 ACMI productions are only made possible with your support. Visit patreon.com slash ACMI to learn how you can help. Good evening. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on April 8th, 2024. I am Select Board Chair Eric Hillmuth for about another four minutes. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with provisions and state law for remote participation in public meetings. I will now confirm that all members and staff are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahon. Affirmative. John Hurd. Yes. Steve DeCorsi. Yes. Leonard Diggins. Yes. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Tom Manager, let me move my microphone. Tom Manager Jim Feeney. Yes. Tom Councilor Michael Cunningham. Yes. Select Board Administrator Ashley Maher. Yes. Mr. Diggins, can you hear each of the staff? I can hear. Everyone's just fine. Thanks for checking, Mr. Chair. You're very welcome. Before we begin, please note the following. This meeting can be conducted in the Select Board Chambers and over Zoom. It is being recorded and simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. People wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. People participating either in person or by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, we ask that you provide your full name in place of residents in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Both Zoom participants and people watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials found on the town's website, specifically the Select Board Agendas and Menace page. If technical difficulties sever the remote connection to one or more participants and efforts to reconnect within a reasonable period of time are unsuccessful, the in-person meeting will continue at the discretion of the chair provided that a quorum of the board is physically present. Zoom participants are encouraged to retain the phone number provided in their confirmation email to use as a backup audio connection to the meeting if necessary. There will be several opportunities for public comment tonight or at least one during a warning article hearing. If you are attending by Zoom and want to participate at that time, please raise your hand in Zoom when the chair announces the public comment is open. If you do not know how to raise your hand in Zoom, now would be an excellent time to Google for how to do so. And finally, because one or more Select Board members are participating remotely, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. Our first item of the business is the organizational meeting for the purpose of electing a chair and vice chair. I now turn the chair of the meeting over to town council attorney, Mike Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening. Michael Cunningham, town council. And at this stage in the agenda would like to accept nominations for Select Board Chair. Mr. Mohan. I'd like to nominate Mr. DeCorsi as Select Board Chair. Is there a second? Second. Mrs. Mohan. I'd like to close nominations. Second. On a motion to nominate. To close. To close nomination period. Is there. Second. All those in favor? I guess we get a roll call vote because it's a hybrid. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. The nomination period is closed at this point with a nomination for Mr. DeCorsi to serve as chair that has been seconded and offered by Mrs. Mohan and seconded by Mr. Herd. Take a roll call of any discussion by the board. Hearing none, take a vote. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Congratulations, Mr. DeCorsi. Chair of the Select Board. We should have music for this. No, no, no, no. My grandson, Nick, is the same. Great. A little bit smaller desk here. Thank you, colleagues, for your confidence and selecting as chair this year. It's an honor to serve again as your chair. And before I start, I again want to thank Mr. Helmuth for his excellent service this past year as chairman. Thank you, sir. And congratulations to both Mr. Helmuth and Mr. Herd on your reelection on Saturday. Mr. Chair, if I may, I can say as someone of the privilege to serve my first year under your guidance as chair. It is great to have you back in that role. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, well, with that, we'll move on to opening nominations for vice chair. Motion to open nomination for vice chair. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Motion has been made in second. Any discussion? Motion's made in second for opening nominations for vice chair, attorney Cunningham. Ms. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. 5-0 vote. I accept nominations now, Mr. Herd. I move to nominate Mrs. Mahan as vice chair. So second. Second. Discussion. Okay, motion has been made in seconded to nominate Mrs. Mahan. Motion to close nomination. Oh. Yeah, go ahead. We have to motion to close nomination. I'll second that. Okay. Motion has been made in seconded to close nomination to attorney Cunningham. Ms. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Opposed. Okay, and on the motion for Mrs. Mahan as vice chair, attorney Cunningham. Motion to have Mrs. Mahan serve as vice chair. It's been made in seconded. Ms. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. 5-0 vote. Congratulations, Mrs. Mahan. I'm Mr. Diggins to his seat. I hope he sees it. Yes. You've lost weight. That's the seat I want. Thank you. Well, congratulations, Mrs. Mahan. Moving on for the agenda, we are now on the consent agenda. It's items three through seven. And I will read them off in order. Item three, celebrating Arlington Stories banner design. Item four, outdoor restaurant and retail permit application, Kilo's Taqueria. Number five, a request for a contractor drain layer license. Travis Trot, Boston Pipeline Company. Item six, a request for a special one day beer and wine license on April 27th at the Woodamore Robbins House. Item seven, a request for a one day beer and wine license on May 3rd at the First Paris Church for the Taste of First Paris Arlington event. Do we have any motions, comments from members of the board? Second. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? On a motion by Mr. Hurd, seconded by Mr. Helmuth to approve the consent agenda, Attorney Conningham. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. Add zero vote. Thank you. Item eight, under licenses and permits for approval, common bitular license, Greek habits by Eva, 478 Massachusetts Avenue, Theodora Nicolacos. If you're in the chambers, if you want to come up, please. Yeah, come right up to the table. Good evening. Thank you for coming. We have the application, but if you could tell us a little bit about your business and what you put in the application and what your business will be, if approved. Can my sister come with me so she can help me with my English? Sure, absolutely. Thank you for coming. Can she speak for me? Sure. So we want to open a Greek pastry shop in the 478 Massave in Arlington. I myself have had a bakery Greek pastry shop as well for the past eight years in Pibery. We do wholesale and retail. And as known as Eva's Pastries, and I had it with my ex-partner. So now I have divided with my ex-partner and open new with my sister. Now this is the location they're going to have. They're not going to be producing out of there. They're going to be selling the pastries. I'm going to be producing out of Pibery at a new location. And we want to see if you guys would enjoy that. All right. Thank you very much. I actually was going by the location. Yes, it's at the corner of Massave in Swan Place. And the signage looks great. So I will now turn it over to the board for any questions, motions, comments. Mrs. Mahan. I would first like to move approval subject to all conditions contained therein. And I know you and your sister are probably aware that there are four, I think four departments in the town that have conditions to get your occupancy permit and some other things that should be, I shouldn't say easy, but something that you have to do to get 100% good to go. But you're definitely aware of that. And I want to thank you and your sister for choosing here in Allington. This will be most recently the second Greek-themed business opening here in Allington, which is really exciting. I certainly look forward to not only reading about the great reviews I know you're going to receive because thankfully, Allington, new businesses that have come in have done very, very well. And I like to think it's the applicant coming in and whatever little the town manager and department heads do. But I know how tough it is in the food industry, how hard that is. And I know how important family is. Like your sister, a lot of the food businesses are really family-oriented. And if they're not related by blood, they get related by work. So I just want to thank you in advance for doing that. And as I said, subject to these conditions and as always, the select board office is a resource to you if you should need any help along the way. So good luck and I look forward to seeing you all. Go, sisters. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Hurd. Second the motion. Thank you for choosing Allington. My office is in Allington Center. Always looking for a new lunch spot. So I look forward to winning this open. So. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Any other comments? Okay. So a motion for favorable action by Mrs. Mahan. Seconded by Mr. Hurd, attorney Cunningham. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. 5-0 vote. Congratulations. And Greek habits by Ava. I just want to get the name right. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Also under licenses and permits, item nine for approval, public entertainment license, and change of hours, ZOMSA 434 to 436 Massachusetts Avenue. If the applicant can stay here, if they want to come up. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Yeah, if you could just. My name is Ravi. First of all, I would like to congratulate all of you for being selected. Oh, no, go right ahead. If you want to introduce yourself and just tell us about the application. I'm a Ravi Raskarnika. I'm a chef manager of the ZOMSA restaurant. And we applied for the international license to extend our hour till midnight. The reason why we did is in our restaurant, we'd like to have Nepali music people promote Nepali with local bands from all over the states, along from Nepal, bring it over here and introduce here. And also to serve the local people till midnight if we get a chance, we'd be very grateful to get that extended hour and internet license. Okay, thank you. I'll turn to the board. Mrs. Mahan. First, I'll move approval. And I know this is going to add to your business. I have three grandsons who are half Nepalese. So I am familiar with the music. I'm not very good at it. And move approval subject to the conditions contained there. And there are four town departments which I'm sure you're aware of just that have outlined, you know, how to continue to operate your business there. And the only other thing I would say is it shouldn't be an issue with where your location is, but if the music is also going to go to midnight, you might, you know, just make sure it stays contained within your building, your establishment. Just, you know, for neighbors, because Arlington is so close, so condensed. But I think it's a great idea. I certainly look forward to it. And I would like to also tell that we did the sound proof in a wall, so it's not going to, the first of all, the building doesn't have any closed houses or any servants is going to be around. And we did a sound proof, so. So you're ahead of me. You don't even need me on this. You know what you're doing, so. And I wish you nothing but good luck and success. And we're always here if you need any help on anything. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Helmuth. I gladly second that. And I'm glad that things are going well enough that you wanted to do some more business. So I'm glad to hear about the sound proofing. That was a good idea. And I look forward to your continued success. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Mr. Diggins? Yes, I'm just happy to, I will happily vote approval. Yeah, we still haven't voted yet. So just in case there are questions. No problem. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Mr. Diggins. Oh, I thought something was wrong on my end. So now I'm going to say I'm going to be happy to vote approval on this. I'm happy to see something that will make the College of Center more of a destination need. And I'm looking forward to experiencing the cuisine, although it'll be way before midnight when I'm there eating. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. I'm happy to support this as well. So on a motion by Mrs. Mahan, seconded by Mr. Helmuth for approval of the application, attorney Cunningham. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. 5-0 vote. OK, thank you very much. Congratulations. Thank you very much. OK, next item 10, Warren article hearings, articles for review. We just have one this evening, which is article 20, home rule legislation for Tom Clerk. Before I turn it over to the town manager, I do want to say we, at our meeting last week, we tabled this until after the election on Saturday. And on question one, I note that the referendum question passed by 58% to 42% actually before I do that. Did you want to say something, Mr. Helmuth? You read my mind, Mr. Chair. Due to my employment by the state legislature, I am required to recuse myself because this is a home rule petition for the legislature. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. So as I was saying, the referendum was successful. 58% voted in favor of changing the clerk from an elected position to an appointed position. We wanted to allow the voters to make that decision over the weekend that they have. So in light of that, we did receive some new information from Attorney Cunningham. I don't know if Mr. Feeney or Attorney Cunningham would like to start us off here. Mr. Feeney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for the summary of the offense that have transpired prior to this evening. And I'd like to thank both town council, my Cunningham and deputy town council, Jackman Munson, for turning around this updated memo so quickly in light of the election results. But before the board this evening for consideration is specific language amending the town manager act to codify the change of the clerk position from one that is elected to one that will now be pointed should the board in town meeting see fit. So the amendment language proposed in the memo of the board received closely follows that that has been used previously. In other words, the model that was developed in 2018 for the position of the comptroller and then used again in 2019 for the position of treasurer. This language follows those two prior conversions almost to a T with respect to the strike throughs and additions made to the language of the town manager act. So I think just generally speaking, the duties and obligations of the position will remain exactly the same. What changes is the appointment and removal process for the town clerk position. So in the proposal before the board, the clerk would now become a town manager appointment as the town manager act spells out based on merit and fitness alone. And that appointment would be subject to confirmation by this board. And then removal would be a similar process, a recommendation by the town manager subject to the ultimate approval of the select board so that changes as it is currently there would be subject to a recall election when it's an elected office. And then finally, with respect to the timeline for these proposed changes, I just wanna note as written, the current elected town clerk would finish her duly elected term, which expires in April, 2026. At that point, an appointment process would be instituted. And I think that's, barring any questions, that's the information I wanted to add this evening. Great, thank you, Mr. Feeney. This is a public hearing, but before we do that, I turn to board members if there are any questions in advance of a potential motion. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Most of the questions, Johnny Cunningham in months and the town manager have answered for me. The only question that stays out there is as outlined in the memo regarding what we, ultimately if we pass it and then town meeting passes it, gets sent to the legislature. There were a few items of suggestion that either this board, my first question would be on those items of suggestion to clarify, to go along with the legislation in the state house so it has the best chance of not coming back. Correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm misreading anything that's in here has to do with, whether, well first off, is that something this board should discuss or should town meeting, we vote on it, town meeting votes on it, and then the town manager regarding, is it a defined term? Regarding is it an independent authority and regarding how we, how the manager ultimately, I would assume determines how this position should be classified. So is that something that this board should discuss and include in our vote or I'm putting the card before the horse? That would be my question. I don't know if you have any advice on that. I'd like to ask Attorney Cunningham if he has any thoughts. Thank you Mrs. Mahan. Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you Mrs. Mahan. Yes that would be something appropriate for this board to discuss if it's so chose to deal with it this time to send something forward to town meaning that the board feels accurately and appropriately addresses that issue if it's not already addressed well enough in the draft motion. I guess I would ask you Mr. Chair, if maybe after you have the public hearing that this issue comes back, I'd be interested in what Mr. Feeney has since ultimately he'd be the appointing authority but I think we should clarify those three issues and I'll let you handle that. Okay thank you Mrs. Mahan. Any other questions from board members? Are there any members of the public who wish to be heard on this warrant article? Anybody on Zoom? All right so no one is. Okay thank you Mrs. Mahan. So I will return to Mr. Feeney if you could respond to Mrs. Mahan's question. Sure thank you Mr. Chair and thank you for the question Mrs. Mahan. As proposed the language presented does not call for a specific term of a specific length. So it would be serving at the pleasure of the appointing authority as is the case for all other appointments under the town manager. And then the other two issues, if we should not include that in our vote tonight that's fine but I've got the sense that we should on how you would classify this position and the independent authority. And if I'm missing anything else. And then so one other item Mrs. Mahan as listed was the effective date which was noted as in a you know we'll add a caveat here is that the conclusion of the current elected clerk's term which is April 2026 or upon early vacancy of the term should for any reason the clerk decided to vacate that term. And then with respect to the duties and obligations as I understand it those are well codified within the mass general laws and are not currently codified anywhere within the town manager act but would also ask town council to weigh in if there's something I'm missing. Turn coming in. Thank you Mr. Chair. No Mr. Feeney is set out correctly that those duties are codified in a general laws but I just wouldn't highlight section two of the draft motion that talks about the incumbent elected to the office and shall continue to hold that office until the term expires or the clerk resigns. So just to protect the will of the voters as you know our town clerk was elected. This the town manager's authority under this act to appoint somebody pursuant to the select board's approval would not affect that individual's term. Thank you attorney coming in. And I will know when we went through this several years ago with the treasurer's position Mr. Cameron was elected as treasurer that began the conversion process to an appointed treasurer. He did not serve his entire term he resigned during the term and then in the fall of 2018 this Marshall was hired but again I believe it was similar language in that act or homeroom petition that we had. So any other questions, comments, motions? This is mine. I'd like to move approval with the inclusion of that this position will serve at the direction of the appointed authority and that this position will become an effect in April of 2026 or if there's an early vacancy and then include the third part all the other parameters outlined in section two as attorney coming in cited. Okay, thank you. And just for clarification would we do that maybe through the comment as opposed to in the actual. Okay, yeah, thank you. And second. Okay, thank you Mr. and if you have a comment. Yeah, we already did that. Yeah, no one wanted to speak on it. Okay, second by Mr. and any further comment? Okay, I don't see anything for Mr. Diggins. Attorney coming in. Thank you Mr. Chair. Just before we proceed I wanna make sure I have appropriately addressed Mrs. Mahan's concerns. So we're not, there'll be no revision of the draft motion just that your concerns will be addressed in a comment that will be added. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you Mrs. Mahan for the good suggestions. Thank you. Thank you attorney coming in. I wanna motion by Mrs. Mahan. Seconded by Mr. Herd, attorney coming in. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Corsi? Yes. 4-0 vote with Mr. Helmuth accusing himself. Okay, Mr. Helmuth can rejoin us now. Item under traffic rules and orders. Item 11, discussion on future select board meetings and believe that either our last meeting or two meetings ago we are gonna have a meeting on April 17th. We also will be here for the first night of town meeting on April 24th. And we held off on a discussion on May and June. So I'm gonna suggest a couple of dates and ask board members if they're available or if they have other preference. So for May, I did speak with Ms. Mahan. We talked about May 6th and May 20th. How does that look? Those are both Mondays. Okay. And in June, and maybe a question for Mr. Feeney on this too, it either can do with the 3rd and 17th or 10th and 24th. I'm just wondering if the second meeting is a little bit closer to the end of the fiscal year in case there's something that needs to be done if that would be preferable doing a 10th and 24th. At first glance, the 10th and 24th seems... Okay. Okay, is there any discussion on this? Does that work for everybody? Probably 10th and 24th. 10th and 24th. And I don't, we didn't get into July. I don't know if you wanna, we'd have one meeting in July and one in August. Mr. Diggins. Yes, so thinking about July and August, I also want to ask if we are considering doing meeting goals meeting at some point this summer? Yes. Well, we are, we'd like to do that. And I'm just trying to think when we, you know, Mr. Feeney's start that was in August. August. Yeah, so I think maybe in August, it would be, I wanna talk to Mr. Feeney because in terms of the goals, he starts that process and just talk about that, but that would be a possibility probably for August. Yeah, just wanted to see if we're thinking about it and when, you know, so didn't wanna wait too late because if we wanted to go for July and we waited until June to think about it, it might be too late to even think about on July at that point. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, and I don't know if we wanna come back and talk about July and August. It's a little too early maybe. I'd come back and when we're a little clearer on what our July and August look like. Okay, same. All right, that's fine. All right, so Mr. Ma. Just one point for the, possibly for the May meetings and I hope, please Lord, not the June meeting, but it will be subject to, I guess, the vote by town meeting and or the Warren article. And I'm going to assume and it's at the chair's discretion that if town meeting should move to 730 or seven, that that would push us back accordingly an hour. So just we have that in our minds at that. Or whatever the chairman determines if you see an agenda that we can get it done in 30 minutes, but just so that we have in our head that there's the potential of a, from now on, if town meeting time changes, we could be 636, whatever you determine. Okay, yeah, depending on the size of the agenda. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so that covers. Not that that should influence your vote individually as a town meeting member, you vote what you want. That's right. Thank you, Mrs. Vaughan, that's right. Okay, so with that, that's just a discussion. Doesn't require a vote of the board. Item 12, fossil fuel. Actually, sir. No problem. No, you didn't see my hand, you know. So, we, Mrs. Mahomets talked about the time. I mean, I know there is that article that does discuss on time, it's the start time. And I know that we said that we will report. So, so I don't know if that will wait as long as May 6. I mean, but I suppose at any point in time, we can say we're going to have another meeting as long as we get the public 48 hours notice. I'm anticipating that we'll want to have a discussion to report back to town meeting. Well, yeah, and I think Mr. Diggins, that will probably be at one of our meetings before a town meeting session. I think we want to go at least to the first session of town meeting and try to work out a mechanism with the moderator to receive some feedback, hear that feedback, hear from the town meeting procedures committee, and then have a discussion among ourselves in terms of what our recommendation is. Right. So, be after the first night of town meeting and maybe before May 6th. Yeah, that's right. Later than May 6th, though. Right, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking it might be before May 6th. So, if nothing else, maybe we should just, even if we don't schedule it, just kind of keep our calendars a little clear. Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins. Okay, and with that, I will move on to item 12, the fossil fuel-free by-law waiver guidance, Talia Fox, sustainability manager. Good evening, Ms. Fox. Good evening. Thank you all for your time, as usual. I'm here to discuss the draft guidelines for the prescription of waivers under the fossil fuel-free by-law, which the select board will need to adopt by May 21st of this year, which is the date that the fossil fuel-free by-law takes effect. The goal of our conversation today will be to determine what, if any, changes to make to the draft guidelines that were provided with the meeting materials prior to the select board's adoption of the guidelines. Oh, it's okay. Yeah, we might just have a little delay in terms of when the presentation's coming up. And you can, great, next slide, great. As a refresher, the fossil fuel-free by-law prohibits the installation of new fossil fuel piping and appliances and new construction and major renovation projects in town. Exemptions do exist for a number of cases, including cases like hot water for large buildings, backup generators, repair of unsafe piping, and more listed on this slide. The by-law also has a provision for waivers and appeals. Next slide, please. The by-law does specify that the select board is to provide guidance regarding the granting of waivers prior to the effective date of the by-law, which, as I mentioned, is May 21st of this year, 90 days following DOER's notification of the town's acceptance into the fossil fuel-free demonstration program. The by-law specifies that waivers can be granted where compliance with the by-law renders a project financially infeasible or impractical to implement. And the by-law, next slide, please. The by-law further says that compliance with the by-law is considered financially infeasible if, as a result of factors beyond the project proponents control, the cost, including subsidies, so any credits or rebates, would make the project commercially unviable and or if technological factors, technological or other factors would make the project unsuitable for its intended purpose. Next slide, please. The proposed guidelines included with the materials for today's meeting effectively build on this framework to say what project proponents must provide for documentation. Specifically for waivers on the basis of financial infeasibility, applicants must provide a detailed cost comparison that includes available rebates and credits. They must also provide a narrative describing the factors that make the project commercially unviable due to additional cost or delays associated with fossil fuel-free equipment compared to the fossil fuel alternatives or any electrical service upgrade costs or delays required as a result of the introduction of the fossil fuel-free equipment that would render the project commercially unviable. Next slide, please. For waivers on the basis of impracticability, applicants must describe how the conditions at the site render installation of a particular technology unviable or how the nature of the use requires specialty fossil fuel equipment. Next slide, please. The draft guidelines also reiterate the responsibilities in the bylaw with regard to waivers and appeals. Specifically that the building inspector ultimately grants the waiver and the town manager hears appeals. And it says that the way to request a waiver will be via a form on the Opengov portal. So before I close and we discuss this, I just want to remind the board that this is a pilot program and we are meant to learn and adjust accordingly. And based on our learnings, we may want to modify the guidelines as they are adopted or as they will be adopted and that would be welcome. That would be absolutely welcome. And I also want to mention that Town Council has rightly pointed out that there are some areas in the guidelines where we reference actual text of the bylaw and so we'll be sure to add those references to the bylaw itself. And with that, I'd just like to thank the board and look forward to the discussion. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Fox. Before I turn to the board, Attorney Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to thank Ms. Fox for her usual thoroughness and expertise on this and work on this. I did note that, yeah, I think of citation to Section E of the bylaw would be helpful for waiver applicants, but other than that, I think the waiver form provides potential applicants with some clear guidance about how they're to go about proceeding with a request for a waiver. And although it is a pilot program, I think it's a very clear and concise waiver form that permits the public adequate notice of how they pursue this. Great. Thank you, Attorney Cunningham. And before I turn to the board, just a question from Ms. Fox. I know you have the draft guidance here on the draft document. Are you looking for feedback from us tonight, not a vote on the final document or? I think it's, yeah, go for it. I'm sorry, Ms. Fox. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the board could go either direction. If the board had concerns about how it's currently crafted and wanted to make suggested changes, those could be taken into account. And there is time to bring it back to the board for further consideration before the effective date. Certainly would have a meeting to do that. If the board were inclined to vote acceptance of this draft waiver proposal, this waiver form, it could also take that action. Okay. Thank you, Attorney Cunningham. So with that, I will turn to the board for any questions, comments. Mrs. Mahan. I just have a housekeeping question and just where we're starting out on this. And I think it's sort of inherent or implied in the draft document as well as, well, mostly in the draft document, but I just want to clarify, in terms of once the language is voted and the bylaw waiver guidance document is the framework in effect, subject to any changes in the future, where the town manager and the building inspector seem to be the two offices in the driver's seat just a housekeeping question. In terms of a keeper of the record, a custodian in terms of any official records that should come out of this process, firing the waiver, any notices that need to go out, any appeal decisions rendered, would that be the building inspector, the town manager, or the planning department? It's just a housekeeping question. Attorney Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Fox can correct me if she thinks that it may go a different direction, but I would envision a scenario where the planning department would house most of the documents, but any documents related to appeal, if the building inspector would hear that portion, the building inspector may have his own set of documents and then if they went to a further appeal and within a town manager's office, the town manager could also have some materials related to a particular appeal. I don't know if they'd necessarily exist in one particular place, but there would be one file or one appeal process. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Any other questions? Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fox. How in reading the guidelines, which you know, look fine to me, the one area that gives me a little bit of pause given that we want the presumption to be strongly in favor of a fossil fuel construction when possible is a judgment call that someone has to make that the project is commercially unviable. So I don't want this to be just that the developer is gonna make less profit, because obviously you can make more profit and we suspect that might be mildly the case based on the data that you've given us in the past. How will the building inspector make that call based on this guidance? And do you think that it's sufficient? Thank you. That's a great question and something that the Clean Energy Future Committee did discuss. We were initially considering some more specific components of this guidance that alluded to percentages of profit, specific cost thresholds, and ultimately determined that we wanted to keep it a little broader to start intentionally so that these guidelines could evolve as we see what projects are applying for waivers. I acknowledge that there is a little bit of openness here. I think commercially unviable means the project cannot proceed. At least that is sort of my, that's how I envisioned it. If perhaps it makes sense to make that more specific or more clear in the text of the guidelines themselves, I can certainly do that. I'd welcome also feedback on perhaps how how to make that clear. But I acknowledge that it is there is some amount of discretion intentionally, and that was the guidance I received from the CEFC was to keep things a bit broader to start. Yeah, that makes sense, and I'm mindful of what you said at the outset that this is the pilot, and we're supposed to learn in a pilot. And I think you said something actually that seemed useful to me, and that is if there is a commonly accepted definition of unviable meaning that it doesn't pencil on and that the developer is gonna lose money, then of course we would be reasonable to grant a waiver. I think it's just what's important to me is that that is understood to mean that or something close to that, and not just a reduction in the profit margin. And Mr. Chair, I think through you perhaps, I think the telemanager might have a comment on my question as well. Okay, thank you, Mr. Allen with Mr. Feene. Sure, one thing I wanted to ask, thank you Mr. Chair, is that with respect to rebates and credits, that landscape is frequently changing. So with respect to Ms. Fox's earlier point about not pegging a particular percentage or threshold value could be helpful to avoid doing so given that that landscape with respect to either state or federal rebates incentives is constantly changing. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you, Mr. Feeney, and I will note you'd asked about different context. I know in the comprehensive permit, excuse me, context there is a viability, commercial viability if there's a condition upon, not suggesting that's what we follow here, but that's one that comes to mind that maybe there's something helpful there, but that's the only one. Mr. Hurd? Yeah, you know, we've had a number of discussions about this program. I mean, for me in the residential sphere, I don't think, I think it's a hard hurdle. I think the waiver programs when we talked about this that you have a new mixed use property and you want to put a restaurant in, and that's, I think in the commercial setting, the waivers become a lot more prevalent, where, you know, I know there's new technology evolving with cooking appliances and whatnot, but I think for most restaurants can't really operate without some form of fossil fuel cooking apparatus. So I mean, I see the waiver being played a little more, a lot more in the commercial setting, and not that we're developing tons of new commercial space in Ellington, but the hope is that we will with some of the recent zoning changes that we've instituted, and so I mean, that's more where I see that, and, you know, I think there's some value to the broader definition to start. So it's, we're not shutting somebody out. I think it's easier to learn to say, right, you know, we gotta tighten this language because there's, you know, a few too many people that slip through the cracks that we could, that we really don't want to have this new infrastructure. I think that's an easier fix than, you know, a year of telling people no to certain things that, you know, we want in town, so. Okay, thank you, Mr. Heard. Yeah, so I just have one comment that's separate from what you just mentioned, but just on the appeal process, and I'm not aware of any other appeal procedure that goes to the town manager directly. Is there anything that comes to mind? I'm just concerned about, we may want to have just a generic email address as part of these waivers as opposed to having your address, Mr. Feeney at the town manager's office, but that's, again, something minor. It does talk about mailing to the office of the town manager, but just having that out there, just you run the risk of you get a lot of emails and you may be better have a separate location for appeals. So I think we have some time here. There's been a couple of questions. I'll leave it to the board. We may want to think about some of these things and we could schedule this at the May 6th meeting and that will still give us time, but I'll turn to the board if you prefer to have a motion. Happy to consider that as well. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Biggins. I have a question, because I mean, I thought you were going someplace else with your comment, so you started off saying that you weren't aware of another process that's appealable to the town manager, and then you specified with the use of this address was that the concern, the address or just like the only time we haven't had stuff that appealable to the town manager and that we're setting a precedent and we should be a little more aware about that. Yeah, no, I'm not. I mean, the guidance is at the town manager. I think other communities are using that, so I wasn't concerned about that. I'm just concerned about the receipt and putting an additional burden on just an individual email address as opposed to the office. All right, all right. Because it got me thinking about whether we do have other processes that are appealable to town manager and if indeed, this is a precedent that we want to set. So I'm just thinking about, I don't have a problem one way or another, or I don't have an issue one way or another, but you did get me thinking. And so I talked about it, thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins. Okay, so Mr. Hurd just moved receipt of the guidance document, Mr. Helmuth? Yeah, I'll gladly second that. And I take my colleague Mr. Hurd's words to heart. I think that we don't want to be unreasonable. We don't want to shut out businesses, particularly we really don't. But I wouldn't mind a little more time to just contemplate the definition of commercially viable and maybe work with Ms. Fox, the town manager. That's all right to maybe propose something that would still give enough flexibility that would be appropriate to a pilot appropriate to commercial development. And then bring that back to it. Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Any other comments? All right, so a motion to receive by Mr. Hurd, seconded by Mr. Helmuth, Attorney Cunningham. Mr. Diggins? Yes, and I'm checking the way, but definitely a charger, get a charger. Ms. Zemhan? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. 5-0 vote. Okay, and we'll work with you. I did probably May 6th, but we can talk in advance of that meeting. Thank you very much, Mr. Hurd. Next item 13 is a discussion, local option, acceptance of general laws, Chapter 203C, the prudent investor rule, and we had moved favorable action on this, and then we learned subsequent to our action that the finance committee had moved no action, and so we asked Mr. Feeney to come back to us with some additional information. I do note that Ms. Deschler is here as well from the finance committee, but I will turn it over to Mr. Feeney at this point. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for that background information. If I could, I would also take a moment just to acknowledge that the town's treasurer, Julie Wayman, is also in attendance, as are Augusta Haddock and Angela Olszewski from the Board of Commissioners of Trust Funds. So as we discussed previously, the prudent investor rule or MGL, Chapter 203C, is something that was instituted in August of 2023 to allow municipalities a local option to pursue application of the prudent investor rule to trust funds, which is a very specific category of funds for which the town has 88 specific funds that are classified as trust funds. So what this prudent investor rule does is seek to allow municipalities to treat these trust funds or the investment of those trust funds in a manner similar to either pension funds or OPEB funds. So to provide a little bit of additional flexibility in the pursuit of optimization of returns. As presently constructed, the trust funds are limited to what's called the legal list, at least on the equity side of the portfolio that's limited to 22 particular stocks that frankly are quite limiting and at least over the past year have not performed well. So I believe this is something the Board of Commissioners of Trust Funds has been interested in instituting for some time. But with respect to the discussion this evening, I think what was perhaps missing from our earlier discussion is noting that if this Board and ultimately town meeting were to advance and see this warrant article favorably, it is obviously a local adoption, but with it would come a commensurate amendment to our current investment policy statement as that would need to be revised to reference the investment of trust funds and update the language to refer to the Massachusetts Prudent Investor Act. Following a meeting with the Finance Committee