 I call to order the seventh night of the Town of Arlington annual town meeting. It's May 15th, 2023, just some very brief opening remarks. I know that last week there were some, thank you, there were certainly some procedural complexities that we ran through last week. I know folks have had some questions about that and town meeting isn't the right forum for having those discussions, but there is an excellent forum for that, which is the Town Meeting Procedures Committee, which I'll be convening in the coming weeks or months, whenever I recover from all of this, and there will be ample opportunity for members of the public, especially town meeting members, to offer public comment at those meetings. And so we'll run through and basically do, the Procedures Committee will be doing an extensive debrief on how things went procedurally at this town meeting and things that we might consider doing differently in the future. So if you have feedback or input, that might be a good place to offer public comment. That's all I've got tonight, so let's go straight to Mr. Helmuth. Eric Helmuth, Chair of the Select Board. When we get to this point of town meeting where we could finish tonight, it is traditional to growl at the following motion. I won't mind if you do. It is moved that if all the business of this meeting is set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting is not disposed up at this session when the meeting adjourns, it adjourns to Wednesday, May 17th, 2023, at 8 p.m. Okay, do we have a second? Okay, so we have a second on a motion that if we don't finish tonight, that we would adjourn to Wednesday, May 17th, 8 p.m., two days from now. All those in favor say yes. Yes. All those opposed? No. The motion carries. And on a completely unrelated note, we'll now take a test vote. Mr. Wagner, do you have a point of order while we bring up the test vote? Thank you, Carl Wagner, Precinct 15. A point of order can be used, for example, when a microphone isn't working properly or the building is too hot. I would like to point out this is the second time we will not be singing the national anthem, and I think that is wrong. I urge you all to change that. Thank you. All right, thank you, Mr. Wagner. You emailed me about this last week. I asked you if you had any suggestions for any performers, and I heard crickets. So we're going to move on now to the test vote. So true or false, tonight will be the final night of the 2023 annual town meeting. This is a non-binding vote. Voting is open. Okay? My monitor here isn't working, so. And the book passes, let's scroll through the votes. Everyone can check their votes, 114 in affirmative, 50 in the negative, 18 abstentions. Is someone over, like on the presentation team, is someone available to check the display here, because I won't be able to see the votes? Sorry, I didn't notice that earlier. Thank you. And as those votes are scrolling, oh, thanks, Julie. As those votes are scrolling by, we actually do have, if we get as far as Wednesday, we do have a singer lined up for Wednesday night for the anthem. And just FYI, if we were to finish tonight, we would have to be at a pace of roughly six and a half minutes per article on average. So I'm not taking a position on that. That's just the math. Okay, we're good. Okay. Now, do we have any announcements or resolutions tonight? Yep, Mr. Newton? Good evening, Mr. Moderator. Sanjay Newton, precinct 10. I'm also a member of the Town's MBTA Communities Working Group. In a minute, I'm going to ask you to do three things. Oops. Sorry. In early March, VOTO. First, a quick review of the MBTA Communities Act, also known as Section 3A, is a state-level mandate for all 175 communities served by the MBTA to create zoning for multifamily housing by right. It was signed into law in 2021 by then Governor Baker. And in the fall of 2022, so just six-ish months ago, the Department of Housing and Community Development released guidelines for compliance. In early March, the Working Group launched a survey and held a community visioning session held by or attended by over 120 people, including a number of you I see out there. The session from the input from that session and also over 1,000 survey responses continues to inform the Planning Department and the Working Group. If you participated, thank you very much. And if you haven't participated yet, the Working Group is planning a number of additional ways that you can give your input as the plan is refined. We expect to bring a final proposal to a fall town meeting. And I have a personal plea for all of you to please, please, please between now and then find a way to engage in this process so that you're not coming new to it at the fall town meeting, which brings me to my first ask, yes, right behind me, June 8th, 7.30 p.m., right here at Town Hall, we expect to hold a forum to discuss the first iteration. Oh, my goodness. Yes, the Arlington Community Center. It is the Community Center. My mistake. Right there. I pointed the right direction. And we're going to have a first iteration of a plan that's going to evolve with community input. We're going to discuss it at that forum, discuss the different options and ways that that plan may evolve as we continue to engage. There will, of course, be time for people to ask questions, offer their thoughts, both at that meeting and afterwards. My second ask, number two, is that you hold what we're calling a meeting or conversation in a box. These are pre-made materials ready for you to hold a small group conversation to provide feedback. And you could hold these with the rest of the town meeting members in your precinct. You could hold them with your neighbors. It's up to you, really, who you think would be a great group to provide feedback. So please consider doing that. You can talk to me. You can talk to anyone else in the working group. You can talk to Director Ricker if you'd like to get started on that. My third ask, number three, is for suggestions of community groups that would be great to engage in this process. So if you are a member of a group and would like us to come visit you, we would be very happy to do that. So in review, we expect to bring a final proposal to the fall town meeting. Please be ready. And my three asks to come to the forum on June 8th at the Community Center. Hold a meeting in a box or invite the working group to engage with your community organization. Please keep an eye on the town notices between now and the fall. This is an exciting opportunity for Arlington and for the whole region. And I hope you will take part. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Newton. Do we have any other announcements or resolutions? Mr. Tosti. Alan Tosti, precinct 17. When we were doing the Minuteman discussion, I held up a chart, buried Minuteman's pursuit and cost to all the other vocational schools. And because of my technical incompetence, I wasn't able to get it up. But it is now posted under that article on Minuteman. It is from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. It is for fiscal 22. So it is the most recent data available. I think you might find it interesting. And it is for operating costs only, not capital. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tosti. Yeah, that was added to the annotated warrant. So we don't add materials after the article closes, but that was referenced during the article. And so to make the record complete. Any other announcements or resolutions? What's that? Oh, Ms. Malata. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Good evening. My name is Nandana Mewada, and I represent... Is this better? My name is Nandana Mewada, and I represent precinct three. I won't take very long. I'm a member of the board of the ACA, the Arlington Center for the Arts, and on behalf of the organization, I would like to take this opportunity to provide some updates and announcements. I see the slide is up already. Great. First, a thank you to the town for its support of the ACA. Last year, we received two grants totaling $27,000 from the Department of Planning and Community Development as part of the Small Business and Non-profit Working Capital Fund and the Transformative Growth Grants Program. Our town staff, particularly Jim Feeney, has been a strong ally of the ACA. We look forward to continuing to work with him as he steps into the role of town manager. Thank you, Mr. Feeney. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Feeney. I would also like to acknowledge the Capital Planning Committee for allocating funds to replace the air handler and the elevator at the Central School Building. ACA occupies the top two floors in the building, and these improvements will address easier access and create a more conducive environment for our students and artists. Slide. Thank you. Next, allow me to paint a picture of ACA's impact by the numbers. Last year, the organization with its six full-time staff served approximately 700 participants of all ages in year-round classes, 1,250 children and teens in vacation art camps. Perhaps some of you had children there during the summer program. In addition, ACA provided employment for 18 instructors, 30 counselors, and 18 teen interns. In addition to these, ACA community-focused events and exhibits, though not revenue-generating, is how we give back to the community. I'd like to highlight a few. Arlington Poach Fest. Last year, this event featured 200 bands and more than 8,000 participants. In addition to supporting musicians and providing an opportunity for the community to gather, we also supported local businesses. We've heard from several of them that the day of Poach Fest is the highest revenue-generating day of the year. In fall, we have Arlington Open Studios, which showcased 100 artists and drew over 2,000 visitors. ACA is currently developing a partnership with the Arlington Housing Authority to offer on-site programming to residents at AHA properties. Next slide, please. Finally, I want to invite you to take a look at the current and upcoming events. The current exhibit, titled Reunion, 10 Iranian Artists 10 Years Later, is curated by the Safarini Sisters, who, a decade after graduating from Tehran University, reconnected with their peers to feature the work of 11 artists. This exhibit is open through June 8th. On June 13th, students from teen artists on the issues program will exhibit their work and join a panel discussion at Robbins Library. This free program is in its third year and provides students in grades 8 through 12 an opportunity to explore social and community issues through art to generate public discussion and inspire change. The theme this year is ceramics and social justice. And on Saturday, June 17th, we have Poach Fest from noon to 6 p.m. We anticipate over 250 bands performing this year, so please come out and celebrate our town. Last but not least, I would like to take out a call for anybody interested in joining the ACA board. The board has openings every year and we are a group of volunteers. If you'd like to learn more, I'm happy to answer questions during the break, as this might be our final town meeting night. Or you can reach out to our executive director, Tom Formicola. You don't need to be a professional artist. I'm certainly not one to be on the board, just someone who appreciates the value of the arts that it brings to our lives. I'm also told, finally, in closing, if I may, that today is Alan Tosti's birthday. So let's gift him a night of the final town meeting tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mayweather. Do we have any other announcements or resolutions? Mr. Fisher, did you have? I'm doing a project with a civic... Name and precinct? Sorry, Andrew Fisher, precinct six. I'm doing a project to start a volunteer list for precinct six with the great encouragement of Bill Berkowitz and help from Citizens Engagement Group. And I just leafleted the whole precinct with this and so far it's going extremely well. And I just so you don't have to reinvent the wheel if anyone is interested in doing this idea, there's like 40 of these things in the back. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Mr. Herd. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, John Herd, Vice Chair of the Select Board. Just wanted to announce for those that don't know, Town Day will come back this year. It's going to be Saturday, September 23rd. We've adjusted the hours this year based on observations about when we had the biggest crowds last year. So it's going to be 10.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Makes it a little later in the day. We didn't have a big crowd earlier in the morning. Later in the day that will help fuse it with some of the events that we have going on later. After Town Day concludes, we can patronize some local businesses and then we'll have fireworks again. The fireworks will start at 7.30 p.m. this year. The application for Town Day is now active as of today. You can find that application via the Select Board portion of the Town Website. There's a link to Town Day then Town Day application. Any other announcements or resolutions? Mr. Oster? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Adam Oster, Precinct 20. I have a complimentary resolution. Is it in order? Can it be shown? Let's show it on the display. Complementary resolutions just for folks know is something specified in Town Meeting Time that's allowed during this opening portion of the meeting which is distinct from an article with a main motion, for instance. That has to be on the warrant. Mr. Moderator, I apologize. I didn't mean to make us all wait. Here we go. We have it up. Mr. Moderator, I move the following. Whereas Arlington's Town Meeting is a vital institution that plays a special role in Arlington's culture of civic engagement and whereas this institution has been challenged to play that role fully during the COVID-19 pandemic particularly in the years 2020- 2021 and 2022 owing to the need to operate remotely. Therefore be it resolved that the 2023 annual Town Meeting acknowledges with gratitude those whose resourceful thinking, planning and effort preserve Town Meeting during this difficult period. In particular, Town Meeting thanks the two Town Moderators John Leona and Greg Christiana and the Town Employees and others who staffed and supported the online system that sustained Town Meeting while meeting remotely. We have a second to Mr. Oster's complimentary resolution. We'll do this by voice vote. All those in favor of this resolution say yes. All those opposed. It is unanimous. Thank you, Mr. Oster. And thank you, Mr. Leone. Mr. Leone, Mr. Moderator, I stand on your shoulders. Any other announcements or resolutions in the back? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dave Levy, Precinct 18. Just a brief announcement that unfortunately in the last week people very close to me were involved in two car accidents that extremely close in Precinct 18. One person who lives in Precinct 18, I think it's very safe to say is very lucky to be alive right now and will suffer some very painful rehab for some time. So it's an ask of Town Meeting that we set an example that especially as we think about the summer and schools ending and kids and bicycles and people being on the roads more often or for other uses as patterns change that we promise ourselves and our neighbors that we will drive safely. We will obey the speed limits. We will remind ourselves that stop signs are stop signs and not suggestions that our phones stay in our pockets and that we do these things so that our friends and our neighbors we make them more safe and we keep our first responders more at ease. So that's my Ask of Town Meeting tonight and I hope you'll lead by example with me and thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Mr. Levy for that reminder. Do we have any other announcements or resolutions tonight? Seeing none. I now call for reports of committees to be taken from the table. We have a second to remove Article 3 from the table. All those in favor say yes. All those opposed? It is unanimous. Article 3 is now before us. We're now ready to receive reports. We have any reports to receive? Yes, Mr. Slotnik. Larry Slotnik, Precinct 7 co-chair of the Zero Waste Committee. I make a motion to submit our annual report to Town Meeting. We have a motion to submit the annual report. Do we have a second? All those in favor yes. All those opposed? It is received. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. It's been a busy year for the Zero Waste Committee. Next slide, please. But I'll start with a retelling of what we did last year which is we brought forward a proposed ban on single-use bottled water. It passed overwhelmingly with 182 votes. We put forth that ban for a few reasons, as mentioned there. They have a very low recycling rate consumed away from home and there's no Massachusetts Bottle Bill deposit on them. We estimated that there were more than 700,000 bottles of water meaning non-refrigerated sold in 24-pack cases in the town of Arlington last year. When they are littered they're very thin walled, they break down into microplastics very easily and the alternative is Arlington's really good tasting MWRA tap water. Next slide. So, at the eight large supermarkets that we surveyed again this year that would be impacted there has been no replacement of those 700,000 12-ounce dry which means plain uncarbonated bottled water. That's a good thing. Now, aluminum bottles and cans of plain uncarbonated water have come onto the shelves of these retailers. These are not being sold in 24-pack cases which were priced at under $5 even below $4. They're packed in smaller cases usually six and eight packs and the price is actually at least double of what the plastic bottled water was selling for. There's still no deposit on water in Massachusetts because the bottle bill has not been expanded to include that. But aluminum tends to be much more highly recycled than plastic. So there's no doubt about that. What we are seeing as you'll see in a couple of the photos there are plain uncarbonated water being sold in paperboard containers. There are a couple of very popular brands that are shown there in the photos. These are being sold as singles not in case packs. The problematic part of that is that that paperboard material is not recyclable in Massachusetts either with an aluminum foil liner or with very thin plastic coating to make both types waterproof. Next slide. I'll just move on to one of our subcommittees, Plastics Reduction. We have two campaigns that have been going on for well over a year and they're both very exciting. One is not getting much in the news yet but it will. It's called Arlington On Tap and this was put together as we were putting together last year's bottle water ban and this is calling for the installation around town of a number of outdoor bottle filling stations which would complement the dozens that are already installed inside our municipal buildings including one here in Town Hall. The first of these is going to be coming online in the next few weeks as the newly built or rebuilt Herd Field and we have funding for at least two possibly three additional stations to be installed before this construction season is out by September or October and those will also be in high traffic areas hopefully down near the dog park near Thorndike Field and we're still evaluating a couple of other busy locations. No plastic was in the news recently with a release that we put forward and this is geared towards our restaurant community of businesses as well as the customers of those businesses. If you've done takeout business with any of our town's restaurants you know that for years they were putting all sorts of single use plastic and non-plastic items in your takeout bag that you didn't really need because 90% of the time you were taking the food back to your house and you didn't need utensils straws a whole variety of things. So we have been in touch with dozens of these restaurants and they are many are and we're hoping to get all of them will be participating in this campaign where they will display a sticker on their front door and customers who call will see also something on their website indicating that they're participating in no plastic please and so those customers will not have to ask for the plastic stuff to not be included. They will be asked if they want those things and it will be very easy for them to refuse. Next slide please. I'm going to take the rest. Priya Sankalya, precinct 13 and co-chair of Zero Waste Allington really quickly since I have a minute left we also have a legislative subcommittee which essentially tracks a lot of these recycling and waste bills at the state house and gets back to us and sees where we can actually make a change and advocate on them and today we'll be bringing you article 64 which is a producer responsibility resolution so we hope to support that. Next slide please. One of the focuses of Zero Waste Allington is outreach and education as you all know and to that end we have made great strides this last year we launched a Zero Waste Allington .org which is an amazing website. If you haven't already been there please go check it out. It compliments the town webpage and it's had over 2,000 users browsing it. We also have a social media presence with our Facebook page and we have a webinar series called Earth to Allington which we've had a couple of sessions of this year we did one on waste bands and then also on food waste and those are all posted on our website so if you haven't got them you can go and check them out. Next slide please. We were closely with Charlotte Milan our recycling coordinator sent some stats which you can see in our report and finally the next slide. Just to learn more check out our website follow us and I just want to acknowledge our committee which has been really amazing working really hard on all of these issues. Three of the members Jim Bailin Scott Mullin and Amy Spear are here town meeting members so thanks to them all and the amazing work that the committee has been doing so for your support. Thank you Mr. Slavak. Do you have any other reports of committees that are Ms. Stamps? Hi everyone, Susan Stamps Precinct 3 member of the tree committee and this is the very quick report of the tree committee for 2022. We continued our annual tree planting of about 300 trees a year 150 in the spring and 150 in the fall. The tree warden tests every tree pivot before a tree goes in for gas so we are avoiding planting trees and then having them die on us from gas. We actively participate in the environmental planners gas leaks task force though and I personally am the tree committee representative on that and we are targeting a lot of gas leaks around town and trying to get them fixed and national grid be held accountable. The tree committee mission is the protection, preservation and planting of trees in Arlington and to that end we go to most of the major board meetings to ZBA, the ARB, the select board and the conservation commission they are often tree related issues that come up and we go there to advocate for trees for our community and we found the boards to be very receptive to our input and we thank them for that. We as everybody probably knows we have an adopt a tree program where we do plan a lot of trees but the trees need watering and the town has difficulty getting around all the trees as often as it needs to so Steve Moore was up here last year with a poster we do have a great website ArlingtonTrees.org and you can do a lot of things on that website including signing up for a newly planted baby tree near your house that needs watering and it's very easy and every tree that a resident waters saves time for and they can go take care of the other trees that don't have anybody to take care of them. A couple more things we continue to run our community canopy program we're just finishing up for 2023 I think we found homes for discounted trees about 65-70 trees that people can plant on their private property and we are continuing this year to plant around town on public and private property and we're working with the Chamber of Commerce businesses various entities around town to try to increase our tree canopy and we are very plugged into regional and national networks that are working to do the same thing in their communities and we really support everybody's support for the we are grateful for everybody's support for the tree committee thanks miss Thames just a quick question the report that you handed me that says Arlington Tree Committee 2022 annual report is this last year's report or is it the report to this year's? I think it was for the year it's what we did in 2022 is it supposed to say 2023 on it? that's fine this is just reporting to town meeting on what you've done over the last year that's fine do you have a motion for the meeting too? that the the tree committee report for the year 2022 to be accepted by town meeting? we have a second to receive the report of the tree committee all those in favor say yes all those opposed it is unanimous thank you miss Thames any other reports of committees that are seeing none? Christine Deschler precinct 19 I move that article 3 be laid upon the table we have a motion to lay article 3 upon the table we have a second all those in favor say yes all those opposed it is unanimous article 3 is now on the table we are taking up article 56 first tonight miss Deschler I move that articles 41 through 53 be laid upon the table we have a motion to lay articles 41 to 53 on the table and we have a second that would bring us to article 56 all those in favor say yes it is unanimous article 56 is now before us I believe miss LaCorte you wanted to introduce this article article 56 is a appropriation article brought to town meeting by a group of students at the oddison school as part of a civics action project some of us on the finance committee have been working with them through the process of seeing a warrant article through the finance committee and town meeting And therefore, I am making the introduction of these young students. You will be hearing from Alexandra Lay, Eleanor Rockwood, Summer Shadinger, Annie Marie Spilker, and Foster Woodbury. These are all residents of the town, Mr. Moderator. Will they be allowed to speak? They are residents of the town, they are allowed to speak. Thank you very much. I would beg the meeting's indulgence to add three minutes to their time, giving them 10 minutes to make this presentation. Not because their presentation is long, but because I'm nervous. I promise you it will not delay us finishing the meeting. Okay, so we have a request for additional speaking time for a total of 10 minutes. We'll do this by voice vote. All those in favor of giving the Auditcent students this additional time for a total of 10 minutes say yes. Yes. All those opposed? Yes. It is supported overwhelmingly. Thank you very much. Mr. Moderator, the young students will now come and make their presentation. They will introduce themselves as they begin to speak. All right. Thank you, Ms. La Courte. If our speakers can introduce themselves, name and address please. You can introduce yourselves up front and then get into your presentation. Okay. Good evening. My name is Summer Shadinger and I live on Beacon Street. We are a group of students from Auditcent Middle School representing Miss Mazzetti's civics class and our goal to create a composting program for Arlington restaurants. We're in article number 56. Next slide, please. We in the rest of our class have been working on this program for our civics action project. The civics action project is a project completed by all eighth graders that encourages them to make a positive change in their community. Next slide. Here's our proposal. Next slide. We propose a one-year pilot program for Arlington restaurants along Mass Ave. This program will incentivize food scrap diversion by subsidizing a set percentage of the monthly cost of curbside composting. When serviced through select composting companies, the total cost for Arlington will be $5,000. Next slide, please. Name and address, please. My name is Alan Santralay and I live on George Street. First I will be getting into the environmental benefits of this one-year pilot program. Next slide, please. In the United States, 63 million tons of food waste is produced annually in the United States. However, only 4% of this food waste is composted. Next slide, please. If we look at Arlington specifically, Arlington manages our solid waste through waste incineration. However, waste incineration emits toxins and pollutants that are harmful to local air quality and to our environment. Additionally, waste incineration produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, both of which are greenhouse gases with detrimental effects on climate change. Now if we look specifically at food waste, food waste is composed of 70% water, which decreases the efficiency of incineration through increased operation costs, energy and fuel, as well as increased greenhouse gas emissions. Next slide, please. When we compare this to composting, composting breaks down into non-toxic components. This is water, carbon dioxide, and biomass. And when we compare the global warming potential of carbon dioxide to that of nitrous oxide, which is produced through waste incineration, we'll see that nitrous oxide has 300 times the global warming impact. So composting really is better in terms of curbing climate change. This will advance Arlington's net zero by 2050 action plan, which was voted on in 2018 by a select board. Next slide, please. When we look specifically at restaurants in their relationship to composting, we find that restaurants produce over 600 pounds of solid waste per week. And then 90% of restaurant waste is in fact compostable. Name and address please. And before we take the next speaker just very briefly, I'll open the speaker queue and have it cleared after the presentation just to curb the speaker queue anxiety. Next speaker. Okay. Thank you. My name is Foster Woodberry, and I live on Allen Street. Next slide, please. So we wanted to talk about the efficiency of restaurant composting. Restaurants have a large environmental impact due to the high volume of foodways that we could divert. So restaurants that are concentrated along Massachusetts Avenue specifically, when we partner with composting companies, this will reduce the carbon emissions because they only have to drive down one street and it will also reduce the fuel costs. By reducing the fuel costs, we can also reduce the amount that we have to pay for the composting service in the first place. Additionally, this effectively spreads awareness to restaurant employees and customers about the impacts of composting. Next slide, please. So now we want to talk about specifically the restaurant benefits. Next slide, please. So many restaurants can actually use this composting as part of their business model. Results show that 60% of households prefer dining at zero waste restaurants. And that's not just for Massachusetts or Arlington. For Arlington, we know that this is a very eco-friendly area, so this would help support our small businesses very much. Next slide, please. So lastly, I want to talk about the financial incentive. We chose to subsidize 10% of the cost because the trash cost that they normally pay would actually equal the composting cost when subsidized by 10%. This will greatly incentivize restaurants to compost because they won't have to pay any more than they normally do on average. Next slide, please. My name is Eleanor Rockwood, and I live on Palo Verde Road. I would like to talk about the town benefits of composting. So aside from helping Arlington reach its net zero by 2050 goal, there are other benefits that this will help. One of those is pest control. So contrary to popular belief, composting business do not actually attract rodents because unlike dumpsters, they are specifically designed to keep out rodents and trap organic waste, like the scent of organic waste, and they are very easy to clean to get any remnants of food out. Cambridge also uses composting as an encouraged way to have pest control. My name is Anne-Marie Spilker, and I live on Oak Hill Drive. So now we'd like to just wrap up with the impacts that this composting program could have on Arlington as a town. Next slide, please. So we're asking for $5,000, which means that we could subsidize 16 restaurants curbside composting. Next slide, please. So by subsidizing for 16 restaurants, that means that we could divert approximately half a million pounds of natural waste in just one year. That also means that for $1 that the town of Arlington gives us, then we can divert 100 pounds of food waste. Next slide, please. So with that, please vote yes on warrant article number 56. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Can we now clear and open the speaker queue, please? Okay. Mr. Tosti. Mr. Tosti, do you wish to speak? Mr. Loretty? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. You can come up. Yeah. I didn't see Ms. Crowder. Apologies for that. Thank you, Mr. Loretty. Appreciate it. I actually have a few questions I wanted to start with, and it's my understanding that if you're generating more than 1,000 pounds of organic waste right now, you cannot dispose of it. So I'm wondering if those 16 restaurants, how many already are required not to dispose of their waste in the trash? Do any of our proponents have an answer to that question? Mr. Slotnick, do you have an answer to that? Larry Slotnick, precinct 7, Co-Chair, Zero Waste Committee. To my knowledge, there are no restaurants in Arlington that are of a size where they fall under that mass usage mandate about requiring composting. Thank you. My other question, Mr. Moderator, is does the town subsidize trash collection for other businesses or other types of waste disposal for what types of business and what types of waste? Does anyone have an answer to that? Mr. Slotnick? Do you have an answer to that? No. I don't know if we have anyone here that had Mr. Slotnick. Yeah. Go ahead. This wouldn't apply to restaurants, but the town does have what's called the Orange Bag Program made available to businesses. So owners of those businesses that are not restaurants will pay about $2 to $2.50 for an orange trash can liner. You probably see these out in front of their businesses on their trash day. And whether or not that's how much that's subsidized, it's a pretty inexpensive way for businesses to get rid of their dry trash. Okay, but I guess what I'm wondering is the town losing money on that $2 a bag that is charging? Mr. Jamison, do you have an answer? Gordon Jamison, Precinct 12 and past chair of the recycling committee. Just Mr. Loretty's previous commission question, businesses do get free collection of recycling. Thank you. Just one more question, Mr. Moderator. I'm wondering why or could somebody from the finance committee explain why they think it's a good idea for the taxpayers to provide this subsidy? If it's good business for the restaurants, why don't they just tell their customers they're doing it and let the customers pay more? I think Ms. Loretty is interested in answering that question. So in general, the finance committee is very skeptical of these kinds of appropriations. And this group of students came to us with the same presentation that they made to you. And we became convinced that this is short money for a big effect. Part of that effect is the marketing effect of these restaurants being able to say to their customers, hey, we compost. We think that this subsidy will not be necessary for very long because these restaurants will realize that there are other advantages to them with composting, particularly keeping rodents away from their restaurants. And so we were convinced that it is worth this small investment to have this particular positive effect on the town. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moderator. I have no further questions and thank you to those who provided answers. Great. Thank you. I'll take Ms. Crowder next. Elaine Crowder. Can you hear me? Elaine Crowder, precinct 19. As last year's proponent of the rodenticide articles, I was absolutely thrilled to see this particular article this year. It was extremely obvious to me that composting in restaurants was going to keep the food out of the dumpsters that are very, very porous to rodent entry. And that this is exactly the kind of creative solutions that we need to begin to bring into Arlington so that we can take care of our rodent issues with much less poison in the environment. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you, Ms. Crowder. I'm going to skip through the speaker queue to a voice I think we haven't heard in a while. Let's take Ms. Kepka next. You won the lottery. Hello. Asha Kepka, precinct one. I really applaud you for starting this initiative. I think it's great. I started composting a while ago, and my trash waste is so minimal, and I applaud you. I just wanted to ask a question. I'm assuming your school also does composting, and other schools do it. So, yes? Okay. Great. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take Mr. Kepline next. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mark Kepline, precinct nine. I wanted to understand the program better. So are there going to be instructional materials in the languages spoken in kitchens for these restaurants? Do we have a proponent who can answer? It looks like we do. With our discussions with Black Earth Compost CEO, we have been made aware that Black Earth Compost, which is one of the compost subsidy companies that could be a potential provider, does provide instructional material to businesses that can then be given to their employees. Okay. Thank you. And I'd like to understand the finances better of this. So what would businesses pay, or what are they, they're paying $2 now for an orange bag, and what they, the town is arranging Black Earth Composting to do this program, and then pays them, or, and how much per restaurant, or is it by the pound, or how do the finances work? Ms. Deschler? Christine Deschler, Chair of the Allianzian Finance Committee. I would like to make clear that the details of this program are yet to be worked out. This money would be spent at the direction of the town manager working with his DPW director to work out the fine details of this. Much of the point of this is to be a pilot, to get data, and then to assess. But again, the nitty-gritty has yet to be worked out, and that would be pretty much at the lap of the town manager with his department heads. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Monner. Thank you, Mr. Kepline. I'll take Mr. Badick. Next. Adam Badick, Precinct Five. First, I want to congratulate the students on an excellent presentation. It was really fantastic. I wanted to talk very briefly about the importance of composting. I really am in favor of this article. I want to encourage everybody to vote in favor of this appropriation. A few years ago, we did not compost in my house. We didn't know anything about compost. We weren't thinking about composting. We were just generating a lot of trash and recycling. My eldest child was very in favor of composting and distributed literature to all of our neighbors about how important it was for them to compost. Only we didn't compost. We now compost. We signed up with Black Earth. I believe the town actually subsidized our bin. I think that's how that works, but they don't subsidize the actual composting. But getting started on composting is a great way to see just how easy it is, how much less trash we generate. My compost bin is tiny in a way that's way more than the trash bin when it's full. So I think that this is just a great way to get these restaurants started with composting, and I think we should all support this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Badek. We'll take Mr. Karman next. Dean Karman, precinct 20, move to terminate debate on all matters under the article. Okay. Let's hold our applause in the satellite room. We have a motion to terminate debate, and we have a second. Let's try this by voice vote. We have a second for termination of debate. All those in favor of terminating debate on all matters under article 56 say yes. All those opposed, it is terminated. Let's now move to vote on the – so before we bring up the vote, let me just summarize this as a majority vote. Vote yes if you wish to appropriate $5,000 to establish a pilot compost collection program to be expended under the direction of the town manager. Everyone adding yourselves to the speaker queue, you are not voting yet. Can we open voting on the main motion of article 56? Okay. Voting is open. But one for yes to appropriate the $5,000 for this program, vote two for no. Okay. Let's close voting. And the motion passes. 207 in the affirmative, four in the negative, and two abstentions. Ms. Deschler, we have some articles to untable. Christine Deschler, precinct 19, and Finance Committee Chair. I move that articles 41 through 53 be laid upon the table. I mean, remove from the table. I'm sorry. We have a motion to remove articles 41 to 53 from the table. Do we have a second? We have a second. All those in favor of removing those articles from the table say yes. All those opposed, they are so removed from the table. That brings us now to article 41. Ms. Deschler. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Article 41, the Transportation Infrastructure Fund. That is a fund that holds monies that the state collects from companies like Uber and Lyft based on the number of rides, well, that they collect from Uber and Lyft and then the state turns around and disperses those funds back to the cities and towns based on the number of rides that originate in that city or town. Use of those funds are restricted. The Finance Committee recommends a positive vote by town meetings so that the money received from the state, which is $15,344.10, can be used for maintenance of sidewalks and other safety improvements. Great. Thank you, Ms. Deschler. So it's now clear and show and open the speaker queue. And just a reminder, this was originally on the Consent Agenda. It was held, I'm not sure by whom. Mr. Tremblay? Mr. Tremblay, Prisik, 19. Mr. Moderator, I'm just curious if any of this $15,000 is going to be used to improve some of the intersections in town. Mr. Poole, do you have an answer to that, or Ms. Deschler? Sandy Poole, Town Manager. It will be used primarily for sidewalks and some of those sidewalks repairs could be done in conjunction with road repairs. As I see it, there's a fair number of intersections in town now that are being improved by running the curbs out into the middle of the street, thereby making it more difficult to get through the intersections. Sandy Poole, Town Manager. Yes, that's a plan. I think this would be referred to as traffic calming. Yeah. So, the question then becomes, does anybody really think hard about those of us who drive short? Okay. Mr. Tremblay, let's not engage in personalities. I'm sure everyone in that department thinks about these things. Well, the reason I say that is if you could raise the question so that it doesn't come across as a personal attack. Mr. Moderator, the reason I say that is because there's a fair number of intersections that have been modified in town, that if you go look at them, there's tire tracks and the dirt is worn away from the backside of the curb, which they made the intersections a little tight, even for passenger cars. And there's chips out of the curbs from where town plows run them over and hit them. And I start getting concerned about the expenses. Okay, so hold on. So let me translate. Mr. Poole, can you explain why the intersections are designed the way that they are? There are certain counterintuitive aspects of it. This is transit-related. Sandy Poole, town manager, no. I don't know how to design an intersection. I can't explain why they're all made the way they are. I do know with some of them that we specifically do bump them out into the street in order to respond to people's concerns about speeding traffic and, as I say, traffic calming. On that, I don't have anything to add about traffic intersection design. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Moderator, just one last comment. I just heard somebody say something about pedestrian safety. And I know that that's the theory, but the unintended consequence is that you wind up forcing traffic onto the wrong side of the road. And I don't see where that adds to safety at all. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain. Let's take Ms. Hayam next. Leba Hayam, precinct 15, motion to terminate debate on the article and all matters before it. We have a motion to terminate debate and all matters before article 41. Do we have a second? Second. Let's try this by voice vote. All those in favor of terminating debate under article 41 say yes. All those opposed, the yeses have it. Debate is terminated. So before we bring up the vote, just summarize this as a majority vote, vote yes if you want to appropriate $15,344.10 received by the town from the Commonwealth Transportation Infrastructure Fund to address transit-related services in town. So let's now open voting on the main motion under article 41. Voting is now open. Let's close voting. And the motion passes 210 in the affirmative for the negative three abstentions. That brings us to article 42, Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, Finance Committee Chair. With the indulgence of the moderator, I would like to comment on both articles 42 and 43 together because they're very similar. Okay. Proceed. Ladies and gentlemen, the MWRA offers interest-free loans to municipalities for sewer and water projects, which are then repaid from user fees over a 10-year period. Now, a meeting must approve the borrowing and separate articles, article 42 and article 43, both of which require a two-thirds vote. Like previous years, article 42 seeks authorization to borrow $800,000 for sewer work and article 43 seeks authorization to borrow $1.3 million for water main work. The Finance Committee recommends a yes vote on both articles. All right. Thank you. Let's see. Can we clear and open and show the speaker queue, please? And this was on the Consent Agenda. It was...do I have that right? Yes. I believe it was held by Mr. Kepline in advance. Mr. Kepline, did you want to speak to this first? If possible, if you're able to address both articles with your speaking time, if that's feasible. Pass. Okay. Mr. Revlak. Good evening. Steve Revlak, Precinct 1. Mr. Moderator, if I recall from previous town meetings, we have on the order of 100 and some miles of water and 100 and some miles of sewer to maintain in town and typically a year's worth of funding from the MWRA's interest-free loans typically lets us replace about a mile bit. Is that roughly correct? I believe that is your recollection. Well, I'll be. Well, I was wondering, Mr. Moderator, is there any chance that, you know, if we're replacing 1% a year, then on the average, we have some infrastructure that's nearly 100 years old. And I was wondering if at some point in the future, we might contemplate, say, two miles a year. Does anyone care to field that question? Mr. Rademacher. Michael Rademacher, Director of Public Works. Thank you for the question. Yes, we do have a goal to increase the funding request and the amount of waterline that is replaced. In the out years of the capital plan, we have been creeping that request higher and it is my desire to, in the near future, be replacing closer to two miles of pipe a year. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rademacher. Maybe next year. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take Mr. Foskett next. Charles Foskett, Precinct 10. I move the question. It all matters before us. Okay. We have a motion to terminate debate and we have a second. Let's do this by voice vote. All those in favor of terminating debate under Article 42 say yes. Yes. All those opposed? I declare that debate is terminated by a majority, by a two-thirds vote. So before we open voting, just to summarize, this is a two-thirds vote, vote yes if you wish to appropriate $800,000 for financing work related to the sewers and to authorize the treasurer to borrow $800,000 and to authorize the select board and town manager to enter agreements and expend grants related to the project. Again, this is Mr. Jameson. To authorize the treasurer to borrow $800,000, is that, I believe that's what I said, right? Yeah. I believe it's an and to appropriate and to authorize, is that, that is correct? Okay. Yeah. So it is both an appropriation and authorization of borrowing, thank you. So let's now open voting if you wish to approve that borrowing, vote yes, otherwise vote no. Or abstain. Okay. Let's close voting. And the motion passes 211 in the affirmative, five in the negative. The article is disposed of, that brings us to article 43. Ms. Deschler, did you already cover that in 42? Is there anything to add? Okay. See nothing. Let's, can we clear and open and show the speaker queue please? For article 43. Please take Mr. Grinucci, we'll skip ahead to someone we haven't heard recently. Carmine Grinucci, precinct 21. I move to terminate debate and all matters before. Okay. We do have a motion to terminate debate and we do have a second. We have a second. Let's try a voice vote. All those in favor of terminating debate under article 43 say yes. Yes. All those opposed? No. No. The yeses have it. It is a two thirds vote. So let me summarize. This is a two thirds vote on the main motion. Vote, we're not voting yet. Vote yes if you wish to appropriate $1.3 million for financing work related to water and water mains and water facilities and to authorize the treasurer to borrow $1.3 million and authorize the select board and town manager to enter agreements and expend grants related to the project. Again, this is a two thirds vote. So let's now open voting on the main motion under article 43. Okay. Voting is now open. Okay. Let's close voting. The motion passes 207 in the affirmative seven and negative. It is a two thirds vote. That takes us to article 45, Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, finance committee chair. Over the years, town meeting has established a number of committees and commissions which have requested funds to support their activities. These committees and commissions are listed in our vote in article 45 and our report also listed is an appropriation for the Harry Barber community service program which enables seniors the opportunity to do provide services to the town and return for some help on their property tax bill. The finance committee recommends a yes vote on the appropriations listed in article 45. All right. Thank you. Now let's now show and open and clear the speaker queue, please. Okay. Speaker queue is now open. Mr. Ruderman. Mr. Tosti. Move to terminate debate on this article. Second. Okay. We have a motion to terminate debate and we have a second. All those in favor of terminated debate on article 45 say yes. Yes. All those opposed. No. It is a two thirds vote. Debate is terminated. And so before we open voting, just, well actually, this is a majority vote. We can actually do this by voice. If you wish to vote yes to appropriate 104,975 dollars to be expended by the 14 commissions, committees and boards specified in the finance committee report under article 45 say yes. Yes. All those opposed. No. It is a majority vote. Okay. That brings us to article 45 is disposed of. That brings us to article 46. Christine Deschler, finance committee chair. Each year town meeting appropriates money for parades on patriots day, veterans day and memorial day and money for the town day celebration which we heard earlier, we heard about earlier tonight. State law requires that we place flags in the graves of veterans on memorial day. These costs are reflected in article 46. This year the select board has asked for an additional appropriation of 25,000 dollars for the town's 250th anniversary celebration. The finance committee recommends a positive vote on article 46. Thank you. Mr. Tosting. Well, you got a chance last time. Let's actually skip to Mr. I recognize Mr. Holland. We have a motion to terminate debate and we have a second. All those in favor of terminating debate say yes. Yes. All those opposed. No. Okay. It is a two-thirds vote. Debate is terminated. Let's try this by voice vote. This was originally on the consent agenda as well and it was held. All those in favor of voting yes to, voting to appropriate 40,167 dollars for patriots day, veterans day, memorial day, American flags on graves of veterans, town day and the 250th anniversary celebration say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. No. It is a majority vote. That takes us to article 47. Christine Deschler, finance committee chair. On the first night of town meeting I made a correction to our vote in article 47. I just want to be clear that there should be a second correction that the vote should be voted the sum of 10,810 dollars being hereby is appropriated for the following purposes. Paragraph A, legal defense to appropriate a sum of money to replenish the legal defense fund established under article 13 of title one of the town bylaws zero. We're not asking for any appropriation but paragraph B indemnification of medical cost 10,810 dollars. With regards to indemnification the town has opted pursuant to state law to pay certain medical and surgical expenses of police officers and firefighters who are retired due to accidental disability. This article covers the cost of such expenses as well as the medical panel appointed by the town to review funding requests. Town meeting is being asked to appropriate 10,810 dollars for indemnification of medical costs and the finance committee recommends a positive vote. Thank you. Let's now clear and open and show the speaker cue please. Mr. Monks, do you wish to speak? And this article was also on a consent agenda. It was held. Go ahead. Mr. Monks, I move to terminate debate and all matters before. Okay, we have a motion to terminate debate and we have a second. All those in favor of terminating debate say yes. All those opposed say no. The yeses have it as a two thirds vote. The debate is terminated. Let's move to the vote on the main motion. We'll do this by voice vote as well. All those in favor of voting to appropriate 10,810 dollars for indemnification of medical costs expended under the direction of the town manager say yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. It takes us to article 48. Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, finance committee chair. The water bodies fund was established in 2008 and it was initially focused on spy pond, hills pond and the res at the finance committees urging the water bodies working group which consists of the various friends and the conservation commission as well as others have expanded its supervision to all the water bodies in town. This fund is used to test, treat and maintain our various water bodies. The finance committee recommends that townmen vote to appropriate 50,000 dollars for the water bodies fund. Great. Thank you. Now clear and open and show the speaker queue. Let's take Ms. Farrell. Thank you, Mr. Modder. Catherine Farrell, precinct five. I've moved to terminate debate. We have motion to terminate debate and we have a second. All those in favor of terminating debate under article 48 say yes. All those opposed say no. It is a two thirds vote. Debate is terminated. This was also on the consent agenda. It was held. Let's do this by voice vote. All those opposed say yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. That takes us to article 49. So do we have Ms. Rowe? Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Clarissa Rowe, precinct four. Chair of the community preservation act committee. I have some slides. Can we show the CPS slides? And Mr. moderator, I'm going to try to keep it to seven minutes, but I might need 10. Would you give me permission please? So let's deal with that up front. All those in favor of giving Ms. Rowe 10 minutes to cover her presentation on the CPS committee say yes. All those opposed? It passes. 10 minutes is granted. Thank you very much. I'm going to be quick. I know you can read the slides. So I'm not going to go through them. I have a wonderful committee. But before I start, I want to thank two people, Julie Wayman and Jim Feeney for being wonderful. Next slide, please. This is for the next fiscal year. And for new town meeting members, the community preservation act deals with three areas. Historic preservation, open space and recreation, and community housing. Next slide, please. This pie chart is for the next fiscal year. This pie chart shows that we have to spend 10% on each of the three areas, and that the rest of it is flexible. We can spend 5% on our administrative expenses. Our expenses are usually about 2%. And now we have the first project, and I will show you the slides, and you will notice to the right the amount of money that we've put towards it. The Housing Corporation of Arlington has proposed 10 Sunnyside Avenue. I think you've all been reading about it. It's a wonderful project. We're very glad that the Housing Corporation brought it forth. Next slide, please. The next slide is the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Again, I want to say thank you to them because we asked them to please give 250,000 to the Sunnyside Project, and they agreed to do that. And then they have another 170 that we gave them for their work. One of the reasons we had to do that is we got 20 applications this year, and we were over budget by a million dollars. So what we had to do was ask everybody to look at their appropriations and prioritize the work that they wanted done. So we also, next slide, please. We are giving a little bit of money to the Summerville Homeless Coalition, a wonderful organization. The apartments are all in Arlington. Next slide, please. Monotony Manor Windows. This is the second phase of this. Once again, we asked the Arlington Housing Authority to prioritize, and this was their first project. This is costing a lot of money. We've given a lot of money last year and this year. Next slide, please. The Houser Roof Replacement. We had little money left over, and we gave it to them for their roof replacement. One of the things is this project is ongoing with some ARPA funds, so people living in the Houser Building hopefully are not getting wet. The next slide, please, is the Open Space and Recreation, and this one has been the most controversial project we've ever had. If you want to look at our website, all the notices about 200, I think, Jim, came from all over the town of Arlington, and we also got a lot of e-mails from young people, and it was a very important thing. There was a lot of discussion about the open space needs versus the recreation needs, and we came up with a pretty comprehensive compromise that has three parts of it. The three parts of it will be put in a contract with the Park and Recreation Commission. The number one is having a member of the Open Space Committee on the working group. The second is having a tree inventory, which means that all the trees in Hillsville will be cataloged for their health and their size, and that will give us a very good idea of what we're dealing with. And the third, which is probably the most important, we're asking for two concepts for the location of the pump track. And then if the Park and Recreation Commission feels that they want to go into the wooded area, they have to come back to the CPAC and get a permission before it's finally built. So we feel this is a good compromise. We hope you agree, and I'm sure there'll be lots of discussion. Next slide, please. This is invasive vegetation removal, 12,000 millbrook preservation, another 120,000, 21 pond lane feasibility, right here. I'm talking too fast. I wonder why. Could we be done tonight? Next slide, please. 21 pond lane feasibility. This is right near Spypond Park, and it's where the crew team keeps their boats. It's a wonderful project. Another Open Space Committee project, the no-name brick preservation. I'm very pleased with these projects because they're really dealing with open spaces that have been neglected for a long time. And I think for a small amount of money we're getting a great bang for a buck. And then the last open space one is the orchard signage from the Open Space Committee. This is a Girl Scout project. As you can see, it's terribly expensive. But obviously worthwhile. How many of you know where the orchard is? I didn't before that. Anyway, I don't know. That's why they need signs. So I can get there. All right, and then the last category. Preservation is the Arlington Friends of the Drama. They brought their request down quite a bit. And this is for a mechanical system and some exterior work. This is a wonderful old building. If you don't know it, it's right near here. Go up Academy and look at it. It's a beautiful building. The next one is document scanning. This is a second request from the Downey Museum. And they are very organized. And I'm hoping we'll serve as an example for when the town starts to digitize their collections. The next one is a very important project, the Foot of the Rocks Battleground Memorial. And it's a historic area that has been neglected for a very long time. We're very excited. This is for the design work, not construction. And then we have the Jason Russell House. This is their fifth one. They're very responsible. They almost always turn money back. So I urge you to support it. And the last project we have is a town hall preservation, Phase 1 clock tower. And if you saw the slides that I saw, you'd be scared to walk in the door. But it's a wonderful project. We need to work on our town hall. And we'll be seeing this a lot in the future. I'm actually asking capital planning and finance to think about bonding it. And that's it. And we'll leave the spreadsheet up there so you can check things. And that's it. How'd I do? Still a minute, 20 seconds left. Okay. Great. Thank you, Ms. Rowe. Now I want to invite up Mr. Michael Jacoby-Brown to introduce his motion that he submitted in advance since everyone was fond of division. Can we bring up Mr. Brown's motion? Yes, just a moment. Here it is. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Hello. My name is Michael Jacoby-Brown, a town meeting member of Precinct 17. I'm asking you to vote no on providing $400,000 for mountain biking trails in Hills Hill. Here's why. I have lived next to Hills Hill for over 20 years. During that time, kids and others have been mountain biking there and there is nothing now stopping them to do that. They can do it right now. Well, probably tomorrow morning or after school. It's kind of dark. They can do it right now as many kids have and do. There is no need to hire consultants to fix or change something that works well right now. As somebody once said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now you may have heard from people or will about the benefits of mountain biking. I think that's great. And they can do it now on Hills Hill. And as a parent myself, who has walked across Hills Hill hundreds of times with my daughter, I think it's really good for a lot of kids to figure out how to do things themselves to make their own way, their own trails, and not rely on outside consultants to tell them how to be creative. Let's let the kids be creative, be creative as they have been and not do it all for them. And let them use this little bit of space to do mountain biking as kids have for the 20 years I've been there and as I understand from some very reliable sources many years before that. To quote a couple of kids I met who were mountain biking on Hills Hill when I was walking home one day, Brylan and Camden are their names. I have a video but I can't show it because I didn't get their last names since they were kids. Here's what they said though. The woods is pretty good. Me and my friends, we don't really want to do any construction to it. Me and my friends, we are making our own trails. If we do construction, it will make it worse. It is good how kids are making this and not just being on the technology. It's really fun. It's really good and they don't need to redo it or anything. It is super good and I don't think anyone should touch it. Close quotes. I have this on video and I can't show it since the kids are minors that I said and I forgot to get their last names. I was just walking home one day and I recorded this. So I would like you to use your common sense and independent judgment on this. I don't think there's a need to spend $400,000 to build mountain biking trails where we already have them. And to quote Ryland and Camden, it is already super good. Now whether you are a new town meeting member or have been here for 50 years, I don't think there's any requirement that you give up your common sense and independent judgment when you become a town meeting member. Maybe I should check that with the moderator. Should I check that? Is that okay? Well, let's kind of cut to the chase. And finally, however you vote, I hope you will be grateful as I am to live in a country where we can debate these things freely and openly and not get thrown in jail for expressing our views. This happens in too many places and also be grateful that we live in a town in this great country where we can even consider spending $400,000 to hire consultants and landscapers to build some bike paths in the woods on this little hill. Thank you very much. So before you sit down, Mr. Brown, we actually need you to move your motion. Okay, I think it's a... Parliamentarian, I think it's to divide the question. Right, so we have a motion... You can see it up on the screen here. We have a motion to divide the question. There's a couple of ways this could have worked out. What we decided to move forward with is to divide the question. And this motion would divide item 2F under the projects from the rest of the vote language. And so that allows for... So we'll have two debates. One for everything but item 2F and a debate just for 2F. And we'll have votes on each of those parts. It could have been done equivalently with an amendment to strike that, but this allows to have debates that are focused on just the Hills Hill project versus everything else, so one doesn't starve out the other since there's a lot of other projects as well. So that is the motion. Do we have a second on Mr. Brown's motion? Okay, we have a second to divide item 2F from the rest of the vote language. All those in favor of division say yes? Yes. All those opposed? No. The noes have it. Okay, so we have 3, 4, 5. Okay, let's go to an electronic vote on division. Again, just to be clear, I know this is subtle. We don't divide often, but this is a vote on whether to divide the question into these two parts. 2F versus everything else. So while we're waiting to bring that vote screen up, if you're in favor of dividing the question into those two parts, so we have separate debate and separate votes on those two parts. You can vote yes to divide those parts. If you want to keep it in one piece so there's one debate and one vote, you vote no. There we go. Voting is open. So vote yes to divide the question so that 2F is taken separately in debate and voting and vote no to keep them all together. One debate, one vote. Okay, let's close voting. And the vote fails. 77, the affirmative, 134 in the negative and three abstentions. It requires a majority vote, which has not been reached. Okay, so the question remains one piece like usual. Okay, so now let's clear and open and show the speaker queue. Actually, before we get into that, we'll open the queue here and it's 9.34, just by a show. Folks, do you want to move forward with this debate or do you want to take a break now? Okay, let's take a break. The speaker queue is filled up, but now let's just take a break for 10 minutes and we'll come back to the speaker queue. Thank you. Okay, so we're going to start off with our speaker queue on article 49. And we're going to start with a name that's no longer on the queue because she accidentally clicked it off, but she brought a prop, which we're going to prioritize. So, Ms. Kepka, can you lead us off? I'm really curious to learn what this is about. Hi, Asha Kepka, precinct one. Just have to bear with me. So, I think this project feels he'll probably will pass, but I do have some concerns. And I didn't know much about pump trucks. I spend quite a bit of time as a child running around biking and I think it's better off spending time outside. So, I started to research the pump trucks and I visited every single one of them and I read everything I could. I've watched videos. I followed Facebook pages of pump trucks. One of the concerns I have that proposed pump truck is quite unlike everything I've seen. There's a lot of pump trucks that have been built from the enthusiasm of people who love mountain biking. They raise community funds and usually they spent about $20,000 to build something small, manageable that later is maintained by the volunteers. And as a homeowner of the old, old house with very little budget, I'm always looking at projects and taking from pragmatic standpoint from maintenance. This project appears to be super large and very involved, very expensive and I'm concerned about maintenance down the road. Pump trucks are like swimming pools in England. Everybody likes to enjoy them but people don't usually have them unless they are willing to commit to high price point of building one and maintaining the same with the pump trucks. When you follow Facebook pages of, let's say, Brussels Mills pump truck, it's an ongoing maintenance issue. The actual usage time of the pump truck is very limited. You can't use it in the winter, you can't use it in the fall when it's raining after every spring you have to rebuild it. So you have to always bring truckloads of dirt, you have to use water to maintain it. People who propose this pump truck in Hills Hill mentioned that the Hills Hill is abandoned, it's not really well, you know, it attracts people who like to drink, there's glass, broken glass, there's tires and what strikes me is that the Hills Hill is right next to the Ed Burns skating rink which also is not in the greatest shape after the community cleanup. Well Parks and Recreation will be responsible for maintaining of the Hills Hill from my understanding. Is that correct, sir? Well, let's address it. So, did you want to answer it? Yeah, one of my issues if the Parks and Recreation with wonderful Joe, who's really a great guy, is very positive he's in support of the Hills Hill, I believe. But we already have a lot of facilities that need a lot of maintenance including the Ed Burns skating rink where, you know, there's a tire right in front, I just brought it today, it's been there for months. There's a lot of trash, there's broken glass, so I think we need to focus on what we have, we need to maintain all the spaces we have, maybe invest a little bit more money before we spend $400,000 to build something that we're not really sure who's going to maintain in the future and how much it's going to cost to do so. Thank you. Great, thank you. I'm going to continue to skip around a little bit to get some new voices here. Let's take Ms. Ekston next. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Liz Ekston, Precinct 13. I rise in support of Article 49 and Mr. Moderator, I'd like to yield the rest of my time to Arlington resident Henry Fenelosa. Okay, so if he's a resident of Arlington? Yes. He has the right to speak. We have a presentation to be projected. Can we bring up the slides please? Let me just pause the clock while we bring that up. There we go, okay. That's always yours. Hello, everyone. Henry Fenelosa, 12 Bendron Road. Back in 2020, while I was an eighth grader at Audison, I came up with the idea to have official bike trails in the town of Arlington. Ever since I got my first real bike, I've logged hundreds and hundreds of hours on Arlington land. From the Crusher lot to Hills Hill, to Monotomy to Turkey Hill, I've always searched for a fun place to ride my bike. By the end of middle school, biking became a full-time hobby for me. As someone who did not always participate in organized sports, mountain biking was an outlet for me to get in better shape and meet new people. Something that organized sports offers for most people. When school shut down during COVID, I spent my quarantine in Arlington's wooden spaces. During the spring of 2020, these Arlington destinations became a safe outlet for my friends and I to enjoy our time. With no school, team sports, or a safe way to see my friends, places like the Crusher lot became my home. On any given day, you could find me and my brother riding our bikes. And as time went on, more and more people decided to join us. First it was one kid, then another, and then came another kid, his two brothers. After a few weeks, the Crusher lot became a hotspot for kids itching for some exercise and social connection. Faces started to become familiar, Instagram handles were exchanged, group chats were made, and in no time, we had our own thriving community of kids and teenagers who just wanted to have some fun. Soon, the Crusher lot had become so popular that kids from every corner of town were showing up. People started building their own trails, some great and others a little sketchy. As you can imagine, when there's kids six to 17 years old building trails, everyone's idea of safety is a little different. By the middle of the summer, I brought a proposal to the Parks and Recreation Department who welcomed this idea with an open mindset. It felt incredible to know that my town government was listening to their youth. Since the start of 2020, support has only grown, and as leader of the cycling club at the high school, I get questions left and right about when this thing's going to finally become official. During a recent club day, I had two separate teachers come up to me and ask if this proposal was still working its way through town government. Now, I know everyone is not a mountain biker, so I'd like to explain a little bit about the project. Next slide, please. What are bike trails? Bike trails in an area where mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts can go and enjoy paths and features that are specifically made to be ridden on bikes. These areas have a variety of trails for all different disciplines and skill levels. Trails are designed to be fun, predictable, and safe. At Hills Hill, these bike trails would be designed to coexist with walking and running trails. Next slide, please. The bike trails would be made mainly of dirt and use the natural slope of the land so that trails flow up and down, cross, and not just straight down. The overall area would be relatively small, about half the size of a soccer field. Mountain bikers are also known to be great caretakers of the environment. Ask any mountain biker, and they will tell you that the highlight of their day is just being out in nature. Next slide, please. Why would this be good to have in Arlington? Mountain biking is a quickly-grown sport. Arlington is already well-known to have a large cycling community, and having bike trails in Hills Hill would give riders a safe place to learn new skills and progress their abilities. A designated bike area will also keep riders out of other places in Arlington, like Monotomy Rocks Park, Robbins Farm Park, and the Great Meadow. Having bike trails in Arlington would also open new opportunities for summer and after-school programs run by the Parks and Recreation Department. I know, as the leader of the cycling club at AHS, we would use this space a lot. Next slide, please. Also, bike trails support Arlington's Open Space Recreation Plan. The three things that highlighted to me were the increasing the availability of all types of trails for recreation, investing in recreation and conservation areas that are close to home for short visits. The three, invest in racially, economically, and age-diverse neighborhoods, given their projected increase in participation in outdoor recreation. Next slide, please. Next slide. Next slide. The benefits of bike trails in Arlington. Bike trails create a safe place for kids to exercise and meet new friends, people who have outgrown the playgrounds. We don't have many town spaces for teens. Bike trails would also expand the access to the outdoors and to non-organized sports for kids who don't make the soccer or hockey team, or who want other ways of being active. Bike trails would answer a need that young people in Arlington are asking for in a safe and professionally designed environment. Bike trails also teach young people to be good stewards of the environment and to invest themselves in maintaining the trails. Next slide. Recently, a group of bike trail supporters organized a cleanup day at Hills Hill. We found everything you can imagine from beer bottles, tires, there's even a couch up there. Next slide, please. So, I'm asking that you all vote yes on Article 49. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Felonosa. And let's skip around again. Let's take Mr. Hyam next. I think we've heard from you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Tofer Hyam, Precinct 15. I'd like to introduce Brian McBride, a town resident. Okay, and he is a resident of the town of Arlington? Yes, he is. Then he has the right to speak. Good evening, everyone. I'm Brian McBride from Eastern Avenue. I'm a member of the Save Hills Hill group and I'm also a member of the Open Space Committee and the Conservation Commission, and I have those organizations just on Save Hills Hill tonight. So, Save Hills Hill has for some months now been lobbying for habitat protection at the Hills Hill project. So, you may be wondering why I'm here tonight asking you to vote yes on the funding of this project tonight. And there are three quick reasons for that. First of all, the context is as Henry said, outdoor recreation is really important for the youth and for many ages in Arlington that includes active outdoor recreation like biking, but also enjoying nature and connecting with nature. So, we agree with what Henry is saying and that's important. We actually do not disagree with biking trails in Hills Hill. We think that's a good idea. Our main concern has been the construction of the man-made zones so that's sort of the challenge here is to try to find a way to balance the preservation of a habitat which we think is important and recreation goals which we think are important as well. It's really a land use question so everyone is trying to find a balance here what is the right balance. We were concerned given shrinking biodiversity and climate change, heat zones continued development pressure in Arlington that the loss of this rare wooded habitat would be detrimental to the town. There are just a few of them. There's pressure on Mugar Woods. There's pressure at Poets Corners. There's pressure at Hills Hill. What are we going to leave to our children and grandchildren in terms of wooded spaces? So that was really our concern and how can we balance that concern with the need for recreation. There was a process, PRC and the group did feasibility study of the summer. CPAC did additional public hearings at the end of the year. The letter writing per our count was about 50-50 in the PRC session and it was even more favorable to our concerns, 60% of the people expressed concern about the Hills Hill habitat impact in the CPAC. So divided question, right? The second point I want to make is that the CPAC committee did a great job of listening. They heard the concerns, they understood that we weren't concerned about the bike trails or these man-made flow zones and pump tracks and they built conditions which addressed our concerns. They explicitly said that the conditions were designed to provide additional assurance that the wooded natural environment at Hills Hill will be preserved. That was really music to our ears. The three conditions that Clarissa Rowe outlined further underlined structure by which that preservation would take place. So at the end of the CPAC process and this was a reasonable compromise between preservation and recreation that the conditions were in place to make sure that this project stayed on track and therefore the final point is that the Safe Hills Hill Group is asking you to endorse the funding for this project given the compromise that's put forward by the CPAC. That's all I had, and I'll turn it back to Topher. Okay, thank you, Brian. I just had a few questions. So Clarissa, you outlined the conditions for the contract, but how is that contract enforced? In other words, if the conditions aren't met, what happens? Ms. Rowe, do you have an answer? How are the conditions enforced? All the applicants have to sign a contract and I would assume that probably Mr. Heim would deal with that. Mr. Heim, how would you enforce the conditions? Doug Heim, Town Council. So our CPA grant agreements have a couple of different measures. One of them is that a lot of them have release of funds sort of markets. So most of our grant agreements involve some sort of monitoring and approving of different phases of construction and making sure they comply with the grant. If you don't comply with the grant, even if it's the town department, you can be required to return the money or correct certain conditions if you don't comply with the grant. Thank you for your question. Thanks. Thanks, Doug. And I sign off on every bill that the CPA gives. So I look at everything. Thank you. Also, maintenance will become an ongoing thing. CPA money cannot be used for that. So which department they were built? I believe the Park and Recreation Director might have an answer. Joe Conley, Director of Recreation. So it would be a combination of the natural resources, the parks department, as well as volunteers. I think we heard loud and clear from the mountain biking community that they'd be willing to pitch in and help out with ongoing maintenance, just as Friends of Rodin's Farm, Friends of Crush a Lot, I'll do on those properties. That's great. I would just think there would be some parts of this that would be beyond a volunteer day and would need to be budgeted for. That's my comment on that. And you, just because I think you're probably the person to ask this, you agree with the conditions as Clarissa outlined in the contract? Parks and Recreation agrees with the contract? Joe Conley, Director of Recreation. Yes, we do. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Great, thank you. Let's skip further through the queue and let's take Ms. Mazer next. Microphone, please. Zora, Precinct 4. I move to Terminate Debate. We have a motion to terminate debate. Do we have a second? We have a second. All those in favor of terminating debate on all matters under Article 49 say yes. Yes. All those opposed? I said the yeses have it. We have a vote. Okay, we have one standing? We have... No one standing. One standing? No standing. Okay, debate is terminated. So we'll now move to a vote on the main motion but before we bring up that vote there are three things that happen if you vote yes. One, there'll be a transfer of $228,144 from the FY 2024 Community Preservation Fund revenues to each of the three CPA reserve accounts. That's open space and recreation, historic preservation and community housing, these three different areas. Number two, appropriate funds for each of the 16 enumerated FY 2024 CPA projects that are listed under Item 2 in the vote language. And number three, it would appropriate $62,740 from the FY 2024 Community Preservation Fund revenues to be expended under the direction of the Community Preservation Act Committee for administrative expenses. So let's now open voting. If you wish to vote yes to those, all those things that I just enumerated. If you wish to vote yes, if you wish to vote against those vote no. Or three to abstain. Voting is open. This is a majority vote. Okay, let's close voting. The motion passes $193 to the affirmative. Nine in the negative five abstentions. Article 49 is disposed of. That takes us to article 51. Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, chair of the Ellington Finance Committee. Article 51. Ellington has adopted the provisions of state law which permits towns to increase retirement allowances of employees who have worked for the town 25 years or more and those who have retired under an accidental disability. The Finance Committee is recommending a favorable vote on article 51 which has an appropriation of zero. By voting yes for an appropriation of zero, this will enable the retirement board to expend other funds from other sources without further appropriation or action by town meeting in order to keep retirees at the level permitted by state law. As I say, the Finance Committee recommends a positive vote. Thank you. Let's now clear and open and show the speaker queue. Let's take Ms. Friedman. Mr. Hamlin. Does anyone else wish to enter the termination of debate queue? Mr. Holland. Rod Holland precinct seven. I move we terminate debate. We have a most terminated debate. We have a second. All those opposed? It is unanimous. Debate is terminated. So this is a majority vote. Let me just explain it first and then we'll open voting. You vote yes to appropriate zero dollars to implement the provisions of Chapter 32 of Mass General Laws Section 90, A, C, D and E. Zero dollars are to be expended to the direction of the retirement board. So let's not open voting. Actually, yeah, let's just go ahead and do that. Voting is now open. Okay, let's close voting. Passes. It is unanimous. 204 in the affirmative. Takes us now to Article 52. Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, chair of the finance committee. Massachusetts has participated in a national opioid settlement with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies which were result in monies being directed to municipalities including Arlington over the next 17 years. Arlington has so far received 148,139 dollars in two cents. The use of these funds is restricted to substance abuse prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery. The finance committee recommends that town meeting accept and appropriate this money to be expended on the direction of the town manager following a community needs assessment procedure done for those particular uses. It is anticipated that a similar article will come before town meeting in the next 17 or so years. Again, the finance committee recommends an affirmative vote on Article 52. Thank you, Ms. Deschler. Let's now clear and open and show the speaker queue, please. Okay, Mr. Kepline. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mark Kepline, Precinct 9. Could someone break out where the spending goes and where the money is going to buy meth pipes for addicts as some communities have done in their harm reduction programs? Yep. The deputy town manager has an answer. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Alex McGee, deputy town manager. The spending will be broken out into seven different categories. Opioid use disorder treatment, support for people treatment and recovery, connections to care, harm reduction, addressing the needs of criminal justice-involved persons, pregnant and parenting women, including babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome, and prevent opioid misuse and implement educational programs. Can you attach any numbers to those or whose discretion? The spending will be directed under the HHS director following community input program, which will take place before the end of June 2023. Okay, thank you. Ms. Culverhouse? The net Culverhouse, Precinct 11. Yeah, I just have a question about how the spending will be spent within Arlington. Is it under consideration to hire addiction counselors to address opioid addiction in Arlington residents? Or is it more going to treatment facilities outside of Arlington? Are we focusing Arlington or out there? Okay. Let's see if we can get an answer to that. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Alex McGee, deputy town manager. The spending will be directed by the HHS director following a rigorous community input program, the details of which are forthcoming. But the intent will be to focus on Arlington residents. Okay, thank you. Let's go back to the top. Take Mr. Foskett next. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Charles Foskett, Precinct 10. I move that we terminate debate on the article and all matters before us. Okay. We have a motion to terminate debate and we have a second. All those in favor of terminating debate on article 52 say yes. All those opposed say no. The yeses have it. It's a two-thirds vote. Debate is terminated. So before we open up voting, this is a majority vote. Vote yes if you wish to appropriate roughly $148,000 from the opioid settlement fund to be expended under the direction of the town manager. Let's now open voting. And it is unanimous. 205 in the affirmative. That takes us to article 53, Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, chair of the finance committee. The board of assessors is seeking an appropriation of $100,000 to fund their revaluation efforts. The finance committee recommends a positive vote on this and I believe Mr. Jamison is available for any questions. Did you wish to speak to this? Yes. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Gordon Jamison, chair of the Harleyton Board of Assessors. So on an annual basis, the director of assessments and his staff look at recent sales and adjust assessments in town based upon that and they also look for new growth and apply it to the tax rate. That happens every year. Five years into a ten-year cycle, which is what this money is for, a certification process is required by the Department of Revenue and some other ancillary things that are beyond the annual process. And for that, the director and his staff need outside help that are experts in that process. And then looking forward five years from now there will be another process which is the town-wide reassessment. So that gives you an outline of what we do over a ten-year cycle. Right now we're in the middle and we're asking for $500,000 to assist that TOR-required process. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. Let's say let's we actually have some names so let's just leave these names because they just recently came in. Let's take Ms. Mazzina from the Satellite Room. I don't think we've heard from the Satellite Room tonight. Thank you. Angel Mazzina, 15, would this be an early way to evaluate local property taxes and when would those be in effect? Mr. Jamison, do you have an answer to that? Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Gordon Jamison, Chair of the Board of Assessors. It really isn't it really doesn't provide for an early way to determine what your taxes are going to be. Those are, the tax rate is set every December at an open hearing in front of the Board of Selectment and then the tax bills are posted online and in your tax bills that come out by the end of December. Does that answer your question? Yes or no, but if there is a revaluation at some point when would that kick in? Revaluations just to some extent happen on an annual basis. The major revaluations happen at the 5 and 10-year cycle and this is the 5-year cycle. So when would this 5-year cycle kick in? These would be implemented in the FY25 tax year but we need to get the money now so we can put on RFP and get the vendors to do the work and make sure we have it all in line so that we could both set the tax rate in the fall of 24 and satisfy the DOR conditions which are an absolute requirement. Thank you. Okay, let's go back to the top of the queue and take Mr. Monks. Next. Flynn Monks, Precinct 19, I move the question. No matters before it. Okay, we have a motion to terminate debate. All matters under article 53 and we have a second. We'll do this by voice. All those in favor of terminating debate under article 53 say yes. All those opposed say no. The yeses have it. Debate is terminated by two-thirds voice vote. So before we open voting just reminder this is a majority vote. Vote yes if you wish to appropriate $100,000 to fund a revaluation of all properties in town. Let's open voting. Voting is open. Okay, let's close voting. Motion passes. 193 in the affirmative. 