 Okay, following the meeting of your arms and finance committee to order, the first thing is the minutes. Do I have a motion? Seconded. Okay, moved and seconded. Do I have any corrections or changes? Painter said he would vote to use the funds as county. When he was speaking personally, I think he was speaking as a member of the school committee. He said he qualified in the beginning, so I would just ask if you can correct me if I'm wrong. Painter said he personally would vote for the use of the funds. Okay, so Painter said he would... Personally. There's one member. How about that? Yeah, okay, I just want to find out. There's one member of the school committee. He was dissociating himself. Yeah. But he was talking that he as one member of the committee would vote to do it. He said that explicitly. Okay, all right. Okay, again in the middle where it says voted to table discussion. I'm not quite sure what the manager can mean. Oh, thank you. That's a goof. Voted to table discussion. I'm not sure what the manager or something like that. Where's that at? Okay, right in the middle of the first page, they're voting to table discussion. It's just awkward wording and so on. Maybe they met when, not with. But we voted to table discussion until March 5th when the manager would be before us. Something like that. On the second line after article 45, if plan made 10 years ago, for some reason it struck me it was 15 years ago. Anybody remember? I don't know. Okay, and article 42. It probably is the dean though. But that's not what she said. Article 42 second line, the last word I think is missed out. The holiday lights already exist. And that was unanimous. Now Peter put some of these things in here on purpose just to make sure you're really reading. Old Chinese custom. It's called torture. Okay, are there any other corrections? Okay, motion has been made and seconded to accept the minutes as corrected. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, John. Now, let me just mention one thing. We've been sent, Gloria's been sending, and I'm trying to encourage as many people who are coming before us to email their handouts ahead of time. One of the emails was on next Wednesdays our oil products, and apparently it's like 20 pages. So I don't want her killing more trees than is necessary. So sometimes you can just print out a couple of pages yourself to summarize it. So she won't make copies of that unless you ask. If you wanted to make a hard copy for you, just email it, you know, she'll make hard copies. But if you're perfectly willing to read it off the computer and print out a page and do what you want. Does that sound reasonable, people? Yes. Okay. Okay. The Arlington Tourism Committee got the budget with us, and they actually reduced their budget. I think last year it was 202,000 years. 2,225, and now they're asking 1,075, which I think is actually what we have given her at one point for a little bit of symbolism. So the request is for 1,075 in the discussion. Motion? So moved. Okay. Moved and seconded. Any discussion, comments? Okay. All those in favor of the Arlington Tourism and Economic Development Committee budget of 1,075? We say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Okay. Gloria, can you see the document? Okay. So this will be the water bodies articles. Last year 50,000. Last year we appropriated 50,000. While they're coming in, I had to talk with Andrew as the manager's office today. You know that $500,000 we gave them were so nice or rather just not. It's got, they just got a $200,000 shift of salt, salt and sand. So I think we're getting to the point, at least we're getting a little bit towards the manager. I'm hoping that I took responsible action yesterday or today. And I took the Christmas wreath that had been hanging on my front door for the last two months. And I felt like tossed it in the trash. So maybe symbolically that will bring an end to this. Now, I think, unless we can hit, I'd like to use part of the reserve fund for this rather than, you know, adding it onto the recap for next year. So what I asked him is, come on with a vote by us to allow you to, you know, spend another 500,000. But when we get into like April or May and everything's looking pretty good, we could just transfer the money that they've actually spent from the reserve fund and go with it that way. I hate to put things on the recap, sort of postponing. Okay. Yes, Charlie? Any questions? Why didn't you say your recommission? It was in pretty bad condition. Besides, then the Boys and Girls Club will be out, you know, my 20 bucks. Then I'm sure they depended upon us. Okay. The article for today is on waterbites. Jane? Whichever. They've improved the microphone system. So as long as you talk towards the table. But if you're going to be down there, you've got to speak loudly because the chairman's hearing this. I see only one I can speak for. I'm Jane Howard and you see that article 39 is exactly as it was in the last year. I'm representing our group and being here from the conservation commission. We have Teresa, the benefits is here from the public works department. Brad Barber from the platform. And we want to thank you for your support of various water bodies articles that we've had over the years. And your recommended vote and also your presentation to Charlie. Think that Brad has a few words to say after me. And then Teresa will speak to the spreadsheet that Brad has sent out tonight. And then we'll take questions. Sounds good. We have a co-chair of the spike on committee with Steve Ritchie, who is not able to come tonight because he was out of town. We've been, last year we asked for 20,000 for the water body spot. This allows us to take 50,000, sorry, yes 50,000 for the water body spot. This allows us to, most of our money is spent very early in the fiscal year and actually at the end of the previous fiscal year. We actually, for instance, this year we treated spike on with sonar, which is an expensive treatment. Our next treatment we expect this to take will be in three years. And we did that in the spring time by having the money on the water body spot. It allows us to smooth out our expenses over the year. We are, the water body spot is set up for all of town's water bodies. Specifically, most of the money currently is being spent on the spike on and the reservoir. We can clearly, and if requests come in, be able to use that money also towards other projects for some of the other water bodies in town. We've worked very closely with DPW, particularly through Susan Pettitatus. She's been fabulous to work for. I guess it's the other way around and hopefully she enjoys working for us since it's in the contracts that are now that drive these projects. This year's spike on has been remarkably clear and used. It's used by boaters, by sailing, by reviewers that the town has an active program now with kayaks in the summer. People who've never been on the water are now able to get on the water. And the reservoir is at a very active program in getting rid of water chestnuts. In fact, I was riding back with a friend of mine, a co-worker, and he says he couldn't believe the quantity of water chestnuts that were pulled out of the reservoir. It was sort of similar size to a subway car where material was pulled out this year. I'd like to present Teresa, I'm sure you know, and let her talk to you through some of the numbers that are involved. In this spreadsheet for a few years, we've been building it as the year 2005. And I've just been adding more history and more detail as time goes by. The front side I consider the one I guess, that shows the funding, the appropriations that we've gotten through the years. You can see our, going back, takes part of 2009 when we started this separate account. You can track the lines, and you see the appropriations that we made in 15, 15, 20, and 15, these last couple years. And then you can also see down below I gave details on the separate fund, the Linda fund, I called for the Fragmites. It's by that sub-count that's completely funded by donations to the sum of more than $9,000. I still have remaining for that specialty work, it's by 2,870 set aside. And we did, in addition to the outsides, we've got $1,300 in donations, this current fiscal year that's reflected on the front. So you can see in FY14's home, we have the carryover of $23,000. We've got the appropriation of $15,000 in donations of $1,300, expecting to be budgeted in expenses of $66,000, which are broken out on the back. We would end up, all those things happening with $4,000 to $9,000 at the end of this year. Since we want to know the why's and wherefores of what we spent, how we spent it through the years, it's broken out on the backside here. We're focused on the current fiscal year for the scheme. As mentioned before, we spent for a sum of our treatment at SPI, now that's $29,200. We've spent for the camp of harvesting under us this past summer of $18,125. We have to spend, if we need to, an algae treatment at SPI, we've got 5,000 set aside for that. If we need to do any more quality testing during the year, with budget of $6,500, breaking it out between SPI, reds and hills, to come to our $66,000 budget, which is currently a fiscal year. Probably just spent $47,000 or $25,000. So, I expect the debt budget. Hopefully, have 5,000, maybe a little more to roll into next fiscal year. With enough hopefully to build a little bit of a balance to get it over. But that's what we've done, how we've done it. And so is the program that we've been following. And I also, I think maybe last year was the first year. In addition to the current budget, I gave you the projection of three coming fiscal years of what we're looking at. So you can see we have a program, what we're contemplating, and what kind of monies you are likely to be asking for in the future. So we're going to be hopefully in the order of spending $50,000 this coming fiscal year. Maybe a little less, $37,000 in 2016. And then hopefully looking at a smaller expenditure in 2017. So that's what's coming your way and our way. Is there a question? I'm looking at the detail, the FY15 budget. What do you mean by spending FY17? Treatments known as 12 hours. Well, the stone hour is something that we contemplate every three years. And it runs about 36. So we build in 12 a year to build that kitty to be ready to spend it in 17. That was our recommendation. So on ours is what we're calling the $60,000 budget. You don't mind that. So for FY15 you're projecting, except for the $47,500. That would be the budget of which $12,000 would be run in full because we try to spend it that fiscal year more than $60,000. So you're projecting cost next year for the $47,500. And you're asking for $50,000 plus you're expecting to carry over $5,000. In addition to what we have. The $5,000 you're expecting to carry over is what you have. I'm expecting at the end of this fiscal year we have about the $10,000 finish. But I'm hoping on top of that that we don't spend, I don't expect to spend more than $5,000 in fiscal 14. So I'm hoping most of that's going to hold forward as well. That's $6,300 remaining. So there might be a little extra. Not knowing what additional expenses might come our way. So you might have $9,100 plus $6,300. Then you're asking for $50,000. And you're anticipating expenses of only $47,500. And are you not expecting to have to do any mechanical harvesting anymore? We're expecting in the coming fiscal year to do harvesting at the Reds. And we're asking for $15,000 for that. Is that mechanical or chemical? It's going to be a combination of what we