 Good evening and welcome to the Board of Selectment Meeting for Monday, August 17, 2015. I'm going to ask to start with the moment of silence since our last meeting, the terrible loss of young Catherine Malatesta. She was a student council president, CCD instructor. She led the musical. So a moment of silence made God have mercy on her soul and helped her family and all of her friends through this terrible time. So as always, we start with the consent agenda. First, we have the minutes of the meeting for July 13, 2015. We have a reappointment to the zoning Board of Appeals who's in. Rivet spinning, request for one day beer and wine license for the second annual Moonlight Beach Party at the Arlington Reservoir. Joe Connolly and Jennifer Rothenberg for approval of the Arlington Center for the Arts, 16th annual Open Studios, the Arts Center to Be Open on Sunday, October 18, from 12 to 5, and asking for a waiver of resident only parking restrictions on Tufts and Foster Streets for Saturday, October 17, and Sunday, October 18, Pamela Shanley, Arlington Open Studio Director. And for approval, Arlington Center for the Arts, Open Studios Banners, Linda Shoemaker, Arlington Center for the Arts, Executive Director. Is anybody here wishing to speak or give commercials on any of those items? Please. I'm Linda Shoemaker, I'm the Executive Director of the Arlington Center for the Arts, and thank you for hearing our request for the banners and for the waivers. As you may know, Arlington Open Studios, this is our 16th year, is a real weekend long showcase for Arlington's local artists, performers, crafts people, and a real opportunity for us to showcase the creative people in our midst. So we're always grateful for the town support on that. And this year in particular with the banners, I hope that the Board of Selectment understands what a boon this is for our cultural organizations to have that opportunity as people pass through the center of town to see the cultural vibrancy of our town and some of these anchor signature annual events in Arlington. So, such as the Arlington International Film Festival and the Arlington Live Arts Block Party, we would be really happy to have Arlington Open Studios join those anchor signature events. And I hope you'll be able to join us for the Open Studios weekend itself, it's October 17th and 18th from noon to five at the Arlington Center for the Arts, thank you. Thank you very much Linda, good job. Linda, sorry, Dan. If someone wanted to learn more, where would they go? They could go to our website acarts.org or give a call to the office. I'd be delighted to talk with anybody at any time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. Anybody else? Move approval. Second. Second. Further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Next, we have a hearing and ever sourced petition Massachusetts Avenue. This doesn't look like Richard. No, we'd like to install 480 feet of conduit and one manhole on Massachusetts Avenue and it's to improve the electric reliability in the area. Second. Second. Are there any abutters here who wish to speak on this matter? Mr. Dunn. Can you just tell me a little bit more about what the conduit is there for? It's just because, I mean, it's obviously, there's no new development going on around there. No, it's just, it's 4KV and we're going to 13.8. It's for the reliability over that. We're having a lot of outages. All right. Every time the power goes out, all the town's phones go out too. Yeah, we know. Yeah, the whole town gets an email that says we lost power at the high school and so therefore, so I'm really glad to hear that. That's a good answer. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Ms. Mahan. I want to assume since Ms. Duffy's at the microphone that you are also now with that resource. I am. You'll continue to be our contact person because you've been fabulous in the past. In the storms, that's right. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So how often would you say Ms. Mahan will be calling you in the future? You want to take a shot? Quite often. Is there a motion? So moved. And second? Second. Further discussion? Again, any butters here? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. As opposed. Thank you. Thank you very much. See you again. For appointments, so the first is to the Permanent Town Building Committee and this is an appointment with myself as chairman, with Mr. Tosti as chair of the finance committee and with Mr. Schlickman as chair of the school committee. And we interviewed three candidates for this position and we're recommending to you Chief Robert Jefferson for the Permanent Appointment to the Town Building Committee who has already served on that committee through the three firehouses that have been rebuilt or rehabilitated. And every one of those was done on time and under budget. And no one could have been recommended more than Mr. Jefferson was. So could I please have a motion on that? So moved. Second. Second. Is there a discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. So this is a one-year appointment. And so it will expire in 2016. But at that time, we're certainly going to, well, whoever's chair will go through the same process. But also the three of us, Mr. Tosti, Schlickman and myself, were very impressed with another gentleman we interviewed by the name of Mr. Brett Lambert. And so much so that Robert Jefferson had served Superintendent Kathleen Bodie. She has an appointment of her designee. And what she has done in the past is that it's a school building project. She appoints Diane Johnson. And it was a town building project. She appointed Robert Jefferson. So what we've done as a committee, we have communicated with Superintendent Bodie that we'd ask her to replace Robert Jefferson for the town project with Brett Lambert. And that's not official yet until we hear back from Superintendent Bodie. So next is Appointments of the Council on Aging. Anne Fitzgerald and Jill Greenlee, please come forward. Thank you both very much for your interest. Would you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your interest in the Council on Aging? My name is Jill Greenlee. I moved to Arlington three and a half years ago from Cambridge. I just thought it was time to get involved in the city. And I used to work on aging policy in Washington, DC. So that's no longer what I do. But it's a love of mine. So I wanted to get involved. I'm Anne Fitzgerald. This will be my third term. And I've always been an advocate for seeing this. And I'm an advocate for getting the building rehab and looking forward to a new board and lots of work that we have ahead of us. I just wanted to give a shout out to Art Bognick, who retired as the Friends of Arlington COA president. And he has done a wonderful job. They've given thousands of dollars to the Council on Aging. And don't forget the race, the 27th of September. Questions on the board or motions? I move approval of both appointments. Move approval. Is there a second? Second. OK. Jella, just want to know, my name is more pronounced greenly than it is Greeley. Oh, really? I don't know why. So I'm absolutely voted for you. I'm honored. As I always would, Anne, as well. And thank you both for your willingness to serve and your service to this community. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Thank you. Thank you. And then we have appointments of the Vision 2020 Standing Committee. So first, we have Mary Harrison, and then we have someone who's pretty familiar with the chamber here, Annie LaCorte. So a young lady there, Ms. LaCorte, why are you interested in the Vision 2020 Standing Committee? Because I'm obsessed with citizen engagement. And I would like to see the town's robust resources in this area well connected and publicly visible. Thank you, Mary. Why am I interested? I have been on Standing Committee for a number of years, but we are going in new directions at a rapid pace. And I find that very exciting. So being on board for another year will give me a chance to watch how the new group begins and launches into Vision 21. Thank you. So on those two, is there a motion? I know Julie's standing there. Don't worry. I have a big thing for her. So can I have a motion on Annie and Mary? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. And now to the Vision 2020 Standing Committee. But to appoint her as chairman of the Vision 2020 Standing Committee, Julie Brazil. Hi. Hi, Julie. Not enough to do, huh? No, no. Increasing levels of insanity. What do you think we should be aware of here? So sure, my vision for Vision 2020. I like what Annie said about being obsessed with citizen engagement. And she's right. I think that Vision 2020 is an interesting thing. It's an idea. And then we've turned it into a collection of committees. Superintendent and town manager, manager and town council and town moderator. The point of all of that is so that when we engage the citizens, there's a structure. And that's really the whole idea. And the Standing Committee's job is to make that structure work so that we're including as many people, exchanging as many ideas across all of the levels, people with ideas who write little sticky notes on the survey, people who come to meetings, people who bring ideas to you, pull it all together so that we're taking the best advantage of it. So that's really my vision to try and put more structure to that collaborative part. Yes, Ms. Van. First move approval. And then just sort of as a piggyback into that. And I know Mary has been extremely instrumental in this facet that in terms of citizen involvement, one of the things I just put towards you since you're the chair or co-chair is maybe a, working on a more stronger collaboration around town meeting, town meeting members and precinct meetings for a town meeting. Absolutely. To get people introduced with the process, I know for precincts 810, 1214 with Mary, we've availed her when she's offered and we've kind of abused that. And then the other thing that I would put forth to you is, I know we have a student government day and that gets a cadre of students that really gets involved. But I can just say in my limited ownership where I work with the kids at the high school and the middle school, perhaps maybe vision 2020, my thing is a lot of times with ERG, we're not getting the younger kids really involved and educated besides student government day. So whatever tie-ins and a lot of that probably has to do with the clubs. And so I just wanted to put those two, the town meeting and the kids sort of before you in terms of if you gave me a chance to come in on the new business. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, so we actually do have a space on the advisory board for a student and it would be great to identify some candidates and find somebody who really wanted to jump in. The advisory board meets just a few times a year. So it's really not a big burden, but it's a chance to make those connections. And I think that's a great idea. We should really work on that, I agree. And or maybe have it sort of a rotating position that it's the, you get maybe one meeting. It's the student council representative whether it's the president, whomever. Another meeting, it's maybe somebody from drama music, from sports groups, or. We could do that partly connected to the advisory board meetings will largely be themed by focusing on specific task groups. And so that would provide some structure for recruiting kids with energy in those areas. Sure, that's a good idea. Thank you for having extra time to do this. Sure. Mr. Byrne. Excuse me, thank you very much, Ms. Greeley. I just wanna say I'm excited about these appointments right now. And leading up to town meeting, there were quite a few discussions about Vision 2020 and how Mary pointed out a new direction for it. And one that really I think will build off all the work that's been done in the past. And I know that Julie's the right person to lead this and particularly with how excited she is for it. And I'm really looking forward to the work that Vision 2020 accomplishes moving forward in a lot of important aspects of town government here. So thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kuro. Thank you. I don't wanna repeat too much of what Stephen Diane said, but I also appreciate the re-appointments and the new appointment with the familiar face to Vision 2020. I wanna applaud you in particular, Julie, for reaching out so much before town meeting to really try to restructure Vision 2020 so that it's a more efficient structure and really seeking out the input of some of the people who are written into the original by-law and really pushing that through and trying to think about how Vision 2020 can adjust to the new challenges that the town faces. So thank you and we're glad that you re-upped and that it's good folks in the seats. My question is actually for Annie. Been here since we've been using this. I know I haven't, but I love it. No more paper, is that nice? I'm delighted, thank you all. Thank you. Excuse me. Being old, and the only person here, I think, who was on the original, it's stunning to me how, is it 25 years? Would you know? Depends on when you started counting. Yeah. Sure. But there was this big an effort in terms of community meetings, a lot of involvement of people in this and thinking at the time of how far away the year 2020 was because we kind of argued over that name. We wanted the concept of 2020 vision, right? Clear vision. But also the year and it's quite a testament to people like yourselves who have kept it going all these years and thank you for that. So we have a motion by Ms. Mohan, seconded by Mr. Kuro. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you. And now final appointments. I think the zoning board of appeals and why anybody would wanna be on the zoning board of appeals with what's up in the future, possibly ahead of us, but in speaking with Pam, Diane was busy. So I'd ended up that Maria and I did interviews with three candidates and were highly impressed with two of them. Let me ask them to come up, Mr. Mohan and Mr. Quinn, if you both would come up. So Mr. Mohan first, I was very impressed when I asked you about why this and you've been to a few of these zoning board meetings, correct? I actually have not, no. Well then again, I was not as impressed with that part of this background as resume, but you mentioned why you were interested in this particular board. Well yeah, I really wanna help out in the community. I think civic engagement is really important and as an attorney that has done some work in this area, I think this is a unique way for me to get involved. Yeah, you actually did a special permit. Yeah, I did a special permit in a town in Western Massachusetts, so yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Quinn, we're running out of things to appoint you to, but I was certainly glad to do so. In your interest, sir. I'm just trying to keep the vision of Valentine, going to the master plan and keeping the integrity of Valentine. I mean, it's my adopted town and I love the town, so I'm just trying to get as involved as I can. Thank you. Questions from the board? Comments? Mr. Dunn. Thank you both very much for serving and I will say that one of the things that you know, looking forward as possible, the special, the 40B application that we've got pending, whether it was gonna be this 40B or some other 40B in the future, the role of the ZBA and the importance of the ZBA getting it right and I mean this, not just in terms of the ultimate decision, but in terms of the process such that it hold, like whatever the right decision is, also holds up in the courts, is just so important and I'm really glad to see expertise going in there that will help us make not just good decisions, but make those good decisions stick because you have to do both of those things for the ZBA to be successful. So thank you both. Yes, Mr. Dunn. And just to sort of piggyback on that, I'm sure you guys go in with eyes wide open in terms of the many different issues, not just 40B that will come before you and I definitely appreciate that we have someone with both of you with legal experiences sort of in different venues, attorney and insurance industry as well as business and I would say through our town manager and town council, whatever resources that this board can be to you all in any current anticipated endeavors as well as any future endeavors, but also I and my colleagues are gonna be very respectful of the fact that you all as well as your colleagues, our colleagues on the zoning board of appeals are zoning board of appeals members and are gonna have to carry that sort of mantra on your backs right now. So I definitely do appreciate that and I definitely appreciate the expertise that you both bring to this. I don't know, I'm not gonna put you either on the spot. If there's anything that so moves you, but I just wanna make sure that going forward in the future when I first came on the board, the zoning board of appeals was sort of a nebulous board that I wasn't quite sure of, appeared before once, we won't go into that because that'll be, Mr. Quinn kinda has heard some of that, but whatever overtures or any terms where we can interface would be appreciated, but also the fact that I do appreciate you are zoning board members and have a lot before you that it's currently on your plate, God bless you and we anticipate will come in the future. So I just wanna kinda extend that extra resource helping him through the town manager and town council when applicable. Mr. Burn. Thank you, Mr. Greily. I just of course wanna thank the both of you for your willingness to do this and I think it's really a testament to your commitment to the town when there are essentially interviews for associate positions to what is a really important committee and I think as we all know it's kind of all hands on deck right now and I certainly look forward to the work that you do and I am just really grateful that you're willing to play a role in this. Thank you. Mr. Currow. Thank you, I also thank you very much and I think as Ms. Mohan said, a lot of times people do think of the ZBA as being kind of over here and when you have a problem you go there and when you wanna appeal a decision but I appreciate Mr. Quinn's reference of the master plan. I know that the chair, Ms. Heidel was on the master plan advisory committee, the ZBA was right there playing a proactive role also and trying to help guide the town through this process and so I thank you for appreciating that and that role and I think it'll be a benefit to the work going forward. No. Was there a motion? So moved. Second. Second. And you know I did speak with Pam a few times through this process and she was very, very helpful and she emphasized that associate members are often used when a regular member is unable to be at a meeting the associate member automatically moves in and has full voting powers and the rest and she also mentioned that whatever the permit whether it's a variance, a special permit or a comprehensive permit that in order for a member to vote they would have to have watched or read the minutes of previous meetings so that they are constantly kept updated so it's a committee that requires intelligence and dedication and we have two gentlemen here who have both, thank you very much. All those in favor, they signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed. Best of luck, thanks. Thank you. See you again and to be clear so Mr. Mohan is appointed for the one year, Mr. Quinn for two but that would be a reappointment next year as well. Thank you very much, take care. Thank you. So we have a request for a sidewalk cafe permit and alteration of premises and I must say that the ones that we have granted so far seem to be working a lot, I don't know what the rest have heard but Angelo Di Girolamo. Di Girolamo. Di Girolamo. Oh. How are you sir? Fine, how are you? Very good. Very good, so we have plans in front of us. These are plans you were referencing earlier, Mr. Correct. Okay, so these are not quite architectural plans, am I correct? Is that? Right. Okay, but you will have those done before actually. Yes. Right, so questions, comments on the board? Yes, so Mr. Dunn first and Mr. Girolamo. I got to move approval subject to conditions. Yep. I'm very excited, that was a good motion. I was very excited to see this plan. I think it's part of the Mass Ave Rebuild and some of the benefits that we're gonna get out of it once it's available and I think that's a perfect location for this type of thing. I think that there's this, we know I look at the diagram you know, as it's drawn at this point that you know there's this four foot wide pedestrian walkway that just goes in a straight line from end to end without obstruction and then other than that I get to eat and sitting out in the street and I think that's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Girolamo. Thank you very much. I just wanted to, I'm also very supportive of the application. I think maybe the planning department had discussed with you a few alterations to the application. Yes, he did, yes. And I suspect that's what Mr. Dunn was referencing with the all conditions. I was not specifically but it certainly would be included. Yeah. Just a few alterations to make sure that access is ensured. It's always important in these and I would also note that on our desk this evening there was an email to us from one of your neighbors and a butter to the restaurant in support of the application as well a Jason Korb managing member of Maggie Ash LLC which I guess owns 13 Winter Street wrote in support as well. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Burn. Thank you very much. I actually, I know no one from the planning departments here but I did have a question about the conditions set forth. I know in Mr. Fields comments it states that the application requests 420 square feet for the drawing is 476 square feet. And I was wondering that instead of bringing down and going through new drawings from the 476 to 420 if there, because there seem to be the space for it as said forth if we could just change the applicant's request from an increase it to that 476. So we don't have to go through the issue of going through all the drawings. If it fits and there's a space there seems like that might be a pretty good way forward. It's just, I think it's a. What would, I'm sorry, what are you asking to do? So in Mr. Fields from the planning department once says that the application states that they would like 420 square feet. But I guess the drawing is actually 476 square feet. Oh, I see what you have. And I think that it might, if it's possible it could be easier to just amend the application to the 476 as opposed to going through the process of getting new drawings to scale it back down. Mr. Yeah. Mr. Chairman, thank you. So Mr. Fields also mentions in his recommendations that the drawings as they are tonight aren't necessarily drawn to scale. So I'm not sure that there are those extra 56 square feet to have the board approve. I myself, no plan reading expert looking at these plans. I have concerns that the physical space that's laid out is not the actual physical space is available. So I think perhaps making sure that we get those drawings done, certainly great, great concept. I think it's gonna be wonderful. But getting those drawings done so that the board and the restaurant are on the same page about. Yeah. I'm not trying to be obstructions, but. No, without a doubt, and I think that's important. I just want this to go as smoothly as possible. And if there is the space, I hope that we can utilize it. So I think that I'm sure that the town and Angela can come to a resolution on that as easily and as quickly as possible. But I hope that that venue that can be looked at at least, absolutely. Thank you. Mr. And just to piggyback on back on Mr. Burns comments I had the exact same questions on that. It may not be six four seat tables. This is this approval will be contingent to subject to amendments in review by the planning department. As I understand the ADA crosswalk, which has yet to really be designed. And I think that's where we come into play with the 420 and the 476 square feet. So I would, if you can get six, four seat tables out there that complies with our ADA requirements and others that will be great. But just so you know that's contingent upon the fact that that may necessarily not be the case after we go through the mass average design so that we can stay in concert with ADA requirements, especially around the crosswalk cross ramp, which seems to be the area in questions, whether it's the 420 or 476. So I agree with Mr. Burns comments. Thank you. So it was moved by Mr. Dunn. Is there a second? Second. Second. So when would you hope to open Angelo? Well, it all depends on the construction that is going on there now. Right. And I don't want it to be finished. Yeah. So I'm waiting for them. And then hopefully we can go through this, you know, get this done. Right. So this is, we're all very much in support. I have often enjoyed eating inside this restaurant and will certainly enjoy eating outside this restaurant. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you. But it is subject to further plans and approved by plan. Okay. Very good. All those in favor, please signify by saying I, I, all those opposed. Best of luck. Thank you very much. Have a good night everyone. See you later. Take care. Talk to you tomorrow. And I bring back that veal chop with the pistachio sauce. So not a requirement. It's not a requirement for this license. I want you to know though. So request for alter, alteration of premises common ground, Mr. Leone. Good evening. I'm here for Babo Gwin. He couldn't make it tonight. This is really just a technicality to clean up one of, we didn't realize that Mr. Gwin made his application. We had to actually tell the ABCC. So this is our only process to do it, is come in and ask for a change of application. As you know, he's already up and running. So it's just to get your approval to let the state know what we're doing. Okay. Move approval. Second. Discussions. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Been a great success, hasn't it John? Yeah, he's done really well. He's had lines many nights of the week to sit outside. I'm not sure how it is the last couple days, but people want to be out there. They're hot it is. It's really spruced up the area and looks good. I really like it and I must say it seems each time I've driven by at night, there's no tables available. Yeah, it livens up that part of the center with the umbrellas and everything. It's great, it's working out well. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next is, I'll set, okay. I request for food vendors license, magic bites, bakery. And Tilo was kept, am I in the ballpark? Am I close at all? You're close, but it's written wrong. So, a Tilo is kept. Okay, sorry. Yes, sir. What is it you're requesting? Food vendor license. Right, tell us a little bit about this. Okay. So, it's going to be an American European type bakery. There's going to be no seating because we don't have an Aida bathroom. So, we're going to be serving breakfast cakes, croissants. We're going to be bringing eclair also, pies, turnovers. And most of the recipes are tried, but not tried in U.S. So, we have to make sure that you like all. So, we will do our best to serve you the best food. It's going to be all scratch, it's going to be made all from scratch there. We're planning to provide health food. There are going to be some beverages. We're going to serve also a brand cafe, Lavaza Cafe and Maitili tea. And if we are successful in the first year, we're going to be adding some seating also if you can make enough money. Okay, that's good. So, I appreciate your support then. Did you bring any samples? When I got the license. Yes. First, I want to say move approval. Secondly, I happen to bump into with the delta. Yes. I don't know if she mentioned it. On Saturday, you were feeding your workers. And this is the bakery right across from Stop and Job. Exactly. Which I was very sad to see that the previous bakery had closed because when I first lived in Nolingen, we had, how many bakeries? And there's now two great ones in East Arlington. And you'll be the only one in the heights. But I met your wife. She was such a wonderful good soul. And I wish you all nothing but the best. And I'm so excited that that corner right there next to Blue Ribbon will continue to be a bakery. And we'll come in and buy some samples. And look forward to it. I'm thrilled that you're opening at seven in the morning on the weekdays versus eight. Because that really... Yeah. You're going to be opening at seven. But I know you'll evaluate that to see if that's, you know, within your POS and your business plan. But I know a lot of people, especially going down to the high school during the seasonal time, the bakery that are opening until eight, a lot of people said, gee, I wish it was seven o'clock. So I saw in your business plan, you sort of have some seasonal hours. So maybe the seven a.m. opening, you may again want to tie that into a season in concert at the same time that the high school, which is September to June. Exactly. And you may want to re-evaluate in the summer. I'm not telling you how to do your business or conduct your business plan. Thank you so much. But I know a lot of people from the September to June for high school used to always say, gee, I wish that bakery was open at seven versus eight. But that's for you to decide. Thank you so much. Your wife was a pleasure to meet. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I'll ask you for feeding your workers. And I wish you all nothing but the best. Yeah. Mr. Currow. You can have that nice strong Turkish coffee. For you, yes. Second, Ms. Mahan's motion. For the coffee. That's the very good one. OK. So it is move approval subject to all conditions as set forth to understand all the inspections and the rest that you've already gone through. So all of those in favor, please signify by saying, signify all those opposed. Opening when hoping most probably end this month. End of August. Yeah. OK. Great. Thank you very much for choosing Arlington for your business. Best of luck, sir. Thank you so much, sir. I'll be in for those samples. Thank you. But I'll pay you. And now under 14, approval for hackney carriage license renewals. We haven't made any changes on the insurance because we are still waiting for the state legislature. But is there a motion to approve these licenses that will be status quo at this point? Move approval. Is there a second? Second. Second. Discussion. Questions. Nothing. Bueller. Bueller, anybody? All those in favor, please signify by saying, nine. All those opposed. So this in total is 39 licenses out of 42. So we're approving the existing ones at this point and doing nothing yet again until we hear from the state. Everybody OK with that? Yep. Citizens open forum, sign in. I'm guessing this is Elaine Ashton from Lexington. Yes. Elaine, welcome. I'll introduce myself. I'm Elaine Ashton, 32 Cliff Avenue, Lexington. Town meeting member precinct one, president, East Lexington Citizens Association, and also formerly a resident of Lexington Heights, Arlington Heights. I spoke this morning with our conservation person because I lived down next to the reservoir and I enjoy the reservoir. And I was very excited to see the clearing of the reservoir. But like last year, I noticed that, again, it was only half. And I understand both positions of both towns, but that still leaves us with a half cleared reservoir and the half that is nearest Lexington is really pretty bad. And since it's an invasive species, it doesn't really do much to clear only half because it grows back. And I don't know if there's anything that, if there's some grass fruits efforts, is there some fundraising? What would it take to clear the other half? Because it doesn't help anybody. And I understand challenges. I understand my town's position as well. So I'd like to put it out there that we'd like to help. What merry band of people I might be able to bring and perhaps even from Arlington to help get that solved. So may I assume you're talking about the Lexington section, but it's not the Arlington part. Well, it's my understanding. Oh, I'm sorry. No, that's all right, please. No, it's my understanding that at least from the people I have talked to in Lexington that Arlington owns all of the reservoir. That's true. Yes. That's true. And that it's including even the bench in Ringe Park, which is still land west of the reservoir, which I've requested to have replaced or fixed in Lexington, but it came back that you actually own it. So, what was I going to say? And that's okay. So, yeah. May I go to Adam? No, I wanted to understand more. And I think Adam's about to. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So you alluded to understanding Lexington's position, but just for the board and for those watching at home, Lexington's position has been though the community abuts the reservoir, its residents enjoy passive recreation to the reservoir, the Boosa Farm and Lex Farm is adjacent to the reservoir and probably contributes to some degree, runoff into the reservoir. They have over the past at least as many years as I've been here and prior to that refused to contribute even $5,000 a year to helping to clean up the reservoir. So, we're not not cleaning up the entire reservoir because of that. But, you know, with Arlington's limited resources we put aside, you know, a significant amount of resources for us. We're cleaning every year. And, you know, it's, I think it's a frustration point. I don't want to speak for the board, but I think it's a frustration point on the part of the Conservation Commission, on the part of the board here that I just think good neighborly action on the part of the town of Lexington would be to contribute to some degree to the cleaning of the reservoir. But that's, that's all I want to say. Did I understand you that they did help originally, but now? Not that I'm aware of. No, we do. Okay, Mr. Duncan. So the town's water bodies committee is under the Conservation Committee. Is that right? It's actually, it's a vision 20. It's sort of a subgroup of a subgroup of vision 20. A vision 20. Okay. So one thought for you is that we do have a, we have this group called the Water Bodies Subcommittee that studies not just the reservoir, but you know, also our other ponds. And we also have a fund that we use to pay for all of our water body work that we replenish at town meeting periodically. And what you suggest, one of the things you brought up was, you know, grassroots or other actions on the side that might be interesting. And it might be interesting if you connect with our Water Body Subcommittee and then, and like, and because they're activists, right? You know, they're people who are very excited about make containing town water. And it may be that your, your efforts combined with theirs can get what you're, the changes you're looking for specifically in the reservoir. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. Okay, wait, there might be others. Anybody else? Oh, I'm sorry. No. No. Okay. So, you know, we've raised about this issue. You're not signed in. Sorry, pal. Sorry, pal. Anything else for Elaine? Well, thank you for raising our awareness on this. And it is something certainly that I intend to look into, but. Well, thank you. Have you noticed, by the way, how well run this town is versus Lexington? Actually, I was going to comment how young your board of select men is. Oh, God bless you. Oh, God, I hope nobody's watching. Thank you very much. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. All right, Bob. Next time, sign in. Bob, Redocia for those. When I read the request on this thing, I was a little disappointed to see that was still looking at $50 fee for this kind of space. And I was hoping to see something different, particularly in light of the cost to the fee that's applied to other things, if you want to rent some space at the tourist center or Jefferson Russell or whatever that is, it seems a little disproportionate to it. But anyway, that's another thing. The second item is, you know, the massive corridor was promoted, you know, accessible sidewalks and a lot of white spaces and things like that. That's a very congested area. And I find if you want to put a restaurant there, fine, no problem, but it's very congested. ADA does indicate a five foot wide in terms of wheelchairs and passing by so forth, five foot sidewalk. The AIA, American Institute of Architects, their recommendation is five foot minimum on a main sidewalk. Residential four feet. Winter Street, Broadway, Warren Street and Allen Street, five foot six plus. And so we're going to go from a four, we're going to narrow what looks like an eight foot sidewalk out there down to four, funnel it down and around the corner on a residential street is a five and a half foot. It doesn't make sense to me. And that's about all I need to say. But other than that, you know, it is a busy section there with all the activity at the lights and the bicycles and everything else coming along. But that's not my problem. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Again, as you know, what we talked about before is the fee is related to the administrative costs, not for the time to make money. Okay. So anybody else in Citizens Open Forum? Bill, do you want to sit here, buddy? Is there an item you want me to deal with? Wow. Well, give us a, we'll get fighting in a minute here. And we got AC, so you're all set. Okay. Item 15 for approval, a handicap parking sign request by Phyllis Richter at 88 Hemlock Street. Move approval. Second. Second. Is Ms. Richter here? Okay. From what I saw, no objections from anybody. So, so move approval. Second somewhere? Second. Second. Second by Ms. Mahan. All those other comments? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Aye. By our director of planning and community development. A request for two accessible parking spaces on Maple Street. The first thing I have to ask is what's the difference between accessible and handicap? There's no, no difference. Okay. I wondered what the phrasing was. Fancy terminology. Just fancy terminology. Just fancy. Okay. Move approval. Move approval. Is there a second? Second. All those other comments? Okay. Move approval. Move approval. Is there a second? Second. All of those in favor, please signify our discussion. Everybody against this? Mr. Dunn. I'm certainly not against it. I am in favor, I am in favor of it. I'm just surprised that there is, I was surprised to find that there was not really, it was my reaction to it. Yeah. And I guess there is some on the other side of the building maybe, but obviously. There is. There's handicap spaces along the side of the building. But not, but these, but these are the only two on that. Yeah. So yes, I'm, I mean, I'm absolutely into, but I was, and I was really quite surprised to find out that we had, we're at zero currently. Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. And it seems like we've just had a committee walk in to discuss the tree preservation bylaw for 2016. Who's going to speak on this matter please Susan? Okay. So you're outside strategizing how do we deal with this board when we get in there? Yes. Please tell us, talk to us. Yeah. Hi, I'm Mary Ellen Arano. I'm at 22 Addison street. I'm the co-chair of the Arlington tree committee. And the tree committee works alongside the DPW tree department. And our mission is to promote the protection care and planting of trees in Arlington. Well, we're here tonight because we were approached by a number of residents similar to when we were formed in 2010. We were formed and we're a board of selectmen appointed. We were formed in 2010 when there was a, somewhat of a residential crisis on end start pruning in town. Well, we've heard sort of similar cries about tree cutting for development in town. And so what our committee typically does is we appoint subcommittees. And Susan Stamps here is the lead of the subcommittee for a tree preservation bylaw that we'd like to talk to you tonight about. Hi all. Susan Stamps, member of the tree committee, 39 Grafton street. So do you have the materials that we sent? So I did a memorandum for you explaining that in the last several months, many residents from the town have approached the tree committee upset about clear cutting of lots in their neighborhoods during construction and wondering what can be done about this. They moved into a leafy neighborhood and suddenly there are huge holes in the tree canopy. The tree committee felt that was a very important concern and did some research and was frankly surprised to find that the town has no ability whatsoever to prevent the cutting of trees on private property. And further research showed that actually there are many area municipalities that do have such tree bylaws. And those include Cambridge, Newton, Lexington, Wellesley and some other municipalities as well as across the country. In some places they are state level rather than city and town level. We feel that there's been a lot of talk in Arlington about housing pressure, housing prices are going up. And we know that there have been tear downs and division of lots that have created large houses. And a lot of trees have come down. Big, majestic, old trees have come down, not just regular trees in the course of this. And this is not what the residents of Arlington want. The master plan that was just completed addressed this as I mentioned in my memo in many, many places talking about how the built environment of Arlington had to be maintained in harmony with the natural environment and the health and well-being of the community. And when you clear cut an entire lot of trees, that is not consistent with those goals at all. And one of the many goals outlined in the master plan was to investigate research and investigate protection regulations which would protect or preserve or regulate the removal of trees on private property. That was in the summary of recommendations as an intermediate goal. And the summary said that we should look into it. We need to do it as quickly as possible. Based on everything the tree committee has seen in town and heard in town, we need to do more than just look into it. We need to do something and we need to do it as quickly as possible. There are, I've networked with a lot of, with some town boards, town officials, some of our town media members who don't necessarily support regulations as a general agreement on the part of everyone that this is something that the town needs. And I think that we can work with all the interest groups to put together a bylaw in time for the next town meeting. And we hope that the board will support that and ideally we would hope that it would be the board's motion. If you have any, happy to go into more details. The first question that people ask is, oh, does that mean I can't take down my tree in my backyard? No. All of the bylaws that we've looked at and the one that we would be looking at for Arlington only regulates removal of private, of trees on private property during demolition, reconstruction, major construction, additions where the footprint of the house is increased by more than 50%, those kinds of major constructions. And we like the Wellesley bylaw the best. What typically what all these towns do is that they make the removal of trees, the contractor's removal of trees part of the permitting process. So not only do they file an application for building permit with their plans for what they want to put up and how they're going to do it, but they also file a tree plan. Here are the trees on the property. Here are the ones we want to remove and why. And then work with the, normally the tree warden, which, and we will have a tree warden in town soon, we hope. The tree warden would work with the developer to figure out what trees really need to come down. And most of these towns, if trees do need to come down, then they need to be replaced elsewhere on the property or if that's not possible, then the developer pays into a tree fund to pay for the town to put, to plant trees in the area to kind of mitigate the issue. So Ms. Mahan and Mr. Curell. I have two possibly three questions. The first one is I also looked at the different cities and towns that you submitted. And I'm going to, I agree with you in terms of the Wellesley model. I'm just curious in terms of the certified arborist that's cited in the Wellesley outline that they have adopted for this particular structure. Who, who bears the cost for that? Is it shared or is it something that perhaps we don't know because we're not in the town of Wellesley? Well, I, the town is looking for a new tree warden now. I don't think, I think that's public knowledge. And I believe that one of the requirements is that they be a certified arborist. Is that right? Correct. Yes. I think that's part of a state statute that has to do with tree wardens. Okay. So it would be part of their responsibility. So if, if Arlington adopted a model similar to Wellesley, which is the one that I really kind of was akin to, our tree warden would be the certified arborist. So it wouldn't be an over and above. Yes. And then I have a question. I know Ms. Stamps is an attorney as well as Attorney Heim. And I don't know if this is appropriate, but I know a lot of people are probably thinking about this in terms of