 Court of Selections meeting for Monday, March 18th. Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day to all start meetings like this, but I am gonna start and ask everybody for a moment of silence. We lost a member of our tree committee recently and wonderful, wonderful gentleman by the name of Brian Muzzy Murray. And so what I'd like to do is I'd like to ask everybody just for a moment of silence for Brian. Thank you very much. God have mercy on the soul. Now, the other thing is good news. We have a new grandmother in the house. And she's looking tired over there, so you can look up at the board and I bet you can guess which member of the board I'm referencing. That's what I'm talking about. But she didn't actually deliver the baby herself. A young grandson that came in at eight ounces, from what I understand. Well, eight pounds, one ounce. Eight ounces, eight ounces. Actually, I did deliver that. Yeah. See, I came in at eight ounces, so it's, you can tell by my size today, but please, a nice round of applause and congratulations, Brian. Any details up all night? Well, I told you some of them back then, I don't know if I should repeat. No, but everyone came home healthy and happy and wise. And John Anthony is his name and he's a very good baby. He's the perfect baby who's old for St. Patrick's Day with 16 people and he slept through the whole thing. So thank you everybody. I appreciate your good wishes. Thank you, Kevin. They're all perfect at that point. Okay, we'll do the consent agenda and then we have an introduction to make. So first of all, for approval, the consent agenda. First of all, we have reappointments of the Allenton Historic Districts Commission, David Baldwin, Jonathan Nyberg, and Martha Penzenick. Request for the Hardy School PTO, Walkathon on May 3rd. Betsy Crimmins, Walkathon Committee. I request for two one-day alcohol licenses for March 23rd for the Quiznight. Annual fundraiser in 426, a $10,000 drawing at Allenton Catholic High School. And then finally, a request for a one-day all-alcohol license for March 30th. Comedy Music Benefit for the Patriots Day Parade at Robbins Memorial Town Hall Auditorium. Is anybody here wishing to speak on any of those events? Come on, you gotta come forward to the mic. Sorry, David. I'm David Baldwin, and I'd just like to thank you for the honor and the responsibility for being on the commission. We take the stewardship of Allenton's Historic Properties very seriously, and if you have nothing to do on the 4th Thursday of the month, you're welcome to attend one of our marathon meetings at the Whitmore-Robbins House. Thank you, David. Thanks. Thank you for your service to the town. How about anybody else on any of these events want to talk about? Okay, a motion to approve the consent agenda, please. I move approval subject to our conditions as set forth. Is there a second? Second. Further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. We have Carol Kowalski with us tonight to do an introduction, please. Thank you very much for making time on your agenda tonight. You're well aware that we've embarked on a comprehensive long-range master plan, and we now have our master plan consultant under contract, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to meet Judy Barrett from Community Opportunities Group. Judy? Hi, good evening. Judy Barrett, Community Opportunities Group. I'm really excited to be here. We're just starting the process. Actually, I think you may know, we have our first meeting with the master plan committee tomorrow night, so that's probably gonna be a very exciting time for them as well as for us. Our team consists not only of folks from my firm. We're based in Boston, but we have Howard Stein Hudson and David Gamble, an architect, and Ezra Glenn, who'll be coming in to assist with the public participation process as well. Just a little bit of background about us. My company does municipal planning. That's really what we specialize in. We love to come into communities and talk about planning issues. So we always start out trying to think about what are the things that make this client kind of unique and what will be the unique challenges facing this particular community. And certainly here, I think, one of the obvious ones is you're a maturely developed and a densely developed community. And thinking about that as both a challenge and an opportunity, I think will be kind of an integral part of the process. So we're just excited to be here. Can I ask my question? Yes. You can ask me questions too by the way, which is fine. We're trying to get a sense of what people in the community are anticipating as sort of challenges that will need to be addressed in the plan or that might come up at some point. And I wondered if you'd like to weigh in on that as long as I'm here tonight. Particular challenges that you think might come up in this process. How long do you have? No. Yeah. We'll be concise tonight and there'll be more opportunity later, but I'm just curious. Yeah. I was going to say, like you talked about the fact that we're mature and we're well developed, I think that I would specifically relate that to the density and how it relates to, we have businesses and residences right up against each other and residences and residences and public transport and bike trail. Like everything's like right on top of each other and people end up stepping on each other's toes a lot. And so I find that as a board, we often are dealing with things like trying to allocate or share those really scarce resources. And so I think about things like parking in noise and that type of quality of life issue all the time. Okay. I think if you were, I'd echo a lot of what Dan says. I think if you were to stay here and listen to some of the warrant articles, you hear about that contention for resources and residential nature of the town, but also the very dense nature. We had a large public forum. October 17th. Half an hour, half a year ago or so. And when a lot of people come out, there's a lot of interest. I think folks do feel that the town is in transition, that there is a lot of, on the one hand, development pressure, but there are a lot of natural resources they want to reserve as well. I've heard a lot about Arlington's walkable nature and the need to really develop the commercial real estate base as well. I think that there's a lot of interest in developing the commercial real estate base here so that there are jobs for people who are living here. I actually think that my colleagues covered the top concerns of it. I've been fortunate enough to serve on the master planning committee. So I'm sure that we'll be getting to know each other very well. Right, I'll see you tomorrow night too. And just very briefly, and it's really on the outskirts, but it gets to residential versus commercial tax base and how we could look at things differently. And I know you're working in concert with HED, the Tourism, Economic Development Committee. And one of the driving forces of that, and Clarissa Rowe was on the board at the time, is when we got the federal funding for the national registry with Concord and Lexington. And one of the things that I've said for years and years, and other people have too, is how do we get our visitors into Arlington? And how do we link in the hotel, the new tavern that's going there? We have so much history along the trail. How do we get the buses to pull in? Right. I checked in Lexington because they have a place to pull in, so a couple of times we tried to get the municipal parking lot designed so a bus could pull in right by the visitor center. And that's how you fill up, I mean, we're doing well with restaurants, but that's how you fill up the hotels and get more, everyone quotes different things for every $5, you get $12, whatever the thing is. So that's sort of on the outskirts, but that was one of the driving forces of what can we develop besides the industrial zone and the heights, which I'll talk to you about that. I can go on for 20 minutes about flag companies, but I'll get sometimes one-on-one with you through the manager and Cal. Thank you. Welcome and thank you very much. So you deal with a lot of boards of selectments and... Yes, many. Many. Are you already noticing a sparkling difference in the room tonight? Yes, you were spontaneous and you had great answers and I appreciate it. Do you have questions for me? Well, not really questions, because this is something we're all very committed to and will be a part of as we go along. So, but I certainly hope you're used to communities that like to talk things out and out. And out. And out, yes. What is the end product? As in, will we be sending a master plan, some sort of a book to our Arlington residents? Well, the physical product is a report, but I call it a plan and I try to get people to not think about it as a report and rather to think about it as a plan because if that's what you think of it as, then you're more apt to act on it. The actual structure of the document, the physical product, I think is something we're gonna wanna talk to you about what works best for you. There's different ways you can package this. Some communities have a very big book, some people break it up into a couple. We had a client once that wanted a big map that sort of identified almost like a presentation type map when you, so you walked in the town hall and the key ideas in the plan were annotated on that map so that if you didn't see the book, then you at least had a sense of what the big issues were in the plan. So I think we're gonna be looking to you folks for some guidance on what do you want. Yeah, the key I think to every one of these plans is the implementation element or the implementation program and so we put a lot of effort into that. We actually start with that. I think a lot of people think implementation comes at the end but actually implementation starts at the beginning of a plan. So we're gonna be thinking a lot about working with the committee and the rest of you on what is your capacity to implement and you've got these challenges, then you have these needs and then you have capacity and how do you bring all that together so that you end up with a plan that you can actually carry out. So actions get laid out typically in a plan in sort of tabular form but also in very sometimes baby steps. You wanna get here but you have to do these five things first and how does that look? What resources do you need and so forth and so. I'll send. Okay, thank you very much Carol. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, good luck, we'll see you again. Okay, so now we move to licenses and permits. We have a public hearing. The first one is a request for an all alcohol license and common vitriolers license for Honan Honlin Sonno Restaurant, Inc. God, I hope I'm close. Sonno Asian cuisine. Sorry about that. We were a popular night tonight. Good evening everyone. I'm Chris Coleman on behalf of the applicant. The location of the property we're talking about is 469 Summer Street. It's not familiar with it. I know it's along street right where the forest comes right out into it. It's that building that is being renovated right now. The suite itself for the location of the restaurant has about 1,807 square feet. About 12 of that, 1,200 of it is on the first floor. It's a small basement where there'll be some prepping of food. It's Asian cuisine is what they're proposing. There's 50 seats proposed, 40 will be at the tables, 10 will be at a sushi bar. There will be no lounge bar. The proposed manager is here with me, Wu Chen. He has excellent restaurant experience from 2006 to 2010. He was a liquor server at Saki Japanese Restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. From 2010 to 2011, he's been a sushi chef at Feng Shui restaurant, and that's in Chelmsford. And currently, he is a sushi chef at Oy's restaurant, which is located in Redding. He's tips trained. He is a US citizen, plans on spending 40 hours plus at the restaurant. I believe the department heads have weighed in. I'm sure you have copies of those, as well as the floor plan on the menu. I think we'll be ready, or they will be ready, if assuming there's a positive vote, approximately three to four months. I think they'll be ready to open at that time. And we'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Any questions from the board, Mr. Kuro? Yeah, thank you very much. I'm glad to see that some plans to fill that space, I have to say, it's been vacant for a while. It wasn't clear from the plans. Are you looking to take all three of those slots there, or just part of the space? I believe it's only two. It's two. Yeah, I'd say half of the building is what it looks like to me. Half of it, OK. There's a small, small suite on the side for the pizza place, but I think there'll be one other in there. OK. And I gather from some of the plans you gave us that you do plan to provide some direction to the parking that's around back behind the building. Absolutely. We'll be working closely with the building department on that. We've got a little work yet to do. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry, just on that, will that be refinished? Do you know? I've been behind there recently. I was just there tonight. I hope it will be. It will be. It'll be asphalted and striped. Hold on, Mary. All right, I'll have to do this session again. Mary, like. Oh, Mary, OK. Mary, please. Mary, when is Stanley O'Connor? Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Mary O'Connor, I represent the owners of this property at 469 Summer Street. The Summer Realty Services. There will be 17 spaces. They have had that parking lot engineered for 17 spaces. They require 13 spaces for 50 seats under the Arlington Zoning By-law. There is the Arlington Cafe there that has two tables that would require one space under the by-law. There is 600 additional square feet that they are trying to tenant. The gentlemen that own this space have spent a lot of money, as you know, redoing the facade. They have owned it since June of 2008. They have marketed this space for the past three years. The only other prospective tenant other than this prospective applicant and tenant is, if you recall in June, the liquor store that came that made application. There has been very little interest in this location. So naturally, my clients are eager to tenant the space and get some livelihood there. I'm sure there are some neighbors here to speak on this, but I would just point out one important facet of this. You were talking about the density of the town. Mass Ave, Warren Street, Broadway, Downing Square. We have commercial storefronts in front of, on all of those streets, and residences behind it. We can take precautions with fencing and the like to address, and the dumpster service would like to address those issues. But my clients are interested and are very interested in putting in this establishment. So thank you. Thank you. Okay, it was Steven. So go ahead, I see both of you, yeah? No, I'd like to echo Joe, Steven, that I'm very happy to see, you know, an applicant for this, for the spaces. It has been 24 while, and I'm glad that you will be utilizing that parking. I know that was a big concern with the tenant of applicants, was that there was nowhere to park, and there is ample parking behind, and I'm glad that it is being redone, because as many of us drove through there when the liquor store was, you know, a tenant of application. So, no, I'm very happy to see that the space will be utilized. Thank you. Ms. Mahana. Thank you, and welcome. And my question sort of centers around the delicate balance between the business. We do want to see somebody there and the neighbors and residences, and this has been accomplished before. But I just wanted to ask, I see that you have Sunday through Monday, so the whole week you're staying open until 1 a.m.? Is that your intention? We just put the hours of the license as what we had put on the application. Right, but what are you, because what I'm thinking of is if, you know, there are budding houses and families and homes, and if you're running, like some people say, I think there's a few businesses that may stay open to 1 a.m., but they stop, they're serving at 11, and they're doing takeout, and it's limited so that it's not, and they have also taken steps to sort of, not soundproof it, but to make the activity so it's not so much in the back. Do you know what I'm talking about? Absolutely. Can you expand on that? Or if you want, if there were neighbors here, if they want to discuss that, is that okay? We'll let the neighbors speak in the left, but a lot of them answer it. I didn't know, I don't want to. I think we can accommodate that. We just had a brief conversation. During the week, probably 10, 10, 30 is when all they'd be open until let's say, maybe Thursday, Friday, Saturday, maybe it'll be open as late as 11.30. But it's not gonna be a one o'clock plant. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay, so first of all, I'm very excited to see the plan. I'm very excited to have that space filled. It's walking distance from my house, and I enjoy our LinkedIn cafe, but it's nice to have something else, so I'm really glad to see you coming in. I do have a few things, though, that I think are important that we should talk about. First off, there are a number of conditions in the reports from the various department heads. Like, you don't have the dining plan isn't complete yet, and of course the signage plan isn't complete. And so I'm prepared to make a motion that says approval subject to all conditions. Of course. And so I just want to be really clear that those conditions are still attached. I'd like to talk about attaching a condition that the parking lot be repaved, because I don't think it's usable in the current state. But before I make a statement like that, okay, I'm seeing nodding from Mary. Okay, thank you. And I guess I have two, so having said that, I've got two pieces of advice. One is work with your neighbors early. Your neighbors need to, they need to love you, and they need to support you. And so make yourself really available. What I would suggest is going around with phone numbers and knocking on doors and saying, hi, I'm moving in. If you have any noise complaints, if you have any issues or something like that, here's how you get me. Because you really want that first call to be you, not to me, because when it goes to you, you can fix it. When it goes to me, then it's a problem. And the second thing I'll say is that, so we did a sting operation last year and we found four restaurants that served underage people. Each one of those was because of a new person who wasn't yet fully trained. And so another thing is, well, I'm delighted that you're here. I don't want to see you here to talk about an alcohol violation, so it's very important you remain vigilant about that training, even after you open and continuing through your operation. And other than that, I wish you immense success and serve me good food, please. So are there any neighbors or anybody here wishing to speak on this matter? Sir, name and address, please, if you would. I'm from Glenbrook. My name is Jim Sickles. And I live directly in back of the restaurant. I have a couple of questions. First of all, is the board aware that the fact that that area is a problem with water? There's three homes and the store that's there. They constantly are having water problems. And if any water gets in the cellar, you got a mole problem. They just put in some kind of a sump pump, but the sump pump just pumps it out onto the land that's available right there. And it also goes on the sidewalks out on Summer Street. I'd just like to bring that to someone's attention because it's a very important thing with food that no mold is available on any food. Yes, sir. Secondly, right now there's one dumpster in the back of the sub shop. And the truck that goes in there to get that dumpster, he has it without any cars in there. He has a hard time making a turn to get that dumpster emptied. I don't know where they're gonna put this one. If they're gonna share the one that's there and if there's any cars in there, they're not gonna be able to get in there to dump it. That's a very important thing. The grease buckets. The sandwich shop has, I think, three grease buckets that he puts against his wall. Where's the grease buckets gonna go for this here restaurant? These are points that I think that someone should address. And then, here they are turning down a few years ago, the liquor store. And it's across the street from a baseball diamond. And when the baseball people are playing ball, they're the kids, they generally come in the air and park anywhere they can find a space. And the place is jammed on Summer Street. And they also come into our complex, which we have a sign up saying that it's private and we'll tow their cars, have their cars towed. You're gonna have a worse problem now because when they go in that parking lot to park to go in there and get food and there's too many cars in there, they're gonna go out on the street and during the summertime, with the baseball field playing ball, it's gonna be a big mess. I'm not condemning them, but it's addressing, I think that the board ought to address these thoughts that I'm pointing out to you people. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, okay. So, Mary, you'll bring this in terms of the redesign in the back there and some of these issues that were brought up. And we'll refer to Adam if the Board of Health maybe has to take a look at grease buckets or whatever it is that's also out there in the back. Anybody else who shouldn't speak on this? Yes, please. Hi, I'm Mary Discino. I live at 15 Glenbrook Lane. I have similar concerns as Jim. Primarily the waste is a big concern in the summer. How often do those dumpsters get cleared out? Do they get cleared out once a week, like ours? And if so, I would imagine that's a problem. I'm a teacher. I'm concerned about having alcohol right there with kids across the way. You know, that's a big concern for me. So those are two issues that are very big. And I agree with Jim about the oil. What happens to that? And what about the exhaust fan from the restaurant? We're right behind these guys. And it is all rocks there right now. We built a fence. We just replaced it several months ago. So I'm concerned that it's going to bring down our property values and that children are going to be affected by the liquor. Thank you. And you heard my colleague, they must be tips trained. And if there is any service of alcohol to minors, they will lose that license. We don't fool around on stuff. As Dan mentioned, we had four restaurants in front of us. They all lost their license for three days. First strike, second time, they will probably lose the license. So we don't fool around on stuff or that. And I'm sure you understand that. And you already referenced that council. Anybody else who should speak on this? Move approval, second, Mr. Dunn. So I apologize. Second, Mr. Dunn's motion, subject to all conditions. So move approval, subject to all conditions is set forth. It is very important to us. The residents are first in this town. And then it's businesses, but we need to encourage businesses. Property values are also affected by empty storefronts as well as they are by vibrant ones. So we've heard these concerns before. We will make sure the Board of Health will inspect. There will be more inspections going on. The owner's council has assured us that they will be repaving in the back there. And I'm sure that they've heard all of these concerns as well. Anything else, sir? Did you want to respond to any of this? All set. Thank you. So well, might you just talk about the exhaust fan? Are you familiar with where it will be? Is that a roof thing? Actually, I'm not familiar with the location, but we'll certainly work with the Board of Health to make sure that that's as much as possible for any of the neighbors. OK, all those in favor of the motion and subject to all conditions are set forth. Please say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Thank you for choosing Arlington. Best of luck with your visit. Thank you very much. Thank you. Another request for a common victuallers license for those of you on the victuallers license is the ability to serve food. This is Anthony Massey of Anthony's Eastside Deli. John, did I say it right? Mr. John Herd, Jr., welcome, sir. Thank you. Good evening, Board. My name is John Herd. I'm here with my client, Anthony Massey, who is looking to open an Italian deli and food service shop in East Arlington. Mr. Massey is a lifetime Arlington resident, also married to another lifetime Arlington resident. And he, previous to his current job, he owned a Italian food specialty shop, similar to the one that he's looking to open in East Arlington on Winter Hill in Somerville. So we believe that this will work really well in East Arlington right now. It's filling a void on Mass Avenue in East Arlington that hasn't been there in a while. And he's got great response from everyone in East Arlington and across the town that we've talked to. There's a lot of expectations, a lot of people looking, asking when it will be open, stopping in the store as the construction goes. And so we think this will do very well in East Arlington and we're open to any questions from the Board. Thank you. Under full disclosure, I would like people to know that John Herd, Jr., is also my campaign manager, but he didn't threaten to quit or anything over there, so we haven't had any discussions. Samples, Mr. Mass? Nothing yet. Maybe next week. Look at me. Can't you tell how to win my vote here? But so it's a real deli, good pastrami, you know, New York deli's being jealous. Boys' head meats, to-go meals, grab-and-goes, sandwiches, button-pull, Italian specialties. Great, Mrs. Mahan. First, I'd like to make a motion, approval. Also, to subject all conditions. My only question is, I see that you list, I just wanna make sure, it's just the court reporter to me. You list on the application Monday through Sunday, 8 through 8, and then in your menu, you list, and this is for either council. In your menu, your catering menu, you list two days starting at 7.30 a.m. Should the application be 7.30, should it be 8 to 8 on the five days? What I'm saying is, where the catering menu starts a half hour before what's in this application, I wanna make sure you have the right permit that covers, and is that the actual? Type-O-R. That's a type-O-R on the catering menu. Okay, I just wanna make sure your catering menu fits with ours, so you're comfortable with the 8A to 8K. Yeah. With that, okay, I just, all right, so then I'll disregard that, thank you. Mr. Kiro? I think I'm good, I just, I noticed one of your, one of your specials there is called the Broadway. You might wanna add a Mass Ave there, too. But I have no questions, I walked past the place yesterday, and it's a hub of activity, so I wish you luck. Are any neighbors there wishing to speak on this issue, on this particular license? On the motion then by Mrs. Mahan. Seconded, I think by Mr. Kiro. What was that, Mr. Dunn? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye, aye all those opposed. Thank you for choosing Arlington. When are you hoping to open, sir? Hope for the end of this week. Wow, wow, you're cutting me close. Take a check please. Well, wait a minute, I think I wanna table this until I may, no, you're all set, you got it. Thank you, good luck. One more quick, we have some nice perjudo for Easter. The palm, I will have the palm again. Good, thank you. Corn beads. Thank you, board. Thank you, thanks John. And we have one more, a request, Carmen Vichler's license, Anish Bambi for Yummies. I'm Anish Bambi, looking to open Yummies in Arlington Center, the former something extra space. I'm looking to open a self-serve frozen yogurt shop. And just about myself, I've been in Arlington doing business in Arlington for like seven years. I own the Sprint store, which used to be Verizon before. And now we converted into Sprint. We have done businesses like Zenton, Bedford, and then this area. Can you tell me how self-service works for yogurt? Basically where, you know, people just went themselves from the machines directly. Yeah. They put their own toppings on top of the yogurt of their own choice. And then we basically, they wait on the scale and they ask for the weight of it. Okay. Other questions? Was there a motion? I haven't made, not yet. I'd like to move approval, subject all conditions, and just a brief comment. It seems to be the trend, the frozen yogurt shops. I know a lot of Arlington women get to go because I'm trying to have a venture over to Winchester. And you will now be the second soft-serve yogurt shop, you know, one right by the high school. So it's sort of like the new trend thing. And it's supposed to be, you know, guiltless, free calories, you know, because of the frozen yogurt. But then you add all those M&M. So it's a real big trend. And I wish you much success. I'll get worried when we have more yogurt than we do banks. I'll second. And I just want to say on a broader scope, we're very lucky to have, you know, three new storefronts taken out that way. It's empty. And I think it speaks volumes of the town. And we're, thank you very much for choosing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. So on the motion by Miss, oh, anybody wishing here, anybody wishing to speak on Yummies? Yummies for the tummies. All right. On the motion by Mrs. Mahan, seconded by Mr. Byrne. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, good luck. Thank you for choosing. Thank you so much. For being in Allenton and now choosing to put it in the new storefront. Thank you. Thank you. Good piece of luck. Thank you. Traffic rules and orders, number five, request residential handicap parking at 120 Varnum Street. My name is Dr. Kuala. I'm in Puti for 26 years. And lately I've been having a tough time walking. And also, I have Valserita ankle on the right leg. So I have to use the crutches to walk up and down the stairs. That's why I came to you people to have the park outside the door. We'll say that I did drive by down there all the time anyways, the residents and everything looked appropriate to me. I don't know if any of my colleagues want to make a motion. Okay, Mr. Dunn and Mr. Curell. I'll move approval. I just want to note that we've got letters from the fire department and the police department with support and that is certainly, and it appears to me the criteria for all those reasons that make the motion. Or make the motion. Excuse me. Okay, Mr. Curell. I just wanted to point out, and I'm sure the police department explained this to you that although the application is for a handicapped parking spot in that location, if there were to be another driver to come when you were not there, it's not actually a dedicated spot, but. I understand. And there are also considerations during snow storms, which we should all be thinking about tonight, I guess. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, we just came. Okay, I'm sorry. Who made the motion? I did it. Mr. Dunn, seconded by? Second. Mr. Curell, for the discussion, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye, all those opposed. Thank you. Good luck to you. Thank you. I'm having my own trouble walking, and I know what you're talking about. Item number six, letter concerning Belmont-Upland Silver Maple Forest, Mr. Curell. Yes, Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask that we table this matter indefinitely. New information has come to light and I believe it may not be timely anymore. Okay. Thank you. Okay, that which we are all tingling with excitement about, we now move into the warrant article hearings. We will start with the special town meeting articles and then go back to the regular because that's the way they will be handled that town meeting as well. So the first one, special town meeting article two, bylaw amendment leaf blowers. I assume we should start with you, Mrs. Mohan, a report from your committee. Yes, very briefly. Committee met many times, had a public hearing. Myself and Mr. Greerly served on the committee. Myself as a voting member, Mr. Greerly's ex officio. The committee met close to half a dozen times, not counting everything that we had to do by email. There was a lot of energy and expertise and people really went out and did their homework and the leaf blower committee were not done yet, but really is to be commended because really got our hands around an issue that set off a lot of strong opinions on both sides. The committee had planned, we had done everything early in case we needed a second public hearing, but we had the first public hearing. Mr. Greerly moderated that. Everyone who came to the microphone had an opportunity to speak. We in fact ended a little bit earlier. I had anticipated we'd go to max and maybe have to consider a second meeting and I really take that as a testament to my colleagues on the leaf blower committee for really working on this. I'm not gonna go through the document piece by piece because it's been out there, it's on the website. We have it. I'm sure it'll be discussed and maybe amended, maybe not a town meeting, but what we did was we came up with restrictions, further fine tunings in terms of hours and square feet per leaf blower and decibel levels and really had great expertise on behalf of the landscape contractors who were on the committee, as well as the residents in the town who were really well versed around environmental issues. Not everybody, this was not 100% agreement on this and I don't think we're ever going to get that, but it's a document what this committee was charged to do, hold a public hearing, take what we had, revise it and put that back out for the Board of Select and to present to town meeting who ultimately will have this decision, will have the decision to make. What's before us are restrictions for commercial and municipal uses and commercial doesn't just mean landscape contractors. There are some other crafts that also use leaf blowers and one of the things I really wanna point out that I'm proud of that the committee came up with is that inherent in here is taking the current technology that they have around decibel levels and environmental and as the landscape contractors pointed out, they may replenish their leaf blowers every two to three years, whereas a homeowner may buy one and is using it one Saturday, maybe four or five times a year. So some people may look at this and say, gee, it's awfully ambitious, but it's only applies to municipality, Arlington and commercial uses, which really do use that. And with that, I do know this is a public hearing that Mr. Griller will be holding. I know there are some members of the committee here. Not everyone could make it, because it's a big committee, but I would say a good two-thirds of them are here and I'm gonna leave it to any of them who wanna comment on any facet of this. Right, I mean, as always, the processes, Board speaks input and then the Board will speak to make a decision at the end. I just, I tied a couple of points, just a little bit on the history of this status quo. Last year, town meeting voted to, and people argue over what's the definition here? Is it a restriction or a ban? In my opinion, it's a ban. Complete no use of leaf blowers from May 15th to October 15th, and the professional leaf blowers association, along with others, called for a special election in the middle of the summer, half day election, if you will, and it was not enough of a vote to overturn the town meeting warrant article vote on the ban, but the popular, if you look at what the results were, 70% voted against the ban and there were 30% that supported. So we formed a committee. We believe, or I believe, I should speak for myself. We can either continue the status quo, which is a complete ban or a restriction, no use of leaf blowers from May 15th to October 15th. We can vote that down at this town meeting and just have no restrictions. We felt, in my opinion, that what we wanna do is try and come up with a compromise, not complete no use and not complete use and come up with a series of restrictions and I believe that's what this committee has done at this point in time and what certainly I will support bringing before town meeting at this point. So, that said, any of my other colleagues wish to speak on this at this point? Mr. Kira? I have just a few things that I wanted to point out. I wanna just highlight a couple points here that it's still not quite sitting well with me. First, I wanna thank the committee because I know how much work you put in and I know what a torturous process this has been. Continues to be and probably will continue to be moving into town meeting. I think as we move forward in this, I think we're all striving probably for three things, I would think. The first is simplicity. I mean, this should be as simple as remembering what data puts trash out pretty much. You're cutting line. Yeah. And I think we have to ask ourselves a question whether we've achieved that. Enforceability. I mean, is it realistic? Cause it's something we can realistically enforce. And the third, which is the one that we'll debate for years to come is kind of fidelity to the will of town meeting, to the committee's analysis, to our analysis, to the will of the voters and the referendum, what the referendum meant. That's one that I think we can debate for a long time. I just want to put out just a few things that just I have questions about and maybe as some of the committee members get up, you know, you can address these. Firstly, in terms of enforceability, I actually, I really appreciate the sentiments in 2C, which talks about blowers not being able to be used more than 30 minutes at a time or the downtime of 15 minutes. I think that the spirit there is really well placed in trying to, you know, create some room for peace. I'm not sure that that's really an enforceable provision. So I'd be curious what the thought process was on that. So that's one. Very much appreciate in section five, the provision around using the newer equipment as it rolls into play. I do worry about conflicts if an officer or health department representative is called on a complaint. Is there gonna be a lot of finger pointing like this? Yes, it complies. No, it doesn't. And I did question whether there wasn't a way to just simply identify the equipment either through a seal from the, you know, weights and measures or whatnot so that there's no dispute. Actually to assist the contractors to identify, yes, this is all cleared. I talked a little bit with the health department. I think we have some resource constraints around something like that, but I didn't know if that had been considered. And just a third question concerns the hours and the days which I suspect is gonna be a place where we're gonna hear a lot of back and forth at town meeting. The hours of operation here are through 5.30 pm. And I appreciate that that's an attempt to keep the evenings peaceful. I think most of us were at the hearing, though, and we did hear that there was a concern from some residents when they come home from work, you know, if they're not, if they work on the weekend, for example, and they wanna be able to work on their yards, are they going to be able to do that during the summer with that cutoff? The rest of the noise abatement by-law cuts off at eight. The flip side is we have one day that's really downtime, that's a quiet time here. And I just question the reasoning there. I think we heard from a lot of people at the hearing. Even folks who had voted against the restriction the past town meeting that they were looking for a compromise. And I just question the thought process there whether that was felt that they're really, I see there are really three constituencies that we're looking at. A lot of them overlap too. We have really commercial operators who really need to be able to operate their businesses and their customers as well. We have residents who either work out of the home during the day and are there during the day. And then the third constituency are are other residents who maybe work out of town and need to be able to perform their maintenance. And so those are just questions I put out there that just things that highlight it. I think, overall, I'm really happy with the drafts that's here, but I just question the thought process as to how the enforceability and how the constituencies are balanced. Can I answer those just briefly? The first question, the search for a simple document doesn't exist. The simple document was before, there were no restrictions and now we've defined it. The second regarding enforcement, Jim Feeney from the Board of Health came to several of our meetings. He likened it to the way we enforce like during snowstorms, when the snow plow contract is usually, never has it been Arlington businesses, but from other cities and towns come in and they stop throwing the snow in the street and or sometimes a resident. When they call the non-emergency number, the police car is up there within two, three minutes. I saw it happen on my street during that big, huge storm. One of my neighbors had called me, so I placed a call and they literally were up there two, three minutes. And in the beginning, it's a little bit of a, it's kind of heavily used. I know when the town meeting passed the initial restriction before the vote, they told me 812 AM that Saturday morning, residents were calling. So the residents already knew out there. To the jet, you coming home or my husband coming home after 5.30 at night, this doesn't apply to you. This only applies to commercial and municipal. What applies to you as a resident, a homeowner is the current noise abatement law. And it's, if you want, I'll tell you exactly. I highlighted for you under section two, J, at the very end, it says other than leaf blowers used on private property. And then also in the preamble, it says that these restrictions apply to municipal and commercial uses only. So that gets to your, when you come home, you're not abiding by the 5.30. And then the only other thing I would say is in terms of, can we tweak this a little bit? Yes, we can. But I think it's a good working document. When the special town meeting was called for by the gentleman from precinct 13, town meeting said no, we don't want to take any action. We want this committee to be formed and come back with a working document. So we're bound that we have to come back with something. So I hope that answers your questions. Yeah, and thank you for pointing out D1. I hadn't tied the two together. And I should have presented a better problem. Thank you. I would just add on, you know, enforceability on this is like not allowed to throw snow on the street with a snowblower. Well, how's that enforced? And have we ever seen anybody throwing their snow on the street? So I believe what will happen here is, you know, should this be approved by town meeting? First and foremost, I expect a number of amendments to things you've talked about. I don't want the timing then. I want to allow it here or whatever. But it's got to be up to neighbors, I believe, and it's up to the Board of Health to enforce when they're called by a neighbor or something like that. We obviously don't have the manpower to send, have every street of the 5.5 square miles, you know, have routes taken or the police trained in leaf blower dissemination or lack thereof or whatever the case may be. So wait, anything else from my colleagues first? I'm ready to, oh, okay. Who'd like to speak on this, please? Yes, yep. Well, Carol Band, town meeting member precinct eight. We talk about simplicity and the very nature of simplicity is the partial ban on the seasonal restriction on gas powered leaf blowers, which is in place in Brookline and has been operating to no ill effect for several years now. And town meeting has already voted once to uphold the seasonal ban. The special election, which cost the town money, upheld the seasonal ban. Then there was another special town meeting which upheld the seasonal ban. And now we're bringing it again, we're dragging it again in front of town meeting. We've crafted, we've squeezed out this compromise which is not a compromise to again show it in front of town meeting. And why don't we just see how it works? It's been passed three times. Let it go to the town and see how it works for a year. If it doesn't work, we'll bring it, look at it again. But check it out, it's working in Brookline, it's working in other communities around the state and around the country with no ill effects to landscapers or homeowners. There you had it. I think that we're undermining democracy and we're second guessing town meeting members and not giving them credit. Just to that point, we're bringing it to town meeting for the vote, Carol, so we're not disrespecting it. Well I know we are, but they've already voted on it twice. Thank you, now we're putting a compromise in front of them to vote on. Who else would like to speak on this? Yes, please, whoever, come on. Oh, you're right there, Jimmy, sorry, come forward. No, no, you're right there, please. Hi, I'm Cheryl Miller on Thesda Street. First I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss something in the document, so there's no provision as to how, like the proximity to. Cheryl, please. There's no provision as to the proximity to bystanders that someone can use a leaf blower, is that correct in the document? I went through it, but you know, it was pretty detailed, so. You mean we put in there that, like you can't use one closer to a property line or to a person or something, you can't use one within 25 feet of a playground or something along those lines. No, that's not in there. Okay, a person. In that case, I would like you to vote no action on this because I don't think it's adequate to protect people from other realities of leaf blowers. I certainly understand the desire to have a compromise at this point and to be done with this issue. I'm sure you all wish to be done with this issue, but this doesn't solve all the problems that leaf blowers cause. I think I said in the public hearing that leaf blowers in their own manuals say that bystanders should not be closer than 50 feet to the leaf blower and that operators should be wearing protective equipment. But right now in this compromise, as I understand it, some I could be walking down the street with my kids and I could be on a sidewalk and someone could come up two feet away from me and start of a leaf blower. And in that, I mean, would you not say that we should be wearing protective equipment at that distance? I mean, it seems to me pretty clear that we ought to be. And yet there's no protection. There's nothing to stop people from doing that. And I have been standing in the street with my kids waiting for someone to be finished because I could not go closer. I didn't feel it was safe for me to go closer. And it's absolutely impossible to get the attention of someone who's using leaf blower short of throwing something at them because they can't hear you. So that seems like a very fundamental protection that should be part of this agreement. And since it's not, I would suggest that you please either add it in if you have that ability to do so or to vote no action on this compromise. Thank you. Just quickly, technically it is in, people are not allowed to blow things onto sidewalks or whatever, so in other words, they would have to be blowing it towards the property, but your point is well taken. I mean, there's also the noise of it and the fumes of it, which are, nothing protects us from that if we're that close. But I just want to, they're not allowed to blow it on the sidewalk. Well, are they allowed to stand? Anytime, never mind when you're walking by them. A lot of people stand, the operators stand in the road and blow back toward the house. Is that going to be prohibited as well? Well, no, it is to blow it throughout the house. That's what they have to do. Right, if they're standing in the road, then the road is de facto not useful, or at least part of it, depending on how realistic you think this 50 feet or whatever is, there is a zone in which people should not be without protective equipment. And this does not address that. Okay, thank you. Mr. Tibbets. Hi, I'm Gary Tibbets from Precinct Five and I was a member of the Leaf Blower Committee. And I'd just like to point out to the selectman, the committee was comprised of four people that were definitely against leaf blowers, four contractors that were for it, and four citizens just that volunteered to be on the committee. Our results that we came up with, they weren't unanimous, but they were voted on by the majority of us, and that's how we came up with them. Our results mirrored closely the public comment meeting that we had, the public comments mirrored the results of the special election. We're about three to one. People are either for no ban off of this compromise. And I think that's important to point out. The other thing is, as far as operating them, common sense has to be used. And the woman before me had some points, but common sense tells you you're not gonna blow something at somebody walking by. And us as professionals, not that that's a big profession, but it's what we do all the time, we watch out for that, and we pay attention to it. So I really think this is a compromise, the people spoke in the election, the people that got involved in this committee and in the public comments spoke, and they all said the same thing. We don't want this ban, these tight restrictions. We want this compromise. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tillman, yep. Joe, one second, go ahead. You were coming up, yep, come on. Huh? No, no, you come up. Let me run this thing, okay? I saw you next, so you're next. Okay, so I'm a member of the committee also, and I know these things get long-winded and I wanted to be very clear. So I'm gonna read this. It's one page, double spaced. So my name is George Adelman and I'm a member of the committee also. I'm one of the citizen members, so I think it's important to know, I think I represent a lot of people who are sort of tired of this. I joined the committee because I thought the town was spending way too much of its resources on this. I was especially annoyed at the $30,000 spent for the special vote. It's like the town's got more things to do with its money than that. I personally hoped I could contribute to the closure of this issue because I have an engineering background, I have a legal background, and I work in medical equipment for the last 40 years. So I learned six things being on this committee, and I'd like to relate those six things to you. As Mr. Greeley already said, there was a warrant for a complete ban which was changed to a summer ban, which was enacted and upheld in special town vote, and there was a lot of talk about was that vote for or against, even though technically it supported the ban. I don't know, but I know that. It seems to me it's unclear that there are serious medical effects from leaf blow use. There are lots of other things that cause more problems than that, except to the operators, and they have their employers to deal with that. It is clear to me, and I think to most anybody, that leaf blowers are noisy. However, I learned in this committee that the leaf blower industry is working on developing quiet leaf blowers, and in fact they already have, they're available from at least four companies I saw. And with a leaf blower that's 65 DBA at 50 feet, that means that if you and I are talking here, we can hear each other even though the leaf blower is going 65 feet away. So I learned that, and I also learned that during the summer months, leaf blowers are not used to blow leaves. It wasn't obvious at first, but because they're leaf blowers, they're actually used to clean up yards, and people have windows open, and the same leaf blowers, as loud as they are for blowing lots of leaves, are used for this cleanup. And usually in the summer, it takes 30 minutes or less to do this. However, the leaf blowers are still loud, they're the same leaf blowers. Now, I was particularly frustrated at this meeting. The committee overwhelmingly, in my opinion, consists of people who are against the ban. I really believe that. I came in either way. I was willing to say, let's just get rid of this because it's a waste of time, but I wanted to listen to all the input. I went to all the meetings. I went to the hearing. So I believe that this alternative, if you're being proposed, is actually a repeal of the ban. It really doesn't, it's unenforceable. There's no way anybody can complain about it. There's no way to tell. Is this leaf blow around for 15 minutes, 30 minutes? It's just crazy, from my perspective. So I've learned in business, you never say it's bad unless you have an alternative. And I learned something really powerful that the motivation for the lenscapers is financial, that they wanna be able to do their job. And they also believe, and I've learned that in the next three, four years, leaf blowers are gonna be quieter. But right now, we have people worried about the loudness of leaf blowers. So I have a proposal, one, which is already in the rule, as I understand it, that's being proposed, is residents can use leaf blowers. Themselves can use leaf blowers on their own property, anytime, within the realm of the present laws. And the other is that the lenscapers can use a leaf blower anytime during the summer, and frankly, anytime during the year. Whatever hours of legitimate now, before the bin, if the leaf blower is labeled 65 dB or less, they can buy them. That's a real burden on them. They have to buy them now. But they plan on buying them anyway. They really do. That's what I've said, I've heard. This will all go away in three years. But I'll be three years older in three years. And I'd rather be here the quiet now. And just as a point, in order to enforce this, leaf blower manufacturers put on a label that says 65 dB. And in fact, as I said before, if you're 50 feet away and I can talk to you, then it's 65 dB less. If I can talk to you, it's way louder. And I believe that the way you would enforce it is, you can ask, if you think it's too loud, you go ask to see the label. And this is only during the summer. We're not talking about when there's lots of leaves to blow. It's really hard to clean up yards with lots of leaves without a leaf blower. And they can use the quiet ones then too. And if you find someone that has a loud one and they won't show you the label, take the number down in their truck. I learned that trucks have to have pretty big letters with their phone number and address on it. Take it down, call the police. If the police get a couple calls, they go find, they call the number. They help be proactive about it. So I think this is much more manageable, much simpler than certain hours, certain days. It's a little more of a compromise than what's enacted now, but it is doable. And I think it actually gives an out to everybody. That's my two cents. Thank you. Hi, I'm Bill Downing. I was a member of the leaf blower committee. I agree with what George said, a lot of what he said. I came here to tell you that the machines are getting quieter and cleaner, okay? The EPA has put restrictions on them and they met those restrictions 2012. So the new machines that were by and the emissions are much cleaner. The decibels are coming down. A way to check decibels, if the police were to show up or the board of health were to show up. If it's not on the machine, there's an owner's manual that has the decibel level. And maybe you carry that in the glove box of the truck or a copy of it in the glove box of the truck and this machine meets the decibel level. Carol alluded to a Brookline ban, which was voted in a while back, but they haven't enforced it yet. They haven't started it yet, okay? So it's not happening in a Brookline at this point. Or if it has, it was just after the summer, it's possible. It went in September, October. But it hasn't been established in Brookline, although they voted it. What we're asking for is work with us and not hurt us, not put us out of business. I think that local government should work with business to help them go along and get along while we're trying to work with the manufacturers to give us better machines so that we're not bothering people. We're not out to bother people. I think the one was from Chester Street. We talked about this. I know that all my guys and all the guys that are on the board with me, when anybody's walking by, especially children, you shut the machine down and you just even go do something else, just wait. And maybe that's part of the training that we can do, and have it available even for other people, homeowners, if they'd like to attend training. That the land scavengers need to train their personnel that if there's somebody, anybody, trying to walk by and you get the attention, you might have to wave. If you just walk with your head down and walk by a leap forward, yeah, you might get something blown at you, but if you catch, make eye contact, that machine should be shut down and you should be able to walk by unfettered. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Yes. Yeah, I was just wondering, Mr. Edelman. Edelman. Yeah, I had mentioned, I talked about 65 DBA and I see that the recommendation here is for 74 DBA target. Can I actually speak to that? The landscape contractors are really turning over their equipment at a rapid rate. So is the town, but the town, the town of Wellington through DPW were also involved in this. And what we said was, we started initially with the 75, give everybody two years. It'll probably take us longer in terms of our capital expense. The town of Wellington to go out right away next month, six months, allow the town, so this was not just the landscape contractors, it was also what's gonna work for the town of Wellington because it would be ill advised for us to say to the town of Wellington unless they said they were prepared and they're not. Everybody agreed that by the beginning of the 2015 cycle the landscape contractors will be at the 64 and the town should be at the 64, but we really have to be cognizant of the budget and what's been put in place. We can't give them the. So that's more for, they're probably by the end of the season, it's summer, fall. It's gonna give us the time so that we can appropriate the monies too. Not that we're not going to replace them, but they replace theirs faster than the town of Wellington does. And I don't know if you wanna add to that, Mr. Dowling. Well, we go through machines in a year or two. So we're constantly upgrading our equipment. So we're buying the latest state of the art that comes out. So when the new machines and they tell me it's two years, I can't tell you it's two years, maybe three. That there's gonna be a commercial unit that we can work with that'll give us the power. It'll meet the emissions of the EPA. That'll be 65 decibels or less. And that's where I think the solution is. I think when those models come out, leaf blowing issue won't exist anymore. Does that answer that question? Yeah, it does. And the first question, and by Mr. Adelman, it is in there for the homeowners. And he acknowledged that also. So I think we've covered that. I just wanna make sure everybody, everything on the table. Also for those homeowner models that don't get replaced, they're talking about a buyback program to get those out of circulation as well, the manufacturers. That would be good to see. So thank you very much. Sorry I called you Joe. Can I make a motion of favorable action if there's nobody else? Yes you can. So it's a motion of favorable action, but we still, no, no, we have others to speak, please. No, we can just tell them. Yes. Oh, I didn't know there was someone else, I'm sorry. Hi, I'm Christian Klein from, I'm a town meeting member precinct 10. I just wanted to just ask a question on the enforcement side of things again. This is all still maintained within the noise abatement as it stands today in the noise abatement article of the town bylaws, is that correct? This will be appended onto it. It's to be a part of it. So the existing enforcement provisions of the noise abatement will remain in effect for this, which is a written notice for first offense and $200 per occurrence thereafter. Okay. When this came up before town meeting, I had spoken with the chief of police and asked him what his department would do if somebody came forward with a complaint about an excess noise. And he's like, well, I would send him to the Board of Health because we don't have the equipment to determine what the noise levels are. And I went to the Board of Health and said, you have the equipment, what would you do? And he said, well, we would send out one of our inspectors, but we typically don't have inspectors available so it might take a couple of days. And we got into this discussion that the noise abatement article, as it's written currently, is very effective if you have a construction site that has somebody running a jackhammer that is back time and time again in a pretty consolidated period of time and it allows them to address things on that sort of a time scale. But when I asked specifically about what do you do with a company that's there for a couple of hours and then has gone for a week or two? And they didn't really have an answer for how they could address those kinds of issues. And so I think it would be very helpful for the discussion as it comes into town meeting if there was a very specific process in mind as to how this is going to be enforced at the town level, as to who's supposed to be contact and who's gonna be controlling it because the sense I've gotten so far talking with the various town boards is it's, well, it's their problem, it's their problem, it's not quite us, it's, you know. So I think it would help the whole argument and the whole discussion in general if we had a set idea as to how we're gonna be handling the enforcement when it comes forward. Yeah, I just want to go on. So I think, and then I just want to make sure I understand where you're concerned. So I agree that enforcement is something we have to talk about and think about, but there's no equipment that you need to enforce this one. No, and I think that originally, I think some of the earlier ones, it was saying we have like a 75 and it's like, how do you, you know, so there's that portion of it, exactly. So I agree enforcement is an issue, but enforcement equipment isn't. Exactly, like we're now where I think it's based mostly on clock time and things like that, I think it's a much easier one to enforce. Okay, thank you. Great, thank you. Can I just speak to that? We had this discussion and it may just be words and I don't want to say semantics, because it's a negative connotation, but when we have the snow shoveling bylaw and can this be enforced? No, and what the question was, can the Board of Health and Arlington Police constantly patrol the streets to make sure and knock on residents' doors and knock on business owners' doors? No, they can't. Similar to noise abatement, when that went in, a lot of people said, well, how are you gonna, Board of Health, can you do this? Chief of Police, can you do this? No, we can't. We can't go out and be proactive, but what we do is we're reactive. So this would be similar to if, when people report a business hasn't shoveled. You know, you give them, what happens is, as those calls come into the non-emergency line, they come through, actually they don't go non-emergency, they go through the town question answer, but some people still do call that non-emergency line. They get dispatched, they get plugged into the system that we have online, and what happens is when an officer is available or if Board of Health is available, they go out, sometimes it may not even be for snow shoveling, for this they would go out and they have a copy of the bylaw, they go to the resident, they go to the business, they go to the person, company plowing in the street. So it's sort of semantic, can we enforce this? No, but can we be reactively enforcing this? Yes. As best we can. But my understanding, the enforcement comes under the Board of Health period on this, is that correct, Mr. Chatelaine? Well, Ms. Baton, the law does with certainly police or Board of Health inspectors could issue a violation. Anybody else hasn't spoken, wish them to speak on this? Okay, you wanted one question or something, you have to come to the mic. Hi, my question was, I've heard that the decibel levels tossed out there, but is that at the machine or is that at 50 feet? At 50 feet. It's at 50 feet, okay. So if someone is using a leaf blower in their backyard and the person next is 10 feet away, then the noise is gonna be considerably louder, like someone's kid, they're playing in the yard next door. So, okay. Just to clear up the enforcement, all of our trucks by law in Massachusetts have to be leaded with our name and our phone number on them. And if there is a plank called in, that man had a good point. The landscape is gone in 10 or 15 minutes. But they can check with the home owner, the home where they were working, see what landscaper was working there. All the person that's calling it in can have the landscaper's name and phone number, and the police can visit their shop later. That's all under the law now, the trucks have to be leaded, so. And all our guys wear jackets with our names on them and everything else. So it's pretty clear who's doing what. Did you wanna ask any questions? No, I don't want to. All right, members of the board. So, Ms. Mohan, move favorable action. Is there a second? Second. Okay, now discussion. Okay, Steven, there's no others. I don't care. Okay, I'll leave it up to them. Thanks, sir. I, a couple of things. One, I like, I very much like George's, I'm sorry, I forget your last name, your ideas. And I think it's promising to see that in a couple of years, this will not be an issue. I think that's, you know, a weight off all our backs. Now for the next, until that time comes, we do have to deal with this issue. And I will support, I will support this compromise. And I do really like Bill's idea of training. I think that, you know, if with further training it will be more educated uses of leaf flowers. And that's, that's better for everyone in town. I think that neighbors will, you know, appreciate that. And with the, you know, it came up earlier that we're in a very dense, dense area. And, you know, we can't be 50 feet away from our neighbor's property at all times. That, and that's just, you know, that's part of living in Ireland. And I think that's something that a lot of people have come to enjoy about living in Ireland. So there, you know, it does come down to a respect factor. And we might not be able to enforce everything, but we will, you know, do our best to. And I think that we do, you know, this, I'm sure our town meeting will be an interesting discussion, but I am comfortable with moving forward with these compromises. And I'm sorry that we cannot keep, you know, everyone happy, but that's, I guess, part of being on the Board of Selectment. And so I'd like to thank the Leafblower Committee for all their work. And thank you for this outcome and bring this to us. So you started this conversation talking about giving us a little history on the issue. And I would actually go back a little bit farther in history and say, a year ago, three of us were on the board, two of us weren't. A year ago, we had two public hearings on the Leafblower issue, on an article. And we had zero attendees. We had not a single person show up for two public hearings about Leafblowers. And I say, what a difference a year makes. So town meeting chose to pass the seasonal ban. And then there was an unprecedented reaction from the people of the town. And I voted against the ban as a selectman. I voted against the ban as a town meeting member. But at the same time, but then what happened after that, made me think about it and reconsider further. So I guess I, what we promised people at that point was that we would create a compromise committee and that committee would investigate and try to come up with a better solution. And we promised that in top, when we before the special vote, we promised that before the special town meeting, I stood up in front of special town meeting and I represented the board of selectmen and I said, this is our, we're asking for a compromise committee and let's wait till that comes back. And we promised that we're gonna talk about this next year. And I look at this work this committee did and I said, we fulfilled that promise and I'm happy with the recommendation as it sees fit. Is would I, if I was like dictator of Arlington, would I take a large red pen and like slice it up in 15 different ways? I absolutely would, but I think that this is the right compromise and I'm happy to support it. Thank you. Mr. Curell. Thank you very much. I think I've been open that, unlike my colleagues at that town meeting, I did support the seasonal restriction. But I would point out that during the special town meeting, although town meeting voted again to uphold the seasonal restriction, they also voted to constitute this committee. And I actually feel we have an obligation to pass this back through to town meeting for them to pass off on it. So I will be supporting the motion. As a town meeting member, depending on what kind of amendments come forward, you know, I will have to reserve my rights to represent my precinct and the interests of the town. But I think that we do have an obligation to pass this back to town meeting and let them pass on it. That was, I think part of what we, as Dan said, part of what we promise and part of what we put forward in the fall. Ask for the vote if I could just say something briefly after. Okay, so on the vote, recommending favorable action on the report by the committee and making those bylaw amendments, all those moved by Mr. Han, seconded by Mr. Dunn, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. unanimous vote, believe, Brian? Yeah. Yes, Mr. Han. And just very briefly, I do want to point out and thank, honestly, sometimes people might think that you say this because you have to, but I want to thank the Board of Selection Office, Mrs. Sullivan, Mary Ann, Mrs. Cropelka-Marie and Mrs. Reedy, friend Reedy. This