expect next year to be mainly mechanical. I hope as well in $16,400 to a lesser degree because we're knocking down the amount of weeds that are in the water. We're really trying to stay on top of that and not have a good way. Last two questions are my perennial questions. What effort is being made to have Lexington Pitchin some money towards the cost of water treatment? Hi, I'm Daniel Stevens of the Conservation Commission. As you know we approached Lexington a year and a half ago. I went to the Conservation Commission there and requested $10,000. The majority of members were in the neighborhood but the town manager was not. So it was not recommended. There's a former Farms resident who was on the Conservation Commission. And working with him, he'll take a couple years to try to build up the local constituency in Lexington to try to get them to contribute to the reds cleanup. I'm going to send along those lines, I'm going to send Lexington a report about how much we spent this year. I think it's just a piece of providing more information about how much money that's been offered to spend on the reds. I'm definitely going to play the groundwork for a favorable vote. Lexington is actually contributing. Is it fair to say that Lexington is actually contributing? It's partly contributing to the problem at the reds. I'm checking to contribute to the problem. Is it fair to say that Lexington is contributing to the water quality problem at the reds? It's hard to say. I can turn the table on the water science behind why the water costs are there. But some of the watershed streams flow problem at the reds. Sorry about the birds, do you want to take some of their valuations? Sorry sir, could you stand up? The acoustics in here are not the greatest. The water chestnuts are annual plant. They have big seeds. Sometimes the birds bring the seeds in. Don't think you can establish a water plant. They just expand and expand until they're controlled. The present plant is basically controlled until much lesser expansion than the present. Once it's down to a lower level, the effort requires much less to control the seed bank. I think also the question is, is Lexington's contributing? Is there something from their side of the water that's contributing to the problem? It's going to grow. But what's storm runoff? Is that contributing? Is Lexington's runoff into the reds contributing to the problem? Well, the sentiment has stormed the drain to the reservoir. To that to the nutrients in the reservoir. That's what I'm saying. And we should be very blessed to have some cooperative with their DDW increasing consent. Although they're not contributing cash to the effort, it's certainly allowed, helps reduce the project costs by allowing the harvesters to enter and exit through their side of the reds. I believe they also assist with the disposal of the water systems. They're biotic. I think there's the positive and the negative. They haven't. Yeah. So that's some savings too. We haven't come to this far. So it would be nice to have some cash to pay directly to the contractor. They are providing some in-kind services. And my last question is, has there been any effort to survey the needs of the other water bodies in town, particularly McLennan Park? Any water bodies, anything that it would be, whether it be the detention on McLennan or anything else, could we could spend money from here? We've not identified needs and no one has approached us with anything additional other than what's in this program. Is there any proactive, is anyone taking any proactive action in identifying potential problems before they become extremely expensive at McLennan on no work or any other water? An area of the upper Mississippi Lakes that has problems with oil and water. Dr. Peter Braun, he lives on Catholic Road, collects money from his neighbors and they work and take care of that. Why wouldn't that, why wouldn't this one? Because they were volunteering in the paper. But that would be, well that would be, that would be next month. The town owns that space as well. Alright, so we could use this money for that. For any water body? I guess my concern is that the, the attention is only three particular water bodies and I'm concerned that there are other water bodies that are being neglected and we might, we might get to the point in FY17 where you may be able to appropriately have but then we find out that we have bigger problems at other water bodies and my concern is, is there, is there anyone in the town who's, who's going out and checking on these? Sure. We'll say that we're trying to build a fund balance as far as that and asking for a consistent $50,000 to try to get a little bit of an extra balance in there should something arise that can be better prepared to react to it. That's part of the reason for asking for the $50,000. But I guess as a broader issue, it's been my experience that people find deep, when they, when they are in a problem, that's not a problem. Yes sir, did you have something to add? Yes, AOLI growth is, is well-known in being a waterway with problems and they're the group that's, that's monitoring that work and they have been doing quite a bit of cleanup for instance of the path that's along AOLI growth. So it is much better than it was 10 years ago. I believe that's the premise of AOLI growth. And a lot of that is also shared with the Cambridge Conservation Commission. Milgo, I believe. The Conservation Commission is worried about that too. And the Open Space Commission. And the Open Space Commission. And it's a regular topic on, on protecting those waterways through the Water Bodies Act. Steven? Yes sir. President, this is similar to the residents, is it hard to winchester or the city manager doing anything on the open space plates or even lower I guess in the case of a method? You all said that this would be a, I don't know exactly what. Okay, great. Is there anything, and I don't know if it's past the point but like I think that it hasn't really reached a critical point yet but is there anything perhaps in the future I don't know if this is a way to collaborate with them. They have a much more winchester orders so that they have more people that are out there and they don't want to put in any way to do any sort of thing. I think with the Mystic Lakes, the lakes are so much larger and the weeds are concentrated on the coves. Yeah. Whereas with the red, it's more clear that it's choking the entire water body and it's on both sides. But I think with the Mystic Lakes, it's just, you know, on the coves, there aren't any coves on the, when you look at their sides, it's only the DCR ones, so they're not properly in on them, which is a rather big thing. That's why they've got their, it's not reaching out to those sort of communities that do think the size of the water body really. With the Winchester, I know the Harrogur, the Harrogur, the Harrogur Jones, which is feeds into the upper Mystic and is a main source of water, has a great deal of attention. It's probably the worst of the bunch. And that's the thing. With the Mystic Lakes and river under the state jurisdiction, the old MDC, Department of Conservation, but isn't that a state issue more than a local? DCR, I believe, owns the dam and then the part area on the upper, the lower, but the lower ones, I can't believe, right? It makes sense. But I think there's, Senator Mayo, part of the lake, I think is the answer, but I think some of the other parts are more properly managed, I'd say. I don't know. Charlie? Yes, I have a question about the detailed expense sheet here. How much, first question is how much of the 18,675s that's available now, do you anticipate spending before the end of the fiscal year? And which categories will that be? The algae treatment and the water quality? So the second question I have is actually, you show that there's nothing available at the end of the next two fiscal years. Do you actually plan to have 12,000 balance in the two, in the two, some of our categories? So at the end of fiscal year 16, there's actually going to be 24,000 plus six, so there's going to be 30,000 available, right? 24 of the seminar treatment money would be available in 17, right? Right, and you're not planning to spend the 6,300 that you have in this year, so that's 30,000 dollars. And the seminar treatment... Everyone spends 36,000 on seminar treatment in FY17, of which 12,000 will come from that fiscal year, assuming nothing changes. My question, I'm just sort of questioning, if you have 6,300 now and you're going to have 24,000 in the next two fiscal years, that's 30,000, then you don't need 12,000 in fiscal 17, right? Possibly I could ask the less in FY17, that's correct. What kind of, you know, let's say those balances are available, what kind of things could you foresee that might pop up that you'd have to spend money that you didn't originally plan on, that some of that money might be used for? We are continuing to be successful with the water chestnuts at the Reds. We might have to be spending more to get the chestnuts out of there rather than the ground on what we've achieved. I'm pretty well set on the freight money, because I've seen people that have extra money, so I feel comfortable with that. And like some other water bar the other day that, you know, something happens at the Reds, something different happens that it was on, things are pretty good up there now, but you certainly spend a lot of money in the past that you'll put on. Do you see some of that balance as reserved against these things possibly happening? Right, and then when we come, we don't always, we don't get the money always neatly fitting with when we need to spend it, so we don't, we need to do work in June, we don't have the fund balance, we can't execute a contract at the time that we need to, we can lose control on some of these things, so it's kind of a seasonal deal, you don't pull the trigger at the right time, you end up spending more money than next year, which has happened in the past. One of my worries is that another of one of these invasive species are found in Spipon. We currently are free of water chestnuts in Spipon and that would be a big problem. The moss and some of the water bodies and pathogens are starting to see that would be a big problem. We're currently, one of the changes that have happened in the last few years is we're now doing regular surveys of the water bodies to try to get ahead of start when the four problems get up. Okay, Cal? In the Frank Money's account, the revenue donations line, the F-20 is 9,000 to 4,000. Is it a one-time campaign for the raise money or would that be something to do for five years? Or was that just going to go away? So that was, if I can speak to that, that was the problem that I was involved in. There was, for those of you who visited the pond almost five years ago now, four years ago, we had 15-foot-high walls of adaptation that in some places were about 100 feet deep from the war bot from the edge of the war to the edge of the Fragmites. Almost all of that is now taken care of. Our last, hopefully, last really big treatment was done this year. We anticipate Fragmites has the advantage over things like water chest maps that it doesn't explode. You know, it's more, all of a sudden, you know, you didn't know you had a problem in the adventure you did. Our fund-raising was, it was primarily done at one time, and we sent people out a request and we were pleasantly surprised at the amount of money that came in. The other thing is that Fragmites is not that expensive compared to the other things it was very inexpensive to