residences and private homes. Would this apply to business? Stop me if I stop going into an area. I shouldn't. But business and or 40B developments. I don't know if you know where I'm going with that. Is that something I can even go in that route? Like in terms of, I looked at the Wellesley as well as Weston and Cambridge and Lexington. And it seems largely based around private residences. I'm thinking in terms of for profit, business, commercial development. If we could also make that apply. If this was something to go forward, I don't really see that in any of those models. I don't know, Attorney Heim, if I'm going in an area that I shouldn't or. So I'd certainly have to look into that. It's a pretty complicated question because usually when you're talking about residential property development, you're not talking about a scale that would start to get into issues of constructive takings. So that's something that we'd have to really look at and consider very carefully in the construction of the bylaw. I think that's more or less consistent with what the tree committee has put together, which is really well researched. And I certainly appreciated all the information they provided that this has been primarily oriented around the issue within residential communities. And especially if this was in a zoning bylaw, I think it could logically reflect that. But I would want to consult with instructional services that want to consult with a number of other folks before I would make a judgment as to whether something definitively could be applied to a commercial building permit if that was the model that indeed the town adopted. Okay. And I'm not trying to create an exhaustive cumbersome search for anyone, but what I would say is what I would like to see if Allington, if I had my druthers, and I'm just speaking for myself, not that I'm not speaking for anybody else, but just speaking for myself that this would apply to everything in Allington, whether you're a PUD, an R5, an R6, an R1. I think you probably know the vein that I'm going in on that. Well, I do think that's our starting point. Okay. Thank you. But I think with commercial properties, you're probably not going to see a lot of commercial properties with a lot of open space around the structure like you see in the neighborhoods with a lot of trees. But I don't know, you know... I'm just thinking about a property that's before us right now that's going to kill a lot of the vegetation and trees. So just to... I'm sorry. Mr. Chairman. No, I'll be done. I'm done. The one thing I would keep in mind is the Comprehensive Permanent Act is exactly that. It's the Comprehensive Permanent Act. And one of its primary functions is to diplomatically putting this... circumvent certain local barriers to development. And so I'm not sure exactly how this type of bylaw would... especially since we don't know exactly what the parameters would be, how it would play out. But remember that the 40B process is oriented around removing local barriers that are mostly codified in your zoning in town neighborhoods. There are certain ones that can't be, but it's not likely that we would develop something that would be so attached to state law that it would be fruitful in terms of addressing the 40B issue. So that part is very clear. Mr. Curran. Thank you very much. Thank you for all the material that you provided with us. It was a lot to go through, but I actually especially appreciate the grid with the comparison of each of the communities and how they've approached this. I also appreciate all the references you have in here to the master plan. This did rise up through the master plan process as an issue, and you've noted the four or six different references, what was specifically raised. I think Ms. Mohan raised like one of the issues that I think we heard this last week, and I think a lot of us have heard this in various other instances as a concern of residents, both as regards that major project as regards, you know, as it grows up through the master plan process. It's certainly been articulated as a priority in some other instances by the town too. For example, I know with the Sims redevelopment project, there was a process very similar to what you just described, going through and doing an inventory and ensuring that where cutting had to be done that there was a replacement process in that case. And I know that our revamped Board of Survey regs also envisioned tree replacement as well. So I think it's consistent with what we've been hearing from the residents, and I think if we choose to go forward and work with the tree committee on trying to draft a proposed by-law, it is important that we draw some of the lessons from the other towns around, for example, flexibility. I notice it looked like most, if not all of the by-laws you presented, do provide some flexibility where if there is an option taken, not to perform the tree replacement or to go ahead and take down the trees, there is a possibility of paying compensation into the fund, presumably something equivalent to our trees please fund that we have here in town. And I just had, I think the first question you're going to get, assuming we go forward, or to go forward to town meeting with a puzzle like this, is going to be around the enforcement. And I think, I wonder if in your conversations with other communities, obviously the tree wardens involved up front with doing that inventory, but is the tree warden also working with the building department before certificates of occupancy are issued, or how have you heard that working in other communities? Well, the impression that I've gotten is that the, it just goes, the tree permitting goes right along with the building permitting process. So I would imagine that it would follow the same process where the permits issued, and then there's somebody checking up to make sure that the, that the requirements of the building permit or the tree permit are being followed all the way along the way. And that eventually there's, it's signed off on with an occupancy permit. And just one more question. You provide us with a bunch of bylaws. You indicated that Wellesley is kind of the one that you, by most attractive, can you in a couple of sentences summarize why you find that to be the strongest of the bylaws? Well, Lexington, the spirit of the Lexington bylaw is great, and it ends up accomplishing pretty much what the Wellesley bylaw does, but there are two major differences. One is that it regulates within certain setbacks, defined setbacks on the properties. Now, I think most of the properties in Lexington, except maybe if they're right in the center of town, are larger lots. So if they go in 12, 15 feet is the setback from the lot line, that, you know, that's, if we went 12 or 15 feet in from lot lines, then we'd probably be in the, in the, in the building footprint in a lot of cases. So it seems unnecessary in Arlington to talk about setbacks. Just to look at, just look at all the trees on the lot, figure out where the building's going to go and what needs to be removed. And then the other major difference with the Lexington bylaw is that that refers to a tree manual throughout. And we went before the redevelopment board to discuss, to discuss our proposed tree bylaw, and all we had with us was the Lexington bylaw, and they immediately noticed that they said, oh, well, we have to write a tree manual first. And we said, no, we really don't need to write a tree manual. So that just, it sort of is very confusing. So that's why we're not even talking about the Lexington bylaw anymore. Thank you. Mr. Boone. Thank you very much. Have you engaged any developers in conversations on this yet? I have not talked to any actual building contractors. I've talked to people who have been otherwise involved in development. Here in Arlington? Yes. Okay. Because I think they're a really big part of this. And I know you mentioned that at the beginning, people might not be comfortable with over-regulating. And that's something I am worried about here. I think that there's certainly a balance that can be found. Yes. But I think that they have to be a pretty big part of this conversation to hit that balance. Now, say after the conversations between the contractor developer and the arborist, who would an agree party go to if they disagree on the ruling? Well, that points out another difference between most of the towns that have the bylaws in Arlington, which is that there is some sort of appeals process. Now, in Arlington, if somebody doesn't like the terms of the building permit that the building inspector is insisting upon, there probably is an appeals process. Maybe it's the Board of Selectment. I really don't know. But most of it is there? No? The zoning board. The zoning board, yes. The zoning. Okay. Yeah. There would have to be something put in place. So that would be a new thing. There's been discussion of, well, we could make the tree committee an appeals committee. I don't know that that's what the tree committee wants to do. But I see that as something that needs to be thought about. It's a really good question. But I'm sure we can come up with something. Yeah. I think that will certainly be important. I do think that we have to another thing to keep in mind is will this slow down the process? And will, you know, how, you know, I think that we don't want to stall the permitting process any more than we have to. And I hope that we can certainly find a way to, you know, to add this and move it forward pretty seamlessly and integrate it into the process that we have. And I think we also have to keep in mind if we will need any new town employees to carry this out. And so just things to keep on the table. And I hope you'll, I'm sure you'll look into it. We know it's important to include all the stakeholders. We plan to encourage that. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. So thank you for the, all the documentation is very, it was very interesting and it was a good read. You put a lot of the good stuff and you organized it well. So it made it easier for me to think about it. So one of the things that I got the most calls about last year were the trees in the cemetery that were taken down. The proposal that you guys roughly understand very early, loosely have in mind wouldn't affect that. Is that correct? That would have probably been able to happen. Well, that's interesting. It's a really interesting question that I haven't thought about in that there is a state tree law called the public shade tree law chapter 87. And that governs treatment of trees on public property. This was private property. Now, if you have a cemetery that's, are you talking about a cemetery that's private property? Yeah, private school, church owned. Right. I have no idea. Okay. That's something that our esteemed council would probably be able to figure out. I guess what, if I understood the proposed bylaw correctly and we're talking about, like it would only be affecting things that are close to the road, that in this case this proposed bylaw wouldn't have protected those particular trees. I'm just trying to make sure, that's the way I'm interpreting this. And I was just wondering if you shared that interpretation or not, or you just haven't got, you just didn't get there. Well, trees that are close to the road, if they're actually on town property, like on the tree strip or something, those are town trees. And if they're, people, the town is supposed to hold tree hearings if they're taking down a significant tree. So, but you're talking about on the private property just back. Right. And there probably is something that can be done here. I don't have an answer to your question. All right. But I mean, if it's private property, it's private property. That's what this would cover. So I don't know why. But it's not in the context of construction. Right. Well, why did they take them down? Maybe they were diseased and in which case they should have been taken down. No, they wanted the space. But, okay. So, I have some mixed feelings about the proposal. I'll be happy to share them with you. So I look at the master plan. I'm very excited about, and I think that the zoning in Arlington really needs to be redone to change the way we're growing because we're growing right now in some ways that we don't want because we wrote this, we wrote a lot of our zoning laws frankly back before I was born and the town and everything around us has changed a lot. So there's a comprehensive set of changes that needs to happen before to zoning and we need town meeting to buy into that. And I'm a little bit worried that if we take a specific element of what's in the master plan of changes we need to do and we draw it out in front of the rest of it, in particular if that thing that we're drawing out in front of the rest of it turns out to be particularly controversial, that it would keep us from being able to successfully reform our entire, you know, if we screw it up, we poison the well and we're never going to be able to get these changes through town meeting that I think as a package are really important to the future of our town. And so there's hints of like this proposal that could, depending upon how it actually shapes up, could be really controversial and I think about, of course, things like the leaf blower. Like, you know, if the leaf blower thing was, like if the leaf blower, if this becomes a leaf blower thing and it becomes a master plan thing and then everything else that comes out of the master plan is the leaf blower thing, we're doomed. Like, you know, it's not going to go anywhere. Sorry, I need to keep going. And so I could, I definitely can support a bylaw along these lines if it successfully lines up people across the town meeting spectrum and it becomes a noncontroversial, easily passed thing. But if it is coming forward as something with strong opponents and strong, sorry, strong proponents and strong opponents, I am going to probably be opposed to it because I don't want something divisive. I want us to, as a town, come together and make a whole set of zoning bylaws. So, yeah, sure. I have one other comment but I'll listen. Well, I really don't foresee the leaf blower, anti-leaf blower community coming out against this bylaw based on some conversations that I've had. And there may be changes made to the bylaw. For example, the bylaws we've looked at have certain calipers or diameters of trees that are so-called protected trees. Those are the trees that the town is interested in not having taken down if it can be prevented. Maybe the tree caliper needs to be larger. But I, you know, the leaf blower issue was about, I think, people wanting to get their jobs done effectively in a way that they felt was the best way. Perfectly reasonable position. These people probably love trees as much as the rest of us. And it's not going to affect their businesses. We don't get leaves without trees, right? They need to be blown. So, I hear you but I need to hear, I need to be more convinced than your suggestion. And one of the tangential thoughts is I had earlier this year a totally different group and a totally different issue approached me privately and seek my advice about getting something passed through town meeting. And they wanted to know whether or not, if they came for the slackman, whether or not, you know, the slackman would endorse it and make it slack in motion. My advice to them actually was to do it themselves as a grassroots effort because it would get more support at town meeting coming from them than it would from the board. So, I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely sure that you want us to make this a board motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can I just make one quick comment about one thing that Mr. Dunn said, which was that I don't think it's a choice between a new package of zoning bylaws and the tree preservation bylaw. But if you were to compare with all due respect, it takes 50 to 100 years to grow a really beautiful, good-sized tree in Arlington. And if the bylaws don't get through this year, well, maybe they'll get through next year. I'm not saying that, you know, I know the bylaws are very important, but it's also really, we can't replace the trees that come down in our lifetimes. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one more? Yes, sorry. I actually, you reminded me of something, actually, that I forgot to ask. One of the arguments you just reiterated is that quick is important. Can you help me understand what you think the risks are of waiting a year? Again, I just said it. Once the trees are down, we're going to have a tree inventory in our lifetimes. And you think, what rate do you think the problem exists right now? It's increasing. There's a lot of people concerned about it. We don't have a tree inventory in town yet. We're trying to get money to do a tree inventory. So we don't really have good metrics to know. Okay. But if you look around and you talk to your neighbors, I think you'll see it's a problem. We do have some people here who would like to offer some comments about the tree inventory. Do you mind if I speak first? Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right. I let them all go first. So first of all, I want to say thank you for respecting the Board of Select and asking us to sponsor this for you, although listen carefully to Mr. Dunn in terms of town meetings feelings about that. Let me ask what makes a tree unremovable? Is it age? Is it type of tree? Or is it yes? In other words, if I'm in a neighborhood and there's a hundred maple trees on that street and I want to remove a maple tree that's 50 years old to add an addition on my house. Do you see that being stopped? If there is some way to avoid it, yes it would. If there is no way to avoid it it's not going to be stopped. But you will be asked if there's another place on your property to plant another tree and if there isn't any place on your property then to pay some amount into a tree fund so that the town can plant another tree somewhere in the area so that the tree canopy isn't really that affected. I see that as very reasonable. If you remove a tree you can plant too. Whether it's on that property or somewhere in town or in a park or whatever. But if there are trees that are so dear that we don't want them removed I don't understand why this wouldn't also apply it into private citizens where we can say you can take down a tree in your own yard if you want if you're not going to construct anything or go for a permit. I see what you mean. I think that would get through town meeting. And none of the other tree bylaws we've looked at applied a tree here and there on somebody's property. We're not interested in that. The comment Mr. Byrne made is have we talked to developers about this and what this means. I'm hesitant but it's a great idea and you're doing great work and please continue to protect trees to whatever degree we can. It's in the fine print of what trees we can't remove and if we can't why can anybody remove them on their property. But I understand about enforcement I mean that's true around town and the bulldozer that backs up and knocks over that tree it wasn't supposed to then what do we do in that case. You wanted others to speak. We do have a few others here and I noticed that Ed Trembly from the tree committee is here and it's not a secret to anybody who's familiar with town meeting that Ed is one of those people that I mentioned who tends to be a little anti-regulation and I think it would be instructive for you to hear how he feels about this proposed bylaw. Yeah Mr. Dunn to speak to your concerns when this idea first came up I did have a conversation with some of the other folks in town meeting who are concerned about regulating ourselves to death and the general consensus is that we don't actually mind too much I'm speaking now for myself but I think this is a fair representation we're not we like trees and we also have eyes and see at which some of these big house lots where somebody tears down two houses and builds three they pretty much clear cut everything and the town is losing trees that are pretty substantial rate and so they weren't too concerned about the bylaw as written I think Susan's right if there was a move afoot to regulate trees on private property without that 50% footprint or the clause there about demolition of a structure there would be more trouble but as it now stands I don't think town meeting is going to have a huge objection to a bylaw that seeks to preserve trees within the context of demolition and I think it's a reasonable compromise to if a tree does need to be removed that can either be planted on the property somewhere else or somewhere else in town I think the folks that I talked to would agree that that's a reasonable compromise and so thank you just really quickly the third part of our presentation was we did give you some pictures showing before and after which Sally Nesh from the tree committee just wanted to have a quick word about that if that's okay thank you Sally Nesh, five old colony road past member of past chair I should say of the tree committee and current member I just wanted to walk you through and make a few comments about some of the pictures that we provided and then if there is time afterwards there are a couple of people in the audience that are directly affected by some of these situations and if there's time we would like to be able to give them their say so the first one I think you have is the 27 Oldham Road which is a corner lot and I think it's pretty clear that there have been significant tree removals on this lot in order to build two large houses there has in fact been I believe a total of 13 trees that were taken down and some of these were really sizeable trees the second pictures of five Lakeview street if you're the before picture shows a view directly down Spring Valley street and I think you'll see by looking at the second picture the after picture that in fact there are multiple stumps there's something like 40 stumps counted of trees that were taken down on that property I will grant you these are not all huge trees but when you consider the numbers that are taken down the amount of canopy that that removes is a significant blow to the town and then the last property the 8 Oldham Road in my own neighborhood here if you compare the two photographs you'll see that the the tall pine trees and evergreens remain because those are our neighboring properties but in the foreground of those trees you'll see that there are in fact others that have been removed again to build two properties on the same site so may I introduce a couple of people to address these so the first is Dianne Dupont who's on Oldham Road Dianne Dupont 32 Oldham Road and I'm a town meeting member precinct 13 and I took those pictures of those 13 trees from my living room and I would say in the past year to address Mr. Dunn's question at least 10% if not more of the trees on Oldham Road have been removed excuse me and I'd say in the past 5 years 20 to 25% of the trees on Oldham Road have been removed where those 13 trees were removed the two houses are there now constructed and I can say that not all of those trees needed to be removed to construct those houses one of the things is when you remove a tree there's other implications besides the beauty and there's the climate issue because trees also cool an area they also absorb water for flooding so when the house was built next to me they tore down a small house built a large house it's a larger footprint a larger parking pad and removal of trees so consequently there's not enough I think for houses being built there's a lot of codes out there to protect those houses from flooding from the neighbors and so when you remove the trees you add larger footprint guess where the water goes it goes to people next door so then I had to bear the cost of mitigating landscape and other hardscape and a lot of things like that to mitigate the problems I had because you now had larger footprint and less water absorption so that's a couple of things that also need to be dealt with and to address Mr. Burns item of over-regulation well don't we need some regulations to protect the neighbors as well and I'm not against tree removal in total because there was one house on Oldham Road that had too many trees there was old growing on the roof and things like that but there are times when trees do need to be removed and trimmed and that sort of thing and also in light of the fact that the town is planning to develop a working group to focus and address climate resiliency and climate adaptation it would seem to me the town and part of the master plan and forming this working group that the trees need to be addressed so that's my point of flooding the neighbors and the climate impact of tree removal thank you I can also introduce Larry English who also is in the neighborhood of Oldham Road yes good evening my name is Larry English and I live on Lantern Lane also in the Morningside neighborhood near Deanna and I just want to mention that the large mature trees that are in our section of Arlington are an important factor in people choosing to live in the neighborhood it's one of the most you know pleasant features and characteristics of the neighborhood and so the people who are current residents of the town and future residents have an investment and a desire to maintain the tree canopy and since I moved in about 17 years ago I would say about 20 homes have been built rebuilt within about two blocks of my house and this is an area that was already fully developed so it was kind of surprising and many, many mature trees and I'm talking about very, very large trees very large evergreens very large oaks have been cut down as homes were expanded and rebuilt and in many cases there have been these cases of two houses being built on one lot where the lot got split this seems to be a common thing that developers are very attracted to right now so with respect to Mr. Dunn's comment I don't think we really have a lot of time to respond to some of this because they're disappearing very, very fast in our neighborhood and some of the lots are really being clear cut and as Diana mentioned when you look at the houses that go up afterwards some of the trees really didn't need to be cut if there was any in preserving some of the trees it could have been done but right now we really have no the town has no control the neighbors have no control when you have when you're meeting the current zoning you build and you get a permit and there is no public process if you have an exception then you go through the zoning board of appeal then there's a community process where neighbors have something to say right now we have no protection in our general bylaws for trees and we really don't have any protection in the zoning bylaw and so a lot of stuff is just happening and it happens right away the developer buys the land they cut all the trees down so there really isn't anything to save by the time it's just a done deal and having a bylaw like this would give at least some time to review with the developer what their plans are and make sensible decisions because the towns that have faced this problem have developed sensible laws they're not crazy laws that are just preventing people from developing they're generally in response to the fact that these towns are desirable areas and there are developers building new and larger homes and I think Arlington is in that in that situation and I trust that with the tree committee the zoning board of appeals we can develop something that is fair and balanced and everybody's interest can be protected for the benefit of us all and just in closing I want to say that if we don't really act on this right away right away then we really won't have those trees to protect and it's happening very fast so thank you for your time so that was all we had we hope the selectman will help us and like I said it's we hope the selectman will actually feel like promulgating the motion it will definitely be a grassroots effort no matter who is putting forth the motion yes Mr. Hyman I just want to make a few notes quickly first again I also have to commend the tree committee for doing a tremendous amount of research when they first presented this idea there were a number of questions that immediately popped to my mind and with the use of their handy dandy chart most of those questions were already answered the couple of things that I think the board should keep in mind and the tree committee should keep in mind is that it's early and that's good so we're very early in the process obviously if there's a consideration about a special town meeting or something like that it's important to have all your ducks in a row as much as possible that sort of needs to consider and the tree committee and the town needs to consider in this sort of more immediate sense one is should it be under zoning or general bylaws because that's one of the things you'll see that they highlighted in the research is that actually a lot of these tree bylaws are in general bylaws rather than zoning bylaws meaning that it isn't necessarily going to be part of a change to the zoning bylaws which do definitely need comprehensive reform secondly the question of who should enforce the bylaw and enforcement issues you'll see under a lot of these different models in different towns sometimes it's a tree warden, sometimes it's a conservation commission sometimes it's an inspectional services some of that depends a little bit on the model that would be most effective I think one of the things that we're hearing from the tree committee is that the nice part about having a model that runs through the permitting process is that most of it's done up front rather than going out afterwards and trying to say what do these people do at this site because it's tied to permitting and because they did a lot of advanced research I tried to sort of pull fellow municipal legal counsel to try to see their perspectives on it it didn't get a lot of helpful response in terms of enforcement issues or what models were better or worse I think the stamps had the helpful suggestion of just going more directly to the source and just haven't really gotten the chance to do that as much as I would have liked in advance of tonight's meeting but I suppose what I'm