really became like another job for them and for myself. I lost a client because I wasn't getting working on time. And the reason I put that forth is I see other proposals coming currently and in future years and I began to have a conversation with the town manager and with the town moderator that on these hot ticket items, I'm not talking about this, this really was a job for me. I mean, you guys got three, I mean, everybody got $3,000 if not more. In the future, if we could sort of set up some process and it really dragged the select and I don't mean that in a negative way, but a lot of stuff went asunder, you know, we have elections and special elections and everything else that we have to do. It really took some wear and tear on us. So as we go forward on this, if we could maybe, and I don't know what that process is, I have some ideas and I'm going to leave it to Mr. Leone and Mr. Chaplain with some of my suggestions maybe in the future, if this type of committee gets formed again, A, I'm not on it, and B, we kind of talk about that because I'm not saying it isn't through the resources of the selectman's office and I'm not exaggerating, I know I get really passionate and over-passionate about some things, but it really was, took a substantial hit to the day-to-day workings of the selectman's office for just a little microcosm of time. So just to my colleagues, but really thank you, they put in so much work, similar to the members of the committee on both sides of the issue. Okay, thank you. This is next will be article four of the special town meeting by law amendment, the sale of drinking water in single-served bottles, please. Hi, my name is Amy Curl, I am from Precinct 13 and I live at Nine Langley Road. Welcome. I would very much like to thank the board of selectmen for hearing me speak about this issue tonight and everyone who came here to support us, we do have quite a few people here. I'm not alone working on this, I've worked on this with Marina Milan and Sonya Zakhar who are standing up here with me, but my birthday happened to fall first on the calendar year so my name is on it and I'm also the president of Arlington High School's environmental club so I've kind of been the leader. So as you know, article number four is the warrant article to ban the sale of non-sparkling, unflavored drinking water in single-serving PET bottles that are one liter or less in the town of Arlington and we have given packets to the board and so we go over here with some more facts and just a little deeper explanation of what we are trying to accomplish and sorry, some of the research that we've done but I will try to be brief with my comments. So we have been working for a couple of years to educate at least the student body at Arlington High on water bottle use for years and they have been incredibly receptive and we've seen it at the high school. However, it's not enough to just educate our students of Arlington, we are looking to encourage the entire town to be more environmentally friendly and we hope this ban will encourage environmentally conscious behavior and educate the people of this town to make some more informed decisions. A little change goes a long way and I have a couple of facts that we've done from some research that I would just like to point out. So the tap water in Arlington, according to the MWRA through some of their research is actually some of the cleanest water in the country, not just the state and many major bottled water companies such as Aquafina famously simply sell bottled water, bottle tap water and pass it off as their own product so it's not much different than what we get out of the sink. And bottled water is not only harmful for when the bottles end up in landfills and aren't properly recycled, but also the way that they're produced in the first place. The production and transportation of said bottled water releases tons of unnecessary fossil fuels into the environment. These bottles are also stored for months at a time before they're actually consumed and many chemicals from the bottles because the PET is not very strong plastic. Some of the chemicals from the PET will seep into the water and this happens very often over time. They can have some dangerous effects. For example, BPA can mimic the effect of estrogen at a person if it's consumed enough over time. And tap water in Arlington is usually more clean than bottled water because tap water is regulated by the EPA and bottled water is regulated by the FDA and each have their own standards but the FDA allows small levels of certain chemicals to be in approved bottled water and it is better for the environment and individuals health and for each person's wallet to simply buy a reusable water bottle and fill it up time and time again. Many of them last for years and years. With this proposal, we plan to encourage people in the town to use reusable water bottles which saves money and resources. We've also wanted to address some concerns that we've heard from the people. We've read some of the comments and we've had people come up and talk to us and we are very much listening to what people say and we know that there are a lot of things about this issue that are controversial. So we are specifically, we wanted to address first, people keep asking us why we're banning water and not soda and because water comes free from the tap and thus forces an unnecessary expense and they both have effects on a person's health. Soda contains processed sugar but then bottled water can also contain dangerous chemicals that a person will consume. In addition, Arlington students were found to have the least amount of excessive body weight by the Department of Public Health in a study done a couple of years ago this was in the news. And so if our Arlington students are being raised to make smart decisions we have a lot of faith in our Arlington residents that they will be able to make smart decisions when it comes to their beverage consumptions and buying soda should not be the natural alternative to buying bottled water carrying a reusable water bottle should be the natural alternative to buying bottled water and we think that Arlington residents will naturally make this decision, sorry. So we, another concern is that people don't like the idea of the government controlling their day to day choices and this proposal isn't about taking away people's liberties or their freedom to choose but it's really about saving the planet and working towards a bigger future. This removing bottled water, this is a very small task to do but it'll have a big payoff when it comes to the environment and our planet's future. We are hoping that this ban will show Arlington how we can do better and what we can do to help the environment and another, the last concern is fiscally and the Arlington Chamber of Commerce did a study between 59 business owners in Arlington and 53 of them voted that they didn't think this would have an effect on their business so in terms of Arlington business owners, they do not, those 53 are not concerned that this will really have too much of a detrimental impact on their business and the town wouldn't have to spend any money for this maybe except to have someone monitor does an extra portion of their job but they wouldn't be losing any money from having this ban into place so we thank you very much for listening to us. Thank you very much, Amy. I actually think you were in my group last career day or something. I was, yep. I think I judged her in a math, did you do the math fair? A couple of years ago, sophomore year I was so two years ago. They use you as a judge in there? They do. Almost as ridiculous as using me for the career day, but. You were very effective, you're a great speaker. I ended up interning with Sean Garbley that summer for about four weeks so it was a very effective career day. Sean is with us tonight. We certainly always appreciate his presence here in the chamber. I wanna thank you, I think it's outstanding that you're getting involved like this and that you have the courage to do this and that I assume you'll be doing the same thing in front of town meeting. Yes. But without breaking your heart, I don't favor it at this point in time but we're gonna certainly let everybody speak who would like to at this point but you did a spectacular job. I do think this is a choice issue and I honestly feel it's better handled on the state level with the bottle bill expanding to include deposits on such things. However, it's tough to debate against you. You did an excellent job in terms of that case you just invented. But obviously others would like to speak on this issue as well. Okay, Sean as always, select and speak first then we'll take more of the public input and then we'll come back to the select one, Mr. Byrne. Amy must be pretty popular because she's also my neighbor. I feel like, oh, I've seen her at the high school. Can I say that? No, I'm so impressed by you guys for taking this on. Trying to improve the town's environment and trying even more so to implement change to the town's legislative process is much more than I was doing as a senior in high school. I can assure you that. So if there's something to look forward to, as you can see. What word are you doing now? And I hope that you do bring that drive for change to college and further on into your career because I think that you guys will do a lot of good and continue to do a lot of good. That being said, I also, second Kevin's thoughts and I won't be supporting this at this time. I think that we should continue to focus on encouraging recycling and promoting environmentally friendly businesses and individuals and I think that's, and I know that's something that you've been doing in the past and I'm sure something you continue to do and I hope that you continue to do this. I don't want this to be something that stops all of your hard work and I'm sure that it won't be from, knowing you for many years. So thank you so much for coming in front of us and that was a phenomenal presentation. So thank you. Mr. Hanan, I saw next. Ms. Currell, Amy, hats off to you. I did a similar thing when I was your age, down at the high school when I learned about asbestos. I had no idea what that was and asked all the construction workers when I'm class of 80, so I'm ancient, the dark ages. And I remember asking the workers, why are you wearing all those suits and everything and they explained asbestos. I had no idea what it was, investigated it and I was a AB student, always on the honor roll, volunteered in the office, so, you know, always strive to do the right thing. And I remember going to the principal saying, listen, because we were passing through the halls with that. This is dangerous stuff and everybody said, no, no, no, which is what you're probably gonna get here. But I hung onto that and eventually got 30, 40 friends and I told the principal, he said, well, you're gonna get suspended and that meant big time trouble at home with my parents, I couldn't even come home at the sea. And I organized after sixth period after lunch, so we took on all our classes and I had like 30 friends that agreed to walk out with me. By the end of the day, the entire school, including the staff had walked out and one of the workers gave me a megaphone and explained why, because most of them didn't know. So what I'm saying is, if you have what you do, you have a solid group of friends, you have a brilliant presentation. Every time I heard no, I kept going forward. I became like the queen of the year because we got two days off because they had to restructure and get the asbestos work done. So I applaud you on that. What I would love to see before me, and I'm gonna get in so much trouble with so many people would be abandoned all plastic bottles of any kind. I would like water to be the last. And I understand that we can't do that and I agree with Kevin maybe on a statewide level. I can tell you as a coach at the high school, I can tell you when as a student from 76 to 80, I would not drink out of those water fountains. And I can tell you now as a coach, even especially outside on the field, none of my players, I mean, at most they splash the water on themselves. So if I would feel comfortable, if I felt comfortable, I could direct my players and myself to suitable water replenishing because you know, double sessions. And the same thing with Arlington Water. I have a bread of filter because I have some health issues with all my children. Nothing, I'm just saying, I'm very cognizant of that because of my family structure. So I won't be supporting this, but I know you're familiar with the way town meeting works. If it looks like it's no, you present it again. So you're very well versed on that. And who knows what you're gonna do on town meeting floor? Just because someone says no now. But right now I just think in terms of the alternatives, again, I wish we could ban Pepsi and Gatorade and all that. And I'm gonna get in a lot of trouble, but good job to you. May I just respond? We are, I've talked to the class president and we are trying to look into buying a installable water filter in the cafeteria that students then could bring reasonable water bottles and fill up. So we are, we have looked into that in the past too and it hasn't worked out because of the funds that Save Club has and the class funds, but this year it seems like it might be a possibility. So we are looking into that because we do understand that that is something is where, well, where are we gonna fill up our reasonable water bottles? And we are trying to work. And the same thing with the sports. I don't know if you wanna go to Mrs. Bouvier, if you want to, whoever the sports entity is, maybe get them plugged in, that if you can find a suitable inside source, maybe a suitable outside one, especially in the summer. Thank you. All right, thank you. You wanna wait for input or you? Yeah, I'm happy to, yeah. Well, I never had the opportunity to judge you. A few weeks ago I did have the opportunity though to judge a debate contest of high school students for the Northeast United States and I'd say that you could easily go up against the finalists in that. You laid out a great case here this evening. Before I say what I think, I wanted to ask a question though. I mean, you talked about the high school. Yeah. And you mentioned the filter. What else have you done? I mean, have you tried to take steps at the high school to actually institute an across the board ban of disposable water bottles at the high school? We have looked into it and the school makes, not necessarily, well, I don't wanna call it significant, they do make some money off of having the aquafino machines in the school, they get a portion of it, so they are not necessarily very inclined, especially with the very thin budget that they work with to get rid of them. We have tried, I've tried, the last president has tried, the president before her has tried and it's no go. We have worked on reducing other materials in the high school, so we've instituted Draylist Tuesdays, so we are working on reducing other materials that we think aren't necessary in the high school. So that has been pretty successful, not having the styrofoam trays in on Tuesdays. So we have tried getting rid of the water bottle machines and we are looking into other things as well. We're kind of in all-encompassing group. So let me string this out just a little bit. The reason I ask is, because you mentioned that maybe the solution here would be to educate residents in Arlington around not purchasing water bottles and using reusable bottles. However, so many of the people who pass through Arlington aren't residents, they're visiting the town, they're coming through on the bike path and such. And for myself, I feel like that's a big burden and it doesn't send the right message to folks who are coming through that they have to know. You are now entering Arlington town limits. You know, all water bottles do not pass through these gates. So I'm concerned about that. I feel like, I think Mr. Greeley said and Mr. Dunn, if you start, you should start at two places, I would think. It would be one is at the state level on the bottle bill. I know Representative Garbley has been very supportive of, I'm not speaking out of school, am I Sean? I know he's been very supportive of that. And at the school level, where you really do have a population that you can control, I mean, I'd submit that if this weren't a high enough priority, if the students weren't buying from those machines, they wouldn't be making money for the school anymore and you might well see that you have success there. And I think that would be a pilot that would be very important to have under your belt before trying to extend this to the school. I think we've all been reading in the papers about Mayor Bloomberg's little, you know, attempts on the health end of the spectrum down in New York and they got shot down in the courts this past week. He targeted a specific type of drink and the court said it was arbitrary and capricious, is the term, capricious is the term. So I can't support this right now. I do really, you know, like all of my colleagues, my hats are off to you for bringing up the issue forward but I would really encourage you to first start within your school community and see if you can get a successful pilot there where there is a model that works within that community. And from there, try to see if you can work it to the rest of the school system. And I think you'll have some difficulties though. When you go throughout the school system, the PTOs have already been making a lot of changes to offer healthy options and a lot of water has been in that mix. So I think that that's part of the place to start. Right, and we've already tried to go through the school to some degree and have not had the success and we saw that Concord was successful and we thought, well, why not try here? Arlington's a very welcoming and open town and they are, we know there's a big environmentally conscious community here and so we have, we will keep trying, thank you. But yes, this is not our first attempt. Okay, thank you. And good for you though, seeing what was done in Concord and taking the steps here as you have. Do either of you two lieutenants want to say anything, you know, to get some time on camera? You gotta come to the microphone, I'm sorry. Say your name again, sorry. My name's Sonia Zachar. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to thank the board of selectmen for hearing our proposal. My name's Marina Milan and I just want to quickly talk about what we have been doing at the high school. When I was a freshman, we, the SAFE Club has a program where we go to freshman classes towards the end of the year we should be doing it in the next month or so and we do a presentation to the science classes. We have all the science teachers permission and it's just one period and we do a taste test and we show a video and we give them a bunch of facts about bottled water and I very distinctly remember my class that year and I have not bought a bottle of water since I really didn't know much about bottled water before that but I have not bought a single bottle of water since that day and I really hope that our efforts in school continue to have that impact on other people and then maybe people will stop buying water like you said and then the school won't be so opposed to getting rid of the water roll machines entirely. Thank you. Just the fact you're here talking about it as much as you are the millions watching at home and I do expect to see you again at town meeting. However, now so if you want to just step to the side we'll take other import but I will let you speak at the end just before the board takes the vote, okay? Mr. Harrington I saw first. Shawn Harrington precinct 15 town meeting chair. I have actually for the record what I'm going to say so I was hoping I could pass that out if that's okay to the members of the select. Just give them to Ms. Mahon she'll pass them along so you can speak. All right, first thing there are some typos in here. I was at a conference I only got about nine hours sleep in three days so there are some typos so please pardon that. You're not reading this whole thing. What? You're not reading this whole thing. I'm not reading the whole thing. I'm going to cover it a little bit. So. I mean you can Shawn but I. No, no, no, I do like to talk but no, not tonight. I just got in at midnight. I haven't had about two hours of sleep so I'm running out of fumes. So I have at the top the bylaw I'm not going to read it but it's based on environmental issues with plastic waste but I took a look at it. I contacted a woman named Adriana Cohen from the Concord for Consumer Choice where they're currently fighting the bottled water ban in Concord and through links that she's giving me I kind of compiled some information that in the case against the bottled water ban. The first one when it comes to environment this ban doesn't reduce plastic waste if anything it hurts my priorities to help the environment. I'm on page three I have a quote by a woman named Maria Rodale. Now Maria Rodale is the CEO and chairman of Rodale, Inc. and Maria's company is the world's largest publisher of health and environmental content such as Men's Health and what have you and her company also published Al Gore's book Inconvenient Truth. She wrote an article for the Huffington Post called The Bizarre Insanity of Banning Bottled Water in which she stated banning water might feel like a win in the short term but it's a major loss in the long term and the biggest loss is the misdirection of energy it creates in very intelligent people who could otherwise be solving real problems. And she goes on later in the article to talk about recycling mandates when it comes to soda, banning soda or possibly. So really why do we say it's not it doesn't help the environment? Bottle water is 100% recyclable. You get rid of bottled water in stores most likely that people think when it comes to convenience not everyone remembers to bring a reusable container with them. I know that I have multiple of them but I don't always bring with me. So I go to the store and I buy bottled water. For kids if you're an Audison student you'll usually you'll see them at some of the convenience stores. If they don't have bottled water there's soda and high sugary drinks with twice the amount of plastic PET and non-PET that they're going to be using. So really what you're doing is you're increasing the amount of plastic in our waste by if this passes town meeting because we're not well we're eliminating yes plastic bottled water which is 100% recyclable. This is harder to recycle and higher amount of plastic and it's just giving kids a higher amount of sugar in their diet which is something that I don't think any of us want to see. Now I do have a quote here from the Concord for Consumer Choice have a website called Free the Water. It says in Concord, Massachusetts well proponents of the ban have fought bottled water. They have ignored the environmental impact of other containers leading people to make false choices to switch to less environmentally friendly packaging. For example, glass bottles take more energy to produce and transport than plastic can break and injure workers and our abrasive and wreak have it on recycling equipment. So it's harder to recycle if anything it will cost more in the long run if let's say nationwide or what have you we go to ban or get rid of these single serving