do. And so we, it was actually a three-year program. So in this context, that's your one-time project and in fact now we're actively asking people not to contribute to the Fragmites fund but specifically to the water bodies fund so that those funds can be used for whatever purpose. Eventually the Fragmites expenses once that gets drawn down will just be part of the water bodies fund or just everything else. I have a question you mentioned unexpected invasive involves is there really budget or effort educational effort where it comes, comes and goes with it or our efforts to avoid having an expectation That is our big, you know, a lot of our purposes are not for many is to both try to do what we can to resolve problems but also to to spread information about how to do it. We're active at Town Day We're active at Echo Fest We're active in whenever we do a volunteer like taking care of the trail stay. A lot of that is to keep people aware water bodies if you don't take care of them go south real quick and that's the whole purpose of the conservation you know that's right that's right and so we do our best and hope for Just to expand on that every year for a number of years we've had 12 of them that is distributed to every single household in the spy pond watershed which is 748 acres and it goes out through the neighborhood news letter which covers the spy pond to Island and Mass Avenue to Route 2 and then the students and we do all the distribution ourselves but the students from the workplace now distribute the rest of the watershed which is a big domain. Are there any other questions for the committee? Thank you for your application. Where did you say you put all these water chestnuts on the Wexington Park Road, Matt? This year we water them at the ridge on this field way and then take it by truck over to our well where the compost facility is. This last year by doing the two park harvesting a lot less material came out so once they put the water on this field way at the ridge we actually just brought it to the public courtyard and put it with our cat base in the mountain communities and disposed it that way because the pile was so small we did that in June and then in August we were able to do it that way too it was next to no expense but when we did the live harvesting prior years Are there any other questions for the committee? Thank you very much for coming we appreciate your input Okay, see Gloria is the assessor here it's about 15 minutes early so other people might come Why don't we discuss the article we just heard on appropriations for water bodies funding? We heard the discussion last year it was an appropriation of 50 this year they would like an appropriation What is the flow of the committee? That's right, move 50,000 Second? Second Is there any discussion? I would like to request that the report provide this if we're going to be carrying money over that they actually project the balances as opposed to project the expenses Gloria, as we're sitting here does an applied balance here at $25,000 it's not explicit if you can get room for somebody to show them how to make a straight sheet I find it also confusing I was staring at this other fund on the other side trying to figure out that too Anybody, just as far as what's being carried over I think part of the challenge is if you look on this page with the three columns where she attempted to roll the fund balance in the middle column she put the entire appropriation of 66,000 in there which sort of starts the confusion because they said there has been 60 but they're showing a pro form of 66 so that fund balance at the end of the year is actually 15 and then like Charlie said it's going to go up for a couple of years and then come down but they're not really showing so they have 9,000 they've got 9,000 coming out of 14 that's the trick though they're going to have 15,000 coming out of 14 because the pro form they're giving is showing them spending 66,000 she said she's going to be 6,000 lighted that and spend 60 she said she 10 to 12,000 spent for 6,000 would somebody be willing to work with Teresa to develop a more understandable spreadsheet Dean okay if people I don't teach you to raise your hand if people have some specific questions or recommendations could you let Dean know and we can talk to Teresa this could flow a little bit better from one year to the other as far as being understanding because I've got to go through this whole thing again and try to figure it out anybody has any recommendations or thoughts please talk to Dean and then we'll have we'll be better off next year okay it's made and seconded for 50 oh sorry yeah the projected spending is going down and the average spending over the next 3 years is actually 40,000 not 50,000 so I'm just wondering if we're not matching exactly to the expense why do we need 50,000 to build up an even larger maybe the objective is to build up a larger reserve fund but we should just be aware that we're doing it we're building up a 30,000 reserve fund rather than just matching what their annual spending is well of course you know in 15, 16 12 of that is all being rolled over to 17 which if this was a budget they couldn't do it because it's a warrant article they could accumulate that I think they're trying to level it as best they can this is what makes it cash expenditure and accruing that Dean from every perspective like that we probably should sort of have a sidebar comment when they came to us a few years ago there were a couple problems we had the first one the spending was oh about falls it's not huge amounts but if you look at the expenditures from 9 forward one year they spent the expenditures were 6,000 and 41,000 and 5,000 and 20 and 45 that's nothing now the second issue we would have is because the issues like they said because the issue could pop up in the spring or in the fall before or after a budget we were spending a heck of a lot of money and not getting great outcomes for all the money we were spending and so what we had said to them in the past what we said to them at one point was we need to sort of smooth out the expenditure to get better outcomes for the money we're spending because it becomes a problem the example I'd give somebody to give you is town meeting passes the article in May town meeting in Germans and they find a problem on August 1st that needs to be treated immediately and then our money is treated they have to wait the entire year until town meeting passes in May and it gets funded July 1 to deal with by the time of the the warranty usually they would wait until the fall this is money going into a fund no I know it is and so what we had said to them was if we put the money into the fund and just roll the balance forward then we'd have to smooth it out and then if they ran into a problem they could deal with the problem in the year in the moment they found it rather than waiting six months that's a whole idea so it's logical to deal with the directive we had given them the prior years which is a little confusing how it shows off okay Christine I'd like to propose an amendment I would be more comfortable giving them 40,000 not like 50,000 this year as Landon's pointing out it seems like if you look at what they're actually estimating the spend and then you subtract out what they're going to be carrying over and I know that every year they carry over substantial amounts of money this year and I'm frankly I'm troubled with having this whole concept of having a separate fund on this because I know the DPW enters into contracts all the time every year to do raking and mowing and tree planting and all that and I don't understand why we should appropriate an amount of that as more in line with taking into consideration okay I have a couple of handshakes back Helen do you for a grind like yeah this I just noticed if you look at the five years when it's finished it's about 45,000 a year including the $12,000 that's accumulated I agree as Dean said that it makes sense to try to level out the expense over the years and keep for take earnings so I think the only question is over the long run what's the likely expenditure 55,000 a year average but for the reasons being said we don't want to just what they predict we're going to expend next year because it doesn't leave any room for accumulation which means we have a very uneven appropriation and it also doesn't leave any reserve for emergencies or loss loss to show off in a spot more understanding so whether it's 45,000 I think we should maintain the level of funding from year to year and let them let them accumulate some money from herbs that they can spend with a blow to their committee pretty quickly okay Charlie well I think Brian could you and actually since they're not spending the money for the sonar except for once every three years they're starting in 2015 they're going to be appropriating in 2017 there's really only a one year gap where they're really not covered for an emergency they're going to have that $12,000 in their fund available for you so if something happens two years from now they're going to have $24,000 sitting there already using if something happened then they could come back so there's really only one year gap this is the year and then there's probably $15,000 in there so as far as an emergency basis I don't think we really need to worry about it except for potentially this year Jared okay Charlie I think I was about to agree with both Christine and Brian the total amount of money that they're forecasting that they're going to spend in 15, 16, 17 is is about $112,000 and that includes this $6300 that they say is going to be left over for this year and actually they don't spend that that's $106,000 but what they've requested in this forecast is $121,000 so in principle we could we could plan on less money in fiscal year 15 but more money in fiscal in other words, actually level it out as opposed to having it declined and the as Brian says it's going to be a reserve in there so are you thinking $40,000 a year for three years $45,000 I would say $45,000 okay Peter I think we should remember that this is a group of volunteers that are putting a lot of their own effort into this it's true that they're supported by DPW and it's also true that the spreadsheets are not very useful as they're personally set up for looking into the future you guys are doing mental arithmetic here on the fly I suggest that we tell them that we're concerned about the projections and the building up a fund which is unnecessarily large and suggests that next year that they deal with that issue but not do it this year on the fly okay so I've got a we've got a motion for $50,000 for $50,000 I think maybe seconded Christine are you making a motion for a different sum? okay is there a second to that? second would the thought be that leaving it at $40,000 and the next year $40,000 you know it's a steady out of that rather than having it dropped just trying to get a sense of what your thoughts are well next year because I want to see what I think $40,000 is more in line going forward than $50,000 and frankly I'm I would be fine with $40,000 for the next three years if there was an effort to encompass all the water bodies in town as well but I'd be comfortable with $40,000 for the next three years okay so you have a main motion for $50,000 a substitute motion for $40,000 that's been seconded any further discussion? John? I come down on Christine's side as well because generally speaking the reserve fund our reserve fund is there for contingencies and I just generally have a problem with individual reserve funds