saying is that this board can certainly if it wants to direct me to try to work with the tree committee to further develop an option to present to this board whether it's zoning or ultimately a town by-law doesn't necessarily matter obviously all town by-laws come through the board of select men at some point or another and as we've had experience relatively recently this board can certainly make a recommendation to the ARB to adopt zoning by-law if they like so I wanted to put the option out there that if you have the board's direction to try to work with the tree committee to develop a more detailed proposal the one piece that I think is really important that I just don't think that we have been able to and we just can't work on right now is obviously getting the perspective of the director of inspectional services integral because any model that is focused on permitting is essential to get his point of view on it and for reasons we haven't been able to connect with him on that and afforded the time to do that I think I could help flesh out a more detailed proposal with these folks Let me ask two town council Mr. Chappell and our members of the board here do we foresee calling a special town meeting for any reason coming up there is a thank you Mr. Chairman there is the possibility one being necessary to fund a portion of the Stratton renovation project I'm still working that through with the school superintendent and the school committee should know that pretty soon well I would entertain a motion I think that Mr. Heim recommends to work with them to develop a warrant article and we will eventually wrestle with do we do it the zoning board do it or redevelopment or whatever but I certainly understand the point about it does seem like we're losing a lot of trees here and if we are going to do something do something soon although I don't I'm not a hundred percent there yet myself but I don't know what's the rest of Mr. Cura we refer to Mr. Heim so moved and Mr. Heim actually said what I the point I was going to make is that how many times have we come up upon town meeting we've had our hearings and folks aren't even ready with the hearings and I just want to commend the tree committee for coming here four or five months before we even open the warrant to start this discussion so I think that does give us time and we do have a process to try to work through you know some of the balancing act that has to be moved here so is there a second to Mr. Cura's motion Mr. Chairman could I have clarification on what the motion actually is the motion is to direct Mr. Heim to work with the tree committee to bring back a more concrete proposal that we can then take under advisement to consider either for inclusion on the warrant at our request or for referral to the redevelopment board for potential inclusion by them. Thank you. Is that encapsulated where you were going Mr. Chairman? Although I do hope they take to heart that they include developers in this discussion as well have issues such as what would be the appeals penalties etc but let me first is there a second yet? Second. Second okay now. Just clarification I'm not trying to stick anybody down to a time table. I would be more comfortable with this process from all sorts of facets in terms of if we're working towards the regular spring town meeting versus a possible anticipated special town meeting end of September early October. I think that's more reasonable. So what I would say is that by clarification on because I know we talked about and I know there may be a special town meeting for special legislation for something else that is involved with the schools in terms of the scope of what it is that's being presented to us as well as asking our town council is the motion to direct town council to engage in these discussions with the end date of possibly presenting something December January to get into the normal course of the annual town meeting versus a possible meeting. Do you know where I'm going with that? I mean I can certainly the tree I want to make again emphasize the tree committee has done a tremendous amount of the legwork on this putting together a detailed proposal it's a little bit difficult for me to say how extensive the actual motion it's not the warrant article that's the problem it's the motion a warrant article just to be clear for everybody I could put together for this board's consideration but I think with hearing from the board and I think the tree committee is hearing as well I'm assuming is that it's not the warrant article that concerns you it's what are we really going to have in terms of a motion and if there's a lot of details that need to be sort of handed out with a little bit consideration and maybe some of the average warrant articles then that's fine I would definitely you know obviously value the time but I in theory can push anything to the to the front of the queue it just depends on the select well I kind of saw it as develop a warrant article and then we'll figure out who's going to put it. So what I'm hearing now is you want to wait until the spring what I understand but you want to wait for the spring I had visioned it as moving towards the annual but be curious. So towards the thing that towards what I said earlier the thing that matters to me supporting this in the end depends upon us getting a broad consensus that supports the spring. So putting it on you know whether or not we put something on the warrant is you know that's a trivial the real question is what's in the motion and does that get broad support and if we could assemble if to me we could find a good consensus a broad consensus in time for September meeting or September October potential special that'd be great but it's not that we're waiting for the spring to do it it's just that we are aiming to have our consensus and our vote in spring that consistent with what you everything is very I'm just saying develop it so we can look at it and decide what we like it that's all I'm saying when it happens it's going to be when it happens so let's not say what one is going to appear in whether it's a special or the annual in the spring let's not say that's a special or a public opinion okay that's fine with me Mr. Chairman that's fine I just want to make sure that we're not attaching it to that this is going in the special if it can be done if it can't be done in that time frame it may not just be feasible for it to be done you know but but I'll but I'll get right on it and work with these folks to put something together that I just asked the question I was going to have a special I didn't mean we have to get this in the special I just wanted to understand what we have coming up yeah Susan well I just wanted to encourage the board to leave it open as as Miss Mahon said that it would be considered at a town meeting whether it would be the fall town meeting if there is one or the spring town meeting I would what I would hope wouldn't you wouldn't do the fall town meeting because after all that means you're going to miss the entire spring construction season and you're going to see a lot more trees go down before the bylaw passes and is approved by the attorney general whereas if it goes before a fall special town meeting if there is one then it gets passed it goes the attorney general it comes back and by the time the the cranes and the bulldozers are out there is nothing we didn't think it was going to happen that quickly I just myself found out it was possible that there'd be a fall special town meeting but I would I would hope that the board wouldn't foreclose the opportunity of putting it on the special town meeting warrant if it seemed feasible that's all God why did I ask that question that's all we're talking about is a special all I want is for you get together with them that's all I want so that's like a plan and if it happens to happen a month before a special and this board is happy with what it looks like we sponsor it we put it on the warrant I don't think we'll be there but anyhow all those in favor of the motion by Mr. Cureau seconded by Mrs. Mahan please signify by saying aye thank you all very much thank you very much appreciate it good work on your part sorry I confused it okay this will be a quick one I can tell Mr. Byrne well I actually hope that it will be and I really wish that I didn't have to keep coming back with piecemeal changes because I really don't like doing it that way but I think for the sake of the group and to allow us to do that it's important to get the board support on this back when we initially approved the nelson-neigard study we approved the first 15 minutes of free parking which I think everyone on the parking implementation government's committee thinks is a good idea but it just can't be implemented right now we've had long discussions on it and it doesn't seem to be compatible with the board I don't want to say committed to but that we're moving towards and it seems like the enforcement will be quite difficult so we're asking that the board kind of takes a step back from supporting that free 15 minutes and kind of lets us put into play a system where you have to pay for the first 15 minutes but let us study it moving forward because this is a governance committee and we do intend to meet and see what we can work out even after its implementation and if there is any change we can make we'll be happy to consider it but right now for the sake of moving forward in an efficient manner I hope that the board will reconsider its prior stance and not because it's not a good stance but because it's not completely practical. I would like to respond to the to rescind the first prior vote that is a free 15 minutes of parking the first few minutes parking at the on street meters and to allow us to study it more moving forward. And seconded by Ms. further discussion all those in favor please say aye. Excuse me. Mr. Heim uses limitation for buzzle field. You guys are going to get tired of hearing from me. Mr. Chairman this is a fairly straightforward I think my memo speaks for itself if you have any questions we'd be happy to answer them but this is essentially a measure to be voluntarily taken by the town council. I would like to know if you guys have done what you need to do with respect to buzzle field the field is safe for use for all the purposes that is being used for this is essentially just saying we're not going to disrupt the site we're not going to allow certain uses that you'd never want to associate with buzzle field anyway to have in place that sort of voluntary agreement I went through this and I just can't apply it say in the future for some reason we need to do repairs or replacements or renovation for the lights that are down buzzle field which does go beyond the 2 foot surface grade that is referenced in AUL how would that apply to us? The short answer is that we can do that we just have to go about it a very certain way. I'm not the right person to say exactly how we go through the process of assuring that we address the site condition. We would take certain precautionary and preventative measures to make sure we're not disturbing the soft cat barrier in a way that would be dangerous things like that we just wouldn't just go in there and do it in the same way that we might in any ordinary field in the future. If I could ask maybe the tail manager because I anticipate in the next five years the lights on buzzle field possibly being an issue do you feel comfortable? I should say comfortable but aligned in AUL that we have here before us does that not make it cost prohibitive or site prohibitive that we can make those possible but the way I would answer it is we go into this knowing that if we need to do any work as you described we need to work with a licensed site professional that we have worked with over the past eight years on all of the issues to make sure we remain within the AUL and take care of the issues as they lay out so I don't think it would be cost prohibitive there would be incremental increased costs in the future. That would be an absolute obstacle. So the terms of this AUL would not preclude us from doing any possible renovations or placements in the future. We just have to do them within the context of the AUL. But it is doable. Thank you. Other comments? So who moved? Sorry. Sorry. No one opposed. Who got that? Thanks. So item number 20. For discussion and approval the board of select comments to mass housing regarding site approval application of Allenton land realty and I understand that I don't if you want to volunteer how many of you have spoken to Doug or Mr. Whitten about this at this point and I know they've tried to include some of your comments but who would like to start on this one? Mr. Burn. Sure. So I guess I did speak to Doug briefly but I just want to say that the draft that came out today I really liked. I didn't hit the tone of the meeting but I think that the tone that has been achieved in the second one might be a little bit more appropriate for the letter that's being sent. Just thinking if I was in mass housing shoes that's I think how I would probably take it. And I really, I don't have any qualms with it. I think it's extremely well identified that this is not an appropriate project for this site. The only issue I guess or part I would want to bring up is and if Attorney Hyman if you think it would be helpful even where we do talk about all of the efforts we put into planning around this land. I was thinking that it might I don't know if it would drive home the price and I would drive home kind of all our efforts as if we did put some price tags next to the amount of money that the town has spent on these planning efforts through the master plan, through the open space plan, we've invested very heavily in that and I don't know if that would potentially show mass housing how serious we are about this planning process because I think I hope that mass housing would be a good idea. But of course I think at our meeting on the 12th, it came it seemed to me that the developers certainly discounted the efforts that we've put in. I just don't want that to get lost in translation. So if I'd open it up to the board for their thoughts, but I think it could be a nice way to actually put a price tag to what we've done to the last few years. Is that possible? Anything is possible. I think it's a very valid thing to note to mass housing that we've put our money where our mouth is in terms of investing in the master plan and open space processes. With that said, as the letter notes, mass housing isn't a planning agency. They don't necessarily care whether or not we've opened space plan. It's important again to note that 40B is not the reason we have a master plan or an open space plan. We've had master plan in place for many, many years. We've been working on this. We've had open space plans for 20 years. But those things are I'm going to be a little bit imprecise here, but they are defenses to 40Bs. So we've been working on this at the amount of money that we spent developing a master plan or open space plan or the consultants that we work with to try to make sure that our master plan reflects all the different important issues that it needs