8 in the negative two extensions. That brings us to article 57. Ms. Deschler. The town is obligated to provide health insurance and other benefits to retired employees like with pensions this is a substantial liability that we carry on our books. Each year at the finance committee recommendation town meeting has been appropriating money into this fund in an effort to slowly build the balance up. What we have been doing is appropriating a total of $955,000 into OPEB. $300,000 of that $955,000 has come from the health benefit trust fund. The health benefit trust fund is a remnant of the health care system, the health insurance system that we use before the town employees agreed to join the GIC. Now it is clear that it is unlikely that we will leave the GIC and it is unlikely that we will be presented with any substantial claims from our former health insurance system. Therefore this year we are recommending that most of the balance in the health benefit trust fund be moved into the OPEB fund. The OPEB fund as I said is to fund our future health care liability for retirees. The health benefit trust fund was for health insurance. We think this is an appropriate use of that money. So what we are suggesting is that instead of $12,000 being moved from the health care trust fund $1,412,454 be moved into the OPEB fund. It is essentially moving funds from one bank into another bank to help fund our future liability. The finance committee recommends a positive vote on article 57. Great. Thank you. Ms. Deschler. Mr. President, Mr. President, we have a clear and open and show the speaker cue. Let's take Mr. Rosenthal. Mark Rosenthal, President 14, I note you said this is essentially moving funds from one bank into another bank. Now with the concern about banks lately will this put us in a position where we will not be able to invest in a bank. I believe the finance chair was using a metaphor that doesn't actually go into a bank that will be invested as the town meeting voted earlier via the retirement board in the state fund that also is the fund in which we invest our pensions. Thank you. We will go to a vote on the main motion and before we open that I just want to summarize this is a majority vote yes if you wish to make the three appropriations detailed in the vote language into the other post-employment benefits fund or OPEB in the amount of $500,000, $155,000 and roughly $1.4 million. So let's now open voting. On the main motion of article 57 voting is now open. The next one is $200,000 in the affirmative. Ms. Deschler? The countdown is down to 12 articles remaining. Christine Deschler chair of the Allington finance committee town meeting each year you are asked to appropriate money out of the perpetual care or lots and graves trust funds for an amount to help defray the cost of maintaining the town cemetery. You are being asked to do that this year in article 58 by transferring $210,000 to the cemetery commissioners for the care of town cemeteries and $75,000 to the capital budget for the purchase of a mini excavator with the sums coming from the perpetual care fund the finance committee recommends a positive vote on article 58. Thank you Ms. Deschler. Let's take Ms. Deschler back to the discussion. We have a motion to terminate the debate. Do we have a second? We'll do this by voice. All those in favor of terminating the debate under article 58 say yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. The debate is terminated. We'll do this by, this was on the consent agenda. It was held. If you wish to transfer $210,000 to the cemetery commissioners for the care of town cemeteries and $75,000 to the capital budget to purchase a mini excavator to be taken from the perpetual care fund, say yes. All those opposed, say no. It is unanimous. Article 58 is disposed of. That takes us to Article 59. Ms. Deschler? Christine Deschler, Chair of the Finance Committee. The assessors set aside a reserve fund from which to pay property tax abatements and exemptions each year. The assessors declare that funds that are no longer needed can be made available for appropriation. This year, the overlay surplus declared by the assessors is $600,000. The Finance Committee recommends favorable action on Article 59. Thank you. Ms. Deschler, let's open, clear, and show the speaker queue, please. It is clear. This was also on the consent agenda. It was held, so let me summarize, and then we'll go to a voice vote. This is a majority vote. If you wish to appropriate $600,000 from the overlay reserve surplus accounts to be used in the determination of the tax rate, say yes. Yes. If you're opposed, say no. It is unanimous. That disposes of Article 59, Article 60. Ms. Deschler? Christine Deschler, Chair of the Finance Committee. The Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund is the Override Stabilization Fund. This is where the money that is raised by override votes goes into and is appropriated out as needed. To share the sum of $588,575 is being, you're being asked to appropriate from the Fiscal Stability Fund for use for the 2024 fiscal year. This requires a two-thirds vote, and the Finance Committee recommends a positive vote. Great. Thank you, Ms. Deschler. Let's show the speaker queue, which is still empty. Without any speakers, we'll just move to a vote on the main motion. This is a two-thirds vote, and so we're actually going to do this electronically. Before we open up voting, just going to summarize, yes, this is a two-thirds vote, but yes, if you wish to appropriate $588,575 from the Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund and instruct the Board of Assessors to use this amount in the determination of the tax rate. Let's now open voting electronically. Voting is now open. Okay, let's close voting, and the main motion passes $200 in the affirmative, two in the negative, and one abstention, Article 60 is disposed of, takes its Article 61, Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, Finance Committee Chair. The Long-Term Stabilization Fund is our emergency fund needed if we ever suffer a catastrophe. Each year the Finance Committee recommends that amounts be appropriated into it to protect the financial position of the town against loss and also to reinforce our strong bond rating. We are recommending that town meeting appropriate $100,000 into this fund. Thank you, Ms. Deschler, and let's show the speaker queue, which is still empty. First chance then to the speaker queue, seeing no speakers, and this article was on the Consent Agenda. It was held, so we'll just go ahead and take this by voice vote. It's a majority vote. All those in favor of appropriating $100,000 to the Long-Term Stabilization Fund say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. Ms. Deschler, Article 61 is disposed of, takes its Article 62. Christine Deschler, Chair of the Finance Committee. Free cash is what is left over at the end of the fiscal year if revenues exceed original estimates or our costs come in less than anticipated. This money goes into the general fund and once it is certified by the state it becomes available for use by the town for budgeting. This year we are recommending that the sum of $7,956,044 be taken from the available funds in the Treasury and used for FY24. Great. Thank you, Ms. Deschler. And let's show the speaker queue. We just have one speaker in the queue. Mr. McSweeney. Yes. Okay. We have no more speakers in the queue. This was not on the consent agenda so we'll just go ahead with an electronic vote. Before we open that this is a majority vote and you'll vote yes if you wish to take roughly $8 million from available funds in the Treasury and instruct the Board of Assessors to use that amount in the determination of the tax rate. So let's open voting now on Article 62. If you're clicking in right now you're entering the speaker queue. Voting is not open yet. Okay. Voting is now open. Okay. Let's close voting. And then the motion passes, 195 in the affirmative, two in the negative, two abstentions. That closes the finance portion of the warrant. Mr. Helmuth, do you want to introduce Article 63, please? We're now into the resolutions. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Eric Helmuth, Chair of the Select Board, which unanimously urges your support of Article 63. This does not involve any money from the town. Probably not even legally necessary, but the State Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs has requested this statement of support for town meeting in favor of asking for and receiving grants from the state to fund the renovation of the Veterans Memorial Park in Arlington Center. Great. Thank you. Let's see. I didn't have any proponents listed other than Mr. Helmuth's introduction. I also did not have anyone who requested to speak against this. And so for the resolutions, I should point out that I announced up front that there would be up to two speakers on the resolutions, a proponent and an opponent that can contact me in advance. And so some of these do not have opponents, so there are therefore no additional speakers. Can we show the language of the vote language here? Yeah, we'll scroll through. Oh, and it's also in the Select Board report. Okay, so let's keep scrolling to the bottom. Okay. And so vote yes, if you wish to adopt the resolution to file and accept grants with and from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs for the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant program for improvements to the common. So let's open voting now on Article 63. If you're in favor of the resolution, vote yes. If you're opposed, vote no. We're three to abstain. Okay, let's close voting. And the resolution passes, 195 in the affirmative, and it's actually unanimous. Abstentions don't count in the denominator. Article 63 is disposed of. That takes us to Article 64. Mr. Herd, do you want to introduce this? Falling down. Thank you. As moderated, John Herd, Vice Chair of the Arlington Select Board. Article 64 is a resolution submitted by the Zero Waste Arlington Committee. It urges the state legislation to pass legislation that implements extended producer responsibility. It is aimed to reduce waste and shift some of the costs of the end-use costs of certain products to the manufacturers of those products. The Select Board voted 301 in favor of this with one abstention and one refusal. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Herd. And so I didn't have any, I had no request. Do you have a speaker to speak in favor? Do I have? Oh, okay. Of course. I'm sorry. Yeah. Come on up. And I believe we have slides. Can we cue those up? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. It sounds pretty good. It's very, very faint up there, but it sounds good down here. I just want to correct the record. There was a second vote. Scott Mullen, Town Meeting Member, Precinct 3, Member of the Zero Waste Arlington Committee. On the Select Board meeting on May 3rd, there was a vote on alternative language, and that was a 4-0 vote. I don't know if we can correct that record. But it's in the report. I don't know if we can show that right here. I think the old language, unfortunately, is what you guys are going to show. And I don't know if that... Yeah, that's just what we have in the Select Board report. Well, thank you. Mr. Moore, point of order. Christopher Moore, Precinct 14. What is the language we're voting on? Is it the language in the Select Board report or this other language? Well, the vote of the Select Board is not part of the vote language, right? Was there any other change in the language that you were referring to, or just the vote tally of the Select Board? So we submitted sort of placeholder language originally, and I think it was at the end of March when that was voted on by Select Board. As Select Member Herd had said, it was a 3-0-1 vote. We swapped in a new language that is very Arlington-specific, has a lot of facts and figures about our town, and that was voted on on May 3rd with a 4-0. I see. So does that mean the language in the Select Board report is the correct language? Mr. Helmuth, can you...or Mr. Herd? Oh, Mr. Helmuth is, I believe, is recused from this. Mr. Herd or Mr. Heim? Mr. Moderator, Doug Heim, Town Council. My understanding is that Mr. Mullen is correct. The Select Board did revise its vote both in the quantum of the vote and approved the revised language. I don't see that in the town meeting file that you've got pulled up there. So if I may make a respectful suggestion, it's not for me to make a motion, but we can try to find that language given the hour and the fact that we're trying to wrap up town meeting. Town meeting wouldn't mind pausing, so we can find that for all you folks and make sure it's the right operative resolution. Maybe we can go to the next resolution while we get that for everybody. I can't obviously make that motion, but... Ms. Marr, do you have information to add to this? Do you have an estimate of how much time it would take to get that on the presentation computer? Two minutes. Okay. So Mr. Herd, I would be amenable to motion to lay Article 64 upon the table with the intention of taking it up momentarily. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Herd, Vice Chair of the Select Board. I move that we lay Article 64 upon the table. Okay. We have motion to lay Article 64 upon the table. We have a second. All those in favor of laying it on the table say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. Article 64 is now laid upon the table. That brings us to Article 65. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I'm the Chair of the Select Board. The Select Board unanimously recommends no action on this article. Thank you. So we have no action article. I did not receive any substitute motions in advance, so there is no debate. The scope is literally nothing. So we'll do this by voice vote. If you wish to vote no action on Article 65, so that we do nothing, say yes. If you wish to vote no on no action, which means we'll do nothing, say no. No action carries. No action by majority votes. That takes us to Article 66. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Herd, Vice Chair of the Select Board. Article 66 is a resolution to urge the state to improve MBTA service, which I believe is self-explanatory. This was a 3-0-1 vote with one abstention. Great. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Thank you. And I will now move to Article 68 in one recusal. Let's see. And Mr. Slickman, as the proponent, do you wish to speak to this? Paul Slickman, precognizing very briefly. I'd love to talk about this, but the reality is you know why we should do this. You have a lot of friends and neighbors, the constituents, who want you to do this, who want you to have their back, who want better T-Service. So please, say yes. Thank you, Mr. Slickman. Let's see. I did not have any requests for anyone to speak against this So we will proceed to a vote. Can we, do we have the vote language here for article 66? I believe we do, about 64. Can we go back to, okay, so we'll do this by voice vote. If you wish to accept, can we show 66 please? This is 64, there we go, there it is, okay. If you wish to adopt the Slack board's recommended vote on the resolution for article 66, for improving MBTA service, say yes. Yes. If you're opposed, say no. It is a majority vote. And that disposes of article 66. It looks like, so Mr. Herd, Mr. Herd, I would entertain a motion to remove article 64 from the table. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, John Herd, vice chair of the Slack board. I move that we remove article 64 from the table. Okay, we have a second to remove article 64 from the table. All those in favor, say yes. All those opposed, say no. It is unanimous, article 64 is again for us. So let's now show that on the screen. Article 64, so this is the updated resolution. Can someone confirm that? Mr. Herd, do you want to? Okay, this is the updated resolution. All right, so Mr. Herd, do you want to speak to the updated resolution text, please? Thank you, Mr. Moderator, John Herd, vice chair of the Slack board. I apologize for the meeting. Sometimes we have so many hearings, we forget how they go. This is, before you, is the updated resolution language that was brought, subsequently brought to the Slack board at which time Mr. Diggins did vote in favor. It was a four-zero vote with one recusal. Mr. Wagner has a point of order. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Carl Wagner, precinct 15. Is this available to us in any way, other than on the big screens? Ms. Brzezka, this is not available, any form? So this is not like in the annotated warrant or printed. Yes, this is not available in the annotated warrant. It's not printed. Do we have a point of order in the back? Daniel Jalkot, precinct six. I hope I speak for some of the others in the audience who are just a little uncomfortable, not exactly knowing what the heck changed. So if, Mr. Moderator, you could arrange for the differences between the first and second text to be summarized, I think that would be helpful. Mr. Heim? Doug Heim, Town Council. I believe the proponent of the article is gonna do your stat. Thank you. Hi, Scott Mullen, precinct three. Members of the Zero Waste Arlington Committee. This is my first town meeting as a member. Did not want to make a splash in this way, but it's nice to see you all tonight. So we had inserted really right close to the deadline some placeholder language that was used by the city of Newton for a very similar resolution that they had passed recently. And we always knew we were gonna replace it. It just didn't make it in time. That's what this is. This is very Arlington specific. Facts and figures around waste. The cost of waste. The other one was just placeholder language. So there was no sort of changes that were made beyond here's something to hold it, now here's a real language. And I think I misspoke, I said the five, the May 3rd, but it was the May 8th select board meeting. I hope that answers the question. It's the other specifics that you can call out in this new language. And they're actually built into my presentation, if that's okay. Let's go through, can we bring out the presentation? And so that'll detail these changes, correct? Yeah, that's gonna call out the very specific Arlington stuff that's in here. Okay, thank you. So next slide please. What is producer responsibility? Part of this, and I'll try to be brief. Part of this is introducing the concept to those who haven't heard it yet, right? I wanna give a shout out to the proponents for article 56 who did an amazing job. The eighth graders from Audison talking about diverting organics from our waste stream. It's very, very important to do that. It's important to recycle the things that are recyclable and unfortunately there's fewer and fewer of those things these days. We have to keep our blue bins very, very clean. But there's certain things that we can't control. And this is how manufacturers make the items that they're selling to us. It's how they package them. It's the plastics that they might use that are mixed in with paper that Larry had mentioned at the top of the Zero Waste Report Committee. Things that we can't control. And we're trying to exert a little bit of control over these things. So we wanna incentivize through legislation the design of products that are more durable, easier to repair and recycle and less toxic. We wanna keep these things out of the landfill. Think about glue, using glue instead of screws. Those types of things like a kitchen scale you might have an electronic kitchen scale. That's gonna go into the landfill. There's no way to repair those. And so we're really trying to signal that this is important. We want to tackle the waste issue from every angle. We do bear the cost locally of the choices that companies are making. We bear the cost. If you go to the next slide, please, we'll talk about what some of those costs are. 45% of our discards are printed paper and packaging. And a lot of times that's coated with plastic or foil, as Larry had mentioned. Another 30% are manufactured goods. Heavy items, coffee grinders and such. Currently, these are either sent to landfill, sometimes in Massachusetts, other times trucked out or shipped by train to other states. Incredibly carbon intensive to do that. Other times they're incinerated, right? Releasing hazardous toxins into the environment. We wanna stop this wherever we can. Next slide, please. Nearly 20,000 tons of discarded materials came out of our very town in the calendar year 22. And that was a cost of 3.75 million for us. Not just to haul it, there's hauling fees and then there's tipping fees. And so if we're hauling less, we're saving money. And if we're actually generating less waste, that means less tipping fees as well. So clearly this is the other green, right? We wanna be the green sustainable, but we also can save some money on the bottom line here in the town. Next slide, please. Yeah, and that's it. I'm sorry for the delay. We'll get to voting yes on Article 64, I hope. This is something that will add our municipal voice to the chorus that's out there. I mentioned the city of Newton did something like this very similarly. Other municipalities are as well. Massachusetts Municipal Association did this in 2019 and we're gathering more and more steam. The signals to the Hill that we want these types of bills to pass and there are no fewer than two dozen waste-related bills right now. And this is the work that we're doing as a Zero Waste Committee is tracking this. We formed a legislative subcommittee at the end of the last session, we're really getting our feet wet in this now and being intentional about the work that we're doing. And we'd love to be able to say that the town supports the work that we're doing. So thank you for voting yes. All right, thank you. So I apologize for the circumstances that the final vote language was not made available in advance. That's really unfortunate. Can we show that the new vote language again? And we have a point of order. Mr. Revillac? Yes, Steve Revillac, Crescent One. I would just like to know if the changes in the new language are limited to the whereas section or if there were changes to the resolution part of the resolution, be it resolved stuff. Mr. Hyde? Doug Hime Town Council, I don't want to speak for Mr. Mullen who's more familiar with it, but in summary there are three types of changes in the basically whereas piece of it, Mr. Revillac, there's much more specific data to Arlington in terms of its waste, as well as a sort of history of waste management outlined with a little bit more detail. In the actual resolve, there's a highlight of three specific bills that Arlington would be urging support for, involving paint, mattresses, and Mr. Mullen, what's the third one? Printed paper and packaging. So the real changes here are a little bit more precise where it's the thing that highlight the specific waste management challenges in Arlington and our facts and figures, and then specific calls to support three bills that are about extended producer responsibility. Thank you. Can we hide the thumbnail view on the side so we can, so this is more legible on display, and can we zoom in maybe to 150 or so percent? There we go. Yeah, Ms. Bergman. Robin Bergman, precinct 12. Will we be getting this language and it will it be attached to the annotated warrant? Yeah, it'll be attached to the annotated warrant. Just not tonight, unfortunately. Mr. Slickman. Microphone, please. Paul Schlickman, precinct nine. As the therefore be at resolve section is the operative part, can we please focus the display on the section after the words therefore be at resolve? Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Schlickman. Scroll to the bottom. The now therefore be at resolved that the town of Arlington urges the Massachusetts state legislature to enact pending and future producer responsibility legislation. These laws will relieve municipalities of this ever rising cost and or give producers the incentive to sell products that are less toxic and easier to reuse and recycle by requiring such producers to bear the cost for the proper recycling and responsible disposal of their products pending legislation in the 2022 to 2023 legislative session includes SD 1691, HD 1156, SD 1482 and HD 2607. Those cover printed paper and packaging, paint and mattresses. Mr. Heim, would you be able to give a quick summary of those pieces of legislation? No. No. Okay. Mr. Jamison, do you have a point of order? Thank you, Mr. Moderator Gordon-Jason, precinct 12. It's often helpful. The body has in the past has voted electronically on this so we can give them a large number versus a small number versus majority. Perhaps the moderator could let us do that. Thank you. Noted. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. Okay. So with the vote language before us, we're now going to move to voting. Let's now open up voting on article, the main motion of article 64, which is a resolution that we've had here on the screen. Okay. Voting is now open. Did the countdown already expire? Okay. It's still taking vote. Okay. There we go. There's the countdown. Okay. Let's close voting, please. Okay. So, as I said, the vote is now open. So, it's still taking vote. We have a motion to vote 70 in the affirmative, 11 in negative and 13 abstentions. That takes us to article 67. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. moderator Eric Helmuth, chair of the Arlington Select Board, the Select Board with a vote of five to zero. You unanimously request your support of this resolution, the full text of which is available in your Select Board report. only that the concept of an affordable housing overlay district is one that is already in the housing production plan. We feel it is an important strategy on the menu of options for the town to consider for promoting the construction of affordable housing. And we would welcome this opportunity for town meeting to voices support. Thank you. Thank you. I now invite Mr. Hamlin as the proponent of this article to speak in favor. Mr. Hamlin, precinct 14, I answer you swiftly approve this because as Mr. Helm just stated, it was a result that was recommended in the housing production plan. This idea came about after I studied Brookline town meeting where they sought to study affordable housing overlays while also enacting this resolution. We had already got ahead of Brookline town meeting by having our own housing production plan. Now I'm just asking for town meeting to make the affirmative in their exercising their voice in resolving this as a means to mitigate the worst of Allington's housing crisis. Please vote swiftly on this and have a great night. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin. We also have Mr. Ruderman would like to speak in opposition. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Michael Ruderman, precinct 9. Okay, everybody, raise your hand if you really understand what an affordable housing overlay district is. Go ahead. Third question, please. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. And we're being asked at 1 minute 211 to endorse a concept which was presented by the proponent in under 1 minute as we all know the clock is ticking down on town meeting. And we won't discuss the details and we won't discuss the areas. We won't discuss the impacts. We won't discuss the effects. We really won't discuss anything, but we'll say it's a good idea. And next fall or next spring, whenever the idea, because we're being asked to vote on a concept or an idea here, whenever this idea comes back, it will be offered as well. Town meeting in 2023 endorsed this. What are we endorsing? We don't have provisions. We don't have anything really to go on here. We have a lot of words in the select board's resolution of why there's a problem and why it needs to be addressed. Do we have the actual workings of how an affordable housing overlay district would be implemented? How much of the town, where it would be in effect? What would really mean to your property? We don't. Now it's 11 o'clock. I think this is no time to take an endorsement, even non-binding, which I am sure will be brought up in the future, to take an endorsement of something that we have so little to go on, and which would have such an impact on the utilization of our housing stock. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ruderman. We will now shortly open voting after I summarize skipping through the whereas clauses. Let's say article 67, skipping to the bottom, therefore be it resolved that Arlington affirms the affordable housing overlay district as a means to mitigate the worst of Arlington's housing crisis. That is the resolution that the meeting is voting on. Let's now open voting on the main motion of article 67, resolution. Voting is not yet open. Voting is now open. Okay, let's close voting. The resolution passes. 129 in the affirmative, 45 in the negative, 19 abstentions. Okay, that takes us to article 68, which is recommended vote of no action. Mr. Helmuth? Eric Helmuth, Chair of the Select Board, recommend no action on this article. It was held in the consent agenda. I'm told by Ms. Brazil that we voted on that in the consent agenda. Okay. If that is the official record, then that has already been voted. That takes us to article 69, which is our final article within article three. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Herd, Vice Chair of the Select Board. It gives me great pleasure to introduce article 69. Article 69 was the Select Board is looking for a positive vote. We voted 4-0 in favor of article 69 to allow Arlington to join the growing number of municipalities that are urging the legislature to change the state flag. Currently, the state has resolved to change the flag. There is a special commission in place, but as of the date of the hearing, there were no alternative designs that were proposed, so we are resolving to push the state in that direction to get this done. Thank you. Thank you. And is the proponent present to speak in favor of this? This is a resident. I don't know. We have no speakers to speak for or against this, so seeing no speakers, I'll skip down, skip to the bottom of the resolution where it says now therefore be it resolved that the town of Arlington hereby adopts this resolution in support of the work of the special commission on the official seal and motto of the Commonwealth established by a resolve of the general court in 2021 and appointed by the governor to recommend changes to the current flag and seal of Massachusetts and in support of a new flag and seal for the Commonwealth that may better reflect our aspirations for harmonious and respectful relations between all people who now call Massachusetts home. The town clerk shall forward a copy of this resolution to Senator Cindy Friedman, Representative Dave Rogers and Representative Sean Garbley with the request that they continue their strong support of the work of the aforementioned special commission and advocacy for a new flag and seal for the Commonwealth. As there are no speakers present to speak to this, we'll move directly to vote. So if you're in favor of this resolution, you can vote yes. If you're opposed, you can vote no and three to abstain. Let's open voting now on the resolution for Article 69 and voting is now open. Okay, let's close voting. And the motion carries 172 in the affirmative, 12 in the negative, 11 abstentions. Article 69 is disposed of, Ms. Deschler. Christine Deschler, precinct 19 and finance committee chair. I move that Article 3 be taken from the table. We have a motion to remove Article 3 from the table. Is the last article still open? We have a second to remove it from the table. All those in favor of moving Article 3 from the table say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. Article 3 is before us. And there are no further reports of committees. Mr. Moderator, it is moved that the 2023 Arlington annual town meeting be dissolved. Okay, we have a motion to dissolve the annual 2023 town meeting. Do we have a second? Second. All those in favor say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. It is unanimous. This annual town meeting is dissolved.