everywhere more or less in the town if possible and if they need the money it's easy to come to us to get the money so what motion will we vote on? I want to see if there's any further discussion then we'll do that Tom? so if there is an emergency what do they have for a fund that's built up before they come to us only because I'm saying this I know very little about water chestnuts because I was involved a little bit with Mr. Glakes and I know something about treatments and all that and things can happen overnight with these water chestnuts and a few allergies that all of a sudden appear and if they're not taken care of right away because they're searching for money it becomes to be double the money the next time they come John? if if we voted $50,000 they would have $6,300 $2,500 and $12,000 so that would be a total of $28,000 unexpended at the end of fiscal year 15 in other words that's money that's sort of floating in a reserve fund based on what she said tonight that they would only spend $18,000 they're only going to spend $10,000 to $12,000 so that would leave $6,300 and then $50,000 is $2,500 higher than $47,500 they have here and they're not going to spend $12,000 you know that so that's $20,000 yeah that's fine okay any other questions Allen, Grant Dean just a technical question would they be permitted to request funds from reserve funds in emergency given as a warmer? yeah I don't see why not and you know we have it set up for even when the finance committee is not meeting so they can, Grant another technical question we are just making the record page I mean we are we only have the authority to recommend how meetings could do what they wish it's not like it was it's not like it was so it almost seems like we need to have a meeting to join it and in emergency you find out all the time set up to take care whether or not it was between emergency set that as a base so you know I'm okay with grant lending less but I don't know it's going to matter because every year they've got $50,000 what we're going to recommend is to use that well this is for the last two years last year the year 2012 is 2015 so actually it's only been that high the last two years so to build in yet more emergency to make this an emergency to be able to handle emergencies this is just a sort of ease of process to be trusted for emergency I understand the potential so we'll use quite a lot of money okay Dean so I'm doing a little homework projection here $40,000 actually comes out to be the exact number that we need I don't know if Christine's quicker than I am on this but yeah so the oratorical asks the oratorical asks for $50,000 if you go to their sheet though they only have to $47,000 $50,000 from down to $47,000 and then their sheet and their projection says they're going to spend the $66,000 then they came here tonight and said they were only going to spend $60,000 so then the $47,000 comes out to $41,000 $45,000 we rounded out to $40,000 and we call it a day it actually comes out to be the exact number so I agree with the $40,000 and then just projecting out the fund balance just like Charlie said even if you do it you still end up with about $20,000 and the balance next to your paper $34,000 a year after and then in 2017 it's down to $9,000 if we do that though $40,000 next year not to $37,000 in other words you can't drop the $47,000 to $40,000 and then not expect that those numbers in the next couple of years have to go up yeah you can't hold up to this spreadsheet for next year or for the year after okay we have another here and there they are going to take it in reverse order so the recommendation that would be voting on first is for $40,000 okay which one which one were voting $40,000 we're voting for the $40,000 if that is defeated then we'll go back to the main motion of $50,000 all those in favor of $40,000 please say aye opposed okay all those in favor of $40,000 please raise your hand opposed okay the motion carries for $40,000 appropriation under article 39 by a vote of 13 to 6 okay that was the substitute motion substitute for the main motion all those in favor of $40,000 please say aye opposed okay unanimous okay do we have people on the second meters here okay great okay this is warm article 30 of 17 okay article 17 is a bylaw amendment second water meters this will be a select one's main motion because obviously it could have a financial impact that the finance committee might decide to so what third or four is yours can you please tell us what this is my name is Gary Tivitz I'm a community member and the main purpose of my article is to encourage water conservation and to make the MWRA charges to the islands and water use is more applicable than they are now to bring them in line with the surrounding amounts the systems the in-ground water systems with automatic timings, rainways and time-aspected backflows to ensure millions of gallons to protect our water supplies I think you can all agree that's a good idea but properties in town likely utilize the second meter to install at their own cost and permitted and inspected by the town for feet would save water as well as a few dollars on a soil usage piece as many properties would be into this option and a lot of them would pay a larger MWRA assessment on their tax bill which would make our billing more equitable since I was told by Dr. Roderick that water coming into town would be needed as well as the sewage going out of town I feel it's sort of against mass general law for the town to fill sewage under the irrigation that is not using it and the town is not paying for that's charging more from the sewage than against the law it seems to me that while we should bring out and put in line the surrounding town for the second meter it's only a matter of time before someone brings possible litigation against the town that forces a team so why not step out of town and do the right thing and conserve some water on the safe at the same time you know most of the towns around that came from Kedelma was actually from Waltham Boston, Wellesley, Conkey, Brookline all along the second meter one of the main reasons this came to my mind because I lived near the Taunton School and in the park next to it there was a water park that thing would run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week it rained and cold and everything else I'd call the rec department they said there was nothing they could do about it so in the same time they're going to be re-building that park this year I went to the meetings involved in that I said a lot of my neighbors because you'd walk your dog they'd walk in the water it just didn't make sense all it would have taken was a simple rain delay which you'd use an airplane landscape irrigation system that would have stopped that from happening at a time so the planners that are doing it the company that's planning it for the town is going to need that they will put them in now and Mr. Roderling should have played ball told me but that brought it to my attention how much water is being wasted you see people turn on a sprinkler on the end of the hose and it's running down the street so I think we have to encourage and reward people who are willing to use a system that will save water we're not going to get any more of them or run out of them questions, Joe the pool down by the Taunton when you called and they said turn off the water it was like that way for 2 or 3 years it must have had a rule that says they can't turn it off I don't know if it's a rule because it makes sense for it to be running a walk at night when it's raining it makes no sense they couldn't do that they used to before that block was put in a public works guy would turn the valve off underground when that system was put in and some of it was faulty some of it was the kids that jam it occasionally I'd walk over and unjam one a couple of them and you couldn't get the unjam it would just be running how would they have flooded the school with me on that you understand how how the timers and the rain sensor would use it, they say the second meter would only be allowed if it was connected to the system to have timers and they couldn't just put a hose faucet out there and it wouldn't be restricted to the system exactly, it would encourage proper use of the water would it encourage or require would it require you to have a timer in order to have the second meter you'd have to have the timer in the back flow and the rain and is there any enforcement of that so that somebody couldn't just want a sprinkler to run all night on the second meter conceivably you could I don't know why you would but conceivably it's your fault because that's how making the water less expensive is almost encouraging seems to be encouraging in more years they'd still be costing they'd still be costing them money and they'd be known anybody without a rain wouldn't do that you know why would you could you end up flooding your own cellar well the same reason they water it in the rain because they're lazy well the people water in the rain with systems because they don't have rain for days and they don't think they run down and shut the time down the other rain it takes all the thinking out of it so the inspector would not approve the second meter unless you have permanently installed rain detector then the talent would be paid for that inspector and the system would also have a back flow which immediately you should have which would affect stuff from back and up into the water supply John can you please explain to me about the rain delay I don't understand what you're saying the rain delay is a simple device you usually mount up the ammonia gutters it's basically it's codwood washes and when the rain gets them wet they expand it opens the switch and shuts the whole system down and won't let it turn back on until they've dried out a couple of days later so if it rains Monday the system probably won't work again until Wednesday at Thursday depending on when that indicated okay so you get two meters so you have two different bills you get one bill sometimes some use a second meter that they bill you just water line other times you use the second meter as a tape off meter you get bill number one and it attracts the sewage for the second if you do it you get amounts of the same back so I don't quite understand the way the billing mechanism works but you said that this is going to save water save water for people who leave the water running now or leave the water running on a rain okay it'll conserve water conserve water but it's not going to it's going to drive the cost of sewage the cost of sewage is going to stay the same it's just the overall cost of the town is going to stay the same it's just the people actually using the sewage are going to pay for their share and the people aren't using it are not going to pay for what they're not using right now if you water your line with an e-ground system it's going to cost it's going to cost it's going to go on with an e-ground system okay with the sewage it you even though that water never sees the soil play and that's really not fair today obviously I just want to follow up on that though today monitor obviously the town is metered it says as well as the sewage going out of the town so is the flow going out of the town that's what I was told I'm not a rock n' paper What about the, what about the storm water? Is that also water? Yeah, I don't know. Oh, because I don't think a lot of the storm water, I don't think it goes to the NWRA. No, but I think... Well, it does, but it just goes out. Yes, it just goes out. What are you trying to