to reflect. The time and energy that we spent in both town staff and contracted staff. It isn't likely that they will see that as extraordinary in the sense that in order to have potential defenses to a 40B before the housing appeals committee, you have to have what you should have and adopt the master plan. Same thing with open space plan which is sort of a presumptive defense to certain aspects of the 40B application. So it's not a problem for us to include it at all. I don't know that it will change dramatically. Actually, not even I came to the master plan. I thought of that actually after I saw the part about the open space plan because we did have a discussion and we approved it through CBBG was quite a bit of money for the product that came out. So I didn't know if that would benefit us at all. But I certainly understand that they're not a planning agency and they just kind of expect that. I appreciate your explanation there. So that's fine taking that off the table. I appreciate your insight on it. I guess the only other question I would have on it is right before the conclusion where we talk about what the applicant should be required to do. After we make this draft public, there is no way for the applicant to then look at this and then go and do that and show it to mass housing that they're prior to their ruling Oak Tree and the Arlington Realty Trust or whatever they're choosing to call themselves today. They won't have a chance to respond to mass housing based off our response. So when we finalize this we'll be a public document. Submitted to mass housing if Arlington Realty wants to take a look at it, they can take a look at it. They won't find any of the things that we're saying that we want to see shocking to them. No, but can they take action between now and the time? So their application is their application. They can't cure the application by saying, oh we see all these things here happening. I think what we would say is they submitted the application to us. We had a common period, it would be an endless cycle if they could revise their application. I suppose they could always withdraw their application and reapply, but I don't think they're going to get some sort of rebuttal. That's very helpful. Thank you very much. Can I ask my colleagues if you have a question? What does this word mean? Assuming argumento that mass does not enforce its own regulations. What is argumento? I'm sorry, I got a few questions and I realized I forgot to answer questions. Just by the way so folks know. Just by the way so folks know because in case it wasn't clear the way this process is followed is that Mr. Whitmore, if you any individual comments that Mr. Whitmore permitted and we with consulting with certain town staff like the playing director made certain revisions to our draft and then resubmitted to the Selectman. If assuming the Selectman find the letter satisfactory they'll approve it and the final version will be a public document. Just so we're all clear on what's going on here. I think Mr. Whitmore submitted individually to me or Mr. Whitman on an attorney client communications. Assuming argumento is just legal speak for argument's sake. Basically saying for argument's sake assuming that the mass housing ignores XYZ this is our complaint. This is what we think would happen. This would be the question about what's the instant application is. That is a term of art that's frequently used in these types of legal documents. They would know what that means to them. So here's my question. I think you and Mr. Whedon have done a superb job building the argument. Why don't we drop that entire last section until mass housing indeed does issue the letter and then submit to mass housing? Because this is our one shot, Mr. Chairman. We really get one shot to make a comment and I understand exactly what you're saying, which is why afford the out to mass housing to say we entirely oppose this project. It's terrible for Arlington but if you're going to grant it then this is what we want to see in it. The reason we want that is because there's a consequence to putting that in there too. We want them to grant site approval with conditions because they have three options. They can grant site approval which we don't want at all. They can deny site approval which is exactly what, at least I've been hearing the board wants, or they can grant with conditions which is not what we want but is better than granting without conditions. So what we'd be saying is look if you're going to grant this thing which we're entirely opposed to these are the conditions that you need to be telling them you've got to grant these things but if mass housing requires them to do it then their site approval is contingent on that and they must do it even if the ZBA fails to bring these things up. Thank you. Who's up? Mr. Dunn? I think the pros of the word is muscular. I think it throws a few punches and I think it's entirely appropriate and I'm very happy to support it. The pros is muscular. I think that's the right word. Mr. Currow. Wow. Excellent. 15 pages of reading. I also was in contact with Mr. Heim. I appreciate you incorporating some of my comments about beefing up some of the actions that the sport has taken around traffic in that neighborhood and some tone issues. I also had raised the issue around the open space plan too and making sure that it's illustrated there that our open space plan was not part of just the recent master planning process but to kind of reiterate some of the things that Ms. Leroyer said at our special meeting last week that this is a plan which over the last 20 years every several years, every five years I think it's revised and comes out consistently flagged the Mugar property and I wanted to make sure that that was emphasized in the letter as well. But I think it's an excellent letter and I'm very happy to support it. Mr. Heim. Mr. Currow, if you like what I can do to address it because I don't think I understood originally I can drop a sort of footnote in that and say we know that the master plan and open space plan were developed well before and any application for site approval was submitted and in fact the master plan has been in works for five years and the open space plans we've had for 20 plus years. Yeah, maybe making clear that it's been renewed every five years and then I believe through that it's consistently flagged the Mugar property. I'll ask my colleagues who've been here for the previous open space plan. I believe it has, I can't. But I believe it has been yes. Just to make clear that this isn't a kind of a Johnny come lately, we're whipping this together now just to respond to this proposal. Mr. Mahon. There's two areas, the first one which is two fold. I'm comfortable with, but just want to if there's any way we can kind of beef it up a little bit more in terms of looking at the few times that mass housing in the past has denied project eligibility letters as long as Turniesheim and Woodin and the town manager are comfortable with that we've highlighted enough the route to 16 flooding where this is a transit oriented development where they're saying only one third vis-a-vis 80 cars one third of the occupants of the building will actually be in cars. The rest will be transit oriented. I just want to make sure that you all feel comfortable that it's represented in our letter to mass housing regarding the current and existing route 16 and route 2 flooding in the developer oak trees consistent statement in our meeting last week that when we were asked where would the flood mitigation where would you be directing the flood water and they indicated route 2 which in concert also means route 16 which also has been closed down in the spring and the fall pretty much consistently every year as well as they're sort of presenting this with the caveat that the big carrot is this is a transit oriented affordable housing development that we're building but you're basically building on the site that you're creating more situations where you're not going to allow these transit oriented people to even get over route 2 to the ally so I just would put that before you all not suggest any language I just want to make sure looking at previous project eligibility denials as well as sort of back and forth but again Gwen noise from oak tree said at the meeting last week our legislative delegation had the opinion that there were no discussions and oak tree did say at the meeting at hearty in May and reiterated the other night at the meeting that the board of select with the chairman had but they have been discussions with mass DOT regarding access off of the route 2 off ramp at the Cambridge meeting that was discussed at that meeting in Cambridge that mass DOT was there although there were other discussions reference that the individuals from mass DOT indicated that it was the lowest level of service the great angle coming off that offer. So I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point and I think that's a good point. I think that's a great angle coming off that off ramp. So I would leave that to you all. I'm just looking at what I got from and I'm blanking our name is the intern one of the interns that came out on the site visit in terms of the few times in the past when they have denied a project eligibility letter which is really our only bite at the apple here. If we can't get the project eligibility letter as we all know it. So I'm not asking that anything be added or but I just would put it before you all and if you feel that that's something that should be amplified upon you know I definitely appreciate that so I mean I don't want to put you all know you're the attorneys you're the town manager and then my last comment would be I would anticipate that after this letter does go out and I'm speaking with the chairman and the town manager about what immediate steps because we have a very limited window of opportunity of where we can perhaps directly affect this initial process. I do have some feelings about similar to what we did with DCR. Definitely meeting what MassDOT and or speaking with the chairman and the town manager about one or two other things that I would like to talk about with the chairman and myself and or the board. Can we go before Mass Housing and testify? I don't believe they'll afford the board that opportunity. No. Probably six weeks. What I'm thinking is where am I going with this? I'm thinking of a larger picture involving MassDOT as well as involving people on the federal side. We've had conversations and I've had some tertiary conversations with Senator Markey and Warren but basically we're starting with congress from the clock. What I would say is I'll definitely speak with the chairman and the town manager and then leave it to the chairman to communicate to the rest of the board what steps we take in the future as a board or if we can get a meeting with MassDOT I'm more than glad to I think you'd do a better job of trying to get us a meeting but that's certainly something I'm more than glad to talk about. Okay, thank you. Can I, I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that will be important is that any notes that we're going to take to change the letter, Mr. Whitten and I want to try to process and make changes to immediately decide to make any revisions that the board feels are necessary. I want to make sure I understand that I can sort of synthesize what you want to be emphasized more and it's that not only are adjacent properties subject to flooding but Route 2 and Route 16 themselves are prone to flooding which certainly impacts the credibility of any assertion that has been resolved through Route 2 or Route 16 access. Is that sort of, am I hitting that target, is that what you're saying or is it a little, maybe a little more comprehensive than that? They're posing this as a strong point that this is a transit oriented affordable housing or working class only one third of the people will actually have cars where they have stated repeatedly at the meeting in May as well as the one we had last week that they would be using for flood mitigation to send the, when they were asked about their flooding mitigation plan where would those waters go they directly cited Route 2 and to me that would be that sort of does not comport, that does not align. This is a transit oriented, you're encouraging people to come here you're really not using cars, you're on bicycles you're going to take advantage of Route 2 you're going to take advantage of L-Wife but what they're saying for their flood mitigation is we're going to send our excess flooding over to Route 2 which consistently already floods and has to be shut down Route 2 and Route 16 and it sort of defies what they're saying in terms of their project. My thing is if you're building a project you want to be responsible for people that aren't going to be really in cars they're going to be transit oriented well you're already indicating that you're going to start flooding the site even more whether they want to get on bicycles as transit oriented whether they want to walk over to L-Wife so you'll be closing Route 2 16 down more, which is already a demonstrated effect. I'm trying to think of the report or not and then the second would be that they're also looking for relief the to access off the off-ramp in East Arlington and at a meeting that Mass DOT had in Cambridge I believe it was Acorn Park that it was indicated that that was the lowest level of service and safety the great angle that they have proposed. So again saying you know this is they're talking about you know how we're going to get people in and out we're not going to affect the neighborhood well one of the big things you're hanging your hat on is this access off the off-ramp that you're willing to pay whatever they said $50,000 but it's already been demonstrated that that's a very dangerous great angle. Got it. I understand, I got it. And I would leave it to you Attorney Hyman, Attorney Widen how much importance that really is but just looking at previous denials. Thank you, I got it. But if you think it's already in there and it's fine and Attorney Widen I'm not going to go crazy. Thank you. Could somebody make a motion to have me sign this thing? Second, Mr. Burns motion. Further discussion? All those in favor please say the five by saying aye. It's due when again Mr. Hyman? Tomorrow. Mr. Widen stop by or something. Yeah, Mr. Widen and I will revise it and we'll have it ready for your signature as soon as possible. Sincerely I think that meeting the other night went particularly well. I mean again I don't think land realty didn't have to be there and they were and we certainly have to give them credit for that but it was pretty clear. What, 200 people? Was that the count of the crowd? More than 200. Less than three over two. But I think the work that Mr. Hyman and Mr. Widen have been able to get done since that meeting and get input from five different thinkers up here has been exceptional. So thank you very much for that. All those in favor please say the five by saying aye. If there is any hope, I don't know how you could have said it with more muscle. Goal setting Mr. Chapter 8. I'm not asking for another Saturday yet. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Mr. Chairman. This is a follow-up to the goal setting session we had back in June. What we've done in the past is I've provided the board with both a red line version of the changes or updates that were made as well as a clean copy with those updates the same, whichever is easier for you to read. If you have any feedback or changes to make tonight I will make those changes and bring them back at the first meeting in September for the boards further consideration and adoption. If there are no changes tonight we can move it to the board for feedback questions any further discussion they might have. Board members, anybody? Move adoption. Second. One quick question. Do we still have and I think it's at the very end of the goals and missions are we still outstanding in negotiations with one union so that's still ongoing that hasn't come to. Okay, thank you. Okay, just because it may not be obvious to anyone who's reading the minutes or watching is that we spend a lot of time on this and we actually, so we all get together on a Saturday morning and we spend three or four hours I forget what it is. And we sit down and we hash out a whole bunch of things that we think are really important about the town and we revisit it annually and I find this document to be and periodically reorienting when I ask myself why am I working on this or what is this, and this helps me remind the decisions we made and I like the process and I like the output. Could I just come into that Joe? Because I hate these things. I miss golf and every time I've done them I'm like you know that was very worthwhile and thank you for dragging me in there with my feet kicking the whole time. With your spikes on. But it is important and the first thing we do is our goals and then how the manager stacks up against them. The only thing I would say about this is I can't see the color red so I can't see all the changes. But I know there are hundreds of changes that you've made there which is very impressive. Mr. Kiro, sorry. Thank you very much and I concur with you. I think that organizationally as a board I think that these sessions have been some of the most valuable since I've been on the board. At the risk of jumping the gun on the new business though it just did just occur to me that I think Mr. Chaplain you had a piece of new business that you were going to bring forward that might appropriately translate into an organizational goal and I just wanted to open that up for you. Yeah, that's a good point. I'll talk more about the departure of the deputy town manager under new business but I think what you're suggesting is an organizational for town manager I can add recruit screening and hire a new deputy town manager to replace Andrew Flanagan or something along those lines. I was going to bring that up up front but he asked me to write it. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Same slide. Thank you. I think if the board's colleagues are okay with that. You're going to talk about the process. Yes. Everybody good? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for that work. Correspondence. Move receipt. I have one comment. Which one? Yep. Westminster safety improvements. Yep. You'll see Corey's study here and I did receive an email from the city of Westminster and I do agree if we could send it to Corey and it looks like it might be time for a new study up there because the last one was in 2007 and Corey did recommend that as well so if we could just send it over to them that would be great. All right, so on the motion by Mr. Burns is there a second? Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Were you going to speak to one? I want to speak to the Victoria road traffic concerns and I'd like to recommend that I just don't feel TAC has to do a huge study on this. Could I ask my colleagues if they would before the next meeting drive through this area and come back and ready to yes and no put a stop sign up there. Do you need to worry about the MUTCD regulations that Corey kind of sets the guidelines for to put up stop signs? Referred to Corey. Yes. I just don't see this needs a whole study about TAC but Corey is trying to move in. I totally think that's a great way to do it because I suspect this is one of those things where enforcement may be more important than any of the change on a sign that we can do. Okay. So on the motion by Mr. Burns to refer to Corey seconded by Mr. Dunne. Thank you all those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. And move the seat on the other two or anything else? Yes. So moved. I'll just speak to it rather than we did attend that meeting that's referred to in there and it was interesting I wouldn't describe it as particularly productive but it certainly wasn't unproductive it just wouldn't make a lot of forward progress but I think the conversation in and of itself was good. And then of course what happened subsequent to that is that the state school must be the school must be on the next module with the building that's proposed and I think that the thing that came out of the most last month that is the most interesting is that the the mass beads deliberately released an internal memo where they said that they will not support a vocational project with fewer than 600 students. And that was a big thing for them to say and it actually explains more why Minuteman has chosen this number of 628 which we all think is too big because they were being told privately this 600 number I'm pretty sure but now it's public and now we can see it too. And what that does is it just opens up this very I think it really clears away a lot of unknowns because it means that we can have a very more serious conversation about the fact that this region only sends 400 students. And the state is saying you have to build for 600 so who's going to pay for the difference. And that is a very clear and concrete conversation to have. And I know that Adam has asked his kind of working group to meet. So I'll be back here at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning to talk about whatever is to see what makes sense because obviously with the especially if we do happen to have a discussion. That was a lot of words but now I have nothing for new business so congratulations. Thank you. James likes that he's gone. So who was the motion to receive for the rest of them and seconded by Mr. Dunn. Sure. All those in favor please signify by saying nine. New business. No new business. I think the next select meeting is September and what's between now and the next elections meeting. Like I said no new business. No new town day. Town days coming fast and furious. We have a new system that Adam Korowski helped us implement this year. It's turning out I think really great for our office. Hopefully the participants will be able to see it within this week. But yeah it's going and September 12th everybody be here at about what time 9.50 9.30. Would you like the five o'clock shift? Mr. Hind. No new business. Mr. Chapter Lane. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I have a few items as Mr. Kira alluded to and as the deputy town manager Andrew Flanagan has been offered the position of town manager and Andover. I can say for myself I'm very happy and proud of him achieving his goal of becoming a town manager but equally sad to see him leave Arlington. I think he's really grown into the position over the past three plus years and really done some great work here in Arlington so we'll be very sad to see him leave Arlington. So I'll definitely have him come before the board at the board's next meeting in September for more formal goodbye and we'll also plan some form of a reception or coffee to allow both board members, employees and even folks from town to be able to come by in a you know wishing well in his next endeavor. So to the next question of trying to find his replacement for the last three we're moving we posted the job today. It's already available on the NMA site. So sad you're going. No offense. We'll be putting together a panel that Karen will certainly be on. We'll bring one member of the finance team. Someone from the school department most likely Diane Johnson but we're still going to have a head representative and what we'll do is we'll do a resume screen. We'll do first round interview with an assessment portion and then a second round interview with an assessment portion and I'll probably part of that second interview as I was when we hired Andrew a couple years back. So we are going to have the posting open until September 16th and then begin screening following that. So I think we're going to be moving forward. I'll also provide more information to the board about what the interim plan is once Andrew goes Andrew will probably we haven't solidified a date yet probably be here towards the end of September wants to take a week or so before he starts in Andover I think he's going to try to start in October 1st. So we'll have a little bit of time to plan some interim measures but aside from that I feel pretty comfortable about the process that we've you know put together the bones of here and yeah we'll miss them. We'll miss them. Can I just ask is I know we discuss this and I just wasn't paying attention as I could. How many people currently on the committee that you sided with Ms. Malloy someone from treasure or someone from people. Do you want to plug in if you want to run it out to an odd number if there was some sort of union representation or is the deputy town manager but I just would put it out as a suggestion we have it's your appointment and yeah I think the odd number but I just wanted to just put that out there thank you. I mean it's your appointment so I'm not praying yet. Just where's the deputy town manager. I was here six months ago so it's not surprising that the day after he's offered the job you were ready to go. We knew months ago that he was going to get this job. The chairman of the end over board of select came here to Allenton to interview Andrew and meet people that he works with and stuff. We had a chance to tell her you can't have him by way of telling her. You're very persuasive Mr. How lucky she would be to get him but anyhow. So a couple other quick pieces of business after a pretty long process today we did hire a facilities director for the newly created facilities department. I'm very excited about her. She brings a ton of energy, passion, sort of innovation to the position. So she will work on a transition from her out of her regional position work with Bedford into the new position but that was sort of breaking news today that I wanted to let the board know about. Saturday we had the solar event at the school which was a success. Just sort of a ribbon cutting or photo opportunity of sorts. They got me to wear a hard hat and they had a full size crane. It was pretty impressive bringing up the big parcels to the roof so that was happening at the Straton at the same time but that was a success and hopefully by the end of September having those panels actually generating electricity once they're all done. Mr. Burn, are you going to talk about fire training? You are more than welcome to. I'll just mention that I had a great time training with the fire department last week with Mr. Burn but I'll let him get into some of the details. And then the last piece is the board may have already heard but if not I wanted to make them aware of that and I officially start to consider as a future option utilizing the Gibbs school for Arlington students again. So that has cost ramifications and also has significant impacts on the current tenants of the Gibbs school. So no decisions have been made and I don't think they'll be made for the course of the next year but there will be conversation I think angst amongst the tenants so I wanted to talk about that. Thank you. So yeah, following up on Adam's comment about firefighter training. Last week Adam myself along with chief Jefferson and one of the shifts that were on went down and did some training on a house on Dorothy road and it's a really good program and I will say anyone who is tearing down their house please consider donating it to the fight department because this really is invaluable training that they get. They put us in full gear. I will say it was on a very human day so I was sweating before I even took one step in it but they filled the house up with smoke and we crawled around going through exactly the way that the firefighters use tried and found the body in the smoke filled house and they talked about how they'd get them out and the second part of the training was carrying the hose up to the second floor and we got to fire the hose and after the first time I fired the hose I nearly fell backwards. Thank god someone was there behind me to keep me standing up and then we put up some roofs and put some access through walls so all in all it was a pretty fun day. I walked away obviously I already had but even a further deep respect of the work they do and what they have to be prepared for but another thing that really blew me away was kind of the science behind it and how well they all know it. It's really really enlightening to see how fire travels and how to stop it and there really are a true team of professionals and it was a great day and I'm very thankful to the chief for sending the invitation. You have one other piece of new business. As some of you may see in the advocate lately there's some ads saying that I am potentially trying to harm Arlington's community and it's stemming from the parking implementation and governance committee and I want to just make it very clear we are trying our hardest to work with the taxis to come up with a resolution that is in the best entrance of everyone who uses the center and we've asked them to become part of the conversation and we hope moving forward they will do so. Thank you very much. I saw I haven't afforded myself the opportunity to speak to the town manager at this time so I'm going to say no new business right now. I have some new business stuff but I want to run past the town manager first and I couldn't get to the phone so no new business. I'm just giving Adam a warning. I'll just say people ask me where you are. Just one, the Charlie Foskland your appointees for the community preservation committee have held an initial meeting where they have 19 applicants at them and just to agree on process and they developed a rating system to meet this Wednesday I think it is and their goal is to hand Adam and I six to eight candidates which Adam and I will then interview and then bring to this board the four candidates. Every name on that list is qualified to serve on this committee. We're also trying to find out of the other redevelopment board housing the other five boards and commissions where they are at this point so we can do some balancing if we can with geography in the town and specific interests etc. So our goal is about the middle of September we hope for he and I to bring to the board. I guess by the September 21st meeting. Has the AG signed up? No. All those in favor? We are adjourned the next meeting of the board of Select. September 21st.