containers. When it comes to health and safety according to the National Sanitation Foundation public water fountains contain 2.7 million bacteria cells in one cubic inch. Even more than public toilets which are sanitized more often. So one of the problems that I have with this is that people don't really think of the problem is if you go to drinking fountain if you are sick, if you have, you know if you have cancer or what have your some sort of illness, you're gonna you're most likely going to be drinking bottled water because certain brands are purified differently and it makes it harder for people who are sick or elderly to get those plastic bottled waters because they're gonna have to go out of town if they're gonna have to go out of town for that they're gonna do their shopping out of town. Concord has seen around the area Adriana Cohen has seen major amounts of sales going up around for businesses around Concord and less in their town Arlington wants to increase our tourism. There's a major thing that we wanted to do and as a second curl said do we really wanna be the town that pushes that away? You know, it's really about convenience as sad as it is we're a consumer society we have to think about convenience excuse me. It also goes against buying local so it really does go against the grain of what we're trying to do here in Arlington. Now using reusable bottled water containers isn't always an available option I already went through that. I was gonna say you got most of it in. The other problem is that let's say if we have another storm like we just had and where the governor has a driving ban and there are many cases where your water system could be, I don't know what the- Compromise? Yeah, compromise, sorry. But if it's compromised you're gonna have to drink bottled water and stores are not going to keep a whole container or a whole bunch of bottled waters in their storage area taking up space for in the case of an emergency they're just not gonna do that. So what you're really gonna have to do is call people to go in during a ban like that driving on the road where they can have accidents and what have you and it costs more. There was another point that I wanted to make and then I think I'll shut up after that. What about personal freedom? This ban takes away residents freedom of choice and promotes unhealthy choices. We as citizens should have the right to decide what is best for our families and ourselves. Reducing waste is a great idea but this should be encouraged by changing minds as these young girls do. And I should also say I commend them tremendously. I know what it's like to go up and try to make a stand on things. A lot of people, when I was in high school I did the same thing with another issue so I commend them a lot. I think there's a lot we can do with increasing the amount of recycling bins we have and recycling mandates. There are many ways we can do this without necessarily getting rid of bottled water and solving the problem with most of our plastic containers. And the other thing is that the other thing that they had a concern about was when it came to the EPA's regulation on plastic containers. Now that regulation is the same thing for plastic containers no matter what. Food containers, milk, what have you. So really it goes for all food products and we're not gonna go out and ban all food products from being sold in Arlington. So while it says yes, bottled water, it's for all of them and also it's not as, and it hasn't been as big of a risk for people as people thought it's been kind of debunked by the bottled water industry and other consumer choice industry leaders. So really that's my point. It seems like it'll hurt the health of Arlington. It'll hurt Arlington businesses as we've seen in Concord. It's hurt their businesses. And there are other ways we can really solve environmentalism. I'm a strong supporter of environmentalism. As weird as that sounds being a Republican but I really do. I think that we need a work toward environmentalism but there are better ways of doing it than necessarily throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sean. And I do remember you as a senior in high school being before us on the Pledge of Allegiance. Right, you were a senior at that point, weren't you? What was that? You were a senior when you first. I was working on it my four years of high school but it kind of came to a head my junior year going into my senior year. Okay, thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak on this, sir? Hi, I'm Christian Klein, I'm a resident on Newport Street and I'm also the event coordinator for the Friends of Robbins Farm Park. We are a friends group for the local park of across from the Brackett School. We host somewhere between eight and 11 public events over the course of the summer and we host a concession standard at probably the majority of those events and we do sell bottled water as one of the things we sell and we've debated as sort of as a group we don't have an opinion overall on the issue of a water ban but what we would like to see if this goes forward is if there is a possibility for an exception for public outdoor events. We don't have a good way of providing water other than to have it prepackaged at these kinds of events and we've had incidents in the past where we have run, we basically run out of water at certain events before and it has definitely caused concern among the police who were there and others for the health of the insafetive people who were there and if it was a more limited supply of water at public events, we think it would be not only difficult for us and difficult for people who are coming from out of town to these events but it would also have some possible health impacts and so what we would like to encourage is if this does move forward if there could be an exception for these public outdoor events where it could be stipulated that the events have to be fully licensed through the Board of Health, through the recreation department which they already are and that they would have to have recycling containers at the point of sale and at the point of waste and we would certainly be willing to abide by those kinds of considerations. So thank you. I mean, just so you know, your best route obviously is try to amend this at town meeting if indeed it comes up if this board doesn't vote it down but I do see lots of issues with that. For example, town day then wouldn't that have to be exempted as well as long as a number of others, right? But that's any point well taken. Who else would like to speak on this? Okay, Amy you're a team if you'd like to make a closing statement then the board will vote. Hi again. We actually do agree with that amendment to have an exception for outdoor town events. We've heard his points and we actually think that they're very well thought out and we are very receptive to that idea. So we very much do agree. We know this issue is very controversial and we do take into consideration all opposing points and we are just very much looking for the most environmentally friendly solution. That's very much of this, but I hate using your ban because it is a negative connotation to it and we want this to kind of more move in a positive, move at least Erelington in a positive direction to be a less consumption, having in a less wasteful town. But thank you very, very much for hearing us tonight and listening to us. Thank you very much. Thank you. And one of the first rules you'll learn is you're a select minister to count to three and I think you've heard the comments from at least three of us so far. But I'm begging you don't go away. I think we'll see you again at town meeting, but please come before us again at another time. And you're really to be commended for what you've done here and for the work you've done. But forgive me, I'm going against you, but you have, I really like Mr. Kuro's idea, strike first at home if you can, see what you can get done in the high school in terms of some of those other areas. But that said, does someone have a motion please? Move no action. Recommendation of no action, is there a second? Second. Second. And so what will happen at town meeting is we will, I believe, make this recommendation of no action however you can substitute. So if I have a feeling you know that better than I do Amy and your team. All those in favor of the recommended vote of no action, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Am I right, that was unanimous? Okay. All right. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Thanks Amy. Good luck neighbor. Well no, she did a tremendous job. Okay, article nine, grant of easements for the Thompson School. This was related to the poll discussion last time. Yep. Juliana? Yes. So I'm Mr. Chair. This was related to the request of Verizon to obtain an easement from the town for the placement of three utility polls that are being moved from the sidewalk to onto actual grass area around the new Thompson School to accommodate a change in parking patterns. I did raise a concern at last week's meeting that I didn't really see why it was necessary. The board requested that I speak with Verizon's council, which I did do. Although I'm still not thrilled, I'm gonna withdraw my injection. That's just not worth having a big argument about. I don't think that's good use of this board's time or town meeting time. So, you know, I would recommend that this board would support the request. I will certainly look very closely at the easement instrument when it comes before the board and make every effort to ensure it's not overly broad. But I would suggest at this point that this board take favorable action on the request. Can you do anything on the issue of the easement last for eternity? An easement does last for eternity, which is my problem, I'm worried about it. Right, so no, we can't, right? I mean, we're at a, we're loggerheads with Verizon. They want it to last for eternity. I don't want it to. Right, and how do we take back an easement? Is that possible? We can take it back by having a domain. Okay, okay. Mr. Hayner, did you, did you want to spare? I see the school committee supports this. Yes. Okay, so nothing to add. Okay, is there a motion? Moved favorable action. Moved favorable action, second? Second. Mr. Dunn? I'm having real second, I'm, yeah, I'm not sold on this one actually. Is this something, it seems so pro-former and what I'm hearing is we're all having, oh, if I may, Mr. Berling and Mr. Dunn. I think it's the word permanent for easement. Could we maybe, I would ask town council, do you think there's anything else that you could do to have the conversation? I know you can have the conversation, but I don't want to waste your time around that word permanent if we could get some other type of an easement or they're holding hot and firm on permanent easement. Well, they are, but it's certainly within this board's purview to recommend, I mean, I don't know who's gonna be around to enforce it, but I won't be, but even that expires five years after the school comes down or something like that. I mean, their issue, because what the discussion I did have was, we've got a school there, obviously we want the lights on, their issue is those polls serve not only the school, but also the surrounding communities and there will probably always be people there. So they view it as an investment of their time. I don't think it's much of an investment and I think they certainly recoup it very quickly in the charges that they get from ratepayers, but the reason for their position is that if the school, if the land is sold, if the school is taken down in 50 years, there will still be utility customers. But even if town meeting authorizes the grant of a permanent easement, this board can certainly choose to grant something less than that, or this board can ask town meeting to grant less, you know, authorization for less. I just didn't feel it was sort of a good use of anybody's time to argue if I'm any further. I know if that helps. Mr. Dunn technically still is the floor, I don't know if you want to. So I'll just say that I'm torn between the, I agree. It's a stupid thing for us to be arguing about and it's annoying that Verizon is being so annoying about it, but at the same time I worry about the board, you know, 30 years down the road saying, who are those morons who gave them a permanent easement when there's no reason to give them a permanent easement? So there's expediency and then there's, you know, I mean, I'm sure you'll still be here in 30 years, Mr. Greel. I'll be much more dangerous. I'll still be called a moron, so what the heck. I'll say it. Mr. Girov. I was just wondering, apropos of our conversation at the last meeting, can it be written, can it be written into an ease, can, let me back up, can an easement document instrument contain conditions around the state of repair that any polls or any infrastructure must be kept in? Just a lot, I just figure, I mean, if we have to do this to facilitate the Thompson project, I'd love to at least be able to send the message again around the subject we discussed last meeting. We can certainly put that language in. I can't really make a guarantee as to its enforceability, but we can certainly put it in. We can send a message. But the same thing we discussed before, state, we trumped by the state current laws, right? Related to polls and stuff that were referenced before. Well, my issue has more to do with kind of the nature of the property right that's an easement. An easement is a, it's something less than full ownership, but it is an enforceable property right that has value. Whereas we're talking about like implementing regulation, I'm certainly happy to write it that way. And, you know, we can certainly make the argument that the easement would be revoked or curtailed in some way. And we could certainly keep a close eye on these polls. I don't think these polls being brand new are gonna be at the top of it. Probably not. I would just love to, if we have to do this, I would love to at least use this opportunity to send the message once again. And it would come back before the board after town meeting authorized it. And at that point, the board could still decline. All town meeting does is it authorizes the board to grant the right. It doesn't require the board to grant the right. Only the board can decide. I do this to Julian as well. I assume that we need that rise and then needs to sign off on whatever we send to them. So with all these stipulations, they might choose not to agree with us. And then they can, and then moving forward, they can also, you know, kind of be a headache to us as well. When, you know, say something like a microburst comes along again and we have to rely on them. You know, I think that we, there is a very thin line that we have to walk on. And I don't think that we should just be jumping, you know, over it and making, you know, real serious strides when, you know, this is a partnership and we will be relying on them at times as well. So. Well, the argument that was brought up tonight that was, that made me look at this a little differently is cause I am hesitant to give anything away for eternity. But the fact that these polls are used for the neighborhood, the homes as well, and, you know, I mean, that's a pretty strong argument as well. Why these these ones might survive the school, but, you know, again, 30, 50 years or whatever way. Anybody else who shouldn't speak on this? Sir, a motion from one of my colleagues, please. I move favorable action with the stipulations that I had laid out around trying to craft that easement document. Okay, and is there a second? Second. But am I, all we're bringing to town meeting is the easement. The easement, yeah. Right, Juliana? When it comes back to us to decide whether to grant them or not, that's when we deal with this. But perhaps we could address that in the comment. Correct. Sure, I can do both. Okay. All right. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying I, I, all those opposed? Opposed. Okay, so four to one, four to one vote. Bylaw amendments, safe streets. Mr. Oster. Good evening. I'm Adam Oster. I'm from Precision Free. Just want to check, do you have the report from the Transportation Advisory Committee on this? Yes. And I'm not sure how to proceed because I don't want to repeat from our previous meeting, but Ms. Mahan is here tonight. So how much recapitulation is appropriate and how much should I skip? Ms. Mahan, what do you feel you need? He was here at the last meeting I went through this for you. And I asked you to come back? No, you weren't here. Oh, okay. My only question, I know I'm saying, what did I ask them to give me? My only question that I have, and thank you for putting this back on is, and you address it in here. I'm leaning towards this, isn't something that's accomplished by a town bylaw. I think it's something that maybe the Board of Select we could take a vote on it. And I think it's more through the town manager. And these are just my thoughts in the planning department. I think we're kind of headed down that road, perhaps of the Board of Selectmen. I'm just putting this before my colleagues. I'm not saying it's the answer because I don't want to get into, because other people may come in and say, autism is an important disease that we need to attack head on. Yeah, the Board of Selectmen can vote that. Do we make that into a bylaw? But my only thing is I'm leaning towards that we accomplish this, but not through a bylaw. Maybe I'll just give a brief sort of overall view. And then what I'd like to focus on are the changes that were made since our last, that since I was last before you. This is obviously, it's a general bylaw about street planning. It's not about traffic enforcement. It's not about the MASSav project. It is proposed as a bylaw because only a bylaw can express the settled policy of the town at this level. Only a bylaw is permanent in that, in so far as it outlasts individual staff members, however talented, and it addresses an issue of, I think, general concern to the community. The changes since the last time, I know Mr. Chairman at the end of the last meeting, you complimented me on being receptive and flexible to changes which you called compromises, but I just wanna make clear that I consider these to be improvements, not things that I had to give up anything for. And to characterize these, I would say that generally about transportation projects, it seems to me that the large projects are designed under many different constraints, for example, the constraint that I think we're familiar with that requires pedestrian and bicycle accommodation is an example of such a constraint. But within these constraints, there are still some decisions that are made by the town. For example, during the Mass Ave project, there was a lot of back and forth about what would be best to have where we have room for it, a median strip, or wider parking lanes, and those kinds of decisions are judgments that the town makes. And it's the changes since the last time I was before you are mostly to clarify that it's that narrow range that is the issue here. It's not to try to expand the scope of projects beyond what's proposed and beyond what's financially feasible for the projects. Mr. Rademacher also was concerned that this proposal might be burdensome, especially for small projects. Small projects really don't have that scope. A curb cut is a curb cut. So one of the changes is a half million dollar sort of floor on this. So it doesn't apply to the small projects. The bylaw also expressly does not require the town to seek a design exception to state or federal requirements. Town could do that if it wanted to, but not because of this bylaw. Again, the decision space is just this narrow area. The standard also has been sort of toned down and made more flexible. That was something that I heard from the board two weeks, three weeks ago. And the modest reporting requirement is limited to the first 10 years after which it goes away. So I really have tried to take into account everything that I heard. In terms of the question of why a bylaw, why not a policy, I sort of addressed that at the beginning. And I would just say that I think that adding the public to technical issues makes things harder in a lot of ways, but it also makes things better. We saw that with the Mass Ave project, I think on both counts. Our staff does its best work when there is appropriate collaboration on public concern and professional expertise brought to bear. And that's what this does. This bylaw does not say there have to be bike lanes everywhere, it does not dictate a result. It sets a general goal and leaves it to the professional staff and the volunteers of the town to implement it. And I think that that is the appropriate framework and it is appropriate for town meeting to be involved at that level. Thank you, I'll mention that. I just want to give a case in point why I don't think this should be a bylaw. I've been on the board 14 years, so this predates this. This was when I was sitting in the audience 10 years before and Mr. Greeley, correct me if I stray on any of this. And I think Mr. Gilligan was here. I remember one of the importance, the way I see it is that town planning, department town manager identify what's important, what needs to be done and why. And I remember way back when, let's say 17, 18 years ago, there were a lot of people who were concerned about the bridge over Pocab where the gas station is and the four or five of those stores. That bridge had to be repaired. That was about a million dollars. Just about a million. And we had state funding for it. And what happened was a lot of residents came in and said, you only have a sidewalk on one side that's not safe. And what the state said, well then you're gonna have to foot the bill or we're not gonna give you the money. And the issue was it would be another 800,000 or more, something about a cantilever system and it was do we repair this bridge with state funding the way it wants to, the way we can get the money and get it done or do we go out and foot that money? And my fear is I know nobody, and I see that the transportation advisory committee was divided on this being a bylaw. And I think this may be the very reason. You're not gonna do that. Nobody on the transportation advisory committee would say, I'm gonna say goodbye to a $1.1 million project. But if we have a bylaw and there's one resident, there were good 14, 15 residents. And I can remember some of them because they live on Alpine Street. They wanted that second sidewalk and they didn't care if it was, I think it was another 800,000. And we are in danger of losing the funding. But Mr. Marquis and the board said, ideally we'd like to do that and we can't. So my point is if this is a bylaw, we have to. I could see someone coming in saying, I want the sidewalk on both sides because that's the best pedestrian safety. You've already said in a bylaw, that's your number one thing. I'd rather have it that it's a goal, it's a policy. But I'll leave it to my colleagues, but I won't vote it as a bylaw if you wanna make that motion. Can you speak on that? No, I'd like to hear tech. All right, plus one more. Yeah, well I'd like to hear tech or the town manager speak also. And specifically, we have $500,000 is set here. I mean, realistically, what are we talking about as far as the number of projects that we've been looking at compared to all of the work that we do in the course of the