say? My own system is not modern. Do we get milk or some water? No, we don't. No. I mean, the storm water just goes down the drains, and then, oh, I brought for Milbrook or wherever. Mr. Glakes. Mr. Glakes. There's no way it goes into the spot. It'll be more out for sure. But if they're actually monitoring sewage going out, you're not... Well actually, it should be the same. So... You know, there's been a kind of water use of irrigation versus... How is that irrigation? I don't know how many houses. Who decides to get it and utilize it? I wish I could give you a figure on that, but I'd be blind. This would be set up just for the in-ground system and it would only, you know, work on the landscape and the garden area or the, yeah, it would not be for washing a cow or anything like that. Okay, Peter, we'll go right down the line. I understand there's this substantial amount of water that goes into the sewer pipes from various sources. So the people that are paying only for fresh water and not for sewage would not carry their share of that cost. No, they would still be paying for sewage for the water that comes into their house and then goes out from the sewer pipes. They would only not pay for the water that goes out on their garden and their trees and their shrubs. They would not be paying for their share of the sewage or whatever sources in the water that they use for watering. If these systems are set up properly, they water the lawn, not the street, they water the trees, the vegetable garden and stuff and it goes in the ground, not in the sources. I understand that this substantial amount of water infiltrates the sewer systems from whatever sources. From rain? From rain. Not just from water. But that goes into the sewer system and that's not... So who pays for the water that goes into the sewer system? I don't believe it's up to anybody to pay for the water in the rain. It goes into the sewer system, it's a meter, it's got to be spread out. The sewage is needed. The storm water drains are not. I'm not talking about storm water drains, I'm talking about rain water that infiltrates into the sewer. The sewer pipes are not perfect, just like the water supply pipes aren't perfect. I'm sure they're not, but that's not the person's fault that's trying to do the right thing watering the garden the proper way. If the pipes underground are leaking and stuff, I think that's our responsibility to deal with that. And I don't think they so much take water in as they leak water out. Mary? Mary? Me? Yeah. We installed it in our second home. Our sewer bill once got out. So we installed a second water system and it cut it down to this. That's in another town, right? Home. Yeah. What? So the new rate structure that the town imposed puts a quarterly billing which will allow them as a second phase to do the bills based only on winter usage. That's a different way of getting at this summer usage of water. Is that, you know, if that is still their plan to do? Or you're saying your plan is a better plan or? I feel what I'm proposing is a better and fairer, more equitable way of doing it. And it's the way, as I said, most of all towns that surround us, which is I get more involved in politics here, and it seems to want to be compatible with all the towns around it. I saw the wage reports and stuff. These are all the towns that, you know, you were comparing the firefighter and police wages to and everything. They're all going this way and done it this way for a number of years. I believe it's the fairer way to do it. And who would pay the cost of installing and attaching the meter? That would all be performed by the homeowner. And that's the way it is. You can purchase the meter, all the labor to put it in and all that. Do you have a list? I mean, could you run down a list of communities that actually do this? Yeah. Cambridge, Belmont, Lexington. I'm sorry, I should have put it on that list. Cambridge, Belmont, Lexington, Waltham, Stoneham, Watertown, Boston, Wellesley. Brooklyn, Conkett, Bedford. Here are all of these, but those are just... Oh, you can have them all. Bedford or Bedford. Bedford. Okay. I listed those towns mainly because the other night when I was at one of the meetings was the payroll comparisons. Those were the towns that can pay it off also. Okay. I remember this came up the last time when this article came up. We had some questions about the cost of the meter or the hardware, about the changes in the collection system, the wireless collection system, changes in the bill system, and the parts of the refurbishment or something like that. Do you know all of those infrastructure changes and costs and estimating how many people will do this? Would it probably be $100 or $1,000 or $5,000? To install the meter in all the hardware that goes with it, it's about $1,000. And that would be borne by the household that it's doing. What about the additional cost of it now? As far as the additional cost, I'm sure that it would... As far as reading it, it's all read electronically now. So I'm sure there have to be some adjustment made in the program that reads them. But I would think that would be a one-time thing. I can't imagine it's all that expensive to do that. Well, simplistically, it might be two of those. You would. The cities that do this don't read electronically. Right. And going back to the Treasury office, the cost of obtaining the building software and all those things, I'm sure it's $10,000 or $50,000. I'm sure it's a cost. Oh, I'm sure there is. It's a one-time thing. You have to be honest. I don't know. I'll try to find that out. Would a thousand households do this? Would a thousand households do it? Would it be $2,000 per permit? Yeah, I mean, you know, when you think about it, every time they build one of these new two-unit condos, which they're putting up all over East Allenton, they're adding at least one water meter. And they're doing this. And that doesn't seem to be costing a fortune. So I could find out what one of those costs would be. Adding additional meters with the same rate is just sort of arithmetic. Adding a second system of a different rate can be a little bit of a problem. But I'm sure it would be a one-time thing that, you know, a program would have to do that. It's a great question. I'll try to get an answer. Okay. I'm just going right around the table. Grant? Other jobs have done this, and that's good to know. You might be getting the idea that people are asking the questions about how much water do we save? How much water did other jobs do? I mean, it's not necessarily the expense side, it's that if you got a balance, how much is really going to save it? It's going to be an estimate at the same time, isn't it? Anything I tell you is going to be an estimate, but there is going to be... Just in my own house, when I did this years ago, I cut my own water bill in half because I started watering properly. So it's definitely... there's a lot of water to be saved. But nobody knows because I don't think the town even has a list of pool that has ingrown systems. I don't know how many it involves, so how many gallons exactly I don't know. But I would say the average home would be about 30 or 40 percent. Well, the water that was watered along with it. And there are all the homes in ours where there's a certain set of those that were watered along. And out of a certain set, those might realize the savings that you did, or more or less. Right, and not everybody is going to opt for this. I mean, it is going to be... it's going to cost you about a thousand dollars. So if there's anything here, I'm not sure how this impacts how I can vote out anything. I don't know what the impact is. Well, I don't know how much there is. Nobody can give you a point. Nobody can really give you... This is something you have to see. But again, I think it's something that the town is almost obligated to do because it doesn't seem fair that the town is charging a fee that they're not paying. And the other town, that have already done it, those would be estimates they might be soon to impact if they save any water. I know it's not a hard deal, but you know what they use one year and what they use the next year. I think there's figures for what the orange house would say. And if I could try to more helpful, I'll try to go with it. That's what they're saying. Okay, I understand. Okay, Paul. Did your company install these? No, we don't. I knew somebody was going to ask me. We recommend it, but we don't install. Okay. Joe. What were named a couple of the companies that are qualified to do this? In Auto Water in Allington. He's a licensed plumber. Auto Water. Jeff Boyle. There's a... Boyle Irrigation is another one. It's not going to work. Mox Contracting. There's several companies that do it. Now, a follow-up. What about the high-rise condos? Are they on board? I would think they would have done this two years ago. Yes, and some of the high-rise condos when they were built, they had second meters put in in the anticipation of being able to use them and they've never used them. It's never been used. It's never been utilized. Okay. Yeah. Two years ago this came up. Joe... Yeah. The biggest argument with the town meeting was that somebody could bypass this and bring... be using that water for their own system. And there was no way to... Anything is possible. People have been known to play around with the current meters, so let's face it. It's... If you're going to steal, you're going to steal. It's hard to catch people stealing. Well, you could probably do it just by looking at the history of their water consumption. I think you could probably figure it out pretty quick. Plus, we could put a penalty in the bylaws. Well, that's how the years ago... My father used to tell a story, I guess, years ago that a gas meter used to generate it. And it gave you a certain amount of gas. And they caught a guy in Cambridge who was making quarters out of ice, putting them in the thing and they'd melt. But then they figured out that neighborhood was using more gas and they narrowed it down to him. So I'm sure there are ways to make people honest. But that was a big objection to you. Yeah, I agree. Tom? Yeah. I'm going to get a back flow and everything goes with it. I will be... It would cost me an additional $1,000 to get a meter. Give or take. I've talked to two or three of the plumbers because you know you have to license plumbers. How about the people that just can't... $1,000 is a lot of money. How about the people that can't afford the tablets? Would they be fine? No, this is just voluntary. This is voluntary. It's mandatory. If you want the second meter, you can write off the ball. It's the... It's not the second meter that can serve a spot. It's the opposite of the second meter. It encourages people to use as much water as they... than they would have because they are going to be paying money. The second meter for savings on that would encourage them to use the times in the rain delays to save water. In other words, just like the government rewards people with all sorts of tax incentives, it would be rewarding to conserving water. So you're... you want to... you're... So you reward... The idea of this is to reward property owners who can afford to put in on McDonald's to do so. And as I said, the other thing that makes things more equitable, a lot of the more expensive homes in Islington are paying a higher proportion of the MWRA charges with that assessment that's on your tax bill. So, you know, if you get a house that's, you know, assessed at $700,000, he's paying a higher rate for the MWRA than a person that's