earlier this session in the run of the town meeting, we were fortunate given Mr. Dean Comron's former role as a treasurer to have him share what had been the town's pre-existing trust fund investment policy statement. And we also have a investment policy statement from 2020 that was part of a request for proposals that the town had conducted when choosing its current investment advisor, who is Rockland Trust and who began servicing, serving as our investment manager as of February 2021. So we will soon be up for a renewal of that process, but with respect to the Prudent Investor Act it would necessitate our changing or updating our current investment policy statement. So we have one specific as a reference for trust funds that dates back to the 2015, 2016 period and then a more generalized investment policy document that dates back to 2020. So if this were to move favorably we would pursue an avenue whereby hopefully we could integrate those two investment policies and then pursue a process whereby the board of commissioners of trust funds in consultation with the treasurer and town manager could present a revised investment policy statement for review and hopeful eventual endorsement by the finance committee as well as the select board. And we would hope that that process could conclude prior to and would commit to making sure that process concludes prior to making any changes from the legal list with respect to trust funds should of course that option become available following a town meeting vote. Okay, thank you Mr. Feeney. And so as it stands now what you would see is that process taking place over hopefully the next year but and I'll ask if either the commissioners or members of the board would like to address the select board but you would still your recommendation at this point would still be favorable action but there would be nothing done in reliance on the prudent investor rule until the policy is updated, is that? That is correct Mr. Chair. Okay, okay. All right. Would either members of the board of commissioners of trust funds which to address the board you don't have to I just want to know if you'd like to and I will ask Ms. Dashler as well. Do you want me to come over? If you'd like to. It's okay. Okay, no that's fine. My name's Augusta. Oh yeah, no if you're going to address this please come up. Good evening. My name's Augusta Hayduck and I am the chair of the commission for trust funds the board of commissions and I'd just like to say that this is something that we've been working towards for the last probably since 2020. We have always felt that the list was extremely limiting 22 stocks as opposed to thousands that we could choose or that the investment person could choose. It would create a more diversified portfolio hopefully mitigating whatever risk there is. And hopefully providing a greater return for the benefit of the trust funds so that we as fiduciaries could achieve the goals of the monies that were deposited for the town's use and provide greater scholarships provide greater money for the poor widows fund and that this would go a long way towards doing that. Thank you. Any questions? Okay, thank you very much. And just so we have an idea or maybe for Mr. Feeney that the scope of what we're talking about with the trust funds because we're not talking about the town's pension funds we're talking about separate assets. That is correct for specific questions and values I would direct them to if I could our treasurer Julie Wayman. Ms. Wayman. Julie Wayman treasurer collector. I'm sorry, what was the specific question? Just this scope of the trust funds that we're talking about that would be covered by the prudent investor rule if this was adopted. So there are three parties that have the trust funds that we're talking about. So that is the town scholarships. We also have the school scholarships along with the library has several different funds as well and the Cemetery Commission as well. Okay, great. Thank you, that was it on that. Now I also want to point out the reason again that we're back here and I think as members of the board when someone comes and says they want you to adopt the prudent investor rule who doesn't want to be a prudent investor? But when we learned of the finance committee's action we felt better to have the discussion here see if we can work out some things before we go to town meetings. With that, unless there are any questions from Ms. Wayman, I'll ask Ms. Deschler to come up and just let us know about the action the finance committee took in their vote and in their discussion. Thank you, Ms. Deschler. I am Christine Deschler in chair of the finance committee. First of all, let me say that the finance committee voted unanimously a no action vote here. We completely support the idea of Arlington at some point moving off the legal list. There's a consensus. I think there's agreement across the board on that. The issue is for us, what's the rush? This statute is only eight months old. There's no track record by any municipality for this. Do we want to be a pioneer here? We would prefer that we take a more applauding, thoughtful approach, which would be let's update our investment policy that reflects the ability to move off the list first. And then using that as guidance, work with our existing investment manager or get another one and then have the treasurer do her responsibility in ruling this out as she seems deems fit. But at this point, we're thinking, what's the rush? What's the rush here? These funds are supposed to outlast us all. So I think it's reasonable to take our time and be more thoughtful about this. And if we have an investment policy that we can all agree on, I think there's a bigger comfort level. And I think there's also a better support for the treasurer and for the commissioners and for the town manager when the market goes south, which it will do. But for them to be able to say, we were thoughtful, we were prudent, we developed a investment policy that reflected the ability to go off the list and we went off the list in the way that was anticipated. And that's, this is what happens. I think it would be safer all around for the town if we develop the policy first. Any questions for Ms. Deschler? I just have a question in general, maybe not for you, just on the investment policy and anybody who can answer it. Who in the ordinary course approves the investment policy and updates the investment policy? I mean, is it the board of commissioners and just solely there or if there's any history that can be provided, Mr. Phoenix. A fine question, Mr. Chair, what one I had asked myself in reviewing both the 2016 and 2020 policies, they were both technically approved by the treasurer or collector. All right, so this was Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Ms. Deschler, so let's say we do the work that you proposed that we do before relaxing or making a change. But Arlington would still be the first one to do it. Would the finance committee have a problem with that? Because I ask because your comments seem to indicate you want to see others do it so it has to get a sense of the track record and how it's working before we do it. I can't speak for the committee. I think there will be members who would prefer that we step back and let this play out. But I don't think anyone can agree on how long a period that would be. Do we sit back for five years, 10 years, one year, two months? I think that's which driving the desire to have an investment policy. Because we can absolutely understand why we should be moving off the legal list. But we want to be thoughtful about it. We don't necessarily have to wait for other municipalities so long as we have an investment policy that the town feels comfortable with. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmuth? Thank you, Ms. Deschward. Thank you to the finance committee for exercising your due diligence with this. I think it's an important check and balance to the town and I don't want to minimize that anyway. Did you have a sense? I know the committee talked a lot about the risk. What was the reward set at that discussion like? And I guess I'm thinking about the opportunity cost. There might be, you know, not doing this if there's a potential for greater returns, for instance. And can you give me a sense for the finance committee's views on weighing the risk versus the reward and maybe was there any attempt to sort of quantify what the reward could be for doing it? I don't think we could quantify it. What I can say is that we shouldn't be chasing the market right now. That these are very long-term funds. As I said, these should outlive us all. So, trying to implement this very quickly to get the year's worth of returns. Assuming that the market continues to go up, if market could go down in two, six months. So, I think it'd be impossible to quantify what the upside and downside would be monetarily. And again, that brings me back to if we had an investment policy that we're comfortable with, whether the market goes up or down, we can at least say we follow the policy. Thank you, that's very thoughtful. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. Just a further question on, and I just want to get my arms around, okay, where the differences are here in what needs to be done for the Finance Committee vote. And one of the things that's in the comment in the Finance Committee report is that the Finance Committee recommends that the investment policy with respect to these funds be updated, but then there's some further language and further oversight added. Now, I see a situation where the town treasurer may update the investment policy, and if that was done before town meeting, I can see that issue being addressed, but as far as the further oversight, what was the nature of that discussion in terms of beyond the investment policy? It's interesting that in the 2019 policy statement and the 2020 policy statement has slouched differences over with regard to what type of review that the trust fund commissioners have, the cemetery commissioners have, how often they get reports. The 2020 policy said, I think, refers to reports going to the town manager, which I think the Finance Committee would be very comfortable with, but there should be additional defined oversight or review by the various commissioners of the various trust funds. And again, that's something that could be defined and outlined in a policy statement. Thank you. And Mrs. Mahan. I have a rookie novice financial investment is not my background question, so a scenario. Could the scenario exist that we decide in our successful in passing this local option and acceptance of this mass general law? And we also have to take the 2015-2020 investment statements along with what the trust commissioners and the town treasurer has to do, say that process takes one