting we'll be discussing that. And then the other two items, very quickly, I did speak to the town manager and let him know I was gonna bring this up on the new business, something that the entire board has been contacted about, which is the MBTA buses in Arlington 77 and 79, especially around when the school children are going to, Allie and I, Auditon and Matanon. I don't know if the manager has anything to add to that or an update on that through you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chapterling. No update beyond Representative Sean Garberley has really been the leader on this effort in speaking directly with the GM of the MBTA and receiving commitments that they would increase service. I don't believe we've seen it yet. So we will keep asking and keep advocating and demanding. I mean, I think the loss of the 79 is really probably the biggest impact here and the reduced frequency of the 77. But I think my layman's or layperson's approach is no 79 means you have significantly fewer buses in the morning than you would have otherwise. Okay. I would, through the chair to the town manager, since we're only getting the 77 now and we pay a ridiculous amount in our MBTA assessment, if we could explore some legal option, even if it's a long shot, to hold back the money that we give to the MBTA, kind of assess what our one bus 77 assessment would be and kind of make some kind of statements to the MBTA or through Attorney Hyman, his office, because I think we pay the second highest right behind Braintree at Quincy. And right now we just have one bus going through town that isn't working. And then the third thing is through you, Mr. Chairman, if the town manager can either answer this tonight or provide the board with an answer tomorrow, because I know we're all getting these questions. I've gotten a lot of questions around residents in there who are 70 plus, who are looking for booster shots. I know the town was very responsive, not only for town employees, but also for elderly residents as well as immunocompromised, being able to have some clinics down at Allenton High School as well as going to individual homes. So I know myself, I have, and my colleagues have gotten requests about people who are appropriate for a third booster shot, which I believe is age 70 and older or immunocompromised. If the town is going to either be able to offer a clinic again, probably not at Allenton High School and or if residents who fall under that umbrella of 70 plus or immunocompromised, should contact the Board of Health to arrange home visits to get that booster shot. Sorry. So I can confirm and certainly follow up with the board tomorrow. I believe right now we only have Pfizer on hand. So I think we wouldn't be able to provide those who had taken previously a Pfizer shot. But I'll confirm with Christian Bargeron what exactly we can do and when we might be able to do it and let the board know. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And just on the first item that you raised, I believe it was the first item on the DPW, that the fact that that hasn't come before the board is because of my over-scheduling out of last several meetings. And the DPW presentation has been bumped a couple of times, but we will put it on for our next meeting. Wanted to say briefly, we are the long-range planning committee will be getting together probably over the next few weeks. We have a smaller subset of that that we'll be meeting later this week. And we've got some important issues coming up with that. And the town manager and I believe Mrs. Mahan will be meeting in a smaller group within the next few days. And then the last thing I wanted to say, I'm following up with the town manager. We've had some discussions about some correspondence between Verizon and residents at the housing authority properties regarding Verizon service that I don't have all the details on it, but it has to do with an upgrade that Verizon wants to make. And it has been very troubling to residents and to the authority. And hopefully we can report back at our next meeting in terms of what, if anything, is going on in that and what our role could be. So with that, that's all my new business. I will take a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second. Second? Okay. Motion by Mrs. Mahan, seconded by Mr. Diggins. Attorney Hyme. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Madam Tope. Can I vote? Thank you very much.