assessed for $250,000. So it makes things a little bit more equitable. Well, if I... I don't have a non-max framework, they never will. Right. But you will. So are I subsidizing you? No. We're still both paying the same amount for our water and we're paying the same amount for the sewage that we use. But you don't pay the sewage. I just would not be using the extra sewage on my lawn that you might be using if you go up and waddy along the... you know, you're not going to waddy it once. We're both paying the same price for our waddy. I'm not subsidizing my water at all. And I'm just not paying for sewage that I'm not using and the town is not paying for. At least some of these towns who you mentioned, that they charge a higher rate for irrigation, doesn't which I should? No, I believe they all charge that. I don't know exactly if I'm going to lie to you, but as far as I know, all the towns charge the same water rate, not like each town in caravan, but they charge everyone the same water rate in the sewage, the same sewage rate. So we're just asking to not pay the sewage rate on the water that's not going into the sewage. Okay, Charlie? You want to say... Well, Karen, did you want to? Yeah, so... So basically if you have property that we are and you can afford to install this, you're going to save money on your water bill because you're going to conserve water. So you have an incentive to put it in for all of those reasons. You're asking the town to offer them a tax incentive on top of the incentive that they already have from their own actions. No, I'm asking the town to not charge them for the sewage that they're not using. So then it is the same as the Parabella one, just a lot of extra income. It's tighter, but I mean, it's the same theory. I mean, it is what it is. But the town currently is charging a lot more for service than what it's costing them to rent. And I don't think that flies anymore. So, you know, I... If we do the right thing, we can encourage some water conservation, get the town in compliance with the law and with the way the rest of the area, the surrounding communities are working, and have worked for many years. Do you have community songs listed on the work a few years ago? Well, I did a lot of research. Well, it might be that you wanted to... No, most of those towns that I've been doing this my work 35 years in dealing around this stuff for a long time, and most of those towns have been like that all along. Okay. There's several people who have their hands up in the audience. What I want to do is finish all the questions from the finance committee, and then anybody who would like to speak, welcome to speak on this. Charlie? So, you mentioned that you were concerned that the town might be doing something illegal because they're charging people for sewage costs, but I want to water my lawn with my hose. So, why can't I benefit from this? The whole purpose is most of the time, and I'm not saying you, most of the time, people that hand water are used untimed and unzoned systems. They come home from work, the lawn looks dry, the tomatoes look dry, they turn the hose on, they light the grill, they start going. It's nine o'clock and there's water running down the street. I've seen it a million times. I used to do it. So, this is to encourage water conservation. I think if I could save on sewage charges, I would certainly use a second, I mean, the principle that you and I have lined here, that is, I'll use the term unfair or potentially illegal to charge somebody for sewage use when they're not using it, is true whether the water is running down the street or whether it's going into the lawn and being saturated by the tomatoes. So, you're basically saying that only people who install an expensive in-ground system can benefit from this bylaw. And I think that that's prejudicial to a whole bunch of people who hand water their gardens. That's your opinion in your title. I know for sure that these systems save a lot of water. And the whole idea in my warrant article is to conserve water. I don't know if you've seen pictures on History Channel and stuff, but some of those lakes down south have dried up. You see boats tied up to docks that are, you know, 800 feet in the dry. I mean, water is running out. We've got to save it. This is, you know, one way only if we can help do that. Okay. I was looking for information at this point. Mr. Gilligan, I think you had your hand up that you want to add something to this. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to get into the start of the discussion, but I couldn't have the selecting speech. I understand there may have been some questions that were asked in the Treasury's office with respect to the impact of billing and cost. And if there are questions anyone would like to ask, we have to answer them. Let me just say a couple of things that might help clarify the situation. This discussion has been around for 25 years. Right. The discussion was around when I served under those selectors. And the key issue at that time was pilfer, fraud, whatever you want to call it. Using the second meter, the back feet, the kitchen windows, they can do the dishes and not pay the sewer check. Right now the water department, under the director of public works, is implementing a new pre-tea structure for water and sewer. Part of that process is to include baseline, which is to look at how each water meter is tracking for water and sewer users. That baseline will carry the forces. When you're structuring such that, it's going to look at dry months, wet months, winter months, summer months. So that indices can be created that says, all right, who's using the water? Who's using it? The kids are coming home from college. And how can the rates be structured? With keep the following in mind, could we establish that a second water meter, paid for by the user, could be spread over time to mitigate a large top-stuck front and ensues to check a viral system? That's borne by the water user. With respect to conservation, I can't address any system that goes on on our map with a lot of water. But the new great structure that's pre-tiered, will be able to track how usage is and what each family, one, two, three, four, or five numbers, are using for water. And the meter can work more than just two dials in order to be able to track the water and also notify the user, should they be going over their baseline, should they be in potential need. So, as soon as the process is concerned, you can look at over usage or spillage or lack of conservation. My concern is cost. I believe the cost can be mitigated by the use of any. Also keep in mind each new meter carries the administration fee. So whether the meter is ever turned off or not, the cost of having to carry that on a rewarding structure is paid for. My concern specifically is pressure at getting the bill out and collected. And there are approximately $14,100 water meters in town. At a 10% increase in water meters, that's an additional $1,400 bill. That will create a burden in my house. And that's something we're going to have to look at. And I've presented the finance committee and the board of selection in town in the area of operational issues in a memo of that effect across the board of water. I think allowing a second meter is viable. There are concerns that have to be addressed. And then there are monitoring systems that have to be put in place to make sure there's no abuse. But I don't think it will incur an additional cost in the town that can't be met by the regulators. Okay, Mr. Gillan, how about the adjustments of the software that does the, that keeps track of the meters? Or it might be the cost feed to adding a second meter into the same house as far as software modifications. It's creating a new account. And that's already built into the software. It's the same thing as if you are building a new house on a vacant lot. It's just adding an account to the software. The only symmetry, for lack of a better word, is you've got water meter B at the same physical location. That should not incur additional maintenance or maintenance of the software. Stephen, any specific question? I'm adding a second price. I'm going to call it price here. Yes, price here. So it's not the meter itself, right? Because we were talking about, like, with condos, nanometers all the time, right? But they're all the same price here. This would be adding, forget the second meter. This would be putting in a new price. There would be a new price here. My understanding is this discussion has already been taking place in the water department. And as I talked about baseline to look at what it would be like to add the software, to add the second meter, and add the component of additional price here. That, you can ask the director of BVW, and I know probably doing that in the morning, and getting back to the chairman. But my understanding is that's going to take a little time. There will be, there will be a labor component in the water department to get them installed. There will be a labor component in my office to collect the bills. But I think that can be addressed here. Okay, is there anybody else who would like Mr. Harrington? Stephen Harrington. I'm coming here to speak tonight as a homeowner that the current water system billing hurts tremendously. So a family of five, you mentioned the three tiered system. If you look at water usage, and you should just Google water usage, you'll see it's pretty well modeled in a home. And so as a family of five, we actually get hurt by this three tiered system. Where the second tier kicks in at about two people, 2.2 people or so, and the third tier gets kicked in for larger families. Larger families also own larger homes. Just more bedrooms. And so we also get hurt from the MWRA surcharge, which is based on the value of the home, not on the usage if you want. And so as a homeowner, I get hit twice. Now I have an irrigation system. I use it very sparingly. I don't have it on automatic. I let my lawn grow sometimes. I use it when it makes the most sense. I probably used it last year when it was pretty dry. Average two days a week. Because I really don't care that much. When they have it, they put it in. But the current billing, it's very high. If I include my surcharge, I'm up to $2,000 for water. And we're not unusual water uses. And so when you're forcing people with large homes and the money to do this, is to tap into the well of the guy next door. And that's what I could do for less money and get myself out of paying the town anything for my outside water usage. And not just anecdotally, this has happened to the town of Allentown. If I'm correct, the Winchester Country Club completely went to a well water and also get off of town sewer. And what that did is when you see these numbers that say that Allentown conserved water, they were the single largest use of water and they stopped using it. And so the economics is going to force people who are, well, you know, frankly, unfairly charged. Someone mentioned earlier about how they'd be subsidizing me because I wouldn't be paying for their sewer usage if I have an outdoor irrigation system. But in fact, it's quite the other way around. That people with large homes, large families subsidizing people who don't. And so the economics is just going to be that you'll force guys like me who have the option to tap into a well to use a well when you get nothing. Thank you very much once again. Okay, let me get the other question. Anybody else who would like to say anything specifically to this article? Okay. Do you want me to get back to you in the morning with the answer about the new rate tier and the price point? Sure. Well, E-mail it to Gloria and she can e-mail it to everybody else. With respect to the triple tier, the three tiered rate structure, the town manager and the director of DPW had recently put in writing that it's their expectation that 80% of all water uses in the town will be within the first two rate structures. And then on the personal level in a family of three and the way my daughter takes showers, I'll be in the third rate. So trust me when I say I want to get in on costs as quickly as I can. Okay. Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to speak to this article? Yes, sir. I'm going to pull down the problem you mentioned, 15. I just, I wanted to say I think you should encourage Google for this article to get to the minimum. Okay. We save water and we encourage planting lawns, shrubs, trees which are further benefit for the environment. Okay. As far as, you know, the time of the vice save and water, how many could have maybe cut their lawn and put the water on for half hour on Saturday afternoon and sat down on the couch to watch the socks game and woke up a couple of hours later and the sprinklers still going up front. That's where we're wasting water. That's why the time device and the water sensor, the crane sensor makes a lot of sense. Okay. Anybody else? Okay. Anybody from the committee with any additional questions or comments? Alan? I encourage everybody in the committee to look at these town's water sewer rates. I was a little bit surprised that the sewer rates in the Bedford, Lexington and Berkeley are two to three times the water rates for the measure against the amount of water used that comes into the property. For example, the lawn is 568 for 100 cubic feet, but the water used at 11.5 for 100 cubic feet for the sewer. Lexington is 655 and 18. So there's a huge difference in the cost of 100 gallons of water, 100 cubic feet of water depending on which meter it's on. And, you know, we have to make some guess about how much water, you know, what percentage we're going through the cheaper meters as opposed to the expensive meter to see what the impact is. Because it may be that if half of the water in the town is going through the cheaper meter, the lawn's whatever, that the cost of the other one is going to go way up. So, you know, I just encourage everyone to look at the rates in the town in the two meters. There's a huge difference between the two meters. Okay. Anybody, Mary? I think the amount of water you use when you have it is less than if you did it by hand. Because ours goes on like a 3 o'clock in the morning when the sun isn't up and it's all done before the sun comes up and if it's raining it doesn't cold. So I think in the long run you save on the amount of water you use as well as the sewable goes down because it doesn't go through this one. Okay, Jean. I'm just going to ask this question because I can make sure I have my head around this. The hypothetical question I'm sure it's wrong but it gets to my point. So, if we install second meters, if we have second meters, once in we didn't have all this other stuff, in fact, well, blah, blah, blah, you'd have a second meter for me to do your lawn, right? So, the charge in the second meter is less than the charge in the first meter, right? So, but the selector have a duty to run an enterprise fund that doesn't go bankrupt. So they would have to raise rigs. They're going to have to raise one or both rigs. They have to raise the water rate or the sewer rate to go up to balance the fund. Right? Well, they'd have to raise the sewer rate in charge of what it's actually costing for the sewage that's being used, not spreading it out inequitably amongst everyone. So, the people that are not using it would not be paying for it anymore. And that is a departure. Absolutely right. But these people are paying for something they're not getting. You know, this, and, you know, government does a lot of financial things to encourage conservation and stuff. And this is just one small way in the town of Island you can do something to encourage this conservation. So, you are right. The sewer rate, and the people that are using this and not paying the sewage on the water that's going in their garden, their sewage on the stuff that's going through their house is going to go up. There's going to be an upside there, without a doubt. But it makes it equitable then for conservation. Okay, I think we're sort of going around and around the same point. Bill, I add? Bill, I promise. Just to go back to Mr. Fawcett and a couple other people. If I can prove that the town is trying to be a feed that I am getting no benefit whatsoever after the Emerson decision, I will be sustained in the legal case. So, if I just have a sprinkler system, the water is not going into the sewerage. But if I have a meter and I can prove that that water is not going and it is feeding not going into the sewerage system, one other fact, we are strong brains for water. Sewage is supposed to be in the self-contained system. If anything else is giving me to that sewerage, we have a problem with this town. Thank you. Okay. Charles? I just have one question for the performance of this article. I still cannot get my arms around why this second meter is not available to people who want to water their lawns with a hose. You can water your lawn with a hose for a second meter. You can buy a mechanical timer and put it on that outlet and still have a meter of time, if you will, on the use of water. And I am concerned that your proposal is an economic program by the people who install groundwater systems to sell more of these systems. It could seem that way. Certainly does. The whole thing is with the hand help with a battery operated time with all the rain delay you are not shutting it off when it is raining. And the other thing is with the in-ground systems the water is pre-adjusted to go where it is supposed to go whereas if somebody has a hose going in the water and they set it down and ends up in the public street it is just But you agreed that I am watering the hose the one with the hose I am being charged inappropriately for sewage just the way you complain about the in-ground system. So therefore why include that provision in the water? Well because if it is not in there the out of the water won't go anywhere. That is the whole thing. So you get rock being put between a rock and a house place so to needlessly. My whole idea was to save some water. And that is what this should do. I think it was last time around that people could use the hose up or fill up their just because there is no control over it this would at least have some control over it. That is why I wrote it as time as I wrote it. Okay, any new issues or new things Grant and then John and then seems not exactly direct the people most concerned with the conservation wouldn't wire the water well. You know landscape is a good design you know the grass, the lawns, the trees they all clean the air is a good thing landscape means the material on the ground shrubs the trees everything they clean the air they clean the ground water so I mean it is all a good thing it is to empower them to encourage landscape people who want to do what they want to do but they don't want to bring the conservation in because they can better take no, they still clean the water it is not to use low water in the heat these systems put the exact amount of water in the right place in the right time. I think we've pretty much gone around this John, is something new? Yeah. For myself. What's the process by which the charge for water as opposed to the charge for sewer how is that determined? Is that NWRA or is that the town that determines? I assume that the town sort of pays like a wholesale rate to the NWRA and then has sort of a retail rate that is charged to people that takes into account the extra cost involved in running the water department So is the town that would determine how much proportion would be paid by the one meter system as opposed to the other meter system is that correct? The town would set the sewage rate and the water rate as well I believe the water rate is independent of the sewage rate because it seems to be so I guess the water commission is what I was trying to say I'm sure the NWRA governs to some extent by what they charge to the town it's like buying bananas and selling them Okay gentlemen I'd like to thank you very much for coming we appreciate it it's been very enlightening I'd like to make a recommendation now right now I could vote either way with five explanations on why I'm doing it both ways I think one of the key factors is the ability of the town to establish the software and the cost of setting this up we have the manager coming in here next week perhaps it would be good to table this until then and get the manager's recommendations or opinions on how much this will cost and go from there How would it cost anything to the town? Well, you're setting up new accounts for second meters of software I just want to find out about it Ken? Why are you asking the town manager? Is this generated from the treasurer's office? I'm not sure if it's generated from the treasurer or from the manager's from the manager's from the manager's in charge of the water sewer so I'll move Okay, second Ken? So he ended up putting a presentation together as well in relation to Mr. Caravell's warrant part That's a good idea Grant, can you go back and make sure that Ryan hasn't thrown out his notes from this? Yeah Okay, yeah Okay, if you can if he has them in a form that you could send them out to everybody What's the what's the question? The question is did Ryan have a set of notes or recommendations that he might have put together in a memo fashion that we could circular? Yeah I don't remember Grant, could you either take a look through all your stuff or take our call Ryan and see if he has a memo or something like that that he made to us two years ago Okay, Stephen? Question on if this that's a little bit forward and the way that Ryan was written it's still left in town by the last we want to see what amendment would look like from what he's illustrated the language would look like before we're going to vote and if so who's going to provide that to us or is it the town council? The recommendation we would have the town council draft up a bylaw that could have anything that we wanted into including penalties for cheating or something like that so we could draft it however we want but I think there's sort of a a value issue here as far as equity that's been articulated to us and Charlie has also articulated a different angle so there's a value question here but there's also a cost issue is there a cost to the town which is simply too great to justify and I'll talk to the manager and say these are the issues we want you to deal with the value issues are something that we have to think about ourselves okay Alan and then Paul one paragraph note in our 2012 report recommending no action talks about people using less water subsidizing more water but again if you look at the town of Lexington waterways two different meters once six and a half dollars per hundred cubic feet the other one's 24 dollars so depending on how much water is going through this meter and that meter could really make an impact on the cost of the expensive meter we need to have some kind of forecast on what difference it would make to the rates because it could be pretty substantial one would think did you appear before the select one tonight on this issue no I am the town