to three years at the outset, or say it takes one year. I guess what my question would be, what my question is, is if we do accept the local option and town meeting does pass it, does that preclude us? Do we automatically have to say, okay, we're getting off the list, everything has to be defined and it's done or can we take this step? And if it does take one, two, three years, we have that ability to do that. So I will admit I'm not completely well-versed on chapter what, two, three, six. So I don't know if my question in there was clear and who would be appropriate to answer that. Mr. Feeney, do you want to? I think, thank you Mrs. Mahan. One question, how I would answer that question is, in fact, if the local option were adopted, it would then put the town in a position to revise and amend its investment policy statement to incorporate the adoption of the prudent investor rule with respect to trust funds. That means that the prudent investor rule already exists for any municipality anywhere, for how they may wish to invest their OPEB funds and if they are investing their own pension funds. The town of Arlington has moved everything to Pritt, but a number of municipalities directly manage those investments with investment managers like Rockland or whomever they choose and for which there are portfolios that are already governed by the prudent investor rule. So if we were to adopt this locally, we could then conceivably begin that process of updating our investment policy statement for trust funds specifically to incorporate those new rules, go through as robust a process as possible to get input and consensus from all stakeholders and only then, once we have that revised policy statement, would we be able to provide it to our investment manager and potentially change course of action with how the investments are currently being managed? Thank you, Mr. Feeney. Any other questions from the board? Mr. Diggins. Mr. Chisholm, am I hearing you correct, Mr. Manager, that we can't give FinCom what it wants unless we adopt this local option. We can't update our investment policy to include this until we approve the local option. Mr. Feeney. Technically, Mr. Diggins, we could potentially approve something in a draft form, but it could not be part of our policy unless we move acceptance of the local option. The next step is then to revise and amend your investment policy statement. That's the guidance that's being provided to municipalities by both investment managers but also the association for city and town treasurer collectors. Okay, because thank you, thank you. So that's helpful and at the same time a little bit confusing about how to move forward here because we all kind of feel the tension here, I mean no one I think really wants to see me, the FinCom and the select board on opposite sides, me going to the town meeting, and I was beginning to wonder like, did we mess up the sequencing? You know, we have gone to FinCom first on this, but now your response, what you proposed, Mr. Manager makes me think that we did things correctly so I'm having a little hard time here deciding what to do, but I'll just stop now and listen to any other questions and comments, thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins, Attorney Conningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think in response to Mr. Diggins concerns and perhaps in furtherance to the answer to Ms. Mahan's question, adoption of this local option would not require the investors of these funds to act in any particular manner initially. It's simply a tool that the investors could use if you look at the language of chapter 44, section 54, a city or town may manage trust funds, may invest in accordion with those options. So just because we, if the town would be able to adopt the local option, that just presents additional options and tools for those who are managing the funds, additional potential diverse, different funds other than the legal list that we've been referring to. There'd be no requirement that those in charge of managing those funds act upon that immediately. Can I just add or respond to that? Obviously there's a pressure to move off the legal list. I mean, this, the statute was passed in six, eight months ago. We've heard the commissioners as it's their responsibility to do so to argue for more investment diversity power. There clearly is an urge here to move off the legal list as soon as possible. I think we have to acknowledge that. Knowing that and knowing that there's no requirement that the treasurer stay on the legal list is why the finance committee would prefer to have an investment policy set, even if it's a contingent policy written in the way of, when, if and when the town adopts this statute, this is the policy we're going to follow. I think that would be an appropriate way to approach this problem. And again, I think it's a prudent thing to do. There is this urge to get off the legal list and I think we have to acknowledge that and I think we have to be mindful that we have sufficient safeguards in place for when we do that. Okay, thank you. And I would say, I mean, the statute is available now. So whether it was, you could say the urge, statutes on the books and the options available to adopt the prudent investor role. I mean, what we're hearing is frustration that has been built up over years in terms of the limitations from the list here. So I hear what you're saying in terms of what you perceive as an urgency, but I also see when a statute's passed and there's a local option created, I don't necessarily, when someone comes before us to approve the local option, once it's available it's not like they're coming in ahead of the enactment of this rule saying we must do it, it's not even in law yet. But we can, I think at the end of the day as the other members have said, we all want to do the right thing and have the right policy for important funds that we want to last for a long time. It's just a matter of, it's really a timing issue right now in terms of where the finance committee is and what we're hearing from Mr. Feeney and from the Board of Commissioners and from the Treasurer. I did see a couple of hands up here. Mr. Herd first and then Mr. Helmut. Yeah, thank you. Trying to absorb the discussions and see where I land on this. But I mean, I think in the one sense we always want to have our town committees and boards in unison, but sometimes it just happens. We vote one way and the finance committee votes another way and that's okay. I mean, that's democracy in action. I always, for me I defer to, I mean, I think we hire great staff. I think we've always had great administrators that run our finance department. And I trust that they will do what's in the best interest of the town. And I mean, I'm leaning towards just keeping the vote that we had initially just because it's another tool in the tool belt. And again, I trust the individuals that are making the decisions. And if this gives them a little more leeway, then I mean, I think it's only a positive. I don't anticipate that all of a sudden, you know, we'll be taking risky investments as a way to try to jump ahead of the market. I think it will just, if there's an option that's not on the legal list, that is a very safe and low risk type of commodity and they want to use it for the betterment of the town, I'd like them to have that option. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. I'm Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I know the answer to this, but it threw you if I could inquire from Attorney Cunningham. The select board's option, so to speak, for accepting the local option, is it just a binary yes or no? I guess, you know, if we wanted to, could we build in a delay or a condition, you know, a delay every year or a condition of an investment policy being approved? Attorney Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, that is not an option. And through you to the town manager, and apologies if you say this before, supposing town meeting were to approve this, what in your best judgment would you think would be the soonest that the treasurer or these boards might take advantage of this and consider moving off the list? Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. What I would say in response to that, you know, first, if I could, I would just like to acknowledge I really appreciate the care and attention that the finance committee gave to this warrant article. And I think that they are indeed correct that we need to pursue both an updated and an integrated investment policy statement that reconciles both the specific trust fund policy statement from 2016 as well as the more generalized investment policy statement from 2020 that talks about all other monies on deposit. So what I would say is even if the local option were adopted, I would be committed to not necessarily moving off the legal list unless and until we had the updated investment policy statement as reviewed and approved by the commissioners of board of trust funds, but also the finance committee as well as the select board. And one other thing I would consider too, with respect to knowing that we are due for a renewal of our investment manager contract, I suspect that would be going out to bid at the current rate sometime around the turn of the calendar year. And during that process, it's an RFP process and you would get proposals to be scored. I would propose a panel of folks to score those proposals and help choose the new investment manager to be comprised not only of individuals from the board of trust fund commissioners, but the cemetery and library who have significant amount of money on deposit, but delegates from both the finance committee and the select board in pursuit of choosing our new investment manager. And at that point, once that contract is issued, I could see that being the appropriate time to provide the town's updated and revised investment policy statement, which if we looked at if town meeting were to approve this and it received attorney general approval, you know, sometime in the fall that would give anywhere, I guess nothing would preclude that process from starting even today with respect to revising the policy, but from now until about the end of the year would make sense to sort of disseminate a new investment policy statement to either our current investment manager or a new investment manager based on the results of that competitive procurement. Thank you. So if you could just confirm that I heard you write that you would be committing, promising, you know, to if you had this tool available that you wouldn't use it or exercise it until there was an investment policy that was approved by including the finance committee. Correct. Yeah. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'm trying to come in. I'm trying to come in. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to, I think my answer to Mr. Hamlet's question was a little bit incomplete. I think although they can't build in a delay, there's no requirement in this local option that the town do this year. Right, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. And just before, I think we're just about to the conclusion of this discussion and I want to thank Ms. Destula for coming in tonight. For those of you in the public wondering why do we have two competing recommendations here for town meeting purposes, the select board vote is what will be before town meeting because there's no appropriation. However, the finance committee has discretion to select articles to comment or to take votes on because this deals with the investment of funds, the finance committee exercise a discretion to take action. So the select board recommendation will be there, perfectly appropriate for the finance committee to do what I think in the future. I'm glad we had this discussion now as opposed to opening up each other's reports down a town meeting when this happened. I think it's good to have the discussion ahead of time. I'm glad we had it. Maybe it would have been a little bit I'd have a little earlier, but that's the way these things work as we go through the process. So I wanted to lay that out. I think what I'm hearing, unless I hear motion from the board, where we are right now is we've made our recommendation. So unless there's a motion to reconsider that the vote will be as it's in the draft report, I think there's some additional things to consider from the discussion here. But if there's no motion from the board, I think I'll conclude this agenda item. I do see Mr. Diggins hand up. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not going to make a motion to change things. But I will say that it's going to be really confusing for the town meeting members if we're not on the same page on this. And you explained to why the sequencing was correct I mean, so it was appropriate that it comes down that this came before select board before FIMCOM reported on it. But I just mean, if there's any way that we can get the two boards meeting on the same page before town meeting, even if it's just a presentation, you know, when the article comes up by both the two of Mr. Chair and the chair of FIMCOM mean giving town meeting like clear guidance, it's just going to be really hard for the town meeting members to know what to do and feel confident in their vote. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And I agree, I mean, there's a fair amount of time, I mean, reports are out, right? And votes have been taken and that part's over, but there is a fair amount of time between now and town meeting. And I think it makes sense to have, we've learned some things tonight. And I think certainly steps I will take between now and in the start of town meeting based on what I've heard here tonight. And maybe there's a way to reach some sort of consensus or compromise that would allow both bodies to go back. Maybe there isn't, but I think we are where we are right now and I appreciate the discussion. May I add one comment, Mr. Chair? Our vote should not be taken as a reflection on any lack of confidence that we have in our officials, quite the contrary. We have the utmost faith in our treasurer, utmost faith in the chair of the trust commissioners who I had breakfast with this morning, utmost faith in the town manager. What we are thinking, however, is that these are people who may leave, who will not be with us forever. And that is why we would like to see something in writing so that the next treasurer, the next town manager, the next chair, the trust commissioners have guidance that we are comfortable with. Thank you for those comments, I think. Okay, so I think that concludes that. Again, it was a discussion, I think it was a good discussion. And we move on to the next agenda item, which is item 14, discussion and approval of the draft select board report to town meeting. Attorney Cunningham and Attorney Munson had updated us over the weekend even earlier today with draft language and Attorney Cunningham. Do you, at this point, would you be looking for a vote just on the entire document? Or do you want us to go back to our votes from the last meeting that we might not have voted specific language? Just whatever your recommendation is. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd be looking for a vote on the entire document, but if there are particular articles and comments that board members have concerns or if they want revisions, I could take those into account prior to the vote and then the vote could be subject to those revisions and those could be made in advance of printing if the board has inclined to move favorable action after those revisions are accounted for. Okay, thank you, Attorney Cunningham. Mr. Diggins, I see your hand up. Yes, me, so I did have a revision that I wanted to make to the last paragraph on your forum, article 14, where it refers to my comments. First, I want to once again praise Mr. Cunningham and Ms. Bunsen on a great job line on pulling them all together, especially that discussion. And so I don't know if Ms. Meyers in a position to pull up the PDF, meaning that I sent so that people can read in my revision to that last paragraph. Are you, Ms. Meyers? Yeah, if you just give me one minute, I'll be able to pull that up. The Eclipse got to your computer. Well, I'll explain why this is coming so late, it does happen to the Eclipse, Mr. Manager. Why I'm in Buffalo. Can you see that, Mr. Diggins? Yes, yes I can, it's more for my colleagues, me, and I, so I'm just, they could read it so that they don't then see the change and go, wow. I wasn't signing up on that, you know. Mr. Diggins, just for clarification for the other members, this is a, you'd like to see this replace the last paragraph in our comment. Right, yes. If you could just give us a moment. Yeah, I understand. I'm going to take a look at it. And again, this, when we do have a situation where we have a divided vote, we do allow the, you know, we insert the comments of the individuals voting in the negative or positively, if it's a negative vote. Any comments on Mr. Helmuth? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I'm reading where you're going. I think I'm inclined to allow, to give the dissenting member their voice. I might have a stylistic suggestion much as we are avoiding strong language and urges, perhaps exclamation points might also be something best, omitted at this juncture just for stylistic consistency under the new regime. I was going to say something. Thank you. It's funny. I think it's more of a typo than anything else. I'm also going to get that answer. But I put an L there, so I feel like it's an exclamation point. I think to just reflect how I felt, but yes, I agree. Let me take that out and also let me fix the deeply held view and change that to views. So, okay. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmuth had a couple of urges he was going to, yeah. Yeah, it was half out of comment if the exclamation point stayed. So, that's helpful. Okay, any other? Mrs. Mahan? Oh, no, actually, when it's motion time. Okay, yeah. No, I appreciate that. Mr. Helmuth. Since we're copy editing as a group, which is ever so fun, I've found one more typo since we're doing this in the last minute. Other ways to protect, I believe there's a, the word to as a P there should be an O. Oh, yes, yeah. Yeah, that's called bad vision. That looks, it still looks like an O to me. Eric, Mr. Helmuth, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't be even bothered, but I know this is going to press in the morning. Yeah, no, no, no, no, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the town manager just raised. Mr. Caffini. If I could, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it should be several legal decisions have determined that we can pass this by as opposed to determine. Thank you. I love Portsmouth, I think Portsmouth. Is it pretty funny, Chair? Thank you, Mr. Chair. The word constitutionality is also, could be spelled differently. Mr. Diggins, did you spell your name right? Did you get that? Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I will check, take care of the rest. Yeah, no, no, no, I was like, this, this, you should see the timestamp on this. All right, that's all, that's all, thanks. I just wanted you to, I wanted you to read it to me, you know, I didn't want to wait until I had a chance to review it a couple of times to me because then I would miss a chance for you to read it because I really wanted to make sure that you were fine with the tone of it. You know, I felt that I got it to reflect how I felt and what came across in the meeting, but I just really wanted to make sure you all were okay with it instead of just, yeah, that's it, thanks. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins. Attorney Cunningham. Yeah, to further Mr. Diggins' point about the timeline of this, I'd just like to note also for the public that Article 14 was one of the five that the board had limited time to review. It was Article 14, Article 20, obviously that was taken up tonight, Articles 21, 22, and 53. So just, just for the public, the board was under a tight timeline on all those articles. Thank you, Attorney Cunningham. And I just had one, it was a minor thing that I contacted Attorney Cunningham about in Article 6 in the vacant storefront maintenance registry. I had made a comment during the hearing referencing Chapter 121b. That had made it into the comment and it didn't really have anything to do with our vote. It did, I did say it, but I just felt that our vote was to approve the changes. And so I did ask that that be removed just to eliminate any potential confusion in terms of what we're addressing. If there are any other potential changes, if not, I think we may be ready for motions on the report. Mr. Helmuth. To approve subject to the revisions discussed. Second. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Any further discussion? Okay, on a motion to approve by Mr. Helmuth, seconded by Mr. Herd, Attorney Cunningham. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. 5-0 vote. Thank you. And again, thank you, Attorney Cunningham and Attorney Munson for your work. This is a very tight timeframe given the timing of our hearings and we really appreciate the effort since last meeting and throughout the warrant article season. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With your indulgence, I just want to thank Attorney Munson one more time. She did a lot of work on these materials throughout the warrant article seasons. It's been a real benefit to have Attorney Munson on board this season. Great, thank you. All right, we are on to new business. Except in cases of emergency, the board will neither deliberate nor act upon topics presented in new business. Ms. Maher. No new business, thank you. Attorney Cunningham. No new business, thank you. Mr. Feeney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Given that we've moved quickly tonight, I would like to offer some new business. I want to take the opportunity to welcome a few new employees to town staff. From the month of March, we've hired Steve Bazzarian as the new local building inspector. Sean Daly is the new project manager in the facilities department. Nick Done as an electrician within the facilities department and Tyler Shaw as a custodian in the facilities department. And while we're happy to add some employees, I do want to note that we did actually have a couple of retirements in March as well. I want to give thanks to Tim Devlin of Public Works who has since retired. Eddie Seville from the Arlington Police Department, as well as Willie Smith also from the Arlington Police Department, our beloved park and control officer. Really? So those folks all retired in the month of March. And then I would also like to let the board know that the Arlington Community Electricity bid is, we're in the contracting process right now. It does look like we'll be moving forward with a new supplier, which will be direct energy services for a term of December 2024 through December of 2026. And at the board's direction, we were able to achieve a default product that will contain 100% total Class 1 REX. The new default product will be approximately one cent cheaper than the current default product, which has only an additional 30% of Class 1 REX. And I will further note that the basic product will be about two and a half cents cheaper than the current basic product. So these are favorable results and for your meeting on the 17th, we will endeavor to have a more in-depth memo codifying the contract once it's finalized for the board's review. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Feeney. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think just one item of new business that the Save the Allway Brook, members of Save the Allway Brook, as well as members of town staff, starting with the manager on down, have been very diligent in terms of the CSO issue down in the Allway and representing Arlington with the various different stakeholders with MWRA, City of Cambridge, City of Somerville. But as we all know, there is a meeting tomorrow night, at 7 p.m. Zoom meeting, that the vested groups have gotten the Mass DEP Department of Environmental Protection where they're gonna take public testimony with a three-minute limit for each person to speak. I don't know that Mass DEP, I assume they're gonna have some sort of introductory remarks and the like, but what's really important about this as we all know is it's been sort of a swimming upstream, fighting an uphill battle in terms of the MWRA and the CSO issue along with the cities of Somerville and Cambridge. Although I will say, I am encouraged that the landscape 10, 15 years ago with the City of Cambridge and most extreme recently with the City of Somerville has changed. And everyone seems to acknowledge, I don't know if it's climate control or whatever, but has acknowledged the problem. One of the things I've been frustrated by is MWRA in my personal opinion, not the town or anyone else's opinion, is seems to be taking the position that to do what people are asking to do in terms of the CSOs in Alweif Brook, which then continues on downstream as a $22 billion project, which is not the case. So I would just encourage, if any of my colleagues can zoom in tomorrow night, I'm going to, but I'm assuming that there'll be some representatives from the town who I'm gonna try not to speak just because they'll be like, here she comes again, they know what I'm gonna say, but I will be there. So I'll be at a list of attendees, but I'm assuming we will, whether it's Ms. Bungerno or Wayne Sheenard or Dave Morgan or anyone else, I know members of Save Their Wife Brook, which also have some crossover, Jean Benson, David White, and I'm gonna miss out on the names, we'll be there, but if any of my colleagues zoom in and wanna give the three minutes, please go ahead and don't take my not speaking, I will be there. I think it's good. Oh, the spirit may move me that I end up do saying something at the very, very end, but I think new voices carry a stronger message. So the Zoom invite is out, it's tomorrow night at 7 p.m. and it really is a coup that the town and Save the Wife Brook got the Mass Department of Environmental Protection because they come out with conditions, that's it, it has to be something. This is one of the few openings that we actually have some relief for something that has to be done versus anything else. So that's it, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Helmuth? Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only thing I would note in new business is to my pleasure, I saw today, I believe, that the town announced that the annual report is now online and I wanna express my appreciation for the enormous team effort that is every year, led by the town manager, but all the departments, and then the school department as well. It is a document well worth reading, it's on the town website, and Mr. Feeney, perhaps you could verify, will there be printed reports again this year? There will again be some printed reports available. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth, Mr. Heard. Thank you. I had been planning to do this new business for a while with my tricorner hat on, but I was at the rank before and I forgot, so maybe next year. This is finally coming, our Arlington Patriots Day week. We're trying to figure out how to word that, but I think Patriots Day week was the best we could do. We have a number of events that are coming up this week. Tavern week starts on Wednesday and that's just local businesses that are participating, having your cloning themed events. And so the Non-Me Tavern, Town Tavern, Arlington Brewery, at Rosa Granola, interests are all reached out to the one to participate. So that will start on Wednesday and you can look for that all week. We have a beer hall at Town Hall on Saturday. That will be hosted by a Non-Me Tavern as well. That should be a really good event. We were trying to do some outside events, but given the weather that was nice today, snowed three days ago, we figured an indoor beer hall would be the most appropriate event. Jason Russell-Hulse is doing tours on Saturday and on Patriots Day. The big event is the reenactment. So that will go from Grove Street to Medford Street. Just notes to people that Mass Ave will be shut down for a pretty good period on Sunday afternoon for the reenactment, but it's gonna be fun. It's been a ton of work to put this together. A lot of people on the committee, Angela, who was here earlier, Chrissy Voggiano, Katie Lozai have been working with the reenactors. There is really an incredible amount of work that goes into an event like this that you don't always see when you're at the event, but it should be very, with the conversations we've had with the reenactors, they're very into it, and I think it will be really an incredible sight to see. It's meant to be historically accurate to the actual battle that occurred in Arlington at the time. So it will be a fun event for everyone, especially the kids, and then we'll do our normal Power Veer ride on Patriots Day. So there's no, I had mentioned at a previous meeting, a potential beer garden on Patriots Day as well, but we're just doing the beer hall on Saturday. So again, it's a whole week of events. This is the precursor to the bigger celebration next year in 2025. I do wanna thank our sponsor. So the whole week of events is being presented by Leader Bank. So they've given us some significant financial support in order to put, there's a lot of moving parts in an event like this, and it does get expensive. So I do wanna thank Leader Bank for stepping up and presenting the Patriots Day week celebration. And so that's it. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Heard, let me know before you get one of those track corner hats, I think I'd like to wear one too. Got my eyes on it. Okay, all right, good, that's easy. And this one is coming from my partner who expresses deep appreciation for everything that we do to make it possible for these remote meetings. I'm in a hotel being in Buffalo because we went there to see the eclipse which was on his bucket list. He's a sentimental one in the relationship and he really wanted to be there. With him, he knew though that if I couldn't connect about this meeting I wasn't gonna go because this is a, I mean, this is a very high priority, you know, and so we're very appreciative. We ended up going to a place called Geneva on the Lake because it ended up getting cloudy in Niagara. And that was quite the experience in that. And I have to say totality is what people make it out to be, it was really impressive for me. And he was so happy being in so, and I'm happy to do that with him and to be here with you all too. So thanks once again for all the effort that goes into making these meetings as accessible as they are. That's it Mr. Chair, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. That's impressive being in the path of totality there. Yeah, I just have a brief update. Earlier this spring, we had approved a request from the Ellington Land Trust to install two monitoring wells in the right of way on Dorothy Road near the Mugar wetlands near the proposed Thöndag Place development. One of the reasons we allowed that is there had been a request of the applicant to install monitoring wells. And at the time I'd reported to the board that they had resisted those efforts. Last week the Conservation Commission had a meeting and at that meeting the applicant agreed to install monitoring wells. So that was a big development in that matter. We'll see what happens and where they're installed. But that was the reason the Land Trust came to us to get some information off of the site. These monitoring wells, which before had just been test pits and only measuring at one point in time, there was finally agreement to install that to get the best information, as we said, for the most critical issue down at that site. So I wanted to report that to the board and to the public. That is all I have for new business. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. Second. A motion to adjourn for Mr. Hurd, seconded by Mrs. Mahan, Attorney Cunningham. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes, please. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. 5-0 vote. Thank you. Good night, everyone. ACMI productions are only made possible with your support. 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