year. Funny, because of all the other articles, I wanted to hear what I wanted to say before I want to speak, but this time I want to speak before other people have things to say. And that's because I want to say what I'm really debating of myself. It is what Mr. Mahan's point is, is whether or not this is appropriate to put in a bylaw or not. And I'll tell you what I'm thinking about. One of the things that the town has chosen to put in its bylaws is green design in terms of like building an acquisition of vehicles and things like that. And it's one of the, and the way it ended up being written is it doesn't actually enforce in most ways, but it was a clear signal by the town that this is the direction that we wanted to go in. And similarly, so I'm not the example that you brought up Mrs. Mahan, I'm not concerned about it because it says and within the programmatic and fiscal scope of the design. And so if you have a design that doubles the price from a million to two million, you know, that would be, that to me would mean that I could, as a policymaker, I'd be able to disregard this because I feel like it was outside the scope. But I'm still hung up on the same question you are, which is, do we care, I guess part of me is how much do we care about this and do we want to put this down in the books? And so the reason I brought this up, because I'm curious what other people who come to the microphone have to say on that. The town manager was signaling wildly and I ignored him. Oh. Adam, no? Yeah, you can mind if I, not at all. So I agree with TAC and I agree with the intention of Mr. Oscar. I think the intention of this proposed bylaw in this article is very well intended. But my concerns are around enforceability and applicability. I find, so that there's a lack of a third-party arbiter or even a within-party arbiter to decide whether or not we're meeting the standard. And to the point Mr. Dunge has raised, that when you first said that, I started thinking, well, you're right about the green building or hybrid or fuel-efficient vehicles. But in terms of building, there are third-party standards and certifications which need to be met under that bylaw, whether it be lead-certified or another energy-efficient design that you need a third-party to come in and say, yes, you've built to that standard. And for the fuel-efficient policy, it just asks to buy the most fuel-efficient vehicle available that can get the job done. So that's with the EPA fuel estimates in miles per gallon, that's a pretty easy standard to meet. I'm concerned here that there is no standard to meet and there's no one to arbitrate whether or not we are meeting up with this or not. And in regards to the applicability, in talking with the DPW director today, the $500,000 amount really would apply to, well, actually I should say, when you take the $500,000 amount and on top of the fact that we'd also have to work with in state and federal requirements, there could be no projects that this bylaw applies to. In terms of mass-app corridor, it would certainly meet the threshold of the $500,000, but we're working with state and federal requirements there, so we could be putting ourselves in a situation where there's a bylaw passed that is unenforceable and it's not applicable to anything the town does. So those are my concerns with moving forward on this bylaw. No, it's one of those where I believe we all agree 1,000% with the intent, but it's the implementation of it. And I can't imagine us doing a project where we aren't first and foremost thinking about pedestrian safety anyhow, but who'd like to speak on this? Jeff? Thanks, Kevin. Jeff Maxutis, Co-Chair Transportation Advisory Committee. With me is Scott Smith, Elizabeth Carr-Jones, Ed Starr. As you said, Kevin, we're all behind the intent of this, the emphasis on pedestrian safety. It's something, TAC, yourselves, other boards, commissions deal with on all projects. So we were split on this one. One is actually necessary to have this bylaw. We put great importance on pedestrian safety and every project in town. Schools, safe routes, DPW planning department. So one issue that TAC had with us is actually necessary to have a bylaw. The other is the balance with other modes. Is it prioritizing pedestrians over other modes? We try to strike a balance of equity in town. Bicyclists, motorists, transit, so forth, people, accessibility issues. So we had those two issues. We made some recommendations to the language. We thought it improved it. Even with that, I think the TAC had probably the closest vote in its history on this issue. Four in favor, two against and two abstain. So it passed by one vote. So it shows you there was some indecision within the TAC itself. With that, it did pass marginally, but there are benefits to a pedestrian policy, but there are issues, Adam said, with enforceability. So that's where the TAC stands. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Anybody else wishing to speak on this? Okay. Someone talked to me up here, then. Not the other end, I'm talking to you. Okay, Mr. Curell. Well, I just wanted to add a little bit. I think the last time when Mr. Osto was here, I think I said that there can be a place in law and bylaws for aspirational language. Just look at the Constitution. It starts with aspirational language right before it gets into laying out the rules of the land. I think Dan gave some, Mr. Dunn gave some good examples of aspirational language we have in the bylaws, but I think as I walk it back and I think about how we started the meeting tonight, meeting the consultant's gonna be working with us on the master planning process, and I'm wondering if at this moment in time, if we aren't better served by trying to embed this aspiration through that process first before we consider going a bylaw route. I assume there are gonna be a number of bylaw recommendations and other recommendations that come out of that process, ultimately. So I think, although I so agree with the aspiration, that Mr. Osto, I think I'm gonna move no action on this. Thinking that after the master plan that might- We could consider something like this. Okay. Yep. Mr. Burner. I agree with the no action vote as well, but I, of course, I think you can't say it enough that we agree with the intent. And one thing that stuck out to me was Mr. Chaplin's comment about the enforceability and what happens when citizens come up to us and ask about how the enforcement of this is going. And then time after time after time, we just have to say there's no, we haven't really had the opportunity to. And I think not that the phrasing of it isn't, in the town's best intent, but I think it might not be appropriate to have something on the books that we essentially will never use. So I'm sorry, but I agree with the no action vote. Anything else? Okay. All right, I'll give you, if you wanna make a fun of the play, Adam. I'll just thank you for your courtesy. I don't agree, obviously, but I do understand. I've heard these arguments and I've thought about them a great deal and they don't strike me as unreasonable. So depending on what happens with master planning, you may hear from me on this again. Or on anything else, Adam. I would certainly always like to hear from you. On the motion, my Mr. Curell recommendation of no action. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Article 19, do we establish the noise of Bateman Committee? Once it's at my height. I'm Jeannie Leary. I'd like to thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to do this and I'm gonna be quick because I know you guys are tired and so am I. I'd like to thank Marie Kappelka too for helping me get the research on this. So real quickly, I just wanna go through a real quick history of what's happened here in Arlington with noise. So in 1998, we actually developed the noise abatement article in May. And then in December, we made a noise abatement committee and then in 2003, the committee reported that they couldn't really do their job because they didn't have a noise meter. And then in 2005, they really amended the policy to reflect the federal standard. And in 2006 and 2007, the Summer Street group really heavily utilized them and I really wanna commend John Leonard in particular who was out at all hours of the night with us and Frank Segiano and John Fitzmorris who were the only three that were left at that time on the committee. So they were great. Then in 2008, the leaf blower committee came up. The leaf blower issue came up first. It also, we had filed the noise abatement amendment because of noise with the sports complex. Both of those at the time were no action and they were sent to the noise abatement committee. 2009, the noise abatement committee disabled, not disabled, disbanded, sorry, disbanded. They were down to three members, they didn't have the noise meter and there wasn't any current issues. But then, lo and behold, the very next year, we had two things. We had a fire alarm nuisance warrant article and we had a bug zapper warrant article. In 2005, there were five warrant articles, mainly from our group and we worked them out with the parking rec commission and Paul Carroll from Little League who were wonderful. So we got a whole amplification policy done. And then in 2012, the leaf blower came back and since that has come back, from what I can make out, we spent roughly $30,000 on a special election, $6,000 for a town meeting and we have another town meeting coming up on the 24th. So I mean, never mind the administration costs and that kind of stuff, but we're over $42,000 already just on one noise article. So what I wanted to prove is it's coming up year after year and we don't have a noise abatement. The next thing I wanted to say was why is it an issue? And in Arlington, we are the most densely populated town in the Commonwealth and we're getting more and more. So I know on Summer Street Mill, between Sims and Brigham's, we got 400 more units opening in the next year. I'm an RN, so I'm really into health and there are a lot of repercussions from being exposed to noise. I was really surprised. I haven't looked into noise in a couple of years and the amount of articles that are out there now are just mind-blowing. It's really becoming a really hot issue. But everything from hypertension, heart disease, provoking aggression, now they're saying childhood development, birth defects, I mean it's just unbelievable what they were saying. So what I'm asking for is if we could please re-establish the noise that made the committee and if I had my druthers, I would like it to be a selectman's committee. I don't know if that's possible, like a tax committee, because I think it's a real important public health issue and I really think it should be, the issues that come up should be in front of you and the committee working together, plus that I think then we could have the police and the border health, yeah. What happened before is in the past when we've called to get noise meters, either the noise meters weren't working or the noise meter that was there couldn't get the kind of noise that we were recording. And then when I, then Board of Health closes at four, so if you called at night, the police don't have any, they're not trained, only certain people in the Board of Health were trained. So I thought if we had a committee, even the committee could get trained, you know, and everyone would get trained so that we had some, some clout. My main purpose is to take out the subjectivity and make the subjective rather than, for instance, if Carol Band was bothered by ABC Landscaping Company and she approached you or the noise abatement committee, someone could go to the ABC Landscaping and test their blowers. I mean, whether it happens, you don't expect police to leave a crime scene to do this, but they can go later and check their blowers. And if they're 50 over, well, then they can't use the blowers. Do I mean, make it objective rather than, you know, a bug zapper bothers me or this bothers me. If we had a committee and a meter, we could just nail these things out and not have to go through this stuff. So that's all I wanted. Okay. Thank you. Yep, Mr. Dunn. One question. So you said in your notes, or at least the committee was disbanded in 2009? Yeah. Where did you, what's your source on that? I'm just trying to figure out, did they tell you? Yeah. John Leonard said he thought it was 2008, but then when I was just going through all the stuff Marie and everything, I figured out it couldn't have been 2008 because in 2008 there were two noise abatement things, the leaf blower and the one I had put in. And John told me they just be ended because there was no issues at that time. So it had to be the beginning of 2009. So do you think they actually, so I guess what I'm trying to get at is, do you think they went to town meeting and said please dissolve this committee? They did. I remember them doing it. Yeah, it was one of my first years. I remember them doing it. I don't remember the year, but I remember them doing it. Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Joe. Ms. Mohan, what's next? I think I remember, and John might have done it from the back of the hall when he said, he basically said I want to disband this committee because we're not getting anything. We don't have enough members. And I think I'm remembering correctly. Yeah. So I think what Ms. Larry is saying, I think there is a need for some form of, especially in light of everything that we've been going through, whether it's a town meeting committee or whether it's a board of select committee, but my first premise would be, what are we agreeing on that this committee will and can't accomplish? Because I don't want to set up like we did John and Frank and the other John and basically their hands were tied. I'm sort of thinking out loud. You know me and committees sometimes, but I get the points that she's presented before us. And I'm just trying to, I'd like to hear from my colleagues their thoughts on that. I have Mr. Bernanke, so I'm going to take care of it. One thing that I am uncomfortable with, with forming this committee, I think it might come down to what Ms. Mohan was mentioning about what actually goes before this committee. But when you talk about having clout and actually being trained on these devices, I'm not 100% comfortable with town-owned devices being lent out regularly to committees. So that's one topic. And the other is that when it does come down to this clout, I don't think that residents that are suspected of noise violations, I don't think it's appropriate for a committee member to go and address that issue. It should be a member of the Water Public Health or of the police department. So I think that there are, I'm not quite ready just to form this committee and kind of, I think we need to really talk over some more restrictions to what, how the committee will go about their business. So I am uncomfortable with that. Mr. Kura? I agree that there's a gap for a lot of the reasons that Ms. Larry said, I mean, we would have the leaf blows, we had the bug zappers, we had the ice cream trucks. We've had a lot of these things come up. And I also agree that we need to be very careful about what the scope of the charge is. It seems to me that an appropriate role for a noise abatement committee is to when a proposal was brought forward, such as the ones I just listed, to analyze them in the context of the bylaws that we have and to make recommendations to us regarding any potential bylaw policy changes. Not to be doing the job of town employees or supervising town, it's just not appropriate. I also think that it's important though that if we were to reestablish this, that we make sure that the members have some relevant scientific, technical, or engineering experience. I remember when the first noise abatement bylaw was passed, one of the best presentations of town meeting that I've seen other than the chickens. One of the best ones that I've seen was, Ron Spangler brought in the noise generating equipment and the meters and went through to make the case for the bylaw. I thought it was actually a pretty good presentation at that point. It was really approached from an objective, kind of scientific viewpoint. So I think that this could be useful, especially if we look at the leaf baller saga where we went through two iterations of trying to form the proper committee and such rather than having someone to refer to. And someone with appropriate technical expertise, like our tech folks, they have technical expertise, we're able to, we know that we can rely on them for very specific purposes. I'm torn as to whether, I think, you said you'd like it to be a selectman's committee, in which case we would then just vote no action on this and move to create that as a selectman's committee. I'm not, I don't have a strong opinion on that. If it were to go through a town meeting, I would want it to be appointed by the town manager subject to the approval of the selectman. In a lot of ways, I think I feel that that's more appropriate because there is so much interplay with police and public health and such. That's kind of worse. To that point, if it's a town meeting member committee, the moderator will make the appointments. And that kind of ties our hands, like TACC and like our other committees that we have, even the tree committee, the board of selectmen overseas that we advertise, we collect the resumes, the CVs, and then we appoint different people. Sometimes it's a compilation of ourselves, the town manager and department heads, to say who, especially around TACC and some of the other more technical committees. I don't see town meeting. I don't think having this be another town meeting committee is the way to go, because I don't see the town moderator, and I don't know if it's allowed, and I have it here, the town meeting times, that the moderator sort of abdicates if it's a town committee. It's the moderator doing appointments. Well, maybe not, but the purpose of going to town meeting. I think it's precedent to do it otherwise. But I can buy it as a selectman's committee because I would see that it would be advisory to us one more time. And then we could work with, we could ask the town manager and or board of health, whoever deems appropriate to sort of, and I'd be happy to, and I'm terrible with the return of your phone call. I apologize, I've had great birth and then I'm relative this weekend in the year, so I, but maybe we could, or maybe if you want to, Mr. Currow, Mr. Dunn, and I, so I pitch hit with Ms. Leary and the town manager, sort of come up with some draft language of what this selectman's committee could look like and then go from there. So if it's okay, unless I'd be inclined to vote no action before us with the comment that the selectman are working on as possibly establishing another selectman appointed committee. Mr. Dunn. I'm comfortable no action and researching it further. I do have two thoughts that I, one is I, other members have said it and I agree, is that I don't think it's appropriate for the committee to be an enforcing body or even, and so it's just, it's very difficult and so I, that's not, but at the same time the policy recommendations and things like that, I think makes sense. I can look backwards and I can think of things that the noise agreement committee would look at first as a noise agreement by-law, leaf-blower by-law, but I'm also trying to think about when we talk about what it should be going forward is what would be the first or next task this committee has. I confess right now I have a blank and until I can answer the question of like what it is that I want the committee to do, I'm gonna, you know, I need to understand that better. I may think that will flush out. Yeah, I mean, I would argue that leaf-blowers has been torture and I believe that those who have gone and tried to silence leaf-blowers, I believe the next issues noise abatement will have to deal with our gas-powered snow-blowers, gas-powered lawn mowers, gas-powered electric trimmers, whatever. I'm not worried that there's not gonna be some issues there for them to deal with, but I do personally like this idea of let's say no action on this, but ask that Ms. Larry, Ms. Mahon, Mr. Curell, and Mr. Chapterlain and I would think Christine Connolly as well, if she's willing, would get together and really come back to us with the recommendation of the support putting together some sort of a committee. If someone would make that motion, if you're happy with that. Yes? Should I make a, yeah. So move seconded. Yes. All right, is this okay with you, Jim? Oh yeah, this is fine. I did wanna add that John told me that Ron's Bangler figured out the noise meter. And the reason why they were doing the readings was because they didn't have the town people on the thing. So if it's a select committee, that'd be great. Now I gotta confess, I realized two hours ago that as I was running off these things, because I told Marianne on Friday, I don't need anything, you know, you don't have to run anything off of them, that I inappropriately copied the noise abatement standard number on the warrant. So I made your copies of what the right number was supposed to be and a copy of the old by-law, so you can see it's the right number. And I don't know if I did this right, but I wrote a substitute motion because I don't know how to fix it. Yeah, no, we're voting no action. We're gonna vote no action, so it doesn't matter. So it doesn't matter? It doesn't matter? No, no. You should've done this before, Murray. Right. So what we're recommending is, we're gonna recommend no action on this two-town meeting, but we are taking an action, which is asking you to work with Adam, Christine Connelly, Mrs. Mahon, and Mr. Currow, and come back to this board with the idea of what's the Selectman's Noise Abatement Committee to look like. And if I could just add one more thing, I think they could start with, is our noise law has written that violations of 50 decibels above ambient noise. So they could start taking the baseline readings in areas that are concerned, because then if there's a complaint, if they go out and the reading is 50 over that baseline, that's when you get the violation. So another thought. But thank you for your time, and thank you for allowing me to address you. All right, so all those in favor, the motion of no action, and then the second part of it, which is for this group to get together and then come back to us with the recommendation, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. One of the very first issues I dealt with on this board was silencing the horn in Arlington Center. And you wanna talk about people not being happy with you. Thank you very much. But the issue was a quarter of seven in the morning was really bothering people who had kids who are now many more residents as closer to the central fire station. So the compromise was let it go at noon and then a quarter of seven at night. But then because of the level of noise, it had to be silenced except for no school and other issues like that. Article 22, home rule legislation, the municipal finance department, Mr. Chapter Lane. So as the board knows, this matter really started two town meetings ago with Article 51 being voted with the intent of investigating or studying the possible consolidation of a town school financial operation. That resulted in the Department of Revenue and Division of Local Services performing a study last year in issuing a report in January of 2012, recommending a number of changes to both the town's financial structure as well as down the road considering a town school financial consolidation. Moving from January into the spring and leading the town meeting, I presented the findings of the DOR report to town meeting. Town meeting voted to accept the report and I also made a recommendation that I would convene a coordinated finance stakeholder group to study the DOR's recommendations but to also from the stakeholder group which was made up of the Comptroller, the treasurer, myself, the deputy town manager, the representative from the board, Selectman Byrne, representative from the board of assessors, the CFO from the school department as well as the payroll director. So we met nine times over the summer and fall really starting from the ground up in ways to improve our financial operation from the town perspective. We then issued a series of recommendations that I know the board saw in those recommendations included creating a coordinated finance department, establishing a professional appointment process for the Comptroller or for the treasurer which would mean removing the treasurer from an elected office and making it an appointed office. We then had a public input session in December on those recommendations where all the members of the coordinated finance stakeholder group listened to input from the public on those recommendations and we continued to develop backup and more information and I know myself and other members of the stakeholder group felt very strongly that we'd put a very sincere, authentic proposal on the table that would improve and professionalize the town's financial operation. However, when a presentation on that proposal was delivered to the finance committee last week, there were a number of issues raised by the finance committee and a great deal of concern raised by the finance committee and the finance committee ultimately voted no action on the proposal that was filed under warrant article 22. So based on those concerns and based on the position of the finance committee and really the position being that the community and at least from the finance committee and those on the finance committee, the community not being ready for this change, I asked the board to take a vote of no action on this warrant article but also asked them to take a position on favoring and being supportive of a coordinated or consolidated financial approach for town operations but understanding that there are some issues that can continue to be addressed based on the concerns that were raised by the finance committee and potentially pursue these or similar actions in the future. Okay. No action. No action. Second? Second. Discussion here, Mr. Dunn. I'm going to support the motion of no action but I'm going to also be really unhappy about it but I agree with the assessment that we haven't got the consensus that we need. I really would like our comment to indicate that we think that there needs to be changes. I think that our current, you know when we talk about ways that we can stretch out our money in the ways we can make our prolong the time between overrides and so on and so forth in terms of our structural deficit, I really think that a coordinated finance group would help that but sometimes, you know, the doctor makes a recommendation but the patient doesn't necessarily agree with the doctor and the patient isn't going to take the medicine and so I think that it is where we are. So I will support the motion of no action and I'm going to grumble. Okay. Mr. Byrne? I will be grumbling as well. I've, as Ms. Traplain mentioned, I was on this committee and we worked for several months very diligently on an array of topics, you know, I know a lot of people saw it as an elective versus pointed treasure but that is not, that wasn't even, I would say the main focus of what the discussions are based around. We talked about improving the technology. We talked about breaking down silos. We talked about a whole range of things that I think would help to move the town forward and it does appear that, you know, the town currently might not be ready to take those steps forward, unfortunately. I hope that the town manager will take steps to move forward the conversations that have already take place and, you know, to see if there are some implantations of certain things that came up in the discussion that can be changed without this legislation and I hope that we can address this again and the not so far away future as I think it is in the best interests of the town. Thank you. Ms. Brown? Yes. I just wanted to say that some of the things that weren't sitting well with me and I agree with the town manager that we need to continue to explore this is that we asked, you know, we started on this road to get a town school financial consolidation. My personal opinion only and no ill intent meant to anybody but we commissioned the DOR which basically just looked at the town and I was told, well, we have to start with that first and then we'll get to the school and I never felt that the school bought into there was never a vote or anything as well as DOR came out with like eight or nine recommendations. I'm just gonna say that number. It may be five or maybe something else and when different stakeholders appeared before us and said, you know, I think it was ZBA or it was one of them or assessors, I can't remember who, but the comptroller saying I shouldn't, don't follow Master Yua's recommendations leave me the way I am. My thing was either you take all the recommendations which I didn't want to. So what I'd like to do moving in the future I'd like to take all the good work that Mr. Burn and Mr. Chaplain and others have done. I know you cited some of the steps of technologies that you've identified and things that we can do to improve. Definitely work on those. Definitely work on the original mandate and working with the treasure and everyone else. But I'd like to also down that road that we're traveling and maybe this will make it more palatable to the citizens of the town that they see this as we're looking at how we consolidate town and school financial operations not that either side is controlling one another but that we're all doing business the same way that if you say to the town I'd like to see transparency on this issue we give the same kind of report the same kind of format and then they go to the schools and that's, you know, I'd like to I know it's putting another thing on the plate of what you have to accomplish. So that's my only comments. And just a quick response to that if I could Kevin. The schools were very active in the conversations that we had over the past several months. The school CFO was on the committee and she was an asset to us. We really, it's my opinion that we cannot move forward with this proposal or any proposal without doing the town side first. And, you know, that came up and that was addressed very early on in the meeting. So I just want to clarify that. Thank you. Mr. Kerr. And I think just very brief. I think that what Mr. Byrne just said, I think comports with what the DLR had recommended. I mean, I've been a supporter of this process from way back even when I was sitting on the school committee, I supported looking at the consolidation with the school department as well. You're right. There are definitely split thoughts on that. But I think the DLR was pretty clear about looking at how we can centralize some of our management functions here and make sure that accountability and responsibility both held within the same line of authority. So I hope that we can. I mean, do you feel clear, Mr. Manager, I mean on some of the steps that we can take to move forward and address some of the questions that were raised by the FINCOM? I feel clear that there are some issues that we could have substantive change made to and there are other issues that may be more deep seated and not as cut and dry. So I think it's a bit of a mixed bag to your question. Anybody have a question to speak on it? Mr. Hayner. Good evening. I'm a precinct two town meeting member and I'm speaking as a town meeting member, not as a school committee member. You all know the history behind this. Ms. Chaplain did a good job outlining it. Two years ago, article 51 was passed by the town meeting. It directed the town manager to look into a consolidated town and school finance. It was almost 15 months later before any old group as far as I know was put together. The DOI report that came and put the hat back on a school committee member, we saw it, we didn't feel, I didn't feel comfortable with it and I think the majority of the committee did not feel comfortable at that time and took no vote, didn't take any action whatsoever. That original article 51 said charge the town manager to get the selectmen and the school committee and other groups involved in this. As far as I know, and I've gone back and look at the minutes, the school committee as a group has never been involved in this, for input in this type of thing. I'll stop if there's a reaction to that, I'm sorry. You just heard the assistant superintendent was part of this committee, right? Assistant superintendent? CFO. Oh, well, CFO, right, I consider it. I know certainly members of the school committee were interviewed by the Department of Revenue and the DESC's representatives who were part of the DOR reports, the school committee was included in that process. There was no report to the board, the school committee as a group, if they acted as individuals, as I'm acting as an individual tonight, they did not represent the school committee because when a school committee member and I've been taught this and I think every school committee adheres to this, when they speak as a school committee member, they have a duty and obligation to make sure that they're speaking as a group. They're supposed to qualify that. So if they did meet, there's nothing in our records indicating that the school committee spoke to the DOR. Individual members of the school department may have been interviewed. I can't argue with that. So you weren't, so you weren't Bill anyhow, okay? That's clear. There's no record. I'm not here to argue with this, I'm just trying to share. The other night at the finance committee meeting, there were two major issues that were brought up and it ended up in a 13-5 vote for no action. And I think the idea of finding good ways of good management and sharing things like that, I think that that's, everyone wants that. And if we can come up with one way that works for everybody to work together and share things like that, I support that. Thank you. Mr. Healy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be brief. Mike Healy, precinct 13. I attended the finance committee meeting the other evening. A lot of good questions they asked Kevin. And I think what we have to do is build on some of those questions. I have for some time and very concerned about the lack of vetting of the DOI report, about who reports to who in the town, the organizational behavior, if you will, maintenance department, why it's in a certain, why the budget is in the school department as opposed to the manager's budget. There's an endless list of things that we can go through. And I think we should. And, but again, my major concern was that the DOI was never vetted, was never discussed. And just picking up on what Mr. Hayner said, I did some investigation as well. And I don't remember any formal vote of the Arlington School Committee inviting the DOI to Arlington. And that bothered me as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. It certainly was vetted here at this meeting. And it was vetted throughout the. You said it wasn't, Michael. It was vetted throughout the CSFG as well. So thank you. Yeah, I think it is important to build on what it's like when Byrne is saying. The first thing the coordinated finance stakeholder group did was each respective party as part of the town's finances were asked to analyze their section or any comments that were made within the DOI reports. We actually did vet. We went through a vetting process and discussed it as a. Michael. So I think it's important to mention. No time in there, okay? Wait for the microphone. Mr. Chapterland, sorry. I just want, I mean, it's important to make clear that. That document serves the foundation and spring board for the discussion and then we moved from there. Mr. Galligan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. You have a memo from me regarding my opinion on this warrant article. So I will not belabor the point by reviewing that memo in detail. I would like to say that I was at the finance committee meeting on Wednesday the 13th presented my issues with respect to the warrant article on a consolidated finance department. I will say two points. I disagree with what was said about the DOI report being vetted. The stakeholder group of which I was a party did not review each of the points raised in that report. But I don't want to belabor that. I do support a vote of no action on this warrant article but I would also like to say that I have written to the current town manager and the previous town manager and the capital planning committee about issues that face the various financial departments in the town and their interoperating capabilities. And that includes the assessors that control as treasurer and payroll. And as I have always stated, I work collegially with the town manager and I look forward to working with him on specific issues that relate to the operations of financial matters within the town. Whether that be financial applications, technologies, review of processes and procedures. So that's the comment I'd like to make. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? I'm Jennifer Watson, Precinct 2. I'm a citizen, a concerned citizen. I support the vote of no action. I was at the finance committee meeting and I think some of the concerns were... Step outside if you wanna have conversations. Sorry, excuse me. I think some of the concerns that were raised were very important. But as a voter, I would just like to say that I think checks and balances have been built into the Arlington Town Manager Act. And I think that one can't be hasty in making an important change. And human nature needs those checks and balances. And I think that our town has been very fortunate that we haven't had a lot of corruption. And I think that one of the reasons why is because of our structure. And I think that a highly functioning town hall in general is a result of our town government. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, so the motion was made by Ms. Mahan, seconded by Mr. Dunn. Yeah, I don't even remember. Mr. Dunn, I'm gonna save my comments till after the vote. So all those in favor of the motion of no action, please, recommendation of no action, please signify by saying aye. Aye. And all those opposed, nay. All right, so it's a four to one vote. While I agree with this board and with Adam Chapter Lane that more work needs to be done. Unfortunately, I'm the one up for re-election and Jessica, thank you for providing this to me. But I've been on cable now and I've given two public speeches where I made the statement this, I believe is very important to the future of Arlington and I am committed to working on this reorg. Should I be re-elected to this board? And I will over the next three years. So I just, because I publicly made that statement that I felt we should be voting this at town meeting this year, I understand there's some issues that need to be dealt with. But I certainly think the committee has been very open. The DOR has been vetted by this board and the people didn't wanna listen to it or pay attention to it, that's not our issue here. And we have all along talked about, first let's get the town's financial management in order and then we will indeed be working with them bringing in the school. So there was nothing done to exclude anybody at any point along the way. But this is very important for our future. And as long as I sit on this board, I'm gonna fight for it. So forgive me for going against you because I do think your strategy is right at this point in time. Okay, article 23, Home Rule Legislation Public Art Fund. Jane. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Jane Howard from Precinct 10. Also a member of the Public Art Committee which is under Vision 2020's Culture and Recreation Task Group. And I thank you for hearing this article and also for adding the word special legislation to the title as it appears in the warrant at this stage. As you know, in 2006 we came to you mostly to the Finance Committee but also to you about establishing a fund for the water bodies. And it has been a wonderful thing because water bodies and art and other things happen at different times during the year. And if you can establish a fund and have some money to do something, then you don't have to wait for the general fund or anything else to happen. I think this is true of public art as well. And I hope that you vote. I think it's a favorable action. The Finance Committee decided not to hear this. They just think it's your article. If I may, it's mainly to give you a mechanism for the raising of funds. Is that the idea? Yes, indeed. Okay. Discussion, Mr. Dunn? So for the ones for the water bodies, that was, the town was already paying money for the water body preservation. There's like, as in, sorry. The actual source of the money that goes into the water body funds is largely from taxpayer money, right? Not originally. Originally it was mostly donations because there wasn't a place in the public works budget for the water bodies. It just wasn't there. And so a lot of things happened and you had to take special actions and that was done mostly through conservation efforts. For instance at the reservoir. But then they let that go for a while and we had the water chestnuts problem. And so this is a little bit different. You've helped us so to establish public art and in order to raise the money for the mural that now exists at the Boys and Girls Club, we had to find a place to accept the money and it is at the Center for the Arts and they have a special fund for us. But we're rather, I don't think we're uncomfortable but I think we think it's more appropriate since we're working with you on public art to have it within the town. And so as recommended by our town council and the town manager, we went this route. And I think there is a place in town that will be able to manage this money or at least receive the money. And the town manager might want to tell you about that but I am aware of that now. But I guess I'm gonna stick to my original question though. So if we look at the money that's gone into the public water body fund, the town has appropriated more than $50,000 into that. For two years. Right, but we're talking about in the total. Actually one year. The total donations that have gone into that fund are. Just about that. About that. Yeah. But whereas this one though, we don't really envision town appropriations going into it. Not yet. No, we in fact, I have my ad for one that's happening this week. And on Friday night, there will be a program at the Center for the Arts because it's a nice cheap place to have something on Friday night. And it's a retrospective on some of the works of George Plimpton. And so there will be pieces of his, you probably know of him as the editor of the Paris Review and also through sports illustrated with incredible actions. And there you can see him with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic playing percussion. You can see him with John Wayne in Las Lobos film and you can see him at the circus. And also there is a wonderful C-span piece on how the Paris Review and other literature happened with Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and George. And of course all this is made possible through Oaks Plimpton, his brother. So this is a program that will again raise money for public art. And until we have a place to put it, we hope that we can go to the legislature and have that ability to create a place to do that. I guess I'm trying to understand, my point being is the public water bodies was to me a vehicle for public and private donations. I definitely think of it as a public but as the taxpayer. I don't see this fund as being similar in that way because I think of this as getting private donations. So I'm trying to understand why the town is being chosen to be the holder of this money when it's not for public appropriations. The water bodies fund also collected quite a bit of public money. It still does. I understand. So people can donate to it with legacies, et cetera, memorial gifts or whatever, or you can raise money for it. This is exactly the same thing because public art will cost a lot of money or not so much money, but at this point, everybody is paying for it out of their own pockets. All the work that's done. Okay, yep, Ms. Maher. I'm gonna liken this to, maybe it might go what you're trying to get at and I can't even talk anymore. So many of us, sorry. When, what I'm trying to do is find a way to get this done and if it's special legislation, that's fine but I wanna liken this to, and I don't know if it's a similar analogy, but when the sports user group started fundraising down at the high school football soccer, lacrosse, everything complex, one of the issues we had when we were going to get donations from different people, Bill Armstrong or from the state, from I think then it was MDC, I can't even remember, was that people had said to us, well before we gave money for a new school board, it's still not there. So we went to the school committee and I'm not sure if Mr. Kuro was on it then or not and we said we're going to fundraise for the scoreboard, Bill Armstrong. We're gonna fundraise for the lights that's Haven getting money there. We're gonna fundraise for the concession stands, that's this Ellington Soccer Club came through with that and then pop one and we're gonna fundraise to get the new golf cart and stuff like that and what the school committee did then was they created a line item in their school budget so that when the Bill Armstrongs of the world were asked to make out money to pay for things, individual things, it went to line 40 E. The money went there but then it was overseen by the sports user group, the group that the school committee then created with the school committee ultimately overseeing the funds. I'm just wondering is that something that we can do in this case, I wanna get the fund established so that you can get public funding in there and if you're successful with a CDBG or something like that, I know this is hard because this was a school committee thing but that's how we did, it's sort of a similar effort. We wanted to fundraise to get things done piecemeal and we continue to use it to this day. Is there some way and or maybe town council can investigate this? We can do the same on the town side? Basically it was setting up a line item so we could have put the money in the town's coffers. We could set up a strictly gift account but I think what Ms. Howard's getting at is an account that has the flexibility to accept gifts, accept grants and accept potentially down the road town meeting appropriation if the reason was brought forward for that. So accomplishing all of that in one fund. Well like we got state funding to Senator Haven and it came out of, it wasn't DOT then and it was able to accept that so in the same ways the difference. I have to be honest, I'm not familiar with what vehicle that was. I think, could I ask something? I think that one of the reasons that the water bodies fund was set up that way was because the calendar doesn't allow treatments at the same time for every water body. In this case, we have the opportunity to accept a statue for the middle of the New Mass Avenue corridor or something but you have to be able to handle that then or you lose it. And so if you have to return all the monies that you collect in a fund that aren't used to the general fund the next year you don't have that money anymore and this would be a repository for gifts, grants, whatever. No and we do that, that's what happens at the high school, it doesn't go back to the general fund. I'm just trying to get it accomplished. I know we're saying water bodies and people may be getting views out there, God bless you, we're talking about establishing a committee for public arts. So I think we need to. Not a committee. I mean a fund, a line item. No, no, no, no. Did you want to weigh in on this at our town council? I think my point has been addressed by myself. Okay, Mr. Curell. Thank you, oh, sorry. No, no, I went already. I'm shooting for my second time. Oh, okay. Well, first of all, I note that town council has looked at the water bodies language and you're probably aware of this that including borrowing that can't be in there. So if we go forward with this we can't include the borrowing line. Is that what I understood? Right. Because you can borrow for public water bodies but you can't for public art. So I guess that's an important thing to realize. I don't think it exists here in this warrant. Actually, I think it's in the summary that we were given, we were just given the language of the water bodies language and as the model for this. Yeah. And the water bodies language says including borrowing. But not this. We could not have that for public art. Do you, Ms. Howard or town council know? I mean, contributions to a fund like this would still be tax deductible. Under current tax law, who knows what's gonna happen? But has that worked? I think so. Yeah, they are. And then the other question I had was if contributions are made into a fund such as this and a project were identified to expend money on, what if that project is on private property such as the mural project down at the Boys and Girls Club is on a private institution? Is there a restriction on using the public funds for something like that? How many funds that are accepted either through appropriation or gifts or grants by a public entity, which as a subset of vision 2020 this group is need to be used for a public purpose? Yes, and that would be a public purpose, but it's on private property, so. There's not necessarily a bright line rule between where the project would occur. There isn't, okay, okay, okay. I mean, I obviously had support this. We've obviously talked a lot about this as a priority. We established the cultural commission. So obviously we have an advisory group that would help us to direct funds appropriately. So as well as the vision 2020 public art committee. So from what I know right now, I support it. I see a quizzical look at all my colleagues face here. I apologize. I'm going for a second time. Yeah. I think I finally figured out what I'm put you about. Why would, why choose this vehicle rather than a 501 C3? Well, partly because the organization that includes a public art group is a public group. And so I don't think we can become, we're a town group, so we can't become a 501 C3. So here's my adult problem. Here's the thing that makes me really worry about this is what about say we decide, say some art for me is often edgy. It's often something that's not, it pushes the limits sometimes. And I really worry about having an art process that's under the control of the town manager because I wouldn't wish it upon him. I think that you already set up the fact that that in art is, you know, this is a global thing. Music, literature, all kinds of things. It isn't only physical art. I understand. You already set up with us earlier in the year the fact that whatever would be installed with time for you, that we would recommend to you, yes. Earlier at, I guess it was in the fall, when we talked about charitable and other things, we would always come to you. So I feel like charitable, you had to talk to us because it was on a public way and therefore you needed our permission to use the public way. But we weren't passing judgment on the art at all. I know you were recommending that we would do that just like the cultural context. I feel like this is, I think about things where I want things to exist. When I think about government function and I think about private function, I support public art. I'll write a check to the fund. We'll try to encourage public art to happening in Arlington. But I'm afraid I don't, this doesn't feel like an appropriate vehicle for something in the town. I really, I support, I feel like I've been arguing with people that I agree with all day. Adam Oster, he was trying to change, he's trying to make it. I love Adam and I agree with him and I wanted to do what he was doing. And Jean Larry, she comes forward and she says, I want to do this thing and I'm recommending no action. I want to do a coordinated finance group and I'm sitting here voting no action. I am sitting here arguing with people I agree with all day. But I just don't feel like this is the right vehicle for it. What would you recommend as a vehicle for people to be able to donate to such a thing? I think that the 501C3 makes sense and then working in that, I can see a hand-in-hand relationship between the public art group and a 501C3 and the public art group would help to manage like the public aspects of it, like the rights of way and the things like that. But the actual dollars would be a private thing. I'm not a fan of using town money in any of these ways for the art projects. So I want what, like the vision that I think that you have for having public art in Arlington, I think I share that vision but I want to get there through a different path. I actually have a question with, and say with the cultural council though that goes out and looks for grants dealing with art, could this potentially fall the grants that they get and the monies that they receive for art in Arlington, could we potentially add this public art under their purview? And so if they're already dealing with grants and other funding for, while it's not public art, it's still similar, a similar category and could we kind of align them at some point along this process so that the funding is still there and it can be separate for, yeah. I haven't been a member of the cultural council for a long time. Years ago they get a certain amount of money from the state for the year. It's about $10,000 and that's it. And they go out into the community or they advertise and people come to them. I think this is a little bit different. This is just a little bit different. I think it's time to move on. I mean, to me, the fact that it's public means it falls under us friends. If people don't like a statue that has been put in the mass corridor in East Arlington, we should have had something to say about whether that was allowed or not and therefore, I think this funding mechanism for me is okay, but I'm not, don't have Dan's mathematical financial background, but. That's what is in math, yeah. But you know what, I mean, really it's, the buck has to stop here in many ways and to create this vehicle, I say let's create it and then let's see how it works, whether or not there is indeed any, unless town council wants to advise me differently on this or something. I am so moved. Second. I just share a lot of reservations and even if this is successful, I still would like, I mean, I won't be voting in favor of it because I think the same vehicle we used to, it's over a million dollars of renovations that we've had down at the sports complex from various bodies. If you could investigate with the school superintendent how they set that up to receive, sometimes there's just 50,000, sometimes there's 250,000, but I know that it went through, it sounds like what Ms. Howard is asking for and then whether this is successful or not, if that becomes another avenue or option available, Ms. Howard may decide that you know what, that's easier, that's quicker, that gets it done faster. Or not. It was a reserve account. But I should, one of the things that I said, but this would also include maintaining whatever those things are. Yeah, we're maintaining the, we're getting the money to maintain the artificial turf as well as fundraising for the practice field, the money for that artificial turf. Then, you know, we were replacing vehicles, we're maintaining, you know, the scoreboard went down and the press box, we got the money for that and it just shot through it. Mr. Dunn. I'm all over the place, I apologize. You just actually said the right word for me, which is the maintaining part of it and that is something that we have, that is something that once we all have to do it right. And so, I'm back, I'm ready to support this, I apologize. I was, let me just tell you what I was thinking about. I was really thinking about I had in my head the model of the public art, which was the temporary displays and things like that, but I'm now realizing the scope of this is much more than the temporary displays. This is the Uncle Sam statue and the museum, public art, oh, the museum, yeah, okay. So that broader scope brings it back to something that I'm, I was very much on a different wavelength, but I'm sorry. Welcome back, Dave. Thank you. Further discussion? I'll look, no, so. Mr. Chappatt has. Oh, Mr. Chappatt, is there really something we haven't discussed really? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I hadn't really expected to speak about this tonight, but let me give you my dilemma here. I've already talked with the town council about this and I don't want to muddy the waters, but there are some issues that are a little bit tenuous. First, the Cyrus Downey Art Museum never got any money from the town, so we raise money and we are a 501-3C and it works. Secondly, we had one meeting with the council council, guess who got appointed to be the treasurer? But we don't have any money. The commission. And we have no way to arrange to control the money. So my conversation with town council is how do we go about doing this? We're not really sure yet. I don't have an answer particularly for tonight's meeting, but it's an issue that we need to resolve. Now, whether the funds come from the art, I don't know. I really don't know, but we do expect that we will be taking donations and we will be receiving some grants. And so we have to have some method to be able to account for that money and then report back to you. So I just want to bring you up to date on kind of where we are with it. And quite honestly, the council will be presenting a report, an official report prior to the town meeting. Okay. Thank you. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. I think you're referring to the commission, correct, Mr. Chappatt? The new commission, you mean? The commission, not the council, the commission. Oh, I'm sorry. The commission, yeah, yeah. I'm begging it. Can we take a vote on this? Whichever way you all want to go. Who made the motion, please. Mr. Byrne made the motion. I thought it was second on Mr. Curell. Mr. Curell, anything else? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Was that your name, Ms. Byrne? Tenor? Tenor? Yes, yes. Oh, it was, okay. I didn't hear no. Do you want to abstain? No, no, but I still want, it's okay. Ask the town manager just to have a brief conversation with the superintendent around that. Maybe that structure is appropriate for somebody else in the future. Right. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Very much. Thank you. Article 27, I believe we're gonna table to April 1st. That's the endorsement of the CDBG. I do not believe on April 1st we're gonna be, oh no, on April 1st we're gonna be ready with the party. We're going to be ready. Okay, yes. Sorry. But you're not ready tonight. We're not ready tonight. So move to table. Move to table. Second. Second. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Article 28, Revolving Funds. They're really a, what do you say, plus? Housekeeping. Housekeeping, thank you. I don't know. That's what I, no it is. All right. It's a housekeeping article. Each of the revolving funds, of course, would be audited. And have to look after the, so move favorable actions. So a second. Second. Right. No, you okay? I mean. Yes, the manager is looking like he may want to say something or he might want to let it go past. I had a half an hour presentation on the funds. Okay. Move to table. No, but I'm sorry. I wanted to add there is one new fund being proposed this year. Okay. Council on Asian Programs. This is a fund that has been, was being treated as a gift fund in the past. However, the Comptroller recommended that we establish it formally as a revolving fund going forward for this fiscal year. So I just wanted to mention that there was that additional fund to operate Council on Asian Program. So, I just had one question. So we talked about the DOI report tonight. My recollection is one thing that the DOI report did point out was our reliance on revolving funds. I say as we just voted to recommend the creation of a new fund and we're looking at a revolving fund here. As we look at creating new, am I misremembering? You could be right. I don't recall. I believe there was, it was highlighted that we do a lot of revolving funds here. And we've kind of had an explosion over the last few years. So as we look at adding funds, have we looked at the activity in some of the existing ones and as to whether they still serve their purpose? I just, you know, I look at the Public Way Repair Fund that had no activity this year and has a balance of 168 dollars. I suppose a fund like that, we could undertake an analysis and see if it's even necessary. But for the most part, if you look through, the majority of them are utilized very regularly Yeah, I see that most of them do, but some of them have had no activity at all. So just wondering. Yeah, no, it's a fair question. I'm not going to press it tonight, but I'm sure it'll be asked at town meeting, so yeah. Okay, you ready? Okay. Anything else? So, motion? Move favorable. Move favorable, second? Second. Second, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Okay, so final votes and comments? Move approval. Move approval, about article 13, 14, and 15, final. Oh, is it okay? I had one comment. Okay, which article? I'm sorry, I should have noted it. There was a word against. Yeah, but which article, Joe, can you just tell me that which article you're talking about? I wish I could at this hour. Okay. I wish I could, one second. Oh, this one, an article 15. Okay, hold on. So article 15, so how about a motion to approve on article 13 and 14? Second. So moved, still moved by Mr. Burns, seconded by Mr. Cure, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, okay, Joe. Yeah, I've got, yeah, it's just in the comment. I wonder if in the comment we could just soften that language. We have the board voted instead to adopt a policy of formalized leverage against the utility companies. If we could say with the utility companies, I think it would just, it comes up, it's a little bit better. With respect to? With respect to, that'd be great. That's all. Okay. So that's your motion to amend that? Yeah. And you're moving approval on that final word? Yes. Second. Are you okay, Juliana? Sure. Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Okay, correspondence, motion to receive. Move receipt. Move receipt, is our second. We move receipt, and we second, and we thank Greg Watt for his service to the tree committee. He just mentioned in a letter to us that because of a little change in his schedule, unfortunately he can't for any longer fulfill the responsibilities. But it does mean now, this is the second opening on that tree committee because of the untimely death of Brian Murray. So, Marie, didn't we just recently go through asking for applicants to the tree committee? And I think we- Do we have some left over? I think we use them all, so. Yeah, I understand it. Okay. I think we might need to advertise this. All right. So, first of all, move receipt on the correspondence. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. So, yes. So on the tree committee, the number of spots on that committee is fluid. And it does not have to be filled. And we did just put four new members on it. I would actually ask that we consult with the chair and see if she would like new members. And go from there. Good idea. Okay. Good idea. So, Marie, would Marie do that for us? All right, to see if, because of the two recent vacancies, does she feel- Yeah, more than we needed when they appointed us. Right, right. So, he's right. We should check with the chair. That's good, buddy. We do need to go into a brief executive session. So, we'll do new business first. Ms. Grappelka, Juliana. Mr. Chappell, yeah. Mr. Chapter Lane. Very briefly, I learned late today that the Arlington Belmont Cambridge Joint Powers Agreement, which allows for the Tri-Community Flooding Group to operate, was actually first enacted by an active legislator, which is due to expire. So, there is a bill before the Senate, which is being heard tomorrow. So, the town engineer voted to my attention. So, I signed a letter in support of the continuance of that joint powers agreement, so that group can continue to meet. I'll share that letter that I sent with the board, but just to expedite getting support of that bill to the legislature, I sent that letter out today. That's all I have. All set. Ms. Mohan. I want to thank the town manager. He provided us a copy of sort of an update on the Comparable Study Committee. It's my understanding that vendor has been chosen and you're going to meet with the town and unions and other stakeholders April 8th or April 18th. And I only raised that because Linda Hansen had raised it to me and I'm sure to my colleagues on there. So, I contacted the town manager and I want to applaud him for moving forward on that. And then the only other thing, I think the last person who got the hot potato was Mr. Dunn, but I'm not sure. I know years ago, Mr. Greerly, you were chairman. We established joint meetings at least once a year between the school committee and the board of selectmen. And we were successful for about three, four years. And this sort of highlights, and I don't want to open old wounds or anything like that, but in terms of everybody coming together on the same page, I know different members have tried over the past four or five years and that we haven't been able to open that door. So I don't know if either the chairman or any of the two newest members or Mr. Dunn, if you want to renew those efforts, I really think, I won't go any further with that, but I think people know what it is I'm saying. But I really think those are important. When we had them, with the exception of one year, they were very constructive. Yeah, we actually at one point had a liaison between the school and the board of selectmen. What? I think we still do have a liaison, let's make it. But I finished what I was about to say, but Sean Garberley was that liaison between the school committee and the board of selectmen of one year, he literally made more selectmen's meetings than I did. I had been traveling so much, but he had 100% attendance at these meetings and stuff. So have you had 100% attendance at the school committee meetings? I'm sorry for the report that I have not. But let's put it to Steve, let's have Steve. That's okay. Let's have Steve approach Curseley as the current chair. Yes, yes, I would be more than happy to. And you know, the summer is the better time to be doing it anyhow, just because, I mean, although there's problems with vacations and everything, but it is a better time in terms of trying to, it's tough to get the two boards together, we've danced with that a number of times, but I favor it 100%. Are you all set on new business? Yep, Mr. Burn. Two things, one, I'd like to congratulate the Allian Catholic Women's Hockey team. They made it to the finals yesterday and lost in a heartbreaker at the garden, but they had a terrific season. And two, I think I am going to be killed for it, but I'd like to wish Marie Cropelka a happy birthday, which was celebrated the other day. Happy birthday. And that's it, thank you. What birthday was that, Marie? No, no, no, Mr. Cureau. Thank you very much. Just two things. First, I went last week to the MMA's legislative breakfast out in Acton, a lot of discussion about the governor's transportation bill and about OPEB reforms. I will note that given, I made one contact out there which was interesting given our discussion about utility polls, there was a representative Kate Hogan out there who mentioned when they were going around that she's been taking the lead at the state level with some initiatives around trying to give cities and towns more tools around this. So I cornered her in an elevator and I said that I would try to touch base with her and I mentioned it to representative Garbley too. So we'll see if we can have some discussions there as we talked about. We really don't have a lot of tools. And just lastly, I'd like to congratulate the Yonatan Fire Department on their sudden death victory in the guns and hoses hockey tournament. I brought my daughters down there on Friday night. We were walking in, they said, who do we chair for? I said, you keep your mouth shut. And we left while it was still tied up. But I would like to congratulate the fire fighters. It was a great night, great turnout. Just a long-term planning committee. We talked to the manager and I had a couple of other people talking about where we postponed the meeting. We're gonna do it either just before or during town meeting. There just wasn't enough material for the meeting tomorrow. So we postponed it. Oh, I'll say it. I have two quick ones. The first thing is I'd like to ask this board to empower me now that we've done an evaluation of Adam. It is time to sit and talk with him about salary and the tradition has been the chairman would do that, sit with him and then come back to this board with a recommendation if I could have a motion or not. So moved. Second. Discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying nine. I'll go as opposed. And the final item I have under new businesses, we do now have a vacancy on the zoning board of appeals. So we need to start the process of advertising and have anybody who might be interested in serving on the zoning board of appeals. Okay, Maria, is that anything else I need to, yeah, we'll get that started. Okay, so now I need a motion to go into executive session to discuss strategy with respect to litigation. Do I say the litigation? The case of Boris and Coughlin versus the town of Arlington at all. We're having this discussion in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the town and whether chair could not reasonably have anticipated the need for this discussion at the time this meeting was posted. Exciting only for purposes of internment. Oh yeah, and we will come out just for the purpose of adjournment. Thank you. So moved. So moved. Second. Roll call. Sekiro. Aye. Aye. Yes. Debra. Aye. Aye. Yes. Okay, thanks. So we do need to.