council didn't review the way I wrote that though okay that's fine do they have any schedule to appear before them nothing I know this is the first time I've done anything like this because this will be a select one's main motion so you will be appearing before them I'm assuming that they'll be calling you any additional information that you could that you have if you could email it to Gloria or Executive Secretary and she'll share it with us so again Paul Steve's question the way it would work is if the select man wrote to him on this he'll compare my law that will go in their report and if they both no action then either we can put together my law or we can both no action and then the proponents would that's right I'd like to a couple of things I want to find out what the management of the town say about this we've heard from the treasurer collector but I'd like to hear from the manager department on this I'd like to hear what the select man have to do and then we could either support their recommendation or oppose it or whatever the committee feels like okay is there any other questions that's okay motion is made and seconded to table on this until we have the manager in before us all those in favor please say aye okay so it's tables okay thank you very much just a minute yes Frank one is that I think I've soundly one of the things that's there was a stunning one by the motion of the issue of the second water here within their recommendations briefly nonetheless it's recommended that our committee consider the use of which of the water needs pursuers bill rather than the use of irrigation so basically the study of the consultant report has been not around okay and when was this last year last year or the year before okay I'll try to raise these issues and we'll get feedback from the management when it comes in we'll have a lot to do on March 5th on this okay we have a half hour left Gloria did the assessors ever show yeah I'll give them a follow up tomorrow okay every time they miss it we cut their what they requested in half so one of the okay one of the issues that we've put off or we have on our plate is the acceptance or rejection of the changes to the Minuteman regional agreement so Charlie do you want to tell us what's happened since well since since we last discussed this there has been a final clean copy of the version accepted by the Minuteman school committee and I think that Gloria emailed that everybody and also gave you a physical copy the other day I think it's dated January 27th or something like that so the recommendation I think there's a motion before the committee to accept the revised agreement as we have discussed and by the way that I think as I mentioned recently that final version includes a one cleanup fix recommended by and I think we've discussed it other than we have the clean copy I didn't want to have a vote on it without the final version and it's what we've discussed in a lot of you know typos and minor misses have been corrected okay so everybody's had this for a while and the recommendation Charlie it's for favor of all actions okay the Minuteman regional agreement as revised second second okay so discussion Dean it's going to make a motion okay is there a draw any discussion or questions on this Peter this is an article isn't it it's article 21 then it's to the regional Minuteman I would like to suggest to the recommendation that we are supporting with respect to article 21 is this draft dated 2012 2014 and and that we prepared to receive whatever final recommendation is made by the Minuteman school committee and if they change this we have to revote it in other words when they're coming for us with a recommended vote you know is this draft as of 212 after the school committee made those after all the changes Bill did you have a question No I'm good thank you so in short I believe that this is the final recommendation of the Minuteman school committee but you know when it goes before town meeting they could have some other recommendations in which case we would have to reconsider our vote okay motions from second are there any other questions or any other discussion okay all those people in favor of the amendments to the Minuteman regional agreement please say aye opposed okay unanimous thank you thank you now has the board of select already voted you said they had the board of select in I'll use the term endorsed it the same night that I gave the presentation to finance committee but they were planning to hold a separate hearing I don't know when they stated that hearing but they you know the town manager had a little bit of a formal hearing okay at this point do we have any budgets Paul okay are you grab there yeah we've got 125 the action remains that they would like to add one position which is a captain position to oversee the EMS part of their work what he considers the most important reasons for doing that have to do with liability and just running their department in the correct way for instance one of the things that they don't do as much as they should right now is follow up the reports that are supposed to be done after every EMS call if they do follow up on them but probably not in some cases not as much detail as they should there's a risk of liability to the town if mistakes are made in the EMS calls that the town is not managing them correctly the town would be liable as always for many many years they have many more EMS calls and they have fire calls in fact the number of fire calls for this past calendar year it's dropped to the lowest number of four years I think the annual report has the exact numbers so the EMS side of things is the most important side and people need stuff to correctly manage that side of his work he needs the additional captains and the town managers as a reviewer the big thing coming up for them is the rehabilitation work on the central fire station the headquarters which if we ask the special town leading article on it coming up they will be starting on one engine company the trailers at the central station and the company will move up to the final station for the duration of the construction project I assume that's the reason the client is $28,000 in heating costs that is exactly it the budget has printed the salaries and wages number is the biggest jump here and that's primarily due to the construction all the other pump salary line item 15261 going out by $28,000 because they're setting off the heat to the headquarters central station one of the construction work is done they will need gas instead of oil so in the future they're using the number 5214 which is also listed in the fuel which is the natural gas line that will be going up after the construction energy line that's the energy line that's going to be the natural gas that will be the electricity bill that they have and this costs will continue to show up there the engines they have but they will in a few years be placed in the offsets and why they have not gone up budget cycles is really going to talk to the town manager about that the offset is the offset is the ambulance we're all in front the captain coming to and that should make more sense to increase the offsets on the ambulance and then we'll be there won't be any the infrastructure is going to be some of the older firefighters will be 7% shall we number that will be 100 but the birds will be 7% higher than the average retirement cost that's going to be some of that any questions this is general I don't know the answer what's the term to get fire department shows up online the fire department if there may be ambulance is available and it's only at that angle on another call that they don't call a private they do have a second ambulance which if there is full staffing in the daytime period they will use the second ambulance in the second ambulance out to be set about 10% I have that second second question maybe on the filling for the ambulance if I assume everyone has all the terms out there that you're referring to I assume that we feel the resident that calls makes the call is do we accept the insurance payment or do we have an additional fill that I assume you guys are okay because when I was in Hamilton and one of the things that we did was we filled the insurance company for every call and we accepted the payment and what we found out was the annuals and what we did was we did wait for the call case for the people to listen now obviously because they're paying for the service through their taxes and we didn't want to put an additional burden on them when they've already paid it so it's just a question in general that I propose to the people but the answer is in terms of which burden is possible with that profit I'm going to ask the Chief about that okay Peter and the EMS Chief is there any reason besides fears of liability for having that position that he mentioned one other reason is that the administrative staff that he has is overworked at this point and they'll cover not just EMS but other areas where they don't give proper attention as much as they would like to and he has a plan to cross-train among three people so that this cabinet will be able to handle some other issues fire prevention there's three areas to cross train fire prevention training and EMS one of the things that happens now is if someone is installing new fire alarm equipment and it has to be inspected by the member of our department if that person is on vacation they can't believe that they'll get back and with this cross training they'll go out and they'll be able to cover that kind of more expeditions thank you okay, are there any other questions? yeah, so that's the opposite in this question that Gordon raises every year at our meeting as I recall that fund was building up quite a balance so I guess if you're looking into that are we ready to vote for the budget and amend it if the option is larger or do we want to wait to find out if there are a lot that's going to be certainly we can go either way I guess I would recommend that we go ahead and approve the budget now and when the manager is in we'll look into the box we'll see further about it okay, are there any other questions? if he changes the offsets these are mostly water sewer offsets right? this is the end of the fund these aren't offsets at all they're transfers we're calling you off the transfers for the revolving fund right I second the motion of the budget okay, is there any further discussion? all those in favor of approval of the budget of $6,685,551 please say aye aye, aye, aye proposed The enemies. 224. Everybody have any small budgets? I don't know. Oh, thanks. For 12 sides, 30 budget. Where is that? I don't know. Which budget? Which budget? 31, the town of the manager. We've got to get back to the police station so we can have better... Stage 29. Okay, David. Okay, as you can see, facing up on the manager's budget, the original amount of increases with the exception of wages and salaries according to all the expenses of our state of the same as the previous years. We're recommending that the... as presented, 491,381. That's the budget. I'll second that. Okay, so a motion has been made and seconded. Are there any questions or discussions? A motion has been made and seconded for favorable action for 491,381. All those in favor, we say aye. Aye. All those unanimous? Any other little budgets? Okay, in accordance with the Mary Ronan rule, minus five minutes. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you. So on Wednesday, we have the Transportation Advisory, Electronic Voting, and part of